Love Keeps No Record of Wrongs

Alright, we're going to jump into God's Word today.

If you have your Bibles, you can turn to 1 Corinthians 13.

If you don't have a Bible, don't sweat it.

We'll put it up on the screen.

We're in a series right now called Love Is.

And we're looking at 1 Corinthians 13, which is known predominantly to be used at weddings describing love, but it's noteworthy that 1 Corinthians 13 was written to a church.

It was actually written to a church community that was about to split.

They'd found a lot of reasons to not like each other.

And so he kind of goes issue by issue in the book of 1 Corinthians and talks through their issues and how that they really should choose unity.

And then he gets to chapter 13, and I'm going to just gonna read the first three verses here by way of introduction.

He said, if I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but I didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I was so smart, I knew all the languages and the dialects of the world, and I can speak angel, but if I didn't love others, if that didn't translate into loving people, it would actually just be annoying.

Verse 2, he said, if I had the gift of prophecy, if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and I had faith that could move mountains, but didn't love others, I would be nothing, he says.

You know, he's talking to a group of people that were pretty infatuated by spiritual gifts and a lot of the ethereal, heavenly things.

And he said, Look, you know, that's all great, you know, all the prophecy and you know, and and the mysteries of heaven.

He said, but if if you're caught up in that and it doesn't translate into loving relationships, he said, you will be nothing.

Verse 3 said, if I gave everything I had to the poor and even sacrificed my body.

So if I was pious and noble and sacrificial, he said, I'd have something to brag about, but if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing.

So what he's doing is putting it into perspective.

All of the things we're working on, giving to, developing, if that doesn't translate into human relationships, into loving one another, then it's sort of canceled out.

Okay, that should cause us leaving us asking the question, well, what in the world is love?

And how would I define it?

And how would I be accountable to it?

Okay, here we go.

Verse 4 says, Love is patient and kind.

So we talked about week one.

You can go back and get that if you weren't here.

Next is uh what we talked last week.

Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude, it does not demand its own way, it is not irritable, and this is what we're gonna talk about this week.

It keeps no record of being wronged.

It keeps no record of wrongs, okay?

Okay, what in the world does that mean?

This keeps no record of wrongs.

Is that uh does that mean that I should never remember anything bad somebody did to me?

Uh, if I've done bad and someone brings it up, should I tell them that 1 Corinthians 13, 5 says that love keeps no record of wrongs?

Um, does this mean that there's no accountability?

Does this mean that we can perpetuate um abuse, that we can perpetuate infidelity, that we can that we can just go unchecked?

And if anybody keeps track, uh that we have just an absolute ironclad defense here uh in 1 Corinthians 13, well, that's what we're gonna talk about today.

All right, okay, I got three points I want to make about love keeps no record of wrongs.

The first two I'm gonna make pretty quick, and the third I'm gonna spend most of my time.

So if you're keeping time today, it won't be equal.

All right.

Um, the first point I want to make is scorekeeping is futile in relationships because it's impossible to keep an accurate score.

Okay, in human relationships and marriages and families, the people you're actually in committed, complicated relationship, score keeping is futile because there's no way to accurately keep it.

It's subjective.

All right, think about you know, football season just ended.

Football has very meticulous rules about what's a hold and what's pass interference and what's offsides, what's out of bounds, uh, how you score, okay, scoring a touchdown, you got to cross the plane, and even they have, you know, cameras from every angle imaginable.

They can zoom in on it, and if your pinky toe is out of bounds, your whole body's out of bounds.

If the if the nose of the ball breaks the plane, it's a touchdown.

And we know exactly how many points that is, and then you get a shot at an extra point, and there's a time you get it.

There's a lot of definition.

Even with all that definition and all those cameras, there's still disagreement about what was a foul and what was a penalty and what wasn't.

And did they really score or didn't they score?

Did the refs get it right, get it wrong?

Imagine how much more in human relationships that are subjective in terms of the impact of what we say and do to one another.

And if we try to keep score on all of that, it's just never gonna work.

We'll spend the rest of our lives arguing over the score.

We just will.

There is no way for me to properly, accurately quantify the impact of my words and actions on your life.

