Running Out of Time

Good morning.

Good to see you all. Today we are continuing our series, How to Handle Relational

Drama. We are now in part nine, and today's focus is going to be on timing, okay?

We have talked a lot in this series about what to do in relational drama.

We have not talked a lot about when.

We've talked a lot about what to do in the sense that like throughout this series,

if you haven't been here, you can know, and those of you who've been here,

you'll be reminded, we've talked about confrontation.

We've talked about apologizing. We've talked about forgiveness, right?

We've talked a lot about what to do in relational drama, but when should you do relational drama?

When should you handle it? Like we haven't really talked much about that,

but timing is very important.

Sometimes when matters just as much as what.

Have you ever had a situation where it went bad and the thing that happened

wasn't so bad as much as it happened at just the worst possible time, right?

Or vice versa. Have you ever had something where you're like,

oh, this is amazing, but it's not actually amazing as much as it's just it happened

right at the perfect time that you needed it to happen?

So timing is really important. When matters just as much as what in some cases.

Let me kind of give you an example.

Let's say you have a disease or some sort of infection, okay? And it's growing.

It's getting worse, okay? The bad cells in your body are multiplying,

all right? And you're getting sicker and sicker.

And so you go to a doctor, and the doctor prescribes a medication for you, okay?

And the doctor says, this is what you're supposed to do. If you have had this

experience like I have, not only will the doctor tell you what to do,

but he or she will tell you when to do it, right?

If they prescribe antibiotic, a lot of times they'll say, go to the pharmacy,

and I want you to take the first one today, like as soon as possible,

and then another one before you go to bed tonight.

And then tomorrow morning when you wake up, take the third one,

and then you're going to take two a day until the bottles out.

Have you had this experience?

All right, so here's the thing. This is what will not work. What will not work

is if you say, well, I'm going to do what the doctor said to do,

but I'm not going to do it when they said to do it, right?

So I'm going to sit there and go, yeah, I'm going to take this whole bottle of antibiotics, right?

And I'm going to do it one month from now.

You see the problem with that? You could be dead one month from now, right?

So in that particular case, it's vital for you to not only do what you're told,

but to do when you're told.

And when it comes to relational drama, the same principle applies.

It's not only about what you do, but when you do it matters immensely.

Let me go ahead and give you an example.

One time I was talking to this girl who went to the same church that I did.

This was, I was a pastor at the church. She was 19 years old and I was her youth pastor.

This was not this church, different church, years ago, I was her youth pastor,

and I think she had graduated the year before, if I remember correctly.

She was 19 years old when she came and talked to me about this.

So she's still living with her parents, freshman in college.

And so I was her youth pastor, and so she's telling me this story about this

conversation she overheard at her house that her parents had, which is very common.

Like, if you don't know this, like, youth pastors hear lots of stories from

kids about their parents.

Kids talk about their parents to youth pastors. And so she was telling me this story.

And she said, yeah, the other day it was so strange. My mom and dad,

and they got into this fight. And I was like, oh, really? Well,

you know, what'd they say?

And it was, I will never forget this particular story. It's just fascinating.

She said, well, yeah, dad and mom, and they were angry at each other.

I guess she was in the house overhearing it. And, you know, dad said this,

mom said this, whatever they were yelling or whatever they were doing.

But then dad said something. And mom said, this is what you always do to me.

And then dad said, when have I ever done this? And then mom said,

when you had your mother move in with us, and you didn't even ask me what I thought about that.

And then this girl who's telling the story said, grandma doesn't even live with us.

And she said, and grandma has never lived with us, but as long as I can remember.

And she said, and I remembered, she said, I think I remember hearing stories

about grandma living with us.

I think it was something that was either before I was born or maybe back when I was a baby.

And so she did the math in her head. She realized she's 19 years old and she

went, oh, mom is bringing up something from 20 years ago, right?

They were in a, she realized they were in a contemporary fight disagreeing about

something that had happened that week.

And then the wife in that situation brought up something from two decades ago

and said, that's related to what we're talking about and brought it up right then.

And the way that she told me the story, I always got the impression that was

the first time that the mom was bringing it up, that she was upset and then

finally one day, the timing was right and she grabbed that thing from two decades

earlier and said, what about this?

