The High Cost Of Reconciliation "“ Part 1 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. No one ever said that reconciliation is easy. It can be very hard, but it is necessary.

It can take years to form the deep divisions that keep families and former friends apart, and it may take time to heal those wounds. Today, we'll learn the right way to seek real reconciliation and find it. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, David wrote in the Psalms about how long-running disputes took a toll on his psyche. In the end, he and we only have God to turn to. Dave, that's a breathtaking statement.

We only have God to turn to. And I've been in situations like that. I'm sure that you have been and many of our listeners can identify.

At the same time as David was running from Saul, Saul was being used by God in David's heart. Let me ask you a question to all of our listeners. Are you blessed as a result of the ministry of Running to Win? Have there been messages that you have remembered? Perhaps you've come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. They've helped you on your journey. That is possible because of people just like you who support this ministry. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner?

Because, you know, the Bible does say we should run the race with endurance. Now, here's what you can do to get some info. Go to RTWOffer.com. When you're there, you click on the endurance partner button. Do some investigation as to what an endurance partner is.

RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Together we're making a difference even as I speak about the topic of hurts and reconciliation. Well, let me invite you into my mail bag. Do they still have mail bags?

I guess mailmen do. Here's a letter. I'm so confused about the mess my life is in. My husband has been involved in an adulterous relationship for two years and presently his partner is four months pregnant.

She divorced her husband about a year ago and now my husband has finally filed for divorce though the process is not yet finished. He claims that I'm mentally ill, that I've denied him children. He claims that I lied to him. He said that his relationship with his girlfriend is my fault because I was the cause of his unhappiness.

He said that I've destroyed his reputation by starting a rumor that he was having an affair. His friends who are in the same church as I believe I am evil. They are thanking God for the blessing of the child that the Lord is giving to my husband and his lover. I don't even know how to pray anymore. Am I right in saying that these people who are willing to support my husband are listening to Satan's lies? Would God bless my adulterous husband with a baby? I don't understand this mess.

You ever notice that there are people with messes? Recently my mother-in-law left my husband a shocking voicemail suggesting that he divorce me. Never in a million years would I have thought of this since we're happily married. We counsel other couples.

My husband was surprised and grieved. Never have I met a person who is so controlling as this woman who desires to possess our children and control my husband since she now fears that she can no longer control me. She's treacherous. She does one thing and says another.

How can I have a relationship with a person like this? Can you be reconciled to someone who wants to use reconciliation as a means of control? Anyone whose fault if you confess your faults are going to misinterpret that and use that against you. Well the topic as you might have guessed today is reconciliation and we could also say that the topic is one of hard obedience. Are you ready for today's message? Praise God. Praise God. Several amens.

I'll go with them. Some reasons why we should reconcile. Disunity weakens the body of Jesus Christ possibly like no other sin. You've seen it in church splits. Jesus said a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand and nor can a family stand that's divided against itself. Father against mother, child against parent. I'll tell you that division is very costly.

It rips, it tears, it hurts and it weakens. Secondly because of our witness to the world when we can't get along as Christians it makes Jesus look bad. People say well you know they're Christians and and just look at them. They're as bad as we are. Always remember the world is looking for excuses to not believe and when they see us with our divisions and our pettiness and our anger they say there's another good reason why I don't need their Jesus.

Third future generations. I've noticed something in churches where there's been a church split. There are some churches that split all the time and if you look into their history you'll discover that they always split along the same fault lines. Same families on this side, families on this side, sometimes going back to generations. Families are the same way.

What a terrible thing to be in the family when there is no no reconciliation. Another reason is that reconciliation is proof that the gospel works. We will never have a great revival in America unless we have couples that were on the verge of divorce where there has been unfaithfulness and everything you can imagine and until they are willing to stand up and to say we were on the brink of divorce and for us it was over but Jesus broke into our marriage and here we stand today loving each other reconciled. That is the power of the gospel. Every revival that I've ever studied always has paramount reconciliation.

Thirty forty years ago in Canada children were running down the aisles, teenagers were running down the aisles during the service to find their parents to be reconciled and to ask their forgiveness. When the spirit works there's a desire for reconciliation. Well what we're going to do today is to walk through seven steps of reconciliation. I like the number seven because I think God loves the number seven so I want to love all the same thing God does so today it's seven, seven steps in this business of reconciliation. We hope that you won't have to take them all but when reconciliation doesn't work you're going to have to go through all number seven.

