Be Reconciled To One Another
Unfortunately, this sermon’s audio was not preserved. You can read the sermon manuscript below.
Introduction
Please open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 18.
As you are flipping there, I want to tell you about one of my favorite stories in church history. This is a true story, dating back over 1,600 years—back to the year 390.
There’s actually a famous painting based loosely off these events. The painting was done by the late-Renaissance painter, Peter Paul Rubens. The painting is entirely “Emperor Theodosius Refused Entry Into Milan Cathedral.” And in the painting, you see a confrontation between two parties. There is a robed Christian leader—a bishop—named Ambrose. And Ambrose is blocking Emperor Theodosius of Rome from entering the Milan Cathedral. And there are many bewildered onlookers surrounding the two men, wondering what is going to happen next.
There’s an important backstory that led up to the situation that this painting is depicting. One evening, in the year 390, a popular athlete of the time made some inappropriate advances toward an attendandant of a powerful Roman general. The Roman general did not take kindly to the behavior of this athlete, and the general had the athlete arrested.
Now the people of the city immediately grew outraged by this. And they began to demand that this local hero be released.
But the Roman general was stern, and he would not slacken his grip. But the people of the city were just as stubborn. And the confrontation eventually led to people of the city killing the Roman general out of rage and anger.
Now, when word reached the Roman Emperor, Theodosius, about what had taken place, Theodosius responded with cruel trickery. Theodosius hosted a circus in an arena in the same city that this general was killed. And the citizens of the city were invited to come and thousands did.
But there was no circus that day. It was all a cruel and brutal ruse. The arena was filled with armed guards who were ordered to kill these citizens in the arena. That was Theodosious’s cruel and stern punishment to the city that had murdered the Roman general.
This is obviously a horrendous event. But it’s worth pointing out that cruelty like this was not entirely uncommon. Emperors and Kings have throughout history exerted their rule and power by inflicting their wrath. The event was tragic and sinful, but again, not entirely unfounded.
But this was made sticky and complicated by the fact that Theodosius wasn’t like all other Emperors. He was a Christian. A member of the church.
How should the church respond to a Christian Emperor acting like a Pagan Emperor? Would the church do anything in light of this event?
It’s also important to remember that at this time in history, the church had only been sanctioned with in the Roman Empire for 75 young years. The power of the church was limited. And the power dynamic between church and empire was not precisely known. So again, the question, how would the church respond to a member of the church who was in sin but also happened to be the most powerful man in the world?
Would the church simply pretend nothing happened? Or would they shrug and say, “That’s what emperors do.”? Or would the church confront this heinous sin?
Well, the church did indeed confront this sin. A man named Ambrose, who was one of the leading Bishops—or we might say pastors—of his time addressed Emperor Theodosius.
Now, the events never became as dramatic as the painting I referenced earlier. There was never a confrontation at the church’s entry point. Instead, Ambrose addressed Theodosius directly and personally, saying these words to him in a later, “[My aim} is not to put you to shame [...] but to put this sin away from your kingdom.”
Ambrose sought the Emperor’s repentance, but he also did so in such a way that he never intended to bring him to public humiliation. Ambrose sought the reconciliation of a church member. Ambrose was not willing to pretend that nothing happened. He was going to call evil out for what it was, but at the same time, Ambrose’s goal was always peace and reconciliation.
And that’s the focus of our passage this morning. How do we seek reconciliation within the church when sin is real and present? How do we show mercy and forgiveness when we have been personally wronged?
My hope and prayer is that we will all leave this morning with a better understanding of these things. But more importantly, I hope and pray that we will leave with a greater desire to show mercy and seek reconciliation. It’s one thing to understand what reconciliation looks like, and it is another to sacrificially seek it!
Let’s pray that God would work through his Word and his Spirit to bring about that heart change. And then we’ll turn to our passage for this morning.
Matthew 18:15–35
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
Structure
Our passage this morning is composed of three parts. Verses 15–20 are focused on Jesus’s teaching on reconciliation within the church—what we often call church discipline. Verses 21–22 emphasize the need to regularly forgive. And verses 23–35 are a parable reminding us that a failure to forgive is a failure to act like our Heavenly Father.