And I remember as the girl told me the story, I'm like, whoa,

your parents' marriage is messed up.

And I didn't say that to her. I just thought it in my head.

I was like, that is not a good sign.

And this is what I think the problem was. I don't think the problem was that the wife brought it up.

I think the saying like this thing offended me, I don't think that was the problem at all.

I think the problem was bringing it up 20 years too late.

Because at that point, even if everything is handled perfectly,

let's just imagine it from that point.

Like if let's say it gets handled perfectly, that that husband went,

I am so sorry that I didn't even consider your feelings. Will you forgive me?

And then the wife goes, well, of course I will forgive you. Jesus died on the

cross for our sins, right? Just imagine that's what happened,

which would be the ideal situation there.

Even in that case, there would still have been 20 years of bitterness and sideways

glances and awkward conversations that shouldn't have happened, right?

Okay, so let's turn to Matthew chapter 5, verses 21 through 26.

Matthew 5:21–26

That is our text for this morning, okay? It's on our topic.

What you'll see when we get there, these are the words of Jesus Christ.

It's right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, and there's a paragraph

in there that is on our topic this morning, so I'm going to go ahead and read it to you.

Matthew chapter 5, verses 21 through 26.

Matthew 5:21–26

It says.

But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.

And whoever says to his brother, fool, will be subject to the Sanhedrin.

But whoever says, you moron, will be subject to hellfire.

So if you are offering your gift on the altar, and there you remember that your

brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.

First go and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Reach a settlement quickly with your adversary.

While you're on the way with him or your adversary will hand you over to the

judge and the judge to the officer and you'll be thrown into prison.

I assure you, you will never get out of there until you've paid the last penny.

So this passage, I think, breaks down into three subsections fairly easily,

okay? So there's six verses total, and it really is two verses each.

21 and 22 go together, 23 and 24 go together, and 25 and 26 go together.

And the first section, verses 21 and 22, that is a warning against sinful anger, okay?

The first section of the three sections here, if you're doing an outline,

we have a warning against sinful anger.

Then the next section, verses 23 through 24, is an illustration about the urgency of reconciliation.

And then the third final section, 25 and 26, is another illustration on the

urgency of reconciliation.

So if you're outlining it, we've got a warning against sinful anger followed

by two illustrations on the urgency of reconciliation. So let's go ahead and

take them in the order that they come.

So verses 21 and 22, Jesus says,

you have heard that it was said to our ancestors, do not murder, okay?

So he's saying, he's a Jewish man talking in Jewish culture going,

hey, hey, this is our law. And this is actually not unique to Jewish culture.

A lot of cultures go, murder's wrong. And he's reminding them, hey, we all agree.

This goes back a long way. We all agree murder's bad, right?

We're not supposed to murder.

You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, do not murder.

And whoever murders will be subject to judgment, right?

There will be a punishment for it. And I think it was capital punishment for

the most part in this society.

Okay, so we know this. And then he says this, but I tell you,

everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.

And whoever says to his brother, fool, will be subject to the Sanhedrin. So we've got judgment.

And then we have Sanhedrin, which seems to be probably a higher court than like

your typical court in Jewish culture.

There was just one Sanhedrin. I think they were based in Jerusalem.

But whoever says you moron will be subject to hellfire. That would be a judgment

that's even worse than anything the Sanhedrin could do.

So, what do we do with these verses, right? There may be some of you go,

I didn't even know this was in the Bible.

Well, first of all, I mean, it sounds like anger, being angry with someone is

just as bad as murdering them, right?

Well, Jesus seems to be saying, like they both come from the same heart, right?

Whether you actually do something physically or whether it's just something

with your emotions and your words.

Well, is being angry a sin? Like always, is being angry always a sin in every

case? And so I think that's good to ask, and then it's good to answer.

And in fact, we have answered that in this series. The answer is no.

Anger is not always a sin. Our associate pastor, Doug Davison, covered that last week.

We've also talked about that in other sermons here at this church.

Anger is not always a sin.

The Bible talks about anger in negative ways a lot, as if it's a sin,

because there are, I think, I don't know, I would guess probably most of the

times that we get angry, it's probably a sin.

