My Brother's Keeper

Are we really responsible for one another? Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 18 calls us out of bitterness, hidden sin, and broken relationships and into confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Join us!

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Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 18. Go to Matthew, chapter 18, and go ahead and look down at verse 15. And when you found Matthew 18:15, go ahead and stand with me for the gospel reading this morning.

Now, if you've ever studied the Gospel of Matthew, you may remember that there's actually five discourses of Jesus, and this is the fourth one that we're coming to here. And so, like, for instance, one of them is the Sermon on the Mount. Remember how much time we spend in Matthew 13? Yeah, that's one of them. And now Matthew 18 is one of them.

Now, it's interesting. Remember, Matthew is seeing Jesus as the new Moses. So then it would make sense that he uses this number five. Why Pentateuch? Right.

Remember Penta, you know, five books of the law. Right. So this is the new law. Okay. And so today's is.

I'll just warn you, like, today it's going to hit everybody between the eyes, including me. Already has. Already has hit me. I always tell people, you know, when I preach something, somebody said, man, that really hit me. It hit me a lot earlier than you.

Okay, so. And I plan for it to hit me again as I'm preaching. So notice these words here as we see them. In Matthew, chapter 8:18, verses 15 through 20, Jesus said, if another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.

But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two, two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.

For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

Jesus, thank you for your holy word. And we pray now for that the Holy Spirit, who inspired these words written by St Matthew, but inspired by you. Lord, we pray today that you would move among us and not only teach us something to understand, but help us do it. We pray in your name. Amen.

And you can be seated.

Well, we're starting a new series. Through the fall, all the way to Christ the King, Sunday which is the Sunday before Advent. And the title of this series is actually Essentials. And so as we move through the lectionary, which are the scripture readings we follow, that's the four we've read today, it became clear to Pastor Emily and I that these were some essential teachings to being a Christian. And today's, if we could put it in maybe one word, which is hard to do really, but it's reconciliation.

It's reconciliation. And I want to begin just with a story, you know, let's rewind back into the 19, early 1990s, okay? And Justin, my brother and I, home alone. I don't know where mom and dad, they were probably at a prayer meeting or something, who knows, but we were home alone. And I distinctly remember that the Dallas Cowboys were playing, maybe it was a Monday night.

And you know, I wanted Justin to do something, okay, but he didn't want to do it. And so I tried to reason with him on why he should do what I wanted to do, but that didn't work. So when reason failed, I got nasty, unfortunately. And I told him, I said, I wish I said something like this, I wish I had another brother. And you know, I went on and stormed off or whatever.

Well, I came back in and he was actually crying. And that broke me in that moment and it actually still actually breaks me in a very different way. And now I don't really tell this story often, but I was being an imbecile, to say the least, self centered and said something really hurtful to my literal brother, like, I wish I had another brother because you wouldn't do what I wanted you to do. And he was crying. So I actually ended up, best I can remember, maybe he can correct the story.

He is here today is, I told you him I was sorry, you know, hey, I didn't know it would, would hurt you that bad. I was just trying again to manipulate, to get my way with nasty words. And you know, I learned something that night that I've really carried with me is your words really have a lot of power, like power to break somebody in the inside. And many of us have experienced just that same sort of, you know, anger at somebody not being able to get their way. And so they start getting nasty with their words and it destroys us inside, especially if we love and cherish that person, if they're an influence in our life.

You know, that little story in my life is as old as the hills. Did you know that? It actually rewinds all the way not to the 1990s, but rather all the way back to the beginning. Do you remember perhaps in the garden where we began to blame one another for what we did? Okay, that's the beginning of it.

But maybe the clearest story to the parallel of mine is Cain and Abel, isn't it?

Where God accepted Abel's offering and did not accept Cain's, and in an attempt to manipulate and get angry and do all of this, Cain harbors this animosity toward his brother, this anger. And you remember what God says. It's very interesting. What God tells him is this. Cain, what are you doing, man?

Sin is at your door. Literally. This is the way it puts it. Sin is at your door, crouching like an animal, and if you go out that door, it's going to pounce on you. And of course he does.

He goes to the field, which represents a type of wandering wilderness, and goes to his brother and kills him.

Here's what the Lord actually says. Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, you'll be accepted. And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door.