I might say something that was no big deal to me.

I didn't mean anything by it, or I didn't mean much by it, and yet it may have cut you to the core, and you might carry it with you for the rest of your life.

It was a big deal.

And by the way, maybe you're the type of person who never says anything about it.

Maybe you keep it to yourself, you never bring it up again.

So now I really don't count it because I might have forgotten it by the next day because to me it didn't mean much.

But to you, it's in your score in your head for the rest of your life, and it was catastrophic, it was big.

Or maybe you do bring it up, and when you bring it up, you bring it up as a big deal.

And I'm like, what?

You know, that wasn't that much.

That was a one, it was a two, it wasn't much, and you're like, no, it was a ten.

And so now we're arguing over it.

But well, that's crazy because I can't quantify that.

In my mind, the score is three to two, but in your mind, the score's two to ten because we're arguing over what was out of bounds and how far out of bounds, and how many points should you get for that.

And so I think at some point, you know, we can decide that we're gonna waste our time and energy arguing over the score, or at some point we are going to not keep record of wrong, so to speak.

We're not going to be scorekeepers.

Uh, the second point is scorekeeping creates owing, and owing kills the generosity of the giver and the gratitude of the receiver.

Okay?

Scorekeeping creates owing.

If we're keeping score, I owe you.

I owe you.

And if I give you something that I owe you, that's not generous.

I'm just trying to get back to zero.

And by the way, when I give you something I owe you, you're not grateful, you're entitled to it.

What took you so long?

Right?

Think about it.

Think about stuff you owe.

You owe rent.

You don't give it generously.

Some of you have a mortgage.

You're not giving it generously.

In fact, you can't wait to the day you don't owe anymore.

And then they send you the title to the house, and you won't go, oh, thank you so much.

That was so generous.

You're like, I earned that.

Give it to me.

Okay, you owe me now.

And so, you know, when you pay your taxes, okay, you don't do that out of the kindness of your heart.

That's not your best generosity.

And when they send you that tax return, you don't send them a thank you card.

That was so kind of you.

No, man, that's mine.

You owe me.

So owing and generosity and gratitude, it just messes the whole thing up.

Once we keep score, now we owe.

And let's be honest, sometimes in relationships, somebody did something real bad, and maybe, maybe you think they owe you the rest of their life.

Or you feel like you owe, like there's nothing I could do.

At some point, if this is gonna be a loving relationship and we're gonna restore two key components to great loving relationships: generosity and gratitude.

Come on, that really works.

Like when you are generous, that's a that's showing love and gratitude, being grateful, this is key in relationship.

So if we're in a spot where I owe you for the rest of my life, no matter how much I say, no matter how faithful I am and how much I do, I'll never, ever, ever wipe the slate clean.

If we're gonna get to a place of loving relationship where generosity and gratitude can come back into play, there's gonna have to be a process of forgiveness.

There's gonna have to be a reset button and a blank slate, and we're gonna be we're gonna have to move into a to a new place.

So that's one of the other liabilities of scorekeeping, is it robs the relationships of generosity and gratitude.

Okay?

Okay, number three.

This is where we're gonna spend our time, do some work here.

Number, oh, by the way, sorry, I forgot this.

There is a verse in the Bible that would almost seem to contradict what I said, but I want to look at it closely.

It's Romans 13, 8.

It says, owe nothing to anyone except your obligation to love one another.

If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God's law.

Okay, what's up with that?

Because you just said that owing and love doesn't really work together, but he says that you we have an obligation that we owe one another to love one another.

Okay, understand the spirit of what Paul is saying in Romans 13.

He's not saying that the way we love should just be obligatory.

Okay, in fact, he says in 2 Corinthians 9 that we should give cheerfully.

God loves a cheerful giver.

And so when you're giving out of obligation or owing, it's not cheerful.

What he's talking about in terms of obligation and owing is a responsibility to understand the ecosystem of human relationships, which is it's circular.

He says, love one another.

In other words, you got to give and receive.

And if all you do is take, if all you do is take in relationship and you think you have no obligation to give love, then you deplete the resource.