And so the Bible speaks negatively about anger because it's a very easy thing to connect with sin.

But not always. It is not always a sin to be angry. Sometimes the Bible speaks

about anger in a good way.

Sometimes the person that is expressing the anger is God himself in the Bible.

Jesus expresses anger in the Bible. And so no, anger is not always a sin,

but this passage clearly is about sinful anger.

You might go, yeah, okay. But Mario, I just, I don't know. I need to do more

Bible reading. I didn't even know this was in here.

There's a verse in here that sounds like if you call someone a moron, you go to hell.

Mario, I called someone a moron last week So Does that mean I'm going to hell?

And my answer to you is Maybe, maybe not.

We need to get to the bottom of what this passage is about.

Like, what is it that Jesus was saying here? And I think it's fairly obvious

what the main point of the passage was.

I don't think the main point of the passage was, you say this word in this way,

automatic hell, no forgiveness, murder people, you can be forgiven,

but not the word moron. I don't think that's what he's saying.

I think what he's saying is harmful, insulting anger, right?

Where you hurt someone, not physically, And the reason I'm saying not physically

is because that's what Jesus is contrasting this.

He's contrasting it with murder. Murder is when like physically you use your

body to harm someone else to the point of death.

Well, a harmful, like an anger that hurts someone in a non-physical way is also

a sin, just like murder is.

That you can't just say, oh, well, at least I didn't kill him,

right? It's not like I murdered anyone, so is it that big of a deal?

I just like, I destroyed his self-esteem, but I didn't kill him.

Isn't that fine? Like, no.

Hurting someone in a non-physical way with this insulting, harmful anger that

we get, that is a sin just like murder.

In fact, it comes from the same heart, right? The same heart that murder stems

from is also where moron, and I'm going to attack this guy, I'm going to show

him, put him in his place.

And if left unforgiven, it can get you thrown into hell just like murder can.

Now I want you to notice I said if left unforgiven

did you catch that that's really important because this

is where the gospel comes in and this is where the gospel is so important and

so beautiful that there are people who murder and there are people who call

people morons and there's a hundred other sins that aren't in this verse and

it makes us worthy of judgment after this life right hell and Jesus Christ came

and Kenan talked about it earlier in the service,

Jesus Christ came and lived the life that we should live. Jesus did not murder anyone.

Jesus did not have a sinful kind of anger. And Jesus did not commit any of the

other hundred sins that are not in this particular paragraph.

Jesus lived a perfect life on our behalf and then died on the cross.

And you're not supposed to die if you're perfect because death is for sin and he's not a sinner.

Jesus did not sin and yet he died for sin.

Whose sins? Not his own. He didn't have any.

He died in the place of sinners.

So that anybody who believes in Him, anybody who turns from their sin and trusts

in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they are credited with His righteousness

and they are forgiven of their sins, which means they escape the judgment that they deserve.

And they can live with God forever. So that is important and that is beautiful.

Now, the next two sections, after Jesus has made it clear, like,

it's not just, oh, I didn't kill anybody.

Like, there is something in your heart that does need to be forgiven.

And if not, the hellfire, it is a sin. It's not just murder is a sin.

Anything that comes from that hateful, harmful kind of heart is a sin.

So, after Jesus makes that clear, we have the next two sections.

And the next two sections are really on the topic that I really wanted to cover

this morning. They focus on the idea of timing when it comes to reconciliation.

So two illustrations. The first one is in verses 23 and 24. Second one's in verses 25 and 26.

The first one is a religious example, and the second one is a non-religious example.

The first illustration Jesus used, he kind of makes up a theoretical scenario.

And the first one seems to me, because it happens at an altar,

I'm thinking that he's talking about something that's taking place at the temple in Jerusalem.

So it's a religious example, something that happens at a temple.

And then the next one is a non-religious example.

I think it's something that happens just outside of a courtroom.

So we'll get to that as we go, but let's start with the first one.

The next two verses are verses 23 and 24. This is the religious illustration.

