How to Handle Sin in the Church

Now that's page 823 in the Pew Bible, if you want to turn there with me.

Luke chapter 17, verses 1 through 10.

Luke 17:1–10

Let me read this passage for us.

And he, that is Jesus, said to his disciples,

Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come.

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea

than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.

Pay attention to yourselves.

If your brother sins, rebuke him.

And if he repents, forgive him.

And if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times saying,

I repent, you must forgive him.

The apostle said to the Lord, increase our faith.

And the Lord said, if you had faith like a grain of mustard seed,

you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea and it would obey you.

Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him,

when he has come in from the field, come at once and recline at table?

Will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly and serve me while I eat and drink?

And afterward, you will eat and drink.

Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?

So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say,

we are unworthy servants.

We have only done what was our duty.

Let's pray together.

Our Father, we ask that you would be present with us now as you've promised.

That by your spirit, you would bring the reality of your son, our living Lord,

here into our midst.

God, and that you would speak to us in a lively and active and effective way through your word.

Lord, help me as I expound this passage to do so faithfully.

Lord Jesus, we want to hear your words, not the word of any person.

Spirit, give us soft hearts and open ears and imaginations to know and to accept and to believe what it is you're telling us here.

We ask all this in Christ's name, Father.

Amen.

Well, for the past few months, we've been walking through the central chapters of the Gospel of Luke,

considering what it means to be a disciple, to be a follower of Jesus.

And it's clear here in Luke and across the New Testament that the life of discipleship isn't something that we're meant to do alone.

We're meant to do this life together.

Believing is belonging, as the saying goes.

But if you've been involved in Christian community for any length of time,

you know that it is not a perfect place.

We disappoint each other.

We frustrate each other.

We even sin against each other.

So what do we do with that?

How do we deal with sin in the community of discipleship in the church?

One of my New Year's resolutions this year was to get out and go hiking more often,

to actually go outside.

So rather than actually do that, I've just been reading a lot on the Internet.

So I've been reading up on...

No, I'm kidding.

We got out a little bit.

So I've been reading up on trails in Connecticut and gear and how-to articles and all this.

And again and again, I've run across the advice to pack a day pack with things like a flashlight

and a compass and a whistle and a multi-tool and a first date kit and matches.

And at first you think, geez, I'm only going for a day hike.

Do I really need all that?

And yet, if you're not prepared, you can get into some serious trouble, can't you?

The weather takes an unexpected turn.

The trail isn't marked as clearly as it should be.

You take a fall and get hurt.

Bad things can and do happen, and it's best to be ready for it.

Doing life together in the church is a bit like that.

If we're not prepared for the bad stuff to happen, if we don't know how to respond,

then we're going to be in trouble.

We need to know how to deal with sin in the church.

And that's exactly what Jesus is teaching us about here in Luke 17, 1 through 10.

The audience in verse 1 is the disciples, his followers.

And the topic, repeated again and again in the first four verses, is sin.

Temptations to sin in verses 1 and 2.

Interpersonal offenses, sins in verses 3 and 4.

How do we handle that?

How do we deal with it?

And in short, Jesus here is teaching us three things.

He's saying that we should expect it, and we should rebuke it, and lastly, we should forgive it.

How do we handle sin in the church?

This is Jesus' counsel.

Expect it, rebuke it, and forgive it.

So first, Jesus tells us to expect sin in the church.

Look again at verse 1.

He says, temptations to sin are sure to come.

Literally, the verse says, it is impossible for temptations to sin not to come.

That's pretty strong language.

If you're looking at another version of Luke 17, or if you look down at the footnote of the ESV,

you'll notice that the phrase temptations to sin is from the Greek word for stumbling block.

In classical Greek, that word actually referred to the stick of a mousetrap that would trigger it.

And then eventually, it sort of came to mean a snare, something that causes someone ruin,

and hence, a stumbling block.

And here, Jesus means it spiritually, causing someone to stumble into sin.

And what Jesus says here is that we should expect it.

It's going to happen.

