Confronting Sin in Your Family (Matthew 18)

Matt: Welcome to the PS Podcast. We are so glad that you have joined us again today as we think about this week's lesson and as we think about how to apply it to our daily lives. Wes, thank you for a great lesson in our don't freak out series. Do you mind kind of giving us a a two minute recap of of what we talked about on Sunday?

Wes McAdams: After a sermon is over, have you ever wanted to make a comment, ask a question, or listen to the preacher say more about a particular idea? If so, this podcast is for you. My name is Wes McAdams, and I'll be sitting down with one of my fellow McDermott Road ministers to discuss comments, questions, and thoughts that have come up after the sermon is over. Welcome to P.S., the Post-Sermon Podcast. Thanks so much for listening to P.S., the Post Sermon Podcast. To find out more about this podcast or about the Church of Christ on McDermott Road, you can visit our website at ccmcdermott.org slash P.S. If this has been an encouragement to you, we also hope you will rate and review the show wherever you're listening, as well as share it with a friend. Because we believe sermons are not just for Sunday, but for our whole week and our whole life. Sounds good. Yeah, we talked about sin, especially in our family, when our family members are doing things that aren't just disappointing us or frustrating us, but are disappointing God, things that are that are sinful and wrong, objectively wrong. What do we do when our family members are doing things that are objectively wrong? And I said at the beginning of yesterday's sermon that I've been on both sides of that. I've been the family member who has been sinning and had to be approached by parents or by others. And I've also been on the other end where I am the family member who is concerned with ⁓ someone who is doing something that is wrong and sinful. And how do we navigate that? So we looked at several different passages, but we ended in Matthew 18. This idea of when specifically when someone has sinned against you, what do you do and how do you approach that person? And you approach them one on one in the beginning, and then you bring others and you make them a part of the process. And if in the end Jesus acknowledges that it's possible that they might not listen. They you may take your legitimate concern to them and they reject you and they refuse to listen. They may even refuse to listen to the entire church, and at at that point you have to sort of respect the fact that they don't want to be a part of the the family of God. And that is incredibly heartbreaking when people make those kind of decisions. But it all begins with our desire to be reconciled to them and their and our desire for them to be reconciled to God. And and so our willingness to take the initiative and having those kind of hard conversations with people that are in a bad situation.

Matt: Yeah, thank you for helping us think a little bit about that on Sunday. Maybe as we're, you know, diving into it some more, can you kinda give us a an introductory definition of sin? I know it's a word that we use a lot and ⁓ but it's one that, you know, is filled with a lot of different ⁓ maybe baggage. Can you can you speak to how you might use sin in this situation?

Wes McAdams: Yeah, that's really good. I mean, there is a sense in which it means to miss the mark, but but I think sometimes we we sort of equate that with all kinds of things that are just accidents and other things. A lot of times when the Bible talks about sin and when we talk about sin, what we're talking about is rebellion. Like consciously, willingly, knowingly, usually knowingly. Sometimes you you can sin accidentally, but but We're we're talking about rebelling against God. Like God has a way that we should live, a way that we should walk, especially for those of us who are followers of Jesus, who have said we are going to live our life under the rule and reign of King Jesus. To sin is to do something that is not aligned with that, not aligned with our covenant relationship with God. For Israel, that meant living under the Mosaic law, living under the covenant Israel. That they had with Yahweh. And for us, it means living under the reign of Jesus. And so there is a certain way, a certain lifestyle that we have agreed to, to govern our life. And so when we sin, it's to do anything that is that is contrary to that, anything that is outside of that. And so sometimes it is something that we we s we set out with a a Hard heart to say, I'm gonna do this thing. And other times it's just because we're not thinking and we're just kind of going about our life or doing what feels good or feels right. And someone has to bring it to our attention to say, hey, this is not aligned with our values. This is not aligned with the rule and reign of King Jesus. So sin is it is to miss the mark. It is to be to You're you're supposed to be living this way, you're supposed to be doing this thing, and your behavior is off of that in some way. Your your behavior is not aligned with the way that you're supposed to be living your life. We we might use the big fancy word of righteous, but ri righteous isn't just a religious word. It it really means to do what is just, to do what is good, what is right. And so we're we're talking about doing what is right. With God, but also with one another, because God cares how we treat each other, how we talk to each other, the things we do when we're interacting with other people. And so sin is anything that isn't aligned with the will of God, where we are in rebellion to the will of God.