He says, so if you are offering your gift on the altar, so meaning,

so, and while we're talking about hate and anger and people hating each other

and, you know, you moron, while we're on that topic,

if you are offering your gift on the altar, So where would the altar be?

The altar would be at the temple in Jerusalem. Offering a gift would then be

like, who are you offering the gift to in this scenario?

God, right? So this is the worship of God. This is Jewish people.

Prior to the time Jesus dies, they're doing sacrifices. I think a lot of times

the gift that you offer at the altar would be an animal, like a lamb or a bull or whatever.

This might be for your sins. This might be for some sort of Jewish festival

that's going on where this is what we do, the Passover lamb, whatever it may be.

But the person is showing up and they are offering a gift on the altar.

And this is the scenario he makes up. He says, so you're there and you remember

that your brother has something against you.

You are in the middle of making an offering to God. You are in the middle of

your service to God. You are in the middle of worshiping God.

And you remember that you have a conflict with someone else.

How do you handle it? In fact, not just how do you handle it?

You could ask, according to Jesus, when do you handle it?

Okay, what is the timing here? You're there, you're worshiping God.

When are you supposed to handle the conflict that has now come up in your mind? And what's the answer?

Now. Yeah. It seems like, I mean, it seems like the answer is immediately.

Drop whatever you're doing and handle it right then, which is crazy to think about.

Cause you would think, especially considering the illustration he used,

offering your gift on the altar to the Lord, you would think that he would say,

if you're in the middle of that, well, you know, so finish that up.

And then once you're finished with that, go and reconcile with your brother.

But he actually says, leave your gift there in front of the altar.

And then what's the next, what's the next word?

First, go and be reconciled. Leave your gift there on the altar.

And that's why I think this is about timing.

First, go and be reconciled with your brother and then come off your...

So you've got first and then.

That makes me think that what Jesus is saying here is he's talking about the

timing of the matter. He's talking about the order of events.

Do this thing first, then do this.

Whatever you're doing, drop it and go handle this. Even if the thing you're

in the middle of is very important.

Be reconciled with your brother. Wow.

Wouldn't have been crazy if you'd been there and heard this for the first time.

This is how we handle reconciliation. That's how urgent it is.

Now, I think it's important to understand. I do not think that what Jesus is

teaching here is that if you're worshiping God, you're supposed to stop worshiping

God when you realize you've got a problem with your brother.

So you stop worshiping him and now you go reconcile with your brother,

who's actually more important than God.

So God's like, put God on pause for a second because he's second most important.

And then you deal with your brother, the most important thing,

and then get back to worshiping God again.

Now, I think that there's not any point that you actually stop worshiping God.

I think it's just that the giving of the gift at the altar is a way of honoring

God and reconciling with your brother is a way of honoring God.

So you don't ever stop worshiping, right?

Basically, I think what Jesus is saying here is you stop this particular type

of worship for a second, and you go over here and you reconcile with your brother.

You do a different type of worship for a little while, because that's what the situation calls for.

And then when you're done with that, you go back to the other worship you were doing.

But there's not any moment that you stop worshiping, right? There's not a moment

that you stop honoring God. You're honoring God the whole time.

The other thing I want you to notice about this passage is, and this I think

is particularly interesting considering the other passages in this series that

we have learned up to this point,

and that is in this Bible verse, Jesus puts the responsibility for reconciliation on the offender.

You notice that? He says, if you are offering gift to all the other,

and there you remember that your brother has something against you,

it's not that you remembered that you're mad at someone else, right?

It's you're remembering that they're upset at you, and you didn't do anything to handle it, okay?

So Jesus puts the responsibility for reconciliation on the offender in this verse, okay?

The reason I think that's interesting is those of you who've been here all along,

who did Jesus put the responsibility on in the other verses that we've learned in this series?

The offended person, do you remember that? In Matthew 18, it was,

if your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault,

right? Just between the two of you, go and rebuke him in private.

So Jesus on a different occasion told the offended person that they need to

initiate the reconciliation.

Same thing in Luke chapter 17. We've seen multiple verses where Jesus puts the

Luke 17 · chapter mention

responsibility for reconciliation on the person who was offended.

And now we see Jesus puts the responsibility on the person who did the offending.