If you were with us last week, you may remember that the first half of Matthew 18 is concerned with our own personal humility and our general disposition toward others. The emphasis was on seeking the good of others, even at our own personal expense and inconvenience.
I believe the order and structure of Matthew 18 is rather significant. If we aren’t humble and genuinely loving—like the first half of the chapter emphasizes—then we will NOT rightly correct others. We will either be too harsh or too petty. And similarly, if we aren’t humble and genuinely loving, then we will also struggle to receive loving correction. Our pride and our self-concern will make us deaf to wise counsel and loving correction.
We need this disposition of humility and love. And yet, even when we are growing in these virtuous ways, we will still be surrounded by the reality of sin. We can’t escape it entirely on this side of the grave.
So what are we to do when we encounter sin?
The World’s Responses To Sin
Well, the world offers us two general answers. First, we can shake it off and pretend that nothing happened. That is a “sweep it under the rug” type of response. Sadly, I think many Christians see this as the “Christian” response. “Isn’t it loving to forgive, keep our anger inside, pray it gets better, and move on?” Jesus doesn’t allow that type of neglect.
Another common response that the world offers us is that of a feud—“You wrong me, and I’ll wrong you back” type of mentality. This is an escalating battle between parties where no one ever has any peace. You might witness this between neighbors. “That house over there was really loud last night and kept me up all night. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going accidentally set off my car alarm right next to there house at 5am. How are they going to like that?” That response leads to a future escalated response, and with each response the other side is trying to “get even.” We see that type of pettiness in churches, in families, and in marriages. Each side always trying to prove their point and one-up the other. Again, this is not the type of response that Jesus points us toward.
Jesus offers another way—he paints a picture of radical reconciliation. We don’t ignore sins nor do we respond to them with evil. We acknowledge sin, we confront sin, and we seek repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation between parties, and ultimately peace and fellowship!
How do we do that most appropriately? How do we seek this type of reconciliation? Well, Jesus gives the church a template. This is specifically a template to the church, but I think we can easily extract other principles that affect how we treat our spouses, our families, our neighbors, and others in our lives.
The Jesus Way
This is what Jesus has to say. The very first step is to lovingly go and confront the brother or sister who is in sin. Now, there are better ways of doing this than others. Some ways of going about this could be dangerous or inappropriate. We must allow humble wisdom to still remain our guide! Jesus’s main thrust is that we first address the issue directly, one-on-one, whenever possible.
What is this encounter supposed to look like? What are we supposed to do when we address someone like this? Jesus says, “tell him his faults.” The idea here is one of revealing and exposing sin that may be hidden to the person who is living in sin. As we point out sin, we are attempting to expose the guilt of our brother or sister and ultimately convince and convict them of their sin and point them to repentance.
Now this is not always easy to do. Some sin is very difficult to precisely pindown. But that’s our goal, to help our brothers and sisters see their sins.
If they refuse to acknowledge their sin and turn from their ways, then Jesus says, it’s time to escalate the issue a step. Bring another witness or two to help explain the situation. If there is still no response, then this is again to be escalated, where the issue to be explained publicly before the church. And at this point, if the brother or sister still won’t acknowledge their sin and repent, then they are to be excommunicated from the church. They are to be treated like an outsider.
Does that mean total exclusion from all personal life? Not necessarily. But it does mean that they are excluded from many of the benefits of the church—including partake of communion.
Now, I really want to point out a three things before I move on. First, I want to make clear that excommunication—this idea of treating someone like an outsider—is totally self-imposed. Yes, it is an act of the church, but the church is acting in response to continual and damaging sin. Excommunication is self-imposed exile.
Second, the hope of excommunication is still repentance and reconciliation. It’s not petty punishment. But it’s a hopeful wake up call to the sinner. It’s an extreme act, attempting to display the extreme nature of the sinners hard heart.
Third, I really want you to remember how slow and intimate this process is. It’s filled with personal interaction. It’s filled with different meetings, which take time to organize. The process has gaps, which serves as time for the person being approached to think, pray, and repent. This is very different than a social media smear campaign that we are so accustomed to today. Jesus calls for a slow, caring, and personal process. That is the way of the church! We won’t look like the rest of the world. We will look radically more patient and compassionate.