Matt: So let's say we're in a family setting as we're talking about here and you know, these are situations that obviously do occur in families. Do you feel like there needs to be maybe a step back for some families and just saying, Hey, we need to talk about the fact that we are in covenant relationship with each other and we are, you know, in a faith journey together? Like it kind of seems like in some families if they were to take this approach, having not taken this approach previous it would kind of seem out of the blue or, you know, I don't know, do you feel like a lot of our families are even operating with this shared faith walk mentality?

Wes McAdams: Yeah, that's a that is a great question. A great question. And it kind of goes back to what we talked about a couple of weeks ago about, or maybe I guess it was just last week. We we talked about putting our problems in the context of the gospel, putting our our problems in the context of the good news. And so we we do, we have to not only put our problems in the context of the good news in order to not freak out, but we also need to put our relationships in the context of the good news. We talked about Eodia and Syntichy and their relationship and how. Paul told them to agree in the Lord, to see their relationship within the context of the good news, within the context of the rule and reign of King Jesus, that they are in covenant with each other and with God. And so to your point, I think that's a that's you're so right that if we're not living our family life, our entire life within that context, then it would seem out of the blue. And so we're we're trying to hold people. Accountable to a system, to a way of life, to a lifestyle that they ne didn't necessarily agree to. And so it assumes that we are, we are fellow travelers. It assumes that we are citizens of the same kingdom, that we are trying to accomplish the same kinds of things. It really, when you say that someone has sinned, it is to say that they have agreed to be part of this covenant family, and now they're doing something that is contrary to that. And so it it should be the case, often it's not, unfortunately, it should be the case that parents that are trying to raise Christian children or, you know, even grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, we ought to be constantly having these kind of conversations. Sometimes it's as simple as Do do we pray before we eat meals? Do we make spiritual things and gospel things part of our everyday conversation so that when we do have to confront someone and say, hey, what you did the other day, it was wrong. Well, based on what? Like your your opinion that it's wrong, or it's based on some sort of a an objective standard that it's wrong. And so it only makes sense if we are all trying to live our lives according to the will of God and according to the the rule and reign of King Jesus. And if that's the case and it's part of everything else that we do, then it's not a surprise that we say, Hey, you know how we're trying to follow Jesus? You know how we're trying to live our life this way? Does what you did the other day or what you said the other day, does that align with this? Does this align with the good news about Jesus? Or is that out of alignment? And hopefully if we're all trying to accomplish the same thing and live the same way, then they will readily see, ⁓ yeah, that's not aligned and that's not the kind of person I wanna be, and that's not the kind of example I wanna set. And they will easily course correct if if it's all part of that that bigger conversation.

Matt: And you spent some time in your sermon talking about discernment in this process, about recognizing that yes, this is an important, you know, path to reconciliation, but there may be some wisdom or other considerations that might be involved in and how we go about doing this. Do you mind elaborating some more on that?

Wes McAdams: Yeah, I kind of gave and and it was I I think a little bit away from the text, just a little bit, a sort of a caveat to say, I don't know that a passage like Matthew eighteen is meant to cover every conceivable scenario. We we treat it like it's this really easy checklist, like here's what you do every time, and it's very, very simple. I think Jesus is more giving broad instruction, and I think it's very much aligned with what What the law of Moses says in Leviticus 19. That's where I started my sermon on Sunday to say that you need to keep you need to be discreet with the way that you approach someone or you rebuke someone or you have this initial conversation with someone. You need to be discreet because you might have some of your facts wrong. You may not know the entire situation. But I also sort of threw in as a caveat that there may be a a situation where someone has been abused or where it may not be safe to meet with someone. Quote unquote alone. I think we need to be really careful with the way that we interpret that idea of alone. And so yeah, it it may require some wisdom and discernment to say, hey, is this the best way for me to approach this person in this situation? Maybe it shouldn't be alone. It should still be discreet. We don't want to plaster people's name everywhere and say, hey, I'm accusing this person of X, Y, and Z. But if if you have been abused. Then approaching an abuser in a private alone situation might set them up with the opportunity to abuse again. And that's not good for them or for you. And that doesn't accomplish what we're trying to accomplish here. And so I think we need to be really discerning with saying how do we apply this in this particular situation? Jesus wasn't meaning to, I don't think, give a cookie cutter situation or cookie cutter ⁓ strategy for every conceivable situation.