Well, which one is it? What are we supposed to do with all these verses?

I think it's pretty clear.

I think Jesus was saying, you know whose

responsibility it is to handle reconciliation when there's a problem?

Whoever remembers it first, right?

So Jesus said, if you're the person who was offended, it's your job to go reconcile.

If you're the person that did the offending, it's your job to go to reconcile.

Whoever remembers it first, it's urgent to fix it right away.

Okay, now let's move on to the next one. So verse 25 gives us our not religious example.

So this one takes place, the one before it took place at the temple.

Now this one takes place somewhere else. This is the next verse.

He says, reach a settlement. And what's the next word?

So again, we got a timing word, don't we? Reach a settlement quickly with your

adversary while you're on the way with him, or your adversary will hand you

over to the judge and the judge to the officer, and you'll be thrown into prison.

So where is this one taking place? Not at the temple.

It is taking place on the way.

On the way where? Okay. Apparently you are there with your enemy somewhere on your way.

And the verse doesn't really say where this one takes place,

but I think you can figure it out because of what is about to happen, right?

Where you're on the way and wherever you're on the way to, what's there?

There's a judge and an officer that's there after you've gone on the way, right?

So it sounds to me like this is a situation where they are walking to a courtroom

or they are walking to a court case, right?

You've got person number one, person number two, I guess it's the plaintiff

and the defendant, right? The person and their adversary, and they're walking along to a.

Are you following the logic? Right, so there they are. What does Jesus say for them to do?

He's saying, don't even wait till you get to the courtroom to handle this while

you're walking along the way.

So the way Jesus paints this illustration, it seems like there's some courtroom

or some place where the court case is happening.

This is some sort of Roman era court system thing that's going on.

And apparently there's just one road that leads to this courthouse,

right? So the plaintiff and the defendant are walking together on the road to

get to this courthouse, aren't they?

Right, because one guy said, hey, I got a nine o'clock appointment.

Huh, sure enough, I got a nine o'clock appointment. Yeah, you're the reason

I got a nine o'clock appointment.

Yeah, you're the reason I do. So we're walking together.

Now, what do you do while we're walking together to go to the courtroom?

He's saying, settle it quickly.

Handle it while you're walking along the way. Don't wait even till you get there, don't delay.

If you can, turn this person who is your enemy into your friend along the way

before you even get there and someone else has to settle it for you.

Handle this before it's too late. Handle it before the point of no return, right?

He's saying you can get there and have it forced upon you, but you should handle

it before it's forced upon you, right?

You should not delay and try to get this person on your team.

Try to settle this before the point of no return.

So I want you to notice both illustrations that Jesus uses in Matthew chapter five emphasize timing.

The first illustration says, first, go and be reconciled, then come and do your gift.

The second illustration says, reach a settlement quickly while you're on the

way, before you get there.

Why is this important? I think it's important because I think that this passage

and this teaching of Jesus helps get rid of a loophole that Christians use to

avoid reconciliation. Right?

Now, we've already talked about one loophole. I hope that you remember it.

Earlier on in this series, we talked about the loophole that goes like this.

I've forgiven her. I just don't ever wanna speak to her again.

Do you remember that one?

Okay, I told you, I think this is particularly something that Christians do

because the people that I know that are not Christians, they don't feel obligated

to say that, right? I've forgiven her. I just don't wanna speak to her again.

Like they're willing to say, she's dead to me, okay? And they'll just be honest

about it a lot of times. She's dead to me. And Christian comes along and goes,

you shouldn't say she's dead to me.

That's awful, right? You should do what we do, which is we say,

I forgive you, and then we treat her like she's dead to us.

Oh, yeah, that's so much better.

No, that's not it. So that's a loophole that I think people use.

Well, just say it, okay? No.

Well, I think today's passage brings up another loophole, and this is what this one's called.

This one is, oh, I'll reconcile later when it's fresh, when it's not so fresh.

Right now it's fresh. I don't, I'm not into that. I never have to apologize.

Ooh, that's going to be so difficult. No, I will do it. I'll do it later when it's not so fresh.

So the first loophole is I will say that I've forgiven and I won't act like it.