It is impossible for stumbling blocks, for temptations to sin not to come.

There's going to be sin in the community.

I wonder how many of us have a very naive view of the church, of Christian community.

We have a picture in our mind that everything is supposed to be hunky-dory.

No problems, no offenses, no conflict.

But Jesus wants to cure us of our naivete.

You see, we can often be under the illusion that the true church is a perfect church.

And when we don't find a perfect church, we jump from fellowship to fellowship,

only to be increasingly disillusioned.

How many have stopped attending church altogether because the church has always fallen short of unrealistic expectations?

Jesus is telling us here that every Christian community will inevitably be a flawed community.

But that doesn't necessarily make it a false community.

What is the church after all?

Not a collection of perfect people who have it all together,

who just decide to spend an hour and a half together on Sunday mornings,

so we can all parade how perfect we are.

The church is a gathering of sinners, friends,

justified only by the grace of God in Christ.

We have to expect that there will be imperfection and sin and personal offense

that regularly surfaces as we do life together.

The question is, how do we deal with it?

One thing is for sure, Jesus says we shouldn't just excuse it or think that it's no big deal.

In verses 1 and 2 of our passage, Jesus is talking about causing other people to sin, to stumble.

And these are warnings that are repeated again and again in the New Testament.

In Acts chapter 20, Paul warns the Ephesian elders that wolves would come in among the flock of the church

Acts 20 · chapter mention

and draw people away from Christ.

In the New Testament letters and the rest of the New Testament,

false teachers are constantly warned against leading others astray in what they teach,

but also in how they live.

The sort of things that they imply are okay and permissible by their own example.

And here in Luke 17, Jesus pronounces a devastating woe on those through whom such temptations to sin would come.

This is probably one of the most graphic descriptions of punishment anywhere in the Gospels.

A millstone in the ancient world would be shaped around a central hole that would sort of spin it.

And Jesus is saying it's better to have that giant rock as a collar dragging you down to the bottom of the ocean to drown

than to suffer the punishment that's in store for those who would cause one of these little ones to sin.

Notice Jesus refers to the church with the loving and tender expression, little ones.

He's not just referring to children here, he's talking about all believers.

God cares for the church with all the ferocious love of a mother bear protecting her cubs.

Sin is not something to take lightly.

Now verses 1 and 2 are particularly relevant for leaders and teachers in the church.

Do the things that you teach, does the example that you set,

in any way put a stumbling block in the way of one of God's beloved little ones in the church?

I think this applies to any of us who are in a position of spiritual influence.

Whether it's an elder or a deacon, whether it's a small group leader, a youth or children's ministry volunteer,

if you're a parent, even if you're just an older Christian friend,

in all of these ways and more we're in positions of spiritual influence in other people's lives.

Are you, as Jesus says in verse 3, paying attention to yourself?

Are you watching your life and your doctrine closely?

As Paul will later say to Timothy.

So how do we handle sin in the church?

Jesus says, don't be naive.

Expect it.

But don't excuse it.

So if we're not meant to just excuse it, how then should we respond?

That brings us to verse 3.

Jesus tells us not just to expect sin, but second, to rebuke it.

Pay attention to yourselves, Jesus says.

If your brother sins, rebuke him.

The word rebuke means to speak seriously to someone.

To confront and to correct them clearly and directly.

Of course, there are all sorts of reasons why we don't do this, right?

On the one hand, we often function with this strange idea that being a Christian means constantly

and incessantly being nice all the time.

As if niceness were the tenth fruit of the Spirit, right?

But if we pause and reflect, underneath our incessant niceness

is often just a desire to want to be liked, isn't it?

If I actually correct someone, I risk them not liking me.

Or underneath the niceness is a desire to just want to stay comfortable.

If I actually step out and rebuke someone, it's going to get messy

and that's going to be inconvenient and I don't want to get mixed up in that.

Or underneath the niceness might be the false humility of thinking,

who am I to point out someone else's fault?

I've got so many of my own.

