Caring Enough to Confront, Part 3

What's the goal when confronting someone who's lost his way? The goal is restoration, assisting an individual to deal with the sin that is taking its toll in his or her life and to reach full recovery.

Ultimately, our goal as believers is to build into the lives of one another, helping them reach their full potential as God's children. When someone we love has chosen to disregard his or her Christian convictions, how should we respond? Some choose to look the other way. Others decide to shun or disown those who've lost their way. But today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll points us to the biblical model for addressing our differences. What you're about to hear is the third and final program on the sensitive subject of confrontation.

In the event that you missed any portion of last week's study, we'll begin with some helpful highlights. We're in Matthew chapter 18. Chuck titled his message, Caring Enough to Confront.

Jesus, being a realist, goes further. And now you go with one or two others. And hopefully that person will hear the other two with you and will acknowledge that wrong has been done. But that may not be successful. If the person still refuses to listen, now watch closely. Be careful when you get to passages like this, because you can take it to an extreme. You can make it say some things it's not saying.

Let's see what he says. If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. This and Matthew 16, 18 are the only two places in all of Matthew where the church is mentioned. The church hasn't even been established yet as a congregation, as a body, except for synagogues, and that was never called a church. So this would be a representative group of believers. In our case, within the church, could be the elders. Take this situation to those who represent the church. And so we read, then if he or she still won't accept the church's decision, treat that person as a pagan.

And then he adds this, keep it in context. I tell you the truth, whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven. Whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven. It's a very difficult verse to translate.

Part of the reason is the particular verbs that are translated, will be forbidden and will be permitted, more accurately should be rendered, will have been forbidden and will have been permitted, translating a future perfect passive in the verb stem. The idea is not that God is compelled to conform to the church's decisions, but when the church follows the Lord's directions, that's Christ's pattern for discipline, it conforms its decision to what God has already determined. God is pleased that we carry out what He has decided. He has forbidden this and we have determined to do so. He has permitted those things and we have permitted them as well. And the verses that follow there where he says, I tell you this, if two of you here on earth agree on anything, my Father in heaven will do it for you. That is an agreement with the whole issue of discipline.

Now let me say some practical things and end with a story that I doubt that you will ever forget, a true story. First of all, we need to model Jesus' teachings. If we're going to be a church, we need to do what church people ought to do.

That is a body of believers. If you have someone who offends you, the very best thing you can do is privately talk with that individual. Don't broadcast it. Don't tell others of it. Don't do it in a group. Go privately and make every attempt to make things right. You will be amazed how often that will be enough. There will be an acknowledgement and the wrong will be confessed and then there will be the remaking of a relationship and the bridge is built back. Sometime you will find it necessary to take a friend or two with you to help the person realize the seriousness of what you're dealing with. Remember the tears.

Remember the sadness. None of this is done with delight. Admittedly we do it out of obedience to what Christ is teaching and we do it with great sensitivity because we want to do the right thing the right way at the right time. Sometime it is so serious that there must be church discipline which is followed here in the way Jesus describes it.

We follow and we want to do what Jesus is teaching. Let me say secondly we must guard against extremes. The first extreme is to become too severe as a congregation. When I was younger as a pastor I was too severe. That often goes with youth.

I saw things in always black or white, right or wrong, good or bad, and as you grow older you gain some wisdom and you realize there may be more to the story than we have realized there was and so you are careful to get more of the information. If you are too severe and too demanding and lacking in grace you will cultivate a legalism among the congregation and we become a body of severe saints rather than loving caring saints. On the other hand we can become a religious country club and anything goes. There's no standard of holiness. There are no biblical boundaries. We're soft on immorality. We're soft on a breakdown in relationships.

Any lifestyle is fine. Just keep enlarging the ranks of the church. That's the other extreme.

Neither extreme is healthy. So I have found that it is ideal when we carry out what Christ is teaching that we keep in mind the ultimate objectives and I must have you turn to Galatians chapter 6, please turn, verse 1, and I will draw from there the ultimate objectives. Galatians 6-1, dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin you or who are godly should gently and humbly, notice the words, gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. The goal is to help the person back on the right path.

This is called the ministry of restoration. The goal is never discipline. That's the means to the end. The goal is restoration, assisting an individual to deal with the sin that is taking its toll in his or her life and to reach full recovery, helping another person come back to full productivity, doing it with humility and grace, understanding and as much as possible confidentiality. Ultimately, our goal as believers is to build into the lives of one another, helping them reach their full potential as God's children. I remember talking at link with Stan Toussaint about much of this since he has just a few years on me and has a depth of knowledge that I lack. I loved it when he said, I've learned Chuck over the years that there are two things that are essential in being a good pastor. One is to teach the truth faithfully and second is to love the people continually.

Those are great guidelines and I remember them even when I have to deal with such things as this. Now the story. At another place in another time, a number of years ago, I was serving as a pastor of a church and it came to our attention as a small group of staff members that an individual had been molesting young women. My first response was because of the reputation of the one being charged.