You deplete the person, you drain them instead of understanding I have a responsibility to pour back into you.

And the only way this thing works is if we're all giving and we're all receiving.

So that's what he's talking about about owing an obligation.

It's not an attitude of keeping score.

All right?

Okay, number three.

Love keeps no record of wrongs, does not mean that we don't hold each other accountable for wrongdoing.

So we we cannot use 1 Corinthians 13 as a pass to abuse, uh to mistreat, to hurt each other, to do wrong to each other.

And then if somebody says, man, but you you cheated on me three times, I said, read the word.

Love keeps no record of wrong.

But you've been abusing me.

There is a pattern of abuse in this relationship.

Listen to Paul.

He said it keeps no record of wrong.

But you stole him from me five times.

You are a pathological liar.

I've counted 75 in the past week.

Come on now.

Love keeps no record of wrongs, don't judge me.

Is that what Paul is saying here?

That there's never a place for us to keep track.

Um absolutely not.

That's not what he's saying.

And I'll prove it to you because in I'm gonna prove it to you a bunch of ways, whether you like it or not.

Okay, okay, so 1 Corinthians 13, he says, you keep no record of wrong, keep no record of wrongs.

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

The spirit of that is score keeping.

It's the things that we just said.

It's that we don't want to rob our relationships of generosity and gratitude, and we don't want to play a feudal game of what's the score.

But he's not saying that we don't keep track because actually, 1 Corinthians 5, you'll see Paul is talking to them about one of their issues, is that they have someone who is sinning and is become a predator within their community, and no one is checking this dude.

So he gets, by the way, he keeps meticulous record of wrongs.

He's saying who did what, and he gets real specific.

And then he says, and it's not just him, and he starts saying, all of y'all are doing this, and he's going into very specific behaviors that was a f that that included specific people.

And so what he's saying here is listen, this church is a community, and for this community to be the body of Christ and to be healthy means that we need to behave in specific ways.

And he says, this person is actually, it's not just like a nice guy who's struggling and needs some support.

Okay?

He's not advocating for a judgmental, legalistic environment where as soon as somebody messes up, we kick them out and we judge them and we wag our finger and go, you don't belong, and you need to get out of here.

This isn't, hey, I can't even be honest about my own humanity and my struggles and my battles, because if I do, I'll be ousted, I'll be rejected, I'll have to wear a scarlet letter for the rest of my life.

These people are gonna keep track, they're gonna keep record, and I'll never live it down.

That's not what he's saying.

What he's saying is, you have someone among you who is unwilling to be held accountable.

He said, not only that, they're bragging about their sin.

They're bragging about it.

And he uses yeast in dough.

He said, it's like you got this thing of dough, and you put yeast in it, and it leavens the whole thing.

The whole thing, okay, is affected, even with just a little bit of this.

So you got this one guy who's running rampant, and what he's doing is he's going to create toxicity in your whole environment, and it's actually affecting everyone's safety.

And so he said, someone needs one of you need to step up and confront him.

And you got to go talk, and if he won't, then he's out.

You got to remove him, you got to reposition him.

Why?

Not because we want to create a legalistic environment where nobody can ever fail and we all are just judging each other.

That's not the point.

The point is that this person, this believer, has come in and said, you know what, I follow Jesus, which means I live in a way that actually makes for a beautiful community.

He mentions things like greed, different types of sin.

Like, I don't want to live in an environment where people are greedy because then we all get greedy and no one's generous.

I don't want to live in an environment where people lie all the time.

It's normal and they brag about it.

Why?

Because then I don't trust anybody and I feel isolated, I feel alone.

I want your word to mean something, I want my word to mean something.

We tell each other, we tell the truth.

And so he's going and he's naming these things because these are the behaviors which in the community of believers causes an incredibly healthy community, which, by the way, is our greatest witness to the world.

It is our greatest witness to the world.

What does he say in 1 Corinthians 13?

If you know all of God's mysteries and you know the language of heaven, but you don't love each other, it's pointless.

So the fact that we would have a community so healthy that people who don't even believe go, I want to be in a place where they're generous and not greedy, where they tell the truth, where they help each other heal, where they come uh support and come alongside, not a place where wolves run rampant.