But what Jesus is commanding us to do here is love each other enough

to do something uncomfortable.

To actually engage in what one writer called

the awkwardness of redemptive correction.

I love that phrase.

It's from a book by Scott Sauls.

The awkwardness of redemptive correction.

And he goes on to say that, you know, if we saw sin

for what it really is, this cancerous lump in the human soul

holding us back from our real purpose and joy

that we're meant to have in Christ,

would we be so willing to just look the other way and stay silent?

You know, if a doctor found a lump in the armpit of one of her patients

and she said nothing,

she'd be sued for malpractice.

But how guilty, church, are we at times of spiritual malpractice

by not speaking up when we see the destructive cancer of sin

in a brother or sister?

Like when we hear a fellow Christian engaging in gossip.

Or when we witness a fellow Christian speaking harshly to his children.

Or when we notice a fellow Christian deliberately bending the truth

to make themselves look just a little better.

But you know, often a loving rebuke isn't just hard because we want to be nice.

It's often hard because the offense is personal.

When someone sins against us personally,

it's hard to correct them.

Isn't it?

But what exactly are the alternatives here?

You see, friends, Jesus knows our hearts.

When someone actually wrongs you,

it's impossible to do nothing.

Jesus knows that we'll either harbor a grudge against that person

or we'll criticize them behind our backs.

How much better to just follow the way of Jesus here,

to lovingly rebuke and seek the restoration of the relationship

rather than just ignore it and grow bitter against them.

I wonder, is there someone here in your church family that you need to talk to?

Have you observed a clear area of sin in their life?

Have they perhaps wronged you personally?

Jesus says, if your brother or sister sins, rebuke them.

If you're unsure how to go about that,

come talk to one of the elders.

Let us help coach you in how you can best go about this

awkward work of corrective redemption.

The Bible points us to a number of helpful practices

as we go about this work.

Let me just briefly mention some of the main things to keep in mind

before we move on to the next point.

And these are from David Mathis' book,

The Habits of Grace,

in a chapter entitled,

Embrace the Blessing of Rebuke.

First, he says,

check your own heart.

Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount

to take the log out of our own eye

and then we'll see clearly to take the speck

out of our brother or sister's eye.

And when we do this,

we'll approach the other person

as a fellow combatant of sin

and we won't approach them

from a place of just judgmental pride.

Second, seek to sympathize with the person.

Remember Jesus is teaching,

whatever you wish others would do to you,

do also to them.

Put yourself in the other person's shoes.

Consider the manner in which you would want to be approached

about the remaining sin in your life.

And that will help you go about correction

with loving humility

and not a spirit of condemnation.

Third, pray for restoration.

The goal of a godly rebuke

is to restore the other person.

So pray for that end.

Pray for courage.

Pray for the right words.

Pray for a receptive spirit in the other person.

And even if they resist in the moment,

pray that God would soften their heart

to receive whatever in your observation is true,

even if you get some of it wrong.

Fourth, be quick.

The book of Hebrews says,

exhort one another every day

as long as it is called today

that none of you may be hardened

by the deceitfulness of sin.

The idea is don't wait forever

to address the issue with the other person.

Be timely.

Don't let that tiny bud of sin

grow into a full-fledged weed.

Fifth, be kind.

Paul says in Galatians 6,

brothers,

if anyone is caught in any transgression,

you who are spiritual

should restore him

in a spirit of gentleness.

In 2 Timothy, Paul will say,

the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome,

but kind to everyone,

able to teach,

patiently enduring evil,

while correcting his opponents

again with gentleness.

Remember that you're approaching

a brother or sister

for whom Christ has shed his own blood.

If we're to approach our opponents

with gentleness,

according to 2 Timothy,

how much more should we approach

a brother or sister in Christ

with gentleness?

Six, be clear and specific.

Our kindness needs to be matched

with clarity.

How about the sin

that we've observed?

You know, before approaching someone

with a corrective word,

get it clear in your own mind

what it is you've observed

and how it may be harmful

to them and to others.