Are you with me? The text is the 18th chapter of Matthew, 18th chapter of Matthew where Jesus teaches on reconciliation and my intention today is to only expound and to clarify what Jesus has to say and I'm depending on what Jesus has to say to bring the power that I desire for this message. It's what Jesus has to say and the Apostle Paul also inspired word of God. First of all if your brother sins against you now Jesus is assuming that if you have sinned against your brother of course you'll go to him or to her but even if your brother sins against you you go. First obviously you prepare your heart. Jesus might not say it expressly but the Apostle Paul writing under the inspiration of the same spirit did. He says brothers if anyone is caught in any transgression you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted.

To restore is a word that was used for the setting of a broken bone. You're going to go in tenderness. You go and we prepare our hearts.

Let me give you reasons why we prepare our hearts. First of all to understand our role in the matter because sometimes a person may sin against you but you may have fault too you know. So what you do is you lay your life before the Lord and say what is my part in this offense and even if your part is 20% and theirs is 80% usually our fault looks about like that oh I'm about 20% at fault and they're 80% you go with your 20% as if it is the full 100% because what you are doing is you are aiming at forgiveness and reconciliation and restitution that's what you are aiming at. So you need time to explore your own life. You go then to see your own role in the matter and your own attitude in this your own attitude as the Apostle Paul says with a great spirit of humility and brokenness.

I don't believe that you are qualified to be reconciled to someone unless you come to the point in your life where you realize that you are capable of doing what your offender has done. You're capable of that too you know. Solzhenitsyn said that the line between good and evil does not run between the races or between the cultures.

Wouldn't it be great if it did we could just take all the evil people and put them all over there and then take all of the good people and put them over here. Solzhenitsyn says the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. Someday if God ever shows you your sin you will be shocked at what you're capable of doing. So first of all you prepare your heart. Secondly you go you go Jesus says go.

You take the initiative you say well I'm waiting for him to call he might not call you take the initiative. You go that's the hard part you go you go in private. Now you don't say to yourself well I'm not going to go but I'm going to tell other people about how bad he is. That's gossip.

Don't go don't go to the telephone. Don't gossip. Don't slander don't say things about people that are negative even if they are true. I could pause here and preach a whole sermon on the power of the tongue.

Oh what a small member it is and how it kindles such a great flame. 25 years ago a young man came to me who was a student and he told me about a religious leader and told me a story about what would portend to be dishonesty on the part of this leader. Whether the story is totally true or not maybe it was true. I do need to say that I know this person about whom the story was told and for years every time we met that story came to mind.

All the damage of what the tongue can do. It is a terrible terrible thing. Gossip in the church. Jim symbol has said that the reason that they really cut down on the gossip over there in New York at the Brooklyn Tabernacle is that when they become new members they all make a promise. You have a grievance against somebody if you tell somebody in the church like let's suppose you were to go and you were to say you know what Pastor Lutzer did he did this and this or he said this and this. As soon as you hear it you take the person by the arm and say I'm going with you to talk to him about it. You go to the person who is either a part of the problem or a part of the solution but you do not gossip. Churches have been split.

Homes have been split. Jesus says go and by the way don't go to the press okay. The other day I was talking to a president of a Christian college. I won't go into the story except to say that some disgruntled employees not of the college but a nursing home began to complain and blamed the college for what was happening there when the college didn't own that nursing home and the media picked up the story and wrote this big thing because after all if you get 10 disgruntled employees their story agrees and it must be right right.

Now normally I really do think that the media wants to hear the other side this time they didn't and so there's a school trying to do some PR to try to to try to recoup the bad name that these disgruntled employees wanted to give and that is just such evil vengeance. You know I'm not getting what I deserve I'm going to go to the newspaper I'm going to embarrass him him publicly. No my friend that's the way the world works. You're a Christian are you not? Are you not a follower of Jesus? You don't go to the media to wash the dirty linen of the church.

Sometimes we have to because others may do it and then we have to reply but it gets messy and Jesus doesn't look good. So you go and you go in private. Is is there ever an exception to going not going alone and the answer is yes. Let's suppose that the person with whom you want to reconcile trust has been so badly frayed or maybe you even fear this person.

You could imagine a child going to a parent of course it's fine to take someone with you as Jesus will indicate in a moment but if possible in most instances go alone and resolve it. Is it ever necessary for us to confess sins that we've not committed but our forefathers have committed? Some people are really irritated when you have meetings of reconciliation where we ask forgiveness because of slavery or because of what has happened.

