Sermon 10-7-07

Epistle – Romans 12:14-21 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay”, says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him’; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Gospel – Matthew 18:15-17 (The words of Jesus) “If your brother sins against you, go and shown him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony 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, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

Sermon-

Today we’re continuing our series titled “How to Be Mad at Someone Effectively”. How many of you were mad at someone this past week? Did you use some of last Sunday’s sermon over the week? I forgot to use the principles, but then on reconsideration, I started using them and it worked out fairly well. After last Sunday’s sermon people said “Pastor, we need more, continue with Matthew 18. Tell us more about how we deal with people we are mad at effectively.” In the past eight years we have welcomed almost as many members as we’ve lost. We’ve lost some people because they have moved away but others had a problem with somebody here and left to go to another church. The ones who left to go to another church didn’t realize they were called here by God and that they were indispensable to this congregation. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. And then you know what’s going to happen at that other church? They will have a problem with somebody there and leave for another church.

At a soccer game at the school I was talking to Pastor Dave Berman, Pastor of the Christian Life Fellowship about this. He said “The Christians in this community just basically rearrange membership.” They go to a church for a while until somebody offends them and then they go to another church and another church and another church. So we need to learn to deal with people, people in the church, people at work, people in our neighborhoods, and with the holidays coming up we’re going to have to learn to deal with our relatives! We need these teachings to deal with people effectively and to deal with our anger effectively.

As I talked about last week, to be mad at someone effectively, we need to use the situation to give glory to God. 1 Chronicles 16:29 says “Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name.” How are we going to do that? We can say “Wow, God, nice sunset!” That’s one way. We can say, “Hey God, thank you for paying for my sins!” That’s one way. But another way we can give God glory is when we show Christ’s forgiveness to the world around us. Exodus 14:4 tells us how God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. We spent a lot of time talking about why God hardens hearts in Bible Class in September. That seems like a really mean thing for God to do, but when we look at why does He it, we see that God hardens the hearts of people so that He can show His power over the person and in doing so, He is glorified. Read Exodus 14, God was glorified when He hardened Pharaoh’s heart.

In John Chapter 11 Lazarus got sick and died. His sisters sent word to Jesus asking Him to come and help but Jesus didn’t arrive until after Lazarus was dead. Verse 4 tells us that Jesus did that so that God could raise Lazarus from the dead and be glorified. That’s what it’s all about. First Corinthians 10:31 says “So whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Which means if you’re going to get mad at somebody, make sure you glorify God in your anger. You can glorify God by using the situation to reveal Christ. Tell others about Christ’s payment for your sins and your enemy’s sins. Tell others that you can forgive your enemies because God had His Son killed to pay for the problem. God forgives the offense, therefore you and I can.

View relationships as God views them. God didn’t start a relationship with us for six months or a year or a couple of years; our relationship with God lasts forever. Relationships with God are long-term, which means our relationships with others should be long-term and long-term relationships are work. Think about it, your relationship with God is hard work for Him. He had to leave behind the fact that He is God; He had to take a human nature into his person. Imagine being a Spirit and scooting all around the universe; you’re perfect, you don’t have to eat and you don’t have to sleep. Now all of a sudden you’re hemmed in by a human body and you have to put up with all those sinful people. He was betrayed, beaten, and nailed to a cross. That’s work! And then He died, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven and every day He has to forgive us as He looks at our behavior. He could say, “I’m always the one who has to forgive!” Don’t we always say that in our relationships? Well, God is always the One who has to forgive. That’s work. That’s hard work. So view relationships as God views relationships. They’re work! They’re hard work!

Just what is the work involved? Matthew 18:15-17 says “If your brother sins against you go show him his fault just between the two of you.” Ken and Barbie did something this past week that really irked me. I’m not so sure if I should talk to them or just overlook it and forgive it. Being the pious Christian that I am, I thought I should probably ask for Godly advice from another Christian. So I went to my friend for some Godly advice and said, “Do you know what Ken and Barbie did to me?”…and I told him the whole story. My friend said “Stop, don’t tell me, you’re supposed to talk to Ken and Barbie about it.” I don’t need advice from other Christians about whether I should talk to Ken and Barbie because I already have advice from God in the Bible. He says, “Just between the two of you, go and talk to them.” So you go and talk to them and sometimes they listen and sometimes they don’t.

In either event, we need to forgive. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 talks about forgiveness. Verse 5 says “Love keeps no record of wrong”. And we have the Four Promises of Forgiveness. They are

1) I will not dwell on it; 2) I will not talk about it; 3) I will not use it against the person; and 4) I will treat the person like it never happened. That’s a recap of what we talked about last week.

Now, suppose you talked to the person involved and they just won’t listen. Remember that at any point you can overlook the offense by forgiving it. Proverbs 19:11 is a key verse in regard to this, “It is to a person’s glory to overlook an offense.” So often we think, “If I don’t address this, then I’m just a wimp!” Not according to the Bible. The Bible says it is to your glory to overlook an offense, to forgive. And remember, God does that for us all the time.

Overlooking the offense, however, differs from flight and denial. You know what Ken and Barbie did that made me mad over the week? They were here in church and took their trash and threw it on the altar. That irked me. So I have a decision to make, I could decide I don’t want to worship at a church with trash on the altar and go to another church. Should I do that? No – God called each of us here and each of us are indispensable to this congregation. So flight is not the solution. I could deny that a problem exists. But that isn’t going to work because inside I’m still harboring anger. This needs to be dealt with properly if I’m going to be successful in overlooking the situation. What I do is get out my Forgiveness Bin, take the wrong that was done and mentally throw it in, just like the recycle bin on my computer.

