Yesterday we closed with a strong petition to go after those who would fall into deceptions and ultimately stray from the flock of God. I hope that those words had as much impact on you as they did on me. I am constantly reminded that so much of my responsibility is to my sisters and brothers in Christ as joint heirs and fellow sojourners. When we begin to grasp this form of denying self we begin to catch a glimpse of what Jesus is teaching about forgiveness!
Let’s recap: Jesus begins his teaching to the disciples in Matthew 18 with instructions on humility, then He warns us about deceptions and/or stumbling blocks which flows into the parable of the lost sheep. This parable instructs us on what to do when one is deceived and goes astray.
There is a pattern developing here that we can use for practical application in our own lives. The first step in forgiveness is humility. Humility is not a means of being weak. Sometimes we think the word humble means “less than.” In reality humility is lowly MINDEDNESS. This happens when we begin to think of ourselves as lowly, less important than others, putting others and their needs first. Where else have we seen this train of thought? Do you remember how we closed yesterday and opened today? Denying self? Do you see how the word of God is so tightly knit that it is constantly reaffirming itself over and over again! I just love those light bulb moments!!
Humility is also a state of mind where we are completely dependent on Jesus to care for us (as in the case of the little child) so that we are freed to put others first. Scripture tells us to “humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God.” Notice that this is an imperative statement. In other words, this isn’t optional or something that is done supernaturally. This is something we are commanded to do; to humble ourselves. When we come to a point where we are so confident that Jesus has and will meet all of our needs then we are freed up to focus on others. This ladies, is Humility 101!
The second step in forgiveness is checking our own hearts. Jesus gives a warning about deceptions but He also gives a strong warning to those who would be deceivers and thereby cause others to stumble. He wraps up by instructing us how to handle those things in our lives that cause us to stumble. The point? We have to be careful in dealing with sin. Sin is not something that we flippantly overlook in our own lives or in the lives of others. When we are preparing ourselves to approach someone about sin in their lives scripture says, “take heed lest you fall.” It is so easy when we are in a situation where we have been wronged not to “wrong back”. We must take inventory of our own lives and motives before we can begin to confront someone else.
The third step in forgiveness is restoration or reconciliation. Ladies, the goal of forgiveness is always restoration. It is the reason that Jesus forgives us – so that He might restore fellowship between sinners and Himself. Is there something there that would give you pleasure in confronting someone who has offended you or offended others? Is there pleasure in being the one who corrects and “sticks it to them?” Then you are not the one who should go! There should be no delight in showing another his offense. We should always check our motives when confronting others about sin.
You know, this is something that we are not very good at as women. Often times we go totally against scripture when it comes to confronting sin and forgiving others, especially if it is personal. Of course, we have a tendency to take a lot of things personally even if they don’t necessarily involve us…another word for this would be MEDDLING! I have seen it happen more than once in my own life. Someone hurts me and I run straight to the phone – to call someone else. We find great comfort in numbers. We want the affirmation of others to commiserate with us and egg us on in our anger.
Or, we are the eager confidant who is there with a listening ear only too willing to add fuel to the fire. Sometimes we even take things on as our own hurt and attempt to “settle a score” that had nothing to do with us to begin with. Is anyone tracking with me here or is it just me? I have seen whole groups of people gang up on one person because of a serious amount of gossip and hearts that were bent on retaliation not restoration! Mmmmm, I sense a spankin’ comin’ on! There are just some things that we will get a spanking over and I can promise you that God doesn’t waste His divine spankings!! Word to the wise: “The heart of the righteous PONDERS how to answer but the mouth of the wicked POURS out evil things” (Proverbs 15:28).
As we wrap up our groundwork in chapter 18, Jesus begins to describe the actual process of confronting one who has offended us, or as the text says, has “sinned”. Verses 15-20 provide a process to be followed for individual forgiveness and for church discipline – we aren’t going into detail here because this isn’t the focal point of the lesson but I do want to point a few things out:
In verse 15 the sister goes to the one who has hurt her, “privately.” This is a good one girls! As we just discussed, we are of a talkative, pack mentality. As soon as we are hurt the very first thing we want to do is tell someone about it so they can agree with us. We assume there is strength and justification in numbers. But scripture is clear that we are not to tell anyone. In other words, this isn’t meant to be a public spectacle. When we are convicted by the Holy Spirit it occurs in the
privacy of our own hearts. Shaming someone is never at the heart of restoration.
The rest of this passage deals with handling a member of the body of Christ who is engaged in sin in order to restore them to fellowship with the Lord and fellowship with the body. However, we see clearly here that sometimes restoration does not always take place. The focus here is on our motive and method. We are responsible for how we approach sin, the offender and the forgiveness. However, we cannot control how the other party will react. This is why it is so important for us to make sure we are doing all we can to be humble, check our own hearts and go in a spirit of restoration!
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