Matt: Well I appreciate, you know, not only that wisdom in terms of, you know, making sure we're doing things in a a safe and and healthy way, but one of the things she talked about with, you know, accountability and creating a covenant culture is it should normalize this process to a certain extent and and also hopefully put us in the position to be helpful to each other. I know you listed some things of Hey, a child using pornography or drugs or profanity or a husband and wife having, you know, secrets or different things, like, you know, recognizing that there are other people within our community who have dealt with these things or are dealing with these things, or, you know, hey, there's your shepherds that ⁓ have a lot of wisdom that can speak into these situations. How do you think about maybe selecting those two people to bring along? Because it might be my first instinct of Hey, I know this person, they're one of my people, like I'm gonna get somebody who's likely to agree with me. Like, how do you go about doing that in a way that is fair and and and with a an honest ⁓ frame if that makes sense?

Wes McAdams: Yeah, that's a that is a fantastic question. Yeah, that that particular passage doesn't necessarily speak to that, but so much of the New Testament does. And finding people that are spiritual. And by spiritual, I don't mean, you know, something you know their feelings or, you know, something that we might think of spirituality, but but I mean spiritual in the sense that you can see the spirit's fruit in them. James talks about what does wisdom from above look like? It's it's It's pure, it's peaceable, it's open to reason, it's gentle. Paul talks about the fruit of the spirit being love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. Find people like that. On a practical side, you might find someone who has also dealt with situations that are similar to this in the past, that have experience. In this area, but for sure you want to make sure that you're finding people who are spiritually mature that have this well-developed fruit, not just people who agree with you, because that's not the that's not the ⁓ object here, that's not the goal here. The goal is reconciliation, the goal is for this person that you are approaching about their sin, for them to be first reconciled with God because their sin has separated them from God, and so you want reconciliation. For them with God, but you also want to be reconciled with them yourself. If the if what they have done or what they've said has driven a wedge between you and that person, then you want reconciliation. And so it may be that you find someone who's a good friend of yours. It may be that you find someone who's a good friend of theirs, you know, someone that they will listen to, someone that they have a background with. And so if your goal is reconciliation, then you're gonna find somebody that's going to help you achieve that. If your goal is just to stick it to them and say, hey, you're wrong, and here's two other people to tell you you're wrong, that's that's not the sort of goal that Jesus has in mind here. We really want to convince them and we want to see for ourselves what is true, what is right. And and maybe there's a compromise that that should be found. Maybe there, you know, maybe, yeah. You're right about this, but they're also right about that. And so seeking to find the truth and to bring people closer to God and closer to each other. That's the goal.

Matt: into that point of, you know, when you think about the actual conversation, you know, with those elements of the spiritual, you know, fruit and characteristics, those are all really important. How do we put ourselves in a posture to not be reactionary or def you know, quick to deflect or, hey, I brought this up 'cause this is about you, but now it's starting to become about both of us. Like how do we how do we mentally and spiritually prepare ourselves to resist those temptations?