Its desire is for you, but you must master it. Well, he doesn't. I didn't that night, and I sinned against my brother. You know, it's interesting that then the Lord asked of Cain, he says, where is Abel, your brother? He said, I do not know.

Am I my brother's keeper? Am I my brother's keeper? Why am I supposed to be? Why do I care about what he's doing now? He was already dead, destroyed.

And his blood, the scripture says, was crying out for justice.

This question, am I my brother's keeper? Ought to hit us, too. It is the question that's before us today. Are we our brother's keeper, or is every man for their self? The reality is we are our brother's keeper.

That's what's being indicated here in Genesis 4, is that in fact, when we've sinned against our brother, it's our responsibility to reconcile. Now, that may not always happen on the other side, but it is our commandment, really. I mean, our text from Ezekiel, if we had time to go into it, is commanding us that if you don't go and say something, I apologize. I'm sorry. I should have never said that.

Then the blood is on you. If you do apologize, the blood's not on you. So again, forgiveness. Right, but understood with us coming and confessing what it is we've done. And I'm going to tell you, that is hard to do, isn't It.

To confess. I mean, some of the things that we've done in this room, if we. I mean, if you knew me and I knew you, it would be shocking, wouldn't it? Some of the thoughts we've had, some of the things we've tried to do, maybe, hopefully we failed to do, but also some of the things we've actually done, it would be shocking to some of us. And it's even hard to say if you've ever raised kids, you know, and had them.

You know exactly what I mean. It's. What did you do? They want to hide, don't they? They want to clam up.

And some. You know, I've actually physically hid from my father before. You know, I acted up in church one time, and I knew he saw it. In fact, actually, what happened in this, it was more than once. So forgive me for.

Forgive me for confusing my times, but this particular time, our teacher literally left the room. Justin probably remembers this as well. Our teacher literally just. He had enough of me. He left the room and, like, went into the other service.

Like, he just left the kids alone. Now, I hope our teachers are better. You know, if I see a teacher walk in, we'll send another, okay? But in this instant, Steve, he just simply left. And I thought, oh, man, that's not going to fare well for me.

And so I tried to play outside as long as I could, and I tried to sneak around, and I got about halfway up the stairs, and I heard my name, Marshall, you know, sounded like the voice of God, you know, and I was in trouble. I had messed up, and I had. And dad said, what did you do? He's being very rabbinic. Right?

You remember how rabbis always ask a question and made me say it. He made me confess it. What did you do? Oh, it was Steve's fault. No, no, no, no.

It was Matt's fault. My buddy, he was making. No, no, no, no. Try again, try again. It was me.

I did it. I participated. And to say it out of your mouth, I lied, I lusted, I held bitterness. I wanted them dead. These things are.

I'm telling you, when it comes out and you see it, you're thinking, that was me. Yes. Everybody in prison today is saying, that was me. Yes. We're just a couple steps removed, brothers and sisters, to be in a nasty version of ourself that's plainly demonic if we don't confess.

But thanks be to God, everyone who confesses their sin, right, and believes on him is saved. But not without confession. It's got to come out. Of the mouth to God and sometimes to another brother or sister who is trusted. Because James will say it this way.

You know, some sins are only dealt with when you confess your sin, one to another, to be healed. And I found that to be the case in my life. Hidden sins that are then exposed to the light seem to die. Whereas if we just try to handle it ourself, manage sin ourself, it's never going to work. We're not called to manage sin.

You know, I'm just not so bad of this or that any more than you would want to manage cancer. No, you want it gone.

When we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

All. In the Greek, there all means all.

You know, Cain chose the field of blood, the wilderness, rather than the feast. He could have feasted if he had just offered what was right. He didn't. He chose to get rid of what he saw as the problem, and he murdered. But you know, the older brother in the prodigal son story does the same thing, doesn't he?

He chooses to stay in the field instead of go to the feast. Today we feast at the Lord's table. Unless you choose to hold on to your unforgiveness and bitterness and sin and unrighteousness. If you choose to do that, then you're stuck in the field. You won't go in for the feast.

But I want to call us all to the feast. And the only way to approach the Lord's table is to repent and believe. That's it. That's what it costs. Repenting, saying it.

I am a sinner in need of your salvation, God. Now, again, I've said this before. When I look out here and see all you, you don't look like sinners to me, you know, you look like nice folks, you know, I'm sure, but. But I know myself and I know people close to me. And we're all sinners because the scripture says we are.