The second loophole is I know I'm supposed to reconcile, so I will promise future

reconciliation so that I can hang on to it a little bit more right now.

I don't have to admit guilt now. I don't have to make restitution now.

I don't have to offer forgiveness now.

I'll promise it in the future so I can hang on to it a little bit now. I will get to it later.

I have seen Christians do this and they wrap it up with such pleasant sounding

words that they can actually trick their Christian friends into supporting their

disobedience of Jesus Christ.

I don't know if you've ever seen it. This is how it goes. Sometimes they'll

say something like this and someone will say, you really need to settle things

with him. Like you gotta go talk to him about this.

And the person will go, oh, I know, you're right.

I'm just waiting until I have a peace about it.

Have you heard that one? I'm waiting until I have a peace about it.

Okay. which is such a convenient way to say it too, because peace is invisible.

So you don't know. Like you can't ever hold them accountable because you can't

be like, look, look, the peace came.

Now you can, like, there's no, like they're the only person that knows if they

have a peace about it. So they get to decide.

That's fantastic, isn't it?

Here's another one. Some will say, it sounds like things are,

you two need to talk this out. And I think you owe her an apology. I know, I know.

In fact, they may even say this, the Holy Spirit told me I need to reconcile.

But right now I'm giving my heart time to heal.

Have you heard this? Yeah. I'm giving my heart time to heal.

And this is what I think happens. I think we fall for it. I think when someone

says, I'm waiting until I have a peace about it, we go, peace? That's good.

Waiting? God wants us to wait on things like peace sometimes. That's good.

And so then we say, brother, yeah, you wait until you have a peace about it, right?

And somebody says, oh, I'm just, I'm giving my heart some time to heal.

And I think the other ladies in the Bible study go, heart, heal,

those are good words, right? Hearts are supposed to heal.

Yeah, sister, you just give your heart some time to heal, right?

And if you phrase it right, you can actually get your Christian friends in your

community group to applaud you for disobeying Matthew 5 without them even realizing it.

It might be that your heart won't heal until you go reconcile.

It might be that you won't have a peace about it until after you have obeyed what the Lord has said.

Now, I will admit, I do understand that there are times in the middle of a conflict,

sometimes where there was like a boiling anger and it is wise to give the human

body time to calm down, right?

Like I'm aware that anger is not just a spiritual thing. It is a physical thing, right?

It's not just something you do in your mind. It maybe starts off in your mind

or starts off in your spirit and then it becomes something that's happening in your body, right?

Like it's, when you are angry, your body releases chemicals that cause your

body to do different stuff than it normally does, okay? I was a theater major

and not a science major, so I don't know the name of all the chemicals.

I know adrenaline is one of them, okay? And there's other ones too. I think.

And stuff is happening on the inside of you that's literally causing something

physical, not just something spiritual.

Like your heart rate is going up, breathing patterns change,

people get red in the face.

Isn't that crazy? Why is the guy's face turning red? I think it's because the

blood in his body is doing different stuff than it normally does.

Physically, something's happening. And yes, in those moments,

it is good to calm the body down, right?

Like Doug Davison said last week, sometimes you need to count to 10,

sometimes you need to count to 10,000. Remember when he said that?

So I don't think that Jesus was forbidding that.

But I believe that there are times when people allow a situation to fester for

days and weeks and months and months.

And it seems to me Jesus was saying not to do that.

In fact, verses 25 and 26, if you look at the second half of 25 and into 26,

it seems to me that Jesus was giving a warning here, right?

He says, this is what you are to do or else, or else what?

Or your adversary will hand you over to the judge and the judge to the officer

and you'll be thrown into prison and I assure you, you'll never get out of there,

until you pay the last penny.

It seems that Jesus is saying there are consequences to dragging out a dispute.

And I think that this is, I think this is both literal and metaphorical.

I say literal in the sense that this actually happens to people.

There are people who just wait, I'm not going to settle this until it is forced upon me.

And they get to the point of no return and it is bad. Like this literally happens

to people and they end up in prison and they, or they end up with a settlement

where they have to pay a whole bunch of pennies.

Okay. This literally happens to people. But I also think the principle here

applies to other situations that are outside of a courtroom, right?