By the way, it's in 1 Corinthians 5, the same chapter where he says, guys, I wrote you a letter before and you totally misunderstood it.

I was talking to you about wrongdoing.

I was talking to you about sin.

And you thought you messed it up.

You thought I gave you, I was giving you license to condemn the world.

But I was talking about you guys.

He's like, you guys are out trying to hold the world accountable to a standard they didn't agree to.

You're out here trying to hold them to a standard and a set of values they never signed up for.

You guys, as believers in Jesus, said, I want to live like Jesus.

You chose that.

You said it's a better way.

It's a better way to treat people like this, it's a better way to be sacrificial, it's a better way to love others, okay?

To give your life for other people.

He's like, You signed up for that.

So all you're doing is holding each other accountable to what you've already agreed on.

He said, and if you do that, guess what?

Greatest testimony to the world, they're like, I want to be a part of that.

But he said, if you don't, if you don't, and you got wolves running around tearing stuff up and hurting people, hurting people, that is a terrible testimony.

The world will look at you and go, why would I want to be a part of that?

That's worse than here.

He goes up and he's talking to the Corinthians, he's going in, he's going hard, he's like, You guys are worse than the world.

The world's like, man, we gotta get out of it, we gotta get away from that.

These people are nuts.

So when he's saying love keeps no record of wrongs, in chapter 5, he keeps a meticulous record.

But it's not in the spirit of legalism, it's in the spirit of health, it's in the spirit of restoration, right?

Um, in fact, let me show you another thing Paul wrote to it to the Galatians.

He writes to the Galatians, he says, Um, uh, Galatians 6, he says, brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by sin, if a believer has fallen into wrongdoing, you who are godly, you who are mature, should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path.

What's the spirit here?

What's the attitude?

What's the approach?

What's the intent?

The intent is restoration.

The intent is, hey, we all get out of bounds sometimes.

Sometimes we do things and I get in, and once I step back and look at it, I go, you know what?

I don't know how I got there, but I did get there, and I'm glad somebody helped me.

I'm gonna get back on the right path.

So he said, help them get back on the right path and be careful not to let yourself fall into the same temptation.

And then they look, he says, help them out, support them, share each other's burdens, and in this way, obey the law of Christ.

If you think you're too important, if you think you're too high and mighty, if your attitude is that you know you're up here and they're down there and you think you're too good to help someone, you're only fooling yourself.

You're not that important.

So this is Paul.

You look at the totality of what he says, you don't just take love keeps no record of wrongs and say, well, that is an excuse to perpetuate wrongdoing.

Absolutely not.

But he said we should do it in the spirit of restoration.

Okay, and I'm gonna I'm gonna add more to it, but before I do that, you look like you don't believe me, so I'm gonna keep going.

Um, Jesus, he got this from Jesus.

Paul didn't make this up.

Paul didn't make this up, he got this from Jesus.

Matthew 7, famous verse.

Everybody knows this verse.

Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.

For you will be treated as you treat others.

The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.

And why worry about the speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own?

How can you think of saying to your friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye when you can't see past the law in your or the log in your own eye?

By the way, this is where this is people's favorite verse.

If you ever come to them and bring up anything, or you want to hold somebody accountable, or you have a conversation and they go, Oh, you ain't been reading your Bible, huh?

Ever been to Matthew 7?

Let's open it up right now.

And then they love the just the first word of verse 5.

Hypocrite exclamation point.

But but, friend, you got to keep reading.

Look what it says.

First, get rid of the log in your own eye, then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.

So, what Jesus is teaching is not to ignore our eye specs.

He says there's an order to it.

So before you go, deal with their eye and their heart, deal with your eye and your heart.

There's an order to it.

First, he says, start with you.

Is there anything in me that is blinding me?

Is there anything in me that's unrepentant?

Is there anything in me that's off?

Search me, O God, and know me.

Put me on trial, know my heart, see if there be any wicked way in me.

So I deal with me first, then I get my attitude right toward them that I'm not showing up.

Wagging my finger.

I'm not way up here, they're way down there.