But also in our own experience, we know it. We can so easily turn to nasty, can't we? And given if we just let ourselves go on that path, we become again, an absolute monster. The point in Ezekiel is that we all have a charge to warn one another when that happens.

There's only two endings to things. And it's either to continue toward the demonic or the godly. There is no middle ground. And so if you ever find a little root of bitterness or anything in your life like that, give it to The Lord. And you say, well, I've already done that a thousand times.

Then do it. A thousand and one. I'm telling you from experience like I'm being dead serious. I've had certain sins in my life that were just belligerent and I've tried to press them down. I tried all these different things and I continued to ask God and finally received true repentance, which is a change of mind.

True repentance is not feeling sorry for what you did, that's guilt. And guilt's a good thing. I mean, it means you're alive, okay? It means you're being convicted perhaps by the Holy Spirit, which then leads to repentance, doesn't it? The conviction, oh, I've done wrong leads then to godly repentance.

But repentance is something that God must do in us as we turn to him. So it's not an either or, it's a both. And his grace is at work empowering us to have a renewed mind so that if gossip is our go to thing, but we know destroying people behind their backs is not God's plan for us. Guess what? Keep asking him to take that from you.

You got a nasty mouth. Ask him to clean it up, you say, even if it has to be a 2000 things over 10 years. Well, when you get to that decade mark and he delivers you, guess what, you've now strengthened your perseverance. He's been sanctifying you the whole time. You know, we think of salvation as like, oh yeah, it's just this one time I turned and now bada bing, bada boom.

I guess we just wait around until he comes back. No, he is preparing us for heaven, for the new heaven, new earth, resurrection, glorified body. Now, like he's literally fitting us for heaven because quite frankly, that whole thing of I wish I had another brother and ultimately trying to murder a brother by our words, that doesn't fit in heaven. That kind of nasty attitude that we harbor, that doesn't fit in heaven. Wanting to use people for our gain, pull from them.

Whether it's lust or greed or whatever it is, that stuff does not be, that won't be in heaven, brothers and sisters. So if it's in us now, then it's time to confess. That is everybody following like, I'm not, you know, I'm not just sitting here trying to condemn. This is, this is on me. And we confess and we repent.

Lord, change my mind. But have you ever noticed some sins we don't really want to go away we actually want to harbor them. I like to get mad when somebody pulls out in front of me. I like it. You know?

Like, it sounds weird, but I think you might know what I'm talking about. Like, when it really comes down to, like, baseline, it's like. I mean, because if you ever got into an argument before, somebody's like, well, let's just pray. You're like, no, I want five more minutes of being mad.

I mean, my mother did that one time I was mad about something, and she's like, well, sweetie, let's just pray. And I was like, I don't want to pray right now. You know? What are you, dumb? Yeah, pretty much.

We're insane when we do stuff like that. But we do it. It's coming out of us. And it's good to say. And honestly, that was the type of confession, wasn't it?

I don't want to pray right now. I want to be mad. Lord help me, right? I mean, let me just say this. I am a professional apologizer.

I don't know how you would say this. I'm a professional asking for forgiveness kind of guy. I've done a lot in my life, unfortunately, and I didn't mean to some of the times. Some of the times I did mean to, and I had to apologize for all of that, right?

Sometimes we're just a bull in a china shop, you know? Other times we're calculated and selfish and self interested, and it's quite nasty. Both need God's forgiveness. Now, we'll never have perfect performance, okay? But we can have a perfect heart toward God and toward others.

That's the kind of perfection he calls us to.

The story is given about a guy who's out working in the yard and his little girl thinks, you know, I want to bring Daddy some water, right? Well, she's been playing in the dirt, okay? So she goes inside without washing her hands, grabs a cup. You know how they grab them? They don't have a big enough hand for this, so they grab it at the rim, right?

Fills it up with hot water, brings it out there. It's got dirt floating it here. Daddy, I brought you something to drink. Okay, sweetie. You know, right?

No, I mean, you drink it at that point, right? I mean, you just. Thank you, baby. So sweet of you. What's the point?

Not perfect performance, but an absolute, crystal clear, perfect heart. That's what he desires of us. It's the kind of faith Abraham remember, Blameless before the Lord. He was blameless. Perfect in intention toward loving God and loving others.