That there are consequences to dragging out a dispute, even non-courtroom disputes.

In fact, factoring in what Jesus said earlier about judgment and hellfire,

it seems to me that there are eternal consequences to the way we handle disputes,

which is why we need Jesus.

So when we reason to ourselves, I'm waiting until I have a peace about it.

I'm waiting until I heal. I'm waiting until they apologize.

I'm waiting until they confront me. Why should I go talk to them?

They can come tell me if they have a problem with me.

When we do that, we can avoid reconciliation and we can do it not by saying,

I won't do it, but by saying, I will do it later.

And then one day you wake up and realize all you've accomplished is not reconciling.

And so the main things I wanted to point out to you this morning are from the words of Jesus Christ.

He said, first go and be reconciled.

And he said, reach a settlement quickly with your adversary while you're on the way.

One brief caveat that I wanted to mention before I close is found in Romans 12, verse 18.

Romans 12:18

The apostle Paul said this, I think it's helpful. We've said it in other parts

of the series as well. He said, if possible on your part, live at peace with everyone.

This is what we're supposed to do as Christians. If possible on your part,

live at peace with everyone.

Now it is interesting. It starts off with the words, if possible on your part.

The implication here seems to me to be that it may not always be possible.

For you to live at peace with everyone. It could be that it is impossible because

they will not live at peace with you.

Is that what you're getting out of this? That's what I'm seeing here.

Okay. Well, that's helpful.

You can only do your part. You are to live at peace with everyone as much as you possibly can.

And you can only do your part. And I think that that is important when you're

interpreting verses like Matthew chapter five, verse 24.

In fact, can we have it back up here? When Jesus was saying,

leave your gift there in front of the altar, I want you to notice. He says, first go.

And this is just interesting the way he phrases it. He says,

go and be reconciled with your brother.

Well, if the other person won't reconcile, you don't always have the power to

just be reconciled, right? So it seems to me what Jesus is assuming here,

Jesus is telling this story.

It seems to me he's assuming the situations where it is possible to reconcile with the person, right?

First go and be reconciled to your brother. In the cases where it is possible

on your part to be reconciled, then you need to go and be reconciled.

I don't think that he's assuming situations that are impossible and saying you

can never come and offer your gift, right?

If they don't accept your apology, if they choose not to forgive you,

then you just never come back and offer your gift. I don't think that's what Jesus was saying.

He wasn't saying you have to do your part and their part, right?

You have to bring about reconciliation both on your half and on their half,

or else you can't ever go to the temple and ever offer a gift again.

I don't think he was saying you have to put your whole life on hold until they forgive you.

No, I think the implication here is Jesus is saying, you stop what you're doing

and you do your part of reconciliation as soon as you can.

And so that's today's lesson. Reconcile quickly. When it comes to apologizing,

when it comes to reconciling, timing is important.

Don't drag it out. Don't put it off. Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you for telling us all this. I pray that the words that I spoke

this morning that are merely of me would be quickly forgotten.

And I pray that the things that are of you would be remembered.

I pray that you would put them into our hearts and in our minds and that you

would apply them to our lives.

I pray that those of us who have the ability to, on our part,

do our part of reconciling, that we would do it quickly.

I pray that we'd see a difference even in just this little area,

just in Ocala as just the people who go to this church start to think through,

I wanna make sure I reconcile quickly.

I wanna turn my adversary into my friend as soon as I can, if I can.

I pray that for all the other churches in town. I pray they would do the same.

They worship the same God, reading the same book we are. I pray this for all

of us, all of us Christians in this town.

And I thank you for the gospel. We acknowledge before you today,

we deserve hellfire, whether we've

killed someone or whether we've just destroyed people with our words.

We deserve your judgment. And we thank you for Jesus dying on the cross in our place.

We thank you for the gospel and we praise you for it. In Jesus' name, amen.

Let me end with these good words from God's word. This is from 1 John 4.

It says, Dear friends, let us love one another because love is from God and

everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. and the one who does

not love does not know God because God is love.

God's love was revealed among us in this way. God sent his one and only Son

into the world so that we might live through him.

Love consists in this, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent

his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. And that is good news.