I'm not hoping to remove them.

I'm going to help them iron sharpen iron.

Okay.

But he's not saying don't deal with the speck.

And the spirit of this text is not that we never make judgment.

In fact, just keep reading, okay, um Matthew 7.

He says in verse 15, so that was 1 through 5, was the judge not lest ye be judged.

Look what he says in verse 15.

Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves.

Verse 16, you can identify them.

You could also say, you can judge them, you can make judgment of them, you can make a judgment of them by their fruit.

That is by the way they act.

You can you pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

Look at verse 20.

Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, just as you can judge a tree by its fruit.

I'm judging you, tree.

What are you?

I look at your fruit.

That's an apple tree.

I judge that this is an apple tree.

You can identify people by their actions.

So it's not that he's saying there's never a place for judgment, he's teaching us how to do it.

He's teaching us how to do it the right way.

It's not in a spirit of judgmentalism, legalism, and retribution and shame.

That's not the spirit.

The spirit is actually dealing with ourselves, starting with the man in the mirror.

All right, the great theologian Michael Jackson taught me that.

And I'm asking him to change his ways, and I'm repenting of my sin, and I'm getting my heart right, and I'm getting my heart right toward you, and now I'm gonna come speak to you.

By the way, I'll just go one more because uh and then we're gonna get real practical because there's like five people in the room that still think I'm off.

Matthew 18.

Same Jesus that spoke in Matthew 7, and Matthew 18 said, if another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense.

You're gonna have to make a judgment to do that.

And he says, What's the spirit of it?

You go privately, you don't lay them open in front of everyone, you don't rob them of their dignity, you don't do things that would make them defensive, which is just calling them out in front of the world for the first time.

He said, Go to them.

Don't post about them, go to them.

Don't go to the prayer team and say, hey, we got to pray for so-and-so till you went to so-and-so.

That's a great way to to to you know that folks kind of disguise their gossip.

You know, hey, we got to pray for so-and-so.

Have you talked to so-and-so first before you just lay them out?

Okay, go to them privately, one-on-one, point out the offense.

If the person listens and confesses, mission accomplished, you've won the person back.

You get your brother back, you get your sister back, they get back on track, they go, Oh, you know what?

You're right.

You're right, I did do that.

You're right, I did say that.

You're right, I've gotten off course.

Thank you.

And you get back on course.

He said if you're unsuccessful, then take one or two others with you and go back again.

So everything you say can be confirmed by two or three witnesses.

What is this?

Is this are are we ganging up on them?

No, what we're trying to do is get a few of us together in a spirit of restoration.

This is probably where Paul got his Galatians thing.

We ought to go.

Those of you who are mature, those of you who are godly, go humbly, gently.

Not not not to create defensiveness.

Do everything you can do to try to get them in that spot.

He said, if they still refuse to, then you need to go to the church.

And he said, if they won't accept that decision, then then you're gonna have to remove them.

Why?

Because you've got the same issue they had in 1 Corinthians 5.

You've got a wolf in the midst going around making everyone unsafe, creating toxicity or yeast in the environment.

In our community.

That's what we are as a community, and we we defend that community.

Okay.

Let's think this out.

We have wrongdoing.

It's inevitable.

I'm gonna do wrong, you're gonna do wrong, it's gonna happen.

We love Jesus, we're in the church, we're in the word, we're worshiping God, we're trying to, we're trying to do right, but we are going to do wrong.

So you have wrongdoing.

When you have wrongdoing, let's think this out according to everything we just read.

Let's bring it together on think through our options.

There's three options I can think of.

Three options.

All right.

Option one is we can ignore it.

We can ignore it.

We can allow wrongdoing to take place and no one can say anything about it.

We don't bring it up.

Maybe we're afraid of someone thinking we're judgmental, maybe we're worried we're gonna harm the relationship, maybe we've gotten to the place where our hearts are so calloused, our consciences are so seared, we're bragging about it, we think it's no big deal, we underestimate it.

If you ignore it, let's play this out.

What happens next?

If you ignore it, it spreads.

It spreads.

And when it spreads, it creates death.

Um James chapter 1, verses 14 and 15.