So much so that if someone were to confront you, God forbid, in our society, confront you, say, brother sister, what you're doing is wrong. We would say, God help me not, who are you to tell? Look at what you do, Rat. Da da da da da da da.

Church discipline is all but lost. I think we know that, especially in the evangelical world and in our own third millennium here of Christianity. But it should be recovered because Jesus says so. Now, it doesn't mean that everybody's going to run and say, sir, let me have a word with you. You know, sit down, shut the door, you know, that kind of stuff.

Listen, notice what Jesus says. If another member of the church, this is not outsiders, this is not your co worker run off to work to somebody that's not a Christian and say, by the way, I need to tell you where you're sinning. That's not going to be helpful. They don't even have the categories for that all the time. This is to a member of the church who sins against you.

Not even somebody that sins against me, but sins against you. So again, we're not running around like a busybody saying, oh, I saw something over here, I'm going to come out. That's not what he's talking about here. But if somebody offends you, sins against you, that's in the church, then you go to them, right? Because what's the other option?

Just talk about them behind your back, which he's saying, we're not doing that here. We're not going to run each other down like that. We're all in the same boat. And as GK Chesterton said, we're all seasick, seasick with sin, all in need of his redemption. So that if I ever were to confront somebody, I understand the beam in my own eye.

Remember Jesus words, You worried about the little speck in somebody else. When you've got a dang telephone pole hanging out, yours can't even walk into the room, Go point it out, just the two of you, alone. If he listens, guess what? No murder of Abel. You understand what I'm saying?

It's that serious. That's my whole point here. It's that in fact, Jesus says it's that serious. When you've hated someone in your mind, your heart, we're talking immaterial, no action yet, just internally. If you hate them, you've murdered them.

Jesus says, you see, the law measured what was external and action oriented. You know something somebody did. Jesus, being the son of God, moves beyond just the Old Testament law to now the internal, where the law, we are told, is supposed to be written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit. In other words, Jesus hits the gas on the law. Somebody said, oh, yeah, we don't have to follow those old nasty, stodgy laws anymore.

No, it's now internal. It's not just what you do, it's what you think he cares about. If you think of a woman and lust after her in your heart, you've already committed adultery. You've already murdered. Notice what he's doing.

That means our interior life matters. It means, brothers and sisters, that you can't just sit around and harbor these things and play with them in your daydreaming. That's a sin. That's a sin that needs repenting of. So just mulling over.

I can't stand that Listen. That's what he's talking about here, right now. For members of the Church. Again, you go to them. If they listen, boom, you've regained a brother.

But if not, then take two or three others and go. Because two or three is how you establish witnesses in the Old Testament, and so likewise here. And if they still don't listen, so this is the second opportunity to listen, then you bring before the Church, okay? And then if they don't listen, when the church is ruling against them on this, like, yes, brother, this is a sin that needs to be repented of, then you treat them like a Gentile or a tax collector. Let me stop there and explain something here.

That sounds really harsh, doesn't it? You know, it's like, man, that's horrible. Like you're excommunicated, which is where we get the idea of excommunication. Again, not necessarily in the Protestant world, but in the Catholic world for sure. Excommunication, right?

Like not a good thing, means you no longer can come and sing with us and participate at the Lord's table if you are excommunicated in that way. But notice Jesus language here and there is a place for excommunication, because Paul also says it, right? Get rid of that guy. Get him out of your fellowship. Do not fellowship with him.

Do not eat with him. And he doesn't just mean go to Burger King with him. He means eat at the Lord's table. That's actually what he's meaning there. But he says, treat him like a Gentile, treat him like a tax collector.

Well, remember how Jesus treated the Gentiles and tax collectors? He didn't write them off completely. No, he treated them like they should also be a part of the family. So in other words, treat them like an outsider that needs to get back in. So excommunication still is for the purpose of reconciliation.

Even when in relationships we have to say, that is enough. We're not going to have that in this house.

That's for the purpose of reconciliation, not for the purpose of just getting rid of someone or murdering them. It's different. And Jesus says to do it, to practice it.

And he goes on to say, whatever is bound on earth, bound in heaven. And we kind of dealt with that last week. And then he says, by the way, when this is happening, where there's two or three, I'm going to be in the midst. It's like I'm watching. In other words, and that's the whole point, is if that other person is confronting a sin, then that is the voice of Jesus toward us.