You might even want to

write out a few words

or sentences on paper

just to kind of help you

be able to communicate it

clearly and objectively.

A corrective word

is not going to be helpful

unless it's specific

and clear.

Seventh and last,

follow up.

If they receive the word

of correction well,

then follow up with a call

or a conversation

not too long afterward

and commend the evidence

of Christ in their life.

Remind them that you love them

and you're excited to see

what God's doing in their life.

If they don't respond well,

follow up by letting them know

that you love them

and you desire their good,

that you're happy to be wrong

if the correction

was pretty subjective

and that you're praying for them

as they consider your observation.

So there are some

just general pointers

to how to go about

this work of rebuke.

You know,

I spent more time

kind of going through that

because we don't do this culturally.

We'd much rather snipe

about someone on Twitter

than actually talk to them

face to face

in love

to actually restore them, right?

If we had more time,

we could talk about

the other side of things.

How to receive

a rebuke

or a word of correction well.

Well,

briefly there,

if someone corrects you,

even if it feels like

90% of the rebuke

is off the mark,

look for the 10%

that's on the mark

and take it to heart

as God's gracious work

of redemption

in your life

because you know what?

Chances are a lot more

than 10% is probably true.

We all have sin

that needs to be corrected.

We need this daily,

continual work

of rebuke

and correction

in our lives.

Be grateful

that someone was willing

to actually love you

enough to do it.

But rebuking sin

is only one half

of the response

that Jesus commands here.

Dealing with sin

in the church

isn't just about

expecting it

or rebuking it.

Lastly,

Jesus says

we must forgive it.

Look back at verse 3.

Pay attention to yourselves,

Jesus says.

If your brother sins,

rebuke him

and if he repents,

forgive him.

And if he sins against you

seven times in the day

and turns to you

seven times saying,

I repent,

you must forgive him.

Now what does it mean

to forgive?

Earlier in Luke's gospel

in chapter 7,

Jesus uses the illustration

of canceling a debt

to describe forgiveness.

forgiveness.

In other words,

forgiveness is

giving up the right

to seek repayment

from the one

who harmed you

to pay them back.

What does that look like?

Well,

it means that

in our actions

we refuse to hurt

that other person directly,

doing to them

what they did to us

or doing something

maybe equivalent.

But it also means

that in our words

we refuse to

cut the person down

in front of others,

repaying them back

by damaging their reputation

a little bit.

But not just our actions

and our words,

it also means

that in our hearts

we refuse to indulge

in ill will

against them,

imagining all those

horrible things

we'd like to happen

to them

because they wronged us.

And it means

even in our prayers,

instead of ignoring them

or hoping for their pain,

that we pray positively

for their growth.

And all this means

that forgiveness

also entails

an openness

to a restored relationship.

But I think

I should point out here

that what that openness

to restoration looks like

will look differently

depending on the nature

of the offense.

Keep in mind,

saying I forgive you

doesn't necessarily

mean I trust you.

Trust is something

that has to be restored

over time.

And the speed

at which that occurs

depends on the behavior

and the situation, right?

Imagine you discovered

that a close friend

was taking personal things

that you had shared with them

and was gossiping

about you to other people.

Now, if you lovingly

confronted this person

and they repented,

forgiveness would mean

not paying that person back

in all the ways

we just described

in your actions,

in your words,

in your thought life,

even in your prayer life.

You would relinquish

your rights

to pay them back.

You would release them

from that debt

and be open

to a restored relationship.

But forgiving

that person

doesn't mean

you have to immediately

trust that person.

Until a person

shows evidence

of true change,

oftentimes you shouldn't

necessarily trust them.

In fact,

to immediately

retrust a person

with sinful habits

could actually be

enabling them to sin.

So trust is going

to take time.

Reconciliation

is going to take time.

But in most cases,

as trust is rebuilt,

the relationship

will slowly be restored.

And what all this means

is that walking

the road of forgiveness

is one area

where we especially

need each other.

if you've experienced

a real wrong

from another believer

and you're wrestling

with what forgiveness means,

talk to a pastor

or an elder

or talk to an older,

mature Christian.