James 1:14

Go ahead and pull that up.

James 1, 14 and 15.

Look at this.

Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.

Okay, these desires give birth to sinful action, okay, wrongdoing.

And look at this.

When sin is allowed to grow, it spreads, it gives birth to death.

Think about cancer cells.

What's the best way to beat cancer?

Early detection.

If you ignore the symptoms and you ignore it, what happens?

It spreads.

And when it spreads, at some point it leads to death.

It's the same thing with wrongdoing, it's the same thing with sin.

Sin causes a chain reaction and it kills.

It kills.

So let's not stick our head in the sand.

If we ignore wrongdoing, it will spread.

Eventually it will kill.

And then what we'll have to deal with is regret.

We'll look back and go, man, I wish I would have said something.

I wish I would have got in there before it was too late.

And we'll have to live with that regret.

Second option is we can have a conversation.

We can have a conversation.

Once we have that conversation, once we have that conversation, I br if I bring it up to you, okay, there's a wrongdoing, I bring it up to you.

This can go a few ways.

One is if I go to you, you go to me on the wrongdoing with the right spirit of redemption and restoration and humility and all this, and I go to you, now you can choose accountability.

Accountability.

You go, you know what?

I'm gonna own it.

Accountability.

You can take responsibility.

Responsibility.

And friend, this is what I would say from a responsibility.

It is it is my job, it is your job.

If I have done wrong and somebody loves me enough in the right spirit to come and to bring it to me, to go, I'm gonna own it.

I own it.

I repent.

I shouldn't have done that, you're right.

So to take accountability, to take ownership, to repent.

And then what happens when I do that?

Then I get forgiven.

And we forgive, and we receive grace, and guess what happens?

Restoration.

Restoration.

That was the intent from the beginning.

This is how restoration happens.

Somebody did wrong.

We have a conversation, I take responsibility and accountability, and I repent.

I might repent to God, I might repent to you.

In fact, look at this.

James chapter 5, verse 16 says, confess your sin to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

James 5:16

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

And so I might need to ask you for your forgiveness, and I might need to ask God for his forgiveness.

But I go through and we have a conversation, and I take responsibility, and I repent, and you forgive and give grace, and you don't keep record of wrongs, so for the rest of my life, I feel like I can never live it down.

And in your mind, and in the mind of my brothers and sisters, I'll be forever defined by my worst mistake.

Nah, man.

Restoration.

You get back on track, you get back to the person we all knew you were to begin with.

You get your conscience back, you get your freedom back.

The third option is we have a conversation.

And instead of accountability, instead of accountability, I deflect.

Well, you're not perfect either.

Don't judge me.

I get defensive.

Okay?

Instead of uh responsibility, instead of responsibility, I rebel.

I will not be brought into accountability.

I refuse.

And that's part of it, man.

You got a free will as a human being.

I can decide if I if I will if I'm going to repent or rebel.

And if that's the case, well then what do we do with that?

You know what we do?

We give grace and we forgive.

Because I I gotta forgive you and I gotta love you, and I've got to give you grace whether you ask for it or not, whether you deserve it or not, because this is my heart on the line as well, and I'm not gonna get caught up in bitterness.

But what you just did was forfeited the opportunity for restoration in that moment because of your rebellion.

Now I gotta reposition.

Now I gotta reposition you.

Okay, now this may not be one conversation.

There's certain relationships.

Sometimes you gotta give somebody time to sleep on it.

You gotta give them time to wake up and go, you know, I shouldn't have said that.

Give them time for the Holy Spirit to work in their heart and for them to get to a place of repentance and get to a place where they're willing to admit what they did and take accountability and ownership.

Not everybody handles it right the first time, so this may not be one single conversation.

But what you have to understand is within healthy community, we expect wrongdoing is gonna happen.

We're human beings.

Okay?

We're not going to ignore it because I don't want to live in regret, and neither do you.

So what are we gonna do?

We're gonna talk about it.

And the quicker we can get to accountability, responsibility, repentance, then we can get forgiveness and grace and we can restore and get back on track.

But, friend, I'm gonna tell you the reality is sometimes people choose option three.