Forgiveness
And that type of compassion and mercy is the focus of the rest of our passage.
Peter asks Jesus, “How often should we forgive these sinning brothers and sisters—is seven times enough?” Jesus’s response is actually a reference back to the book of Genesis. In Genesis chapter 4, a blood-thirst man named Lamech talks about revenge to the 77th degree. And here Jesus says we ought to forgive with that same type of ferocity.
Lamech and the old world was forged on blood and revenge. Jesus says that his kingdom will be no less fierce, but it will be putting its zealous efforts toward forgiveness not death.
Jesus’s call to forgive 77 times is not meant to be a literally precise command. It’s a more general command to have the disposition of forgiveness.
And Jesus then portrays the importance of forgiveness with this parable of the merciless servant.
We see in the parable this man who is encumbered by debt that there is literally no way he could have ever worked himself out of this financial mess. Ten thousand talents, the debt of the man in this parable, would have been more money than most nations had available at this time. The number is intentionally high, in order to exaggerate the depths of this man’s debt.
And yet, even in the face of his debt, he begs for mercy before the king. And to the surprise of the reader, the king grants him mercy.
How does the man respond? By immediately denying another man mercy—a man who owed him a miniscule amount of money in comparison to his own debt. This man who just received mercy, turns around and mercilessly has another man thrown into prison.
When the king hears about this, he responds by throwing this merciless man into prison. And the king says, “Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had on you?” The implied answer here is yes, he should have had mercy on the other man.
And Jesus ends the parable, and the entire chapter, with the warning that God the Father will deal harshly with those who do not forgive.
As Christians, we are citizens of a forgiving king. We are called to mimic and look to him in how we love, forgive, and how we show mercy to others. His love is our perfect model.
Jesus’s words pretty strongly imply that if you do not forgive, then you will not be forgiven. That’s a frightening prospect for us, friends. I need to say it again, so you don’t miss this, Jesus implies that if you do not forgive, then you will not be forgiven by him. We are called to genuinely and regularly forgive. A neglect to do so has dire consequences.
One commentator offers a helpful illustration. He says that we often think of forgiveness like a Christmas present that a grandfather gives to his greedy, thankless, and selfish grandchild. The child can receive that gift, even if he does not offer anyone a gift.
But Jesus seems to say that forgiveness doesn’t work that way. “Forgiveness is more like air in your lungs. There’s only room for you to inhale the next lungful when you’ve breathed out the previous one. If you insist on withholding it, refusing to give someone else that kiss of life they so desperately need, then you won’t be able to take any more in yourself, and you will suffocate very quickly. Whatever the spiritual, moral, and emotional equivalent of the lungs may be, it’s either open or it’s closed. If it’s open, able and willing to forgive others, it will also be open to receive God’s love and forgiveness. But it is locked up to the one, it will be locked up to the other.”
Don’t let your spiritual lungs be closed up. Forgive so that you might know forgiveness.
Matthew 18 reminds us that we are called to childlike humility, sacrificial love, and genuine forgiveness. When these virtues are being practiced in our lives, then I believe we will see reconciliation, peace, and fellowship that Jesus calls us to.
Reconciliation and forgiveness are neither easy nor cheap. They demand that we give something of ourselves—often including relinquishing our own rights—for the sake of peace and fellowship.
When the world talks about reconciliation today, it is often a God-less understanding of reconciliation that is more concerned with “getting even” above all else. But such is not possible. Nor is it the Jesus way. What is of the greatest importance is confronting the sin, repenting of it, and seeking peace and fellowship beyond it. It’s not a call to perpetual reconciliation—it’s a call to repentance and fellowship.
We know that in reality this is complicated and messy. Yet, when this type of peace is found, there is nothing more beautiful. And I believe that we can only have this type of peace when we look to Jesus Christ, who is the one who has reconciled man to God through the cross. We can only forgive when we know and accept the costly forgiveness that’s been granted to us by the divine love of our Triune God.
Peace and fellowship are made possible through Christ! And as we look to him continually and walk in his ways, then we can—as his disciples—bring his peace to a world in disarray.
Let us pray now, and then we will turn our attention to the Lord’s Supper, where we remember and receive the divine love of God.