Don't try to just

figure that out

by yourself.

Let others help you

out on this journey.

After all,

forgiveness isn't necessarily

a once-and-done event.

It is very much

a process.

And we need to walk

with one another

down that road.

But as we come back

to Luke 17,

make no mistake about it,

Jesus says that forgiveness,

giving up our right

to pay the other person back,

is non-negotiable.

Of course,

there are lots of reasons

we could give

for why forgiveness

is a really good thing,

right?

It prevents bitterness

from growing in our hearts.

It stops a cycle

of retaliation

and paybacks

and escalation

of hurts and wrongs.

It repairs

and it heals relationships

that have been broken.

All these things

are good things.

All that is wonderfully true.

But friends,

at the end of the day,

followers of Christ

must forgive

for the simple reason

that Jesus commands us

to forgive.

There's no way around it.

Jesus is telling

his disciples

that they must not only

be vigilant

to rebuke sin

in a fellow believer,

but even more than that,

they must be just as vigilant

to forgive sin

in a fellow believer

when they repent.

In fact,

the only thing worse

than a church

that doesn't rebuke sin

is a church

that doesn't forgive sin.

And this forgiveness

is to have no limit,

no end point,

even seven times

in the same day.

radical,

repeated forgiveness.

This isn't an option.

It's a command.

You must forgive,

Jesus says.

And to that,

the apostles respond

in verse five,

Lord,

increase our faith.

It's sort of funny.

You know,

I've read a lot of commentators

on this passage

and they're all sort of like,

it just seems sort of like

a string of pearls.

How does it all fit together?

And yet I'm thinking,

if at the end of verse four

you're not saying,

Lord,

increase our faith,

something is wrong.

Seven times

in the same day?

Surely we don't have

the spiritual muscle

to lift that sort of weight.

We're going to need

a lot more faith

to do that,

Jesus.

We don't have

what it takes.

You've felt that way,

haven't you?

Jesus says,

you must forgive

and your heart says,

I can't do it.

I don't have the faith

to do it.

But look at what

Jesus says in response.

It is not the quantity

of faith

that matters here.

It's merely

the presence of faith.

If you have even

the tiniest seed

of faith,

you can do

what you once

thought was impossible.

because it had

such a vast

and tenacious

root system,

the mulberry tree

was proverbial

in Jesus' day

for being particularly

difficult to uproot.

There were actually

some regulations

in the Jewish Mishnah,

which was sort of

a collection of rules

and regulations,

that you weren't

supposed to plant

a mulberry tree

within 75 feet

of a cistern

because they knew

it would mess it all up.

But Jesus says,

take a look

at that gnarly,

immovable thing

with its roots

stuck deep down

in the earth,

sort of like that wound,

sort of like that hurt,

sort of like that wrong

that you've been bearing.

You can't imagine

how you would ever

be able to dig that up

and get rid of it.

You don't think

you have enough faith

to actually forgive,

but Jesus says,

I'm not asking

for heroic-sized faith.

I'm just asking

that you trust me.

One writer put it this way.

He said,

faith is like a window

through which

you can see something.

What matters is not

whether the window

is six inches high

or six feet high.

What matters is the God

that your faith

is looking out on.

If it's the creator God,

if it's the God

incarnate

and the person of Jesus,

if it's the God

living and active

in the Holy Spirit,

then the teeniest

little peephole

of a window

will give you access

to power

like you've never dreamed.

You see,

our deepest problem

with forgiveness

isn't that our faith

is too small.

Jesus can work with

even the tiniest

amount of faith,

and that is good news.

The problem isn't

that our faith

is too small.

The problem is

that our pride

is too big.

Jesus tells a parable

in verses seven

through nine

about a master

and a servant.

And the point

is that the servant

could never possibly,

think about it,

a servant

could never possibly

put in his debt

the master

just because he's done

his duty, right?

And in the same way

Jesus is saying

we can never put God

into our debt.