All you can do is bring up the conversation, all you can do is deal with your eye first, get your heart right, speak the truth in love, have the courage to take the risk and to do it the best you can.

And if they deflect and they rebel, you still love them and you still give them grace, but you might have to say, This has cost you this position in my life.

And don't let a manipulative wolf tell you that you didn't love them because you repositioned them.

Some people will say, Well, if you really love me, you wouldn't keep a record.

If you really love me, you would let me still come to that thing.

You still let me show up there.

No, I do love you, which is why I'm still praying for you and why I'm still believing for you, and why everything in me wants you to get to a place, even if it means the prodigal son hits rock bottom.

If you got to get all the way to rock bottom, I don't want to see it, but I want it to happen because of the result.

That finally you get to that place where you stop rebelling and you stop deflecting and you start repenting, and then there's more grace for you and more forgiveness for you, and then there's a process of restoration.

But in community, both Paul and Jesus say if somebody's unwilling to do this, if somebody's unwilling to do this, then you've got it, you've got to reposition them for the health.

Why?

Because there's collateral damage that happens.

He says, look, the collateral damage he uses yeast.

It's yeast, it's gonna affect the entire community.

At some point, you go, you know what?

I love you, but you're not gonna do that to my kids.

I love you, but you're not gonna do this in this community.

I love you, but I gotta protect you.

You're a wolf right now, and I know you got better in you, but right now you've made your choice to rebel and to reject and deflect, and you're not willing.

And so that's your call, and so the path you've chosen, you've chosen option three for us.

And I'm going to reposition you, but I'm not going to stop loving you.

I'm not going to stop loving you.

And so, friends, I say this as we end.

You know, we're human beings, we're not going to bat a thousand, we're not going to always get this right, we're going to miscommunicate, we're going to misunderstand each other, we're going to hurt one another.

You talk to people all the time.

I talk to people, I hear from people, I hear about people all the time who have had church hurt.

They've been hurt at this church, they've been hurt at that church.

Some people have been hurt at this church.

How do you how do you get hurt?

Well, sometimes it's because you had you were doing something wrong and somebody didn't graciously help restore you.

Maybe they came in hot with judgmentalism, they came in hot with legalism, uh, they were talking down to you, they they they hurt you.

Uh they didn't even really seem like they wanted to give you grace.

It felt like they were one to shame you and like, okay, so you came away wounded, and that's real.

And sometimes people do that, and essentially they maybe misunderstand what they're supposed to do.

And they they think they're keeping the thing pure, but what they're actually doing is they're not being a part of a mature, godly, gentle restoration and offering that as an option.

Some of you, you didn't get even offered that.

And so these people you thought were your safe community and your support wounded you deeply.

But what we can't do is say, if you love me, you'll never hold me accountable.

We can't say, if you love me, you'll never tell me something that's hard to hear.

It takes a lot of love to have the courage to sit down with somebody and to take the risk and to know that you might be misunderstood.

And so, some way we have to sort of make this covenant with one another.

We have to make a pact.

We have to say, look, we've agreed as followers of Jesus, this is how we're what we're gonna say and do and how we're gonna live.

And then we got to hold one another accountable to what we've agreed to.

And that means sometimes iron sharpens iron by holding iron accountable.

And we go to each other and say, Look, this is what you've done.

This is what you've said, this is how it's playing out.

And then it's up to each of us, okay?

What would be beautiful?

Option two.

Option two is where we find healing, option two is where we find unity, option two is where we take wrongdoing and somehow get to a place where we're wiser and stronger, but it's all of us committing because at some point you and I are gonna be on both sides of this conversation, and if we're gonna actually have a mature deep community, that's what it looks like.

Not the artificial harmony of ignoring or um creating this judgmental environment where everybody's afraid to make a mistake and we keep record and you'll never live it down.

Okay, option two.

And so as we think about this, right, we want to be different than the Corinthian church.

We want to learn, okay, from what Paul taught them.

Let's let's do that.

Let's do it in our families, let's do it in this church, let's do it in our groups that we meet in, let's do it in our relationships to give and receive this in the right way.

Amen.