That's not possible. That's a rumor, that's not true until I was made aware of more information and when we checked further, there were more young women who came out into the open who had been afraid to say anything. Some of them had not even told their parents and now we were dealing with a full-blown issue that had gone on years before and now many of these girls were young women. Some of them were now married and were having difficulty with intimacy in their own marriage that could be traced back to the molestation that had occurred. The perpetrator was a man with an enormously famous reputation, known and loved by the church, revered in circles beyond the church. In fact, his name was known virtually around the world and we realized that to deal with this as we should, we were stepping into some very, very complicated waters. I'm trying to watch my words that I say just only what I ought to say. However, I kept hearing the young women. In fact, we met with several who gave us leads and when we would talk with them just giving them a simple little story, as you think back over your life, do you recall and they instantly would say, oh you're referring to and every time they would name the same person. Every time.

Every time. So we decided we had no other alternative, though it certainly was out of character for us because this man had such a fine reputation. For us to confront this, we decided we had no other alternative. So privately we confronted it.

He denied it. We increased the number of people that would go with us so that he would be made aware of it and, you know, he continued to deny it. We had no other alternative but to bring it to the elders and we as a body of elders who had been careful with our homework and put together a number of pages of evidence that we would confront this piece by piece level by level so that he would realize the wrong and we would do our best to help him recover from this and he denied it. The denial became severe and the severity of it left us with no alternatives, with no other alternative but to remove him. I'll never forget when he was ushered out the screams that followed. I won't get any more of that, but we sat there and wept as a body of elders. We now realized that this would become known and it could not be handled just privately. The statute of limitations back then was such that this could not be taken to the courts and so we must deal with it as a body of believers and I told the men this has to be dealt with next Sunday. At that point you could almost hear the brakes go on because some of the men realized this had the makings of a lawsuit.

It could backfire. It certainly would become known in the town where we were located and surely it was so that by the Sunday we decided to expose it all by name. There was a representation of more than one television channel there with their cameras. There were newspaper reporters there.

The place was packed and it was my unenviable task to carry that message to everyone. We had set it up very carefully. We had professionals set aside who would be in certain rooms where different ones could meet. Once this information was made known, we surely would have parents who would wonder if their daughter was one who had been molested and we had this room for them to meet in if that was one category. We had others who were just simply disturbed over all of this and they needed to have the time to work through that. We had another room for them to meet in with this particular qualified individual. Had another room to meet with those who knew that their daughters were victims of this predator and they met in this area. By the way, all kinds of things have surfaced since then. I still meet up with women and husbands and wives who trace back to that story. We traced it out to 64 women. I'm confident there were many more than that. One of these women has begun a ministry to help young ladies be rescued from human trafficking.

As a result of what she's gone through, her life is committed to that very courageous role of helping other young women find hope beyond where they are. I have wonderful news to tell you. Not one channel covered the story.

Not one newspaper included anything. I had a reporter whom I trusted say to me, we have never seen a church handle it like it ought to be handled until we've come across this. And I give the credit to those around me who had helped give the wisdom needed and I was simply the point man who had to take that responsibility and carry it. But I will tell you from having done that, I left that whole situation much wiser, much more broken, and much more realistic because I realize now if that man could fall and live in such denial all those years that long, hurting that many precious young women, the stories I could tell would break your heart. Anyone could.

And in light of that, the way Jesus teaches is the best information we could follow. Now that's an extreme and very dramatic true story, but I wanted you to hear an example of when you carry it all the way. By the way, the man was never incarcerated. Should have been, but never was.

I understand that it did in some way get into a court setting, but I don't know what the result was fully. We had done what we should have done as a church and we went on and the result was only strength and help and a more and a greater commitment to protecting those in our church from individuals like this. If there's one place where people should be protected, it's the local church. There's one place where we should stand for purity and respect for one another. It's the church. And there's one place where there is no respecter of persons. It should be the church. We are to be a body that represents this to a community that's always watching and always expecting us to handle things wrongly, unfortunately. And we should surprise them by handling things correctly. And when we do that, it will never be the easy way to handle it, I repeat. I don't know how many came to Christ as a result of this event.

I don't know how many ministries grew out of it, but just this morning I met down front an individual who mentioned to me a person who could be traced back to that story in the life of that woman that he had met. And I know this, that God honors it when we do what is right, when we carry it out regardless. I say all of that to come back to you and to me.

It all begins with our going one on one. As sad and as sorrowful and as difficult as it may be, it's necessary because the alternative is to live with the anchors that we drag through life, anchors of resentment and blame and grudges. And you will discover when you go through this as you should, just like it was described, God honors it and he will magnificently bless you for it with peace and harmony. And we will be truly a church, a church. Thank you, Father, for your faithfulness through the years. Thank you for honoring your word when we simply believe it.

Thank you for giving direction when we in our flesh would run away from the hard thing. And thank you for carrying it to the extreme ultimately of changing lives as they realize they are loved and protected by those who follow Christ. It's in a very special way, this message, and may we all care enough to confront lovingly, gently, carefully, graciously, and when possible privately for the glory of Jesus, in whose name we pray, ever once said, amen.

When egregious acts of betrayal occur inside the family of God, we have no other option than to expose the truth. This is a timeless lesson that comes from our study in the book of Matthew, chapter 18. You're listening to the Bible teaching of pastor and author Chuck Swindoll. He titled today's message, Caring Enough to Confront, and this is Insight for Living.

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How often should we forgive? Chuck Swindoll tackles this sensitive question tomorrow on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Caring Enough to Confront, was copyrighted in 2017 and 2021, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.