Wes McAdams: Yeah, yeah, that's so good. And that's exactly why this passage or any passage can't be taken out of the context of the entire the entirety of scripture. Like what what does this what does the entirety of the teachings of Jesus teach me I need to be? And it we're taught over and over again that we have to approach every conversation, not just these hard conversations like this, but every conversation with humility, being slow to speak. Quick, quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to become angry, because there may be some things that I need to hear. To your point, there may be things I need to hear in this conversation. And so I need to approach this with the mind of Christ, Philippians chapter two. I need to consider others as more significant than myself. I need to see myself as the other person's servant in this conversation. It'd be easy to approach the conversation where I'm just seeing myself as their corrector, their rebuker, their teacher, but Jesus. The master, the king, the Lord, God in flesh, approached every conversation as the servant. He went and he washed people's feet. So, what would it look like to approach someone about their sin, but do so with the mind of Christ, where we are approaching it to say, I'm here to serve? And that there may even be there may even be a word here that I need to hear. I may need to be corrected about something that I've done. And so after the conversation or after the sermon yesterday, someone came up and asked me about a specific situation in their family. And one of the pieces of advice I gave them after the sermon was ask questions. You know, make more questions than you do statements. And so when you approach this conversation, say, hey, here's what I'm thinking. Is this what you're thinking? Or or how are you approaching this? Or what do you think about this? Or is it possible this? And so ask lots of questions. Be genuinely curious. Don't just go to tell them they're wrong. That's not to say that there's not a place for telling people they're wrong, because sometimes there is. And sometimes someone is objectively wrong and they need to be told that they're wrong, but there's still a place for questions. Like, you know, hey, I'm I really want to know when you did this thing, what what were you hoping to accomplish here? Like what was what was your goal? What were What were you thinking and really want to know why did they do that? Because if you recognize that someone did something they shouldn't have done, you probably have assigned motives to them that may or may not be true. Like it may be true that they did something that was wrong, that was sinful, but you may not know why they did that. Now it doesn't justify what they did, it doesn't excuse it, it doesn't make it okay. But it might help you to empathize. It may may help you to understand why they did that thing. And then you can help them to be reconciled to you and to God better if you understand their motives. So don't go in there assuming you understand their motives, assuming you know why they did that thing. Go in there genuinely curious to say, Hey, I saw you do this thing and and I I had a problem with it, but I really wanna know. Where did this come from? Like why did you say that? Why did you do that thing? And I I really wanna understand before we go further in this conversation.

Matt: I think that's really helpful and you know, what's out there in a lot of the recovery, you know, literature and it's not to say that it's one to one, but, you know, recognition is just the first step. in the process and are we willing to walk with people beyond just getting them to acknowledge that they might have wronged us or, you know, affected their own relationship with God, you know, is this a covenant commitment and this is something that ⁓ we really want to work through. ⁓ one of the things that you talked about in your sermon was instead of doing, you know, this seemingly hard work of, you know, reconciliation, we take the cheap alternative route sometimes, which may come in the form of slander or even you know even spiritual framing of you know you gave the classic bless your heart ⁓ you know southern example but can you speak of you know why we need to resist taking the the cheap route or the easy way out?

Wes McAdams: Yeah, that's a great way to frame it as cheap. I like that. That's exactly right. And so that that's not the solution. The solution isn't to just talk about them or or make them I the way I framed it a lot yesterday was that I think with our gossip, with our slander, with our talking about them behind their back, we're trying to passively make them feel the pain that we feel. And so we're we want to hurt them back and we're We're trying to do it again, sometimes in a passive aggressive type of a way, where we're talking about them and we may even frame it as a prayer request or saying, bless their heart, but they did this thing to me. And we we don't necessarily want it to get back around to them, but we definitely want to defame them. We want to hurt their reputation a little bit because they hurt us and it stung when they did that thing. And so now we want it to sting a little bit when other people think less of them. And that's not the goal. The goal should be their restoration, not only their restoration to relationship with God and with us, but also the restoration of their glory. In fact, if we want to zoom out and look at the whole big picture, that's what Jesus is doing for us is He is restoring our reputation. He's restoring our glory. And so if we defame people, we are stealing glory away from them. And maybe we think, well, they deserve it. They deserve to to lose this glory. But if we truly love people, loving people is wanting what is best for them. And so we should want the restoration of their reputation, the restoration of their glory. We should want them to be glorified and exalted. If you really love someone, that's what you want for them. You want to help pick them up out of the mud. If they're in the mud right now, You want to help pick them up and you want to clean them off. You want to save, help them save face, help them to save their reputation, whatever is left of it, and restore what has been lost. But so often the truth is we don't really love people. We act like we do, we talk like we do, but because of what they did, because of what they said, we don't actually love them. Maybe we never did, or maybe we stopped loving them. But loving people is wanting what is best for them. And doing what is best for them. And often that means then don't talk about them behind their back. If you really love them, don't talk about them behind their back because that's gonna steal glory, steal reputation from them. You should want to restore them, which means a lot of times having a private, discreet conversation so that you can get them back on track, help them get back on track without them losing face in front of everyone else.

Matt: So how do we if we've lost a love for a particular person or if we've just allowed our heart to get to a place where if we're being honest, we're just kind of self-centered or we're just seeking our own good as the number one objective all the time, what are some ways to begin rekindling our heart for other people?