I thought about this uh this week and my conclusion is I think it's fine for us to do that because there is such a thing as national sins. Let me give you an example of where I think it's helpful when the Lutherans went to the synagogues and asked forgiveness of the Jews for the things that Martin Luther had said against the Jews. You know he said horrendous things about the Jews.

I could comment on that but I need to hurry on. He did say terrible things about the Jews. They asked forgiveness. What that meant to the Jewish community is first of all that the Lutheran church realizes that in point of fact Luther did say these things and secondly they are distancing themselves from such things. So I think it it buys some goodwill.

It buys some goodwill when we acknowledge the sins of our forefathers and admit what happened. But Jesus says here step number two is to go. Three, step three, evaluate the response.

Evaluate the response. If he has listened to you, you've won your brother. What does that mean? Well it means that if there's reconciliation. You know the person may not even realize that he hurt you.

Probably nine out of ten times if you go to a person and you say you know you've hurt me because of ABCD they will be surprised because remember we're all at the end of the day somewhat narcissistic and don't realize how we hurt other people. We never really see them as they see themselves but so we go and we go and we evaluate the response. If there's reconciliation that ends it and nobody else even needs to know. So step three ends at that point. Step four, we enlist others. If there's disagreement and there's no possibility of reconciliation now we begin to add others into the mix.

Verse 16, but if he does not listen take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. Now this becomes very very important. Why this step? Because the others going along have to do two things. First of all to clarify the issues. Maybe you have a wrong slant on things after all to clarify the issues.

Secondly to confirm the issues. Is this offense really what you think it is? Is this offense what the other person thinks it is? Because Jesus says now it is necessary to have two or three witnesses.

Why? Because after this if he doesn't repent you're going to go public and you don't want to be wrong about this. You don't want to be wrong about it when it's told to the whole church. I know a man who had a Bible conference at his school and he advertised a certain speaker that was coming and somebody called him the day before and says do you realize that the speaker that you are having for this Bible conference is an adulterer? And this person began to to list various evidences. This president of the Bible college was wise enough to listen but to not heed what this person was saying because what he was saying is you know make sure that he no longer speaks and don't you have any courage?

You have to pull the plug. Well the speaker came and after the conference that man who made the accusations phoned and said I'm sorry but I have the wrong man. My dear friend it would be better for you to play with forked lightning than to slander a believer and to say things about them which are either distorted or untrue. Spreading something which is false the scripture says before you go public and tell the church two or three witnesses have to confirm the whole thing because you most assuredly do not want to be wrong on this issue.

God takes it very very seriously. Usually a true believer will repent at this point because he sees the error of his ways but if he doesn't you go to step number five you involve the church now. Some of you, God bless you, you know you're saying well you know should I become a member of Moody Church? Well the answer is if this is your church home the answer is to be given in three letters rather than two. Y-E-S you come under the protection then of the church and others in your family become under the protection of the church. Now I'm going to speak candidly. There are many people who don't want to be members because they want to be like a bottle without a label.

More easily going from place to place or loyalty to loyalty. If God has brought you here to Moody Church and you're a part of us responsibility of discipline, exhortation, and everything that's involved that is performed by our elders and our staff then becomes your sense of blanket and security. So Jesus said tell it to the church and have them go and try to convince them otherwise. One time I remember we had about 15 members of our executive committee go to a fellow believer on the executive committee who was involved in an adulterous relationship. About 15 went, pled with him. He didn't repent. He didn't repent but later on when he was excommunicated everybody knew that we had acted wisely. We did not act hastily. Why? Because you tell it to the church and you urge others to get involved in the process.

My friend this is Pastor Luther. Are you encouraged when I can tell you that the ministry of Running to Win goes around the world in seven different languages? And of course I'm especially pleased that we are in Russian, we are in Arabic, Spanish, Turkish, Portuguese.

All because of people just like you. Would you consider becoming a part of what I like to call the Running to Win family? We call these people endurance partners. Why?

Because the Bible says that we should run the race of life with endurance. Well of course you need info. So I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because this is what you do. You go to rtwoffer.com. It's rtwoffer.com and when you're there you click on the endurance partner button. Or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now because of the many people who support this ministry and many of you who have never connected with us before could I urge you once again to investigate becoming an endurance partner. Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com.

You click on the endurance partner button or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. Even as I speak to you today you are on my mind. I think of the many people who are listening. Thank you in advance for helping us get the gospel around the world. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. What do you do when a fellow believer sins and won't repent? Jesus told us what to do. Invoke church discipline. Next time a look at the end game of reconciliation.

What to do when nothing else works. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.