SPIIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/31/2022 10:25 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Person Who Receives Discipline”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
18:15a
Message of the verse: “And if your brother sins,”
The first things we want to talk about is the word
brother, and that speaks of any believer, either male or female. So the one who sins, and this means
continually sins and will not confess the fact that he or she is sinning.
MacArthur writes “The general, unqualified reference to your brother is absolutely inclusive allowing for no exceptions. Every child of God, whether young or old, man or woman, educated or uneducated, wealthy or poor, leader or follower, is to be confronted when he or she sins.
“Sins is from hamartano,
which has the literal meaning of ‘missing the mark’ and is the basic New
Testament verb for sin, missing the mark of God’s standards. Just as the category of the sinner is
inclusive, so is the category of sin.
Any sin, by any believer, requires discipline from the church. All sin is an offense against God’s holiness
and corrupts the holiness of His people.
It mars a believer’s fellowship with God and his fellowship with other
believers.”
I
want to look at this section of verse 15 in the KJV as they add to it: “15a Moreover if
thy brother shall trespass against
thee.”The highlighted portion is what is added and so we need to explain
why it is there in the KJV and in other versions of the Bible it is not
there. We can see that these words “against
thee” speak of an offense against a fellow believer. Now when we look at verse 21 which is a
question that Peter asks regarding forgiveness of those who sin against us
gives support to the inclusion of “against thee,” and does the Lord’s teaching
about rebuking and forgiving seen in Luke 17:3-4. “3 “Be on your guard! If your brother sins,
rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4 "And if he sins against you seven times a
day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.’”
I
think it best to quote from MacArthur’s commentary at this point so we can best
understand about this seemingly question that is brought up here. “In either case, however, the basic
responsibility is the same, because a person can be sinned against both
directly and indirectly. If he is
maligned, abused, deceived, cheated, or the like, the sin against him is direct
and obvious. In such a case, the
offending brother or sister is not only to be rebuked by the one who is offended
but also forgiven if he repents. The one
who is sinned against should approach the offender in a spirit of humility and meekness,
and his motive for rebuke should be the restoration of the brother or sister to
holiness. It should never come from a
spirit of vindictiveness. He should
manifest a spirit of love and forgiveness even while he is rebuking, and he
should be deeply concerned about the spiritual damage being suffered by the
brother who sinned and have a genuine desire for him to be restored to holiness
and its consequent blessing.”
I
remember a guest Pastor who is probably now with the Lord, who came to the
church we were attending in Westlake, Ohio.
He told the story of a person who carried around a “yellowed” piece of
paper, a receipt that he was cheated out of having to pay for something he should not have had to. He never would forgive that person who sinned
against him, and as far as I remember never confronted him about it. The truth is that if we are sinned against or
sin against a fellow Christian we should go immediately and talk to him about
the sin. That way it can be taken care
of right away so that there is again fellowship with the other believer. Note I have said that if you sin or if you
have sinned against that person, either way, and by doing this right away it
will not fester and cause greater problems later on. Ephesians 4:32 tells us “Be kind to one
another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has
forgiven you.”
MacArthur
now talks about what he says is the broader sense: “But in a broader sense, believers are sinned
against by any sin committed by any other believer. Whenever a believer commits a sin, all other
believers are indirectly sinned against.
‘A little leaven’ does affect all (see 1 Cor. 5:6). That Jesus here included indirect offenses
seems clear from the fact that He makes no mention of forgiveness . The focus is solely on repentance and
restoration.
“Some
years ago a man in our church told me he had invited an attorney friend of his
to attend the church. But when he told
the friend the churches name the friend said, ‘I’d never go there. That’s where the most crooked attorney in Los
Angeles attends.’ That man’s sin
indirectly affected everyone in our congregation and tarnished the whole cause
for Christ.” I remember from the sermon
on this section that MacArthur made an announcement about this from the pulpit
and asked the man to repent or to leave the service.
Every
sin by a believer stains the entire fellowship of believers. It makes no difference whether the sin is
slander, stealing, gossip, sexual immorality, dishonesty, doctrinal error, or
any other sin because every sin not dealt with by the offending child of God
must be dealt with by the church. The
problem is, and we mentioned this before is that not many churches are doing
this, and it causes great trouble in the churches by not doing this.
12/31/2022 11:06 AM
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