Wes McAdams: Yeah. I I for me I think again, it goes back to putting it in the context of the good news. It it goes back to the way we ended the sermon yesterday, that we are pursuing restoration, we're pursuing reconciliation with others as God pursued reconciliation with us. It starts with God's love for us. And so when we recognize that we were sinners, that we were broken, that we were rebellious, that we were in the mud, that our rep reputation was lost, that our life was forfeit, when we recognize that that was us and that God pursued reconciliation with us and He loved us and restored us, that changes everything. It changes the way we think about God. It changes the way we think about ourselves, and it changes the way we think about other people. And so when we truly allow the love of God to change us, then it can't help but overflow to other people. And so I really think that the the goal here, when we're trying to say, how do I love this person who hurt me? How do I love them more or how do I love them better or how do I love them at all? When truly I'm kind of bitter towards them, I think the the idea is don't look at them. Look at Jesus, look at the cross, and look at what God did for you. And then once that changes our hearts, then we look back at them and we say, ⁓ they are me. And so we begin to love them as we love ourselves, and we begin to love them the way that Jesus loved us. And so you're right. When you look at someone who has harmed you, sometimes that's all you can see. You all you can see is the betrayal. All you can see are the lies. All you can see is the cheating. All you can see is these things. But then when you look at Jesus and you realize what Jesus did for us to restore us when we were all of those things, then we look back at them and we can see them through a fresh set of eyes where we can see them with the compassion of Christ, the love of Christ. And it changes the way we see them, the way we think about them, the way we feel about them, and the way we act towards them.

Matt: I think that's really helpful. I think from you know, when we begin to try to extend that that love and compassion, I'm afraid that some of us haven't ever really experienced that ourselves. Like, ⁓ you know, maybe we struggle with reconciliation because on some level we still struggle with grace and forgiveness and, you know, constantly worrying about whether we've actually been reconciled to Christ. How how do you begin to help someone maybe work through that out of on their own, you know, views before they apply that to others?

Wes McAdams: Yeah. Yeah. That's so that's so good. That and that that is a lifelong pursuit. Because we are naturally legalists. We are naturally people that want to earn our own way and sort of pat ourselves on the back and say, Whatever I have, I have because I'm a good person. I did these things and you know, whatever bad things happen, they happen probably because I'm I'm messed up, but I'm I'm working hard to to make everything right. When we when we think that way, you know, then we approach ourselves and our own relationship with God through a sense of pride. And then we look down our nose at other people and we think, well, you know, they they messed up, they did these things, not recognizing that we were dead in our sins and our trespasses, and by the grace of God, we are what we are. And so again, it goes back to the gospel, back to the gospel, back to the gospel. We have to preach the gospel to ourselves and realize it's why Paul frames the things that he does the way that he does. You know, when Paul talks about who we were before Christ, it isn't to say, hey, look at all those bad, sinful people, all those wicked people out there. It is to keep us from becoming Proud or arrogant. He says, we are saved by grace through faith and this knot of works, so that no one will boast. We are natural braggers. And when we brag and we boast about ourselves and what we've achieved and who we are because of what we've done, then we look down our noses at with condescension at other people and say, Well, you messed up. You know, that's Well, no, so did I. We all have done these things. We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In fact, in Romans, that's that's the way Paul starts the book. He starts the book by saying, Yeah, yeah, you're right. These Gentiles, they're sinful, wicked people. Absolutely. That's true. They have fallen short of God's glory. But then he says, But then, you Jewish people, like you guys have not really kept the law either. You've all sinned and fallen short of God's glory. And then he says, And we're all justified by God's grace. And he's doing this not really to talk about the unbelieving world out there, but to talk about the church in here, to say, hey, our our little saying of every time you point your finger at somebody, there's three fingers pointing back at you. We have to recognize that that our disdain for sin, and that's what this whole sermon was about, is about the fact that we have a tendency to freak out when someone sins. Biggest disdain for sin that we should have is for our own sin, not for someone else's. Absolutely, people's sin should bother us, but the sin that should bother us the most is our own. And when we recognize that I have sinned, I have fallen short of God's glory, I have messed up, and He reconciled me, He rescued me, He restored me, then we can say, okay, now with that mindset, now I want to do that for other people, not to straighten them out and say, hey, you wicked bad person. But to say, I want to show you the same grace that was shown to me. And if we don't recognize that grace was shown to us, then we have no business ever trying to point out anybody else's sin. That is the last person that should be pointing out someone else's sin. The only person who should point out somebody else's sin is one who is overwhelmed with joy and gratitude for the grace that's been shown to them.