The next step in overlooking the offense is to do the Four Promises of Forgiveness: 1) I won’t dwell on this stuff; 2) I won’t talk about it. Even though it’s in my Forgiveness Bin I could still pull it out and look at it and think or talk about it all the time, but I put it in the Forgiveness Bin and I don’t need to keep looking at it. It’s there, but I’ve dealt with it, I’m not going to dwell on it and I’m not going to talk about it. 3) I won’t use it against Ken and Barbie. I’m not going to say “I’ve got this stuff in the Forgiveness Bin. Maybe some night I can drive over to their house when they’re not looking and I can throw it all over their lawn! Won’t that be fun?” I’m not going to do that. 4) I’m going to treat Ken and Barbie like it never happened. That’s how you overlook an offense using the Four Promises of Forgiveness.

Sometimes, however, we just can’t overlook it, it needs to be addressed. So you go to Ken and Barbie and address the situation but they won’t listen. We’ve all had that happen, and when it happens, you proceed on with Matthew 18: “If they will not listen, take one or two others along so that every matter may be established by the testimony to two or three witnesses.” Take some friends along, somebody they know, somebody they can relate to and talk to. See what happens. If they say, “OK I understand”, you have it made, you forgive them and do the Four Promises of Forgiveness and all is hunky-dory.

But if that fails, do Matthew 18:17a “If they refuse to listen to them, tell it to the church.” So then, especially if it’s a church matter you might want to go to the elders of the church and talk to them or a trusted person at the church, or maybe you have a common friend at the church. Take people at the church with you. If Ken and Barbie say “Alright, I see your point, you’re right” there’s no problem, you’re done; do the Four Promises of Forgiveness and the matter ends. If they still won’t listen, then do Matthew 18:17b “if they refuse to listen even to the church treat them as you would a pagan (an outcast, someone not in the family of God) or a tax collector (someone you would separate from)” and separate from the individual. All this assumes that you are dealing with Christians. If you’re not dealing with Christians probably the best thing, if you can’t let it go, is to take a common friend with you to talk to them. If you tell it to the church, they’re not going to care because they don’t care about the church. Many times, when you’re dealing with non-Christians, you just have to deal with it by overlooking it and doing the Four Promises of Forgiveness.

After separating from them, focus on your own well-being. You have to make sure you forgive otherwise it will poison your life. Lack of forgiveness is like drinking poison expecting it to harm your enemy. That’s why we have the Four Promises of Forgiveness. If you’re holding anger or a grudge against someone, it’s like drinking poison; it’s not going to harm them; it’s going to harm you. The first thing a medical doctor/counselor I knew when I was in New York would ask, if somebody came in with a cold is, “Who haven’t you forgiven in your life?” Stress and anger can make us sick; it weakens our immune systems. Focus on your own well-being, and do the Four Promises of Forgiveness.

God tell us in Romans 12:21 “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” The Bible gives us a great illustration of overcoming evil with good because it describes evil as the works of darkness and good things like God’s Word, as light. This leads to my favorite illustration. In the back room there is darkness, lights are off, the blinds are closed, and it’s dark in there. What happens if I release the darkness from that room into the church where it’s light? (Pastor opened the door to the back room) It’s not any darker here in the church, is it? The darkness cannot overcome the light; the evil cannot overcome the good. And, in fact, it’s a whole lot lighter in the back room now because the light in the church has overcome the darkness in there. Remember, light overcomes darkness, darkness can not overcome light. Overcome evil with goodness. And how do we overcome evil with goodness? The Bible tells us in Romans 12:14 to “Bless those who curse you.” You can add some light to the situation by glorifying God, explaining why you forgive, why you do good, and why you bless and don’t curse. Say, “That’s what God has done for me; therefore I’m doing it in this situation.”

Separating from someone who refuses to listen leaves room for God’s wrath (Romans 12:19). That sounds pretty mean, doesn’t it? But what is the purpose of God’s wrath? Why does God harden hearts? To really get them, right? To pay them back, right? To make them sorry, right? No, it’s there to turn them around, to lead them to confess sin. So what you need to do is separate from them, leaving room for God’s wrath. They need God dealing with them, not you dealing with them. As long as I’m in Ken and Barbie’s face, I’m not leaving room for God to deal with them, they need to see me separating out. That doesn’t imply I would be mean to them when I see them, but I separate out to leave room for God to come between me and them, for God to deal with them. This is a very important point.

And remember, God may be hardening their hearts so that His glory is revealed (Exodus 14:4, 17 and 18). This is what we have been discussing in Bible Class. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that His glory would be revealed. And this is the key point to remember: People always say, “I can’t understand why they have such a hard heart. Why does God let that go on? Certainly that can’t be pleasing to God” God may be hardening someone’s heart so that His Glory will be revealed, so that He can show His power over them just as it was with Pharaoh. And God’s glory is going to be revealed through you and me when we do the Four Promises of Forgiveness, when we talk about God’s forgiveness of sins, and when we talk about what Christ has done for us. That’s how God’s glory is revealed and God is always at work to reveal His Glory. He may be hardening the hearts of some people in your life so that you have to do the Four Promises of Forgiveness, so that people see you acting like God acts and God is glorified. That’s how God works.

What we do and how we handle conflict either reveals Christ or conceals Christ, either reveals God’s glory or conceals God’s glory. When Christ is revealed and God is glorified we are being mad – effectively!

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