So that if we reject them and reject that correction, we're rejecting the Lord himself.

Now, let me tell you, I understand that correction sometimes is wrong. Sometimes people get it wrong, right? Like that's a good place to say, like, amen. I think somebody did that to me one time and abused their, you know, whatever, you know, this needs to be from someone wise that loves you. That's for you.

Paul would say it this way. Like a mother, I have mothered you. Like a father, I have fathered you. Paul uses both those images. Familial reconciliation is what this is about.

Now, I don't claim to do it well, okay, but there's been a couple clear times in my life where somebody came to me and said, the Lord is telling me to do xyz. And one of them was this Christian guy that I had as a student. And he came to me and he said, hey, I met this. He was like 19. I met this 30 something year old woman who's married and she's being abused emotionally by her husband and I need to go down there and marry her.

And I said, no, you don't. No you don't. He said, the Lord is telling me to do so. I said, that's not the Lord, buddy. This is the kind of correction now, what if I just said, well, if you feel that way, do it.

Follow your heart, buddy, go for it. Who knows where this cat would be today? But thankfully he realized later that she was actually abusing him emotionally on the phone, never wanted to meet him, and so on and so forth. I mean, any of us that, you know, unfortunately have been a little older and seen this happen and play out a little bit, but for a 19 year old. He thought it was the Lord's voice.

It wasn't. He was corrected. Hey, he received it. I was surprised because I actually wasn't his pastor, just his teacher. That's the way this works, brothers and sisters.

We're talking about life and death kind of stuff here. We're talking about whole families, we're talking about kids, these precious kids. And by the way, in 18, it's all about the children. Up until this very moment. And no kids are mentioned here.

But Everywhere else in 18, it's if you make one of those little ones stumble, go ahead and a rope around you and put a millstone and throw you in the Tennessee River. Not even one donkey could have moved a millstone typically took two. So just imagine that. And by the way, Jesus is the one who said that, not me. He's dead serious about kids.

Now, again, think about our culture, right? Think about all the stories that break, okay? And then understand for some of us that even have those inclinations, perhaps there's healing. All this garbage about you are this way and you'll always be this way is a lie from the pit of hell. That is garbage.

We're all broken, turned away, curved in on ourself. But we can all be healed in Jesus Christ. That's the whole reason he came, is to save us, to reconcile us notice to himself. So we're first reconciled to God. First and foremost got to happen.

But then we must be reconciled to one another. Now we're not again responsible for what happens on the other side of that. But we must do our part in this.

We must humble ourselves like a little kid. Jesus, go and ask for forgiveness, go and confess whatever we need to do to try to make things right. Now, sometimes you can't. And again, we're responsible only for our part in this. But before you come to the table, here's what the scripture says.

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go and first be reconciled to your brother and sister and then come and offer your gift.

Another way that John Wesley put this was if you're in your prayer time and then someone calls you needing help, I'm broken down on the side of the road. Don't think that it's more pious to keep praying and not help them. It's more pious, holy to go and actually help them. So works of mercy supersede works of piety or holiness, like reading your Bible, going to church, etcetera. Because they're more urgent.

Your brother's in need. And guess what? We are our brother's keeper. News flash.

And we ought to keep. Even when they. They're the ones who. You know, that's the thing about forgiveness is when you. When you give forgiveness to somebody, right?

They never deserve it. I mean, that's the whole point, right? Like it's an injustice. But he teaches us the way to do it. The worst injustice ever.

Killing God, the flesh. Attempting to. He says, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.

Can we. If it's good enough for him, shouldn't it be good enough for us? We must be reconciled to God. We must be reconciled to one another. And here's what will then happen.

We'll be reconciled to our very self after that. Because he'll be putting us back. Correct? Just like a chiropractor popping us back into place. Just like an orthopedic surgeon putting our leg back.

Just like it's supposed to be. He's correcting us. He's the great physician, if we'll let him. But we must first confess our sins to God and be reconciled to him. Believe on him, and then go to our brother.

Say, that was me. I know I wanted it to be you, but it was me, and here's my part in it. Because almost always, let's be honest, we had a part in it.

All right. So if we're going to approach the table, I'm just wondering if there's any sinners out here that need forgiveness.

If there's any sinners out here that need to confess and be healed of all unrighteousness and ask the Lord for even the desire to not desire those things.

And he can do it, and he will do it. If you'll come. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.