Matt: I think that's a beautiful message and beautiful sentiment, one that ⁓ we all need to hold on to. We did get one question this week and it's also a a comment as well. It's from Mark Maxie and we definitely appreciate any time anyone submits questions or comments to the PS podcast, we would love to encourage you to do that. He writes Gossip is hard to define. The most common definition of hypocrisy is saying one thing but doing another. In Matthew six and seven, Jesus called people hip hypocrites for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Maybe gossip is anything that doesn't benefit someone else and or is rooted in selfish motivations. And so we're we've talked around that ⁓ some today already on the podcast, but any thoughts about Mark's comment or or any more framing of the idea of gossip?

Wes McAdams: Yeah, yeah. In the sermon I mentioned, we're speaking specifically about the Hebrew word in Leviticus nineteen about a slanderer. That sometimes when we think about slander today, we're specifically thinking about spreading derogatory information that's not true. We're we're we're telling things about somebody that's a lie. And so we sort of justify ourselves and say, Well, I'm not really gossiping, I'm not really slandering somebody because what I'm saying about them is true. Well, biblically speaking, when the Bible talks about slander and gossip, it's not just talking about things that aren't true. Sometimes that's the case where it's false accusations. But here's the Greek word in the New Testament. This is in Second Corinthians chapter twelve, when it talks about gossip. The word there is defined as derogatory information about someone that is offered in a tone of confidentiality, a secret. It's it's about whispering about people. And it is funny how we just sort of We do that because we don't want people to know, we don't want people to hear. And so we whisper this information about people. And so it's it really is about derogatory information. And again, we sort of have to put this idea of gossip and slander within the context of the collectivist society. We live in a very individualistic society. And so we think a little bit differently about reputation and glory and slander and shame. But in that society, The most important thing that you had was not your money. The most important thing that you had was not your house. It was not your estate. The most important thing that you had was your name, was your reputation. And it was tied to your clan. It was tied to your tribe. It was tied to your family. It was tried to your people. And so you, the last thing in the world that you wanted somebody to do was to spread derogatory information about you, or even derogatory information about your family to defame you. But I think there's something that is just at at our heart that we all understand this, that it is so harmful and hurtful for someone to spread information, even that's true, but that is embarrassing and shameful, and it steals our glory away. So gossip really is anytime we whisper about someone or anytime we we spread information about someone that is something that they don't want to get out. And we're we're doing it just to have a story to tell. And so we are telling a story about someone that would embarrass them, that we know would embarrass them, that we know would steal glory from them, it would steal their reputation from them, it would harm their name. And and we have to be very careful not to do that. The only time that we ever do that, that we say, this person has done this thing, and it it should hurt. Hurt us to have to share that. And we should only be sharing it when that is what is best for the community, when that is what is best for that person. And again, we only can do that when we have gone through these steps that Jesus told us to go through, that we've made sure that what we're saying is true and that it needs to be shared. And so it goes back a lot of times to those little questions that we ask ourselves: is what I'm gonna say true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? Those kind of questions are so important to ask. If it's not, if it's not true, if it's not necessary, if you don't need to say it, if it's not kind, if it's going to hurt their reputation, don't say it. Whatever you call it, whether you call it slander or gossip or whatever you call it, we have to be very careful that we are saying things that build people up and build up their reputation, that make them look good instead of making them look bad. And so if we are trying to make someone else look bad so that we have a good story to tell, that's typically when we're gossiping.

Matt: So if you're and this happens and we're all party to both sides of it sometimes, if we're the person gossiping or we're the receiver of the gossip, like ha do you think this passage is instructive about how we can redirect? Like if someone tells us a word of gossip is the advice to come back and say, Well have you talked to that person? Do you think that there's is a benefit of this framework that we're given.