We are unworthy servants

who don't deserve

God's favor

and blessing.

You see,

Jesus isn't asking you

to be a superhero faith.

He's calling you

to be a servant

in humility.

Because the reality

is, friends,

forgiveness is nearly

impossible

if we think

that God owes us

something.

If God owes us

something because

of our good works,

because of our

long labors,

because of our

good life,

because of our

integrity,

because of our

fidelity,

if we think that

somehow all that

earns some kind

of purchase,

some kind of

bargaining chip,

some kind of

favor with God

and puts God

into our debt,

there's always

going to be a limit

to what we think

God can ask of us.

If all our plowing

and keeping sheep

and proverbial

preparing of supper

somehow means

that God owes us

something in return,

there's always

going to be able,

we're always going

to be able to

draw the line

and say this far

but no further.

And I guarantee you

that forgiving

those who have

wronged us

will more often

than not

always be the

line that we

draw.

But if you know

that you've been

saved sheerly

and wholly

by grace

without any

contribution

or any merit

of your own,

then everything

changes.

if God

has actually

canceled our debt,

staggering

and boundless

as it was,

then how could

we not turn

and cancel

the debt

of others

in return?

But you say,

it's too costly,

God,

I can't do it.

And yet,

consider another

servant,

friend.

And

there was once

a servant

who owed us

absolutely nothing,

who was under

absolutely no

obligation

and yet who

freely came

and did what

was actually

not his duty.

He came and

actually performed

the duty of

another

in their place.

He was completely

and utterly

worthy

and he performed

the duty of

the unworthy,

you see.

Jesus on his

road to

Jerusalem here

will eventually

end up in the

capital city

and while there

he'll be

arrested

and betrayed

and he'll be

stripped of his

clothes and he'll

be mocked and

he'll be scorned

and he'll be put

to death.

The Lord

of all

will become

a servant.

You see,

friends,

if you

experience

his grace,

how can you

not forgive?

forgive?

Wouldn't the

church be a

strange place

if we actually

did this?

Think about it.

What if we

actually put into

practice what

Jesus teaches us

here?

What if people

found the

church to be a

community of

people who

actually love

one another

enough to

have hard and

awkward

conversations?

To correct

each other in

gentleness?

To pursue

righteousness and

real repentance?

Wouldn't that be

so countercultural?

And at the same

time, it would be a

community of people

who love each other

enough to forgive

again and

again and

again.

And then, when

people look on

and say, how

in the world

do they do

that?

I mean, I

get it.

I get on the

one hand being

hyper-vigilant

about righteousness

and holiness,

and I get on the

other hand being

forgiving, but to

do them together?

How in the world

do they do

that?

And we

would reply

with genuine

humility and

gratitude and

perhaps with a

slight twinkle in

our eye and say,

you know, we're

only unworthy

servants.

We've only done

what's our duty.

And then they

would say, oh, we

could never do

that.

We don't have the

strength to pull

that off.

And then we

could say, if you

had faith, even

the size of a

mustard seed in the

God that we know

in Jesus, you

could uproot a

forest and plant

it in the sea.

Let's pray.

Oh, Lord Jesus,

what a healing

and hard

teaching you've

given to us

this morning.

Lord, we need

your help.

We need your

help to

not be

disillusioned by

sin in the

church, and we

need your help to

be able to

lovingly correct

each other and

have the courage

to do that.

And Lord Jesus,

above all, we

need your help to

be able to

forgive one

another.

God, I'm sure

that there are

many of my

brothers and

sisters here this

morning who are

holding on to

things, grudges

and hurts and

bitternesses.

Lord, some here

have been sinned

against very

seriously.

And this call to

forgiveness feels

like a call to a

little death.

Oh, Lord Jesus,

help us to see

that because you

have died, the

extension from us

of forgiveness to

others can only

mean life.

Give us the

courage and the

power by your

spirit to obey

you, Lord Jesus.

Christ

Phil, we

pray this in your

strong and holy

name.

Amen.

Amen.

Yes.