Wes McAdams: Yeah, a hundred percent. We again, if if what we're trying to do is to make sure that people stay in good relationship with each other and in good relationship with God. And if gossip itself is a sin, then if you come to me and say, Hey Wes, I just want you to know that this guy over here, you know, he did this horrible sinful thing. Now I need to be concerned about your relationship with God. Like Is Matt sinning I shouldn't have made you the sinner in this scenario, but you know, if it could have been the other way around. If I came to you, let's say I came to you and I come to you with this gossip, now your your concern should be not just about the guy I'm talking about, but it should be about me. Like now Wes is gossiping. Now is is Wes jeopardizing his own relationship with God? And you should love me enough to say, Hey Wes, did you talk to him about that? Why are you bringing that to me? It w what what purpose does

Matt: Yeah.

Wes McAdams: d do you have for bringing this to me? And if I say, ⁓ wow, you know, that that really humbled me, Matt. I didn't realize I I think I am gossiping right now. I need to go talk to him. I haven't talked to him yet. And so we need to care enough about each other that if someone comes to us with gossip, that we sort of turn it around and say, Whoa, whoa, are are you gossiping right now? Because I I wouldn't want you to jeopardize your relationship with that person or with me or with God. And so we need to care enough about people to Call them out. Care enough about me that if I find myself gossiping about someone that you say to me, hey Wes, this sounds like something you need to be talking to them about. The fact that you've brought it to us, it it probably is none of our business. And so you need to go talk to them first. If you need a witness afterwards, yeah, maybe come talk to me. But but until you've talked to them, I I probably don't need to know about this. But we we we sometimes let it go. We just receive the gossip. rather than calling out the gossiper. And it really shows that we're not as concerned about their soul as we probably should be. We're not concerned enough about their relationship with people, with the church, and with God as we should be to call it out.

Matt: I think that's very true and very countercultural and you know, something to which we should ⁓ see as a form of witness as well or or join accountability ⁓ to each other. Thank you for your thoughts today. Any final points that you want to make sure get brought across through this conversation?

Wes McAdams: No, I I I know that this is a hard conversation and it is so difficult to preach a sermon like this because I know that so many people are gonna apply it in so many different ways. I I tried to sort of narrow it down a little bit at the beginning, but it's very broad. It's a very broad topic, and and some of the things that people are probably thinking about that they might need to talk to someone about, you know, maybe it's like, well, I wouldn't necessarily consider that a a sin that needs to be approached in this manner, but maybe they do. But I I hope that where we all come down is what I want is to restore and repair and reconcile relationships. If that's our motive, then even if we are going to somebody and say, Hey, I didn't I I think it's wrong that you're doing X, Y, and Z. If our motive is, I really want for us to be reconciled and I feel like there's a wedge between us. If that's the goal, then hopefully we'll be able to sort that out, even if what they did wasn't even a sin, like it wasn't even wrong. But we're able to sort it out because we approached it with the right motives. We approached it wanting to be more like Jesus and we want to repair the relationships that have been damaged.

Matt: ⁓ that's so true and it goes back to like you said, it it's a love thing. It's a love for others and ⁓ loving our faith and our discipleship enough to elevate it above any awkwardness or challenges that come with that. Well, I would ask you about next week, but Okay, all right.

Wes McAdams: Yeah, absolutely. I I want to do that for you. Like I I was like I I was waiting to see if we're gonna turn the tables because next week I will be gone. I'll be ⁓ teaching Bible classes up at Camp Blue Haven and Matt will be preaching here on Sunday and I'm really excited for for you to be preaching. So why don't you tell us what you're gonna be talking about?

Matt: Yeah, so excited for the opportunity. Thank you for letting me be a part of this series. We're gonna be talking about change and disruption and in particular we're gonna kinda use what I think is a classic freak out text of the Israelites in the wilderness, of they experience a lot of great things from being rescued from Egypt and then all of a sudden they freak out and I think there's some instructive things we can learn from their freak out when it comes to how we handle change ⁓ ourselves. We'll be looking at ⁓ some passages in Exodus and thinking about how we respond ⁓ to change as a family. So I hope that ⁓ you'll join us if you're in Plano and ⁓ don't be too worried, Wes you're only gone a week so ⁓ we'll we'll we'll try to keep it together and you'll be missed while you're gone. So

Wes McAdams: It'll be great. It'll be great. I know it'll be an encouragement to everybody.

Matt: Well, thank you again for the conversation and thank you to everyone for joining us on the PS podcast. And we hope you'll ⁓ be blessed in your discipleship this week and we encourage you to look for opportunities for reconciliation. So thank you for joining us.