Approaching The One Who Sinned

Pastor Lawyer,

Are you saying that a wife should just “grin and bear it”? That she should just take what he’s giving, put her head down and submit to his sinful treatment? The Bible says that when someone sins against us we are to go to them and tell them about it (Mt. 18:15). Then it says that if they won’t change, you’re supposed to take it to one or two others and if they still won’t change, take it to the whole church (Mt. 18:16-17). Why doesn’t your counsel sound like that?

Confused in Phoenix

Dear Confused,

I’ve written on this before, but I’ll do it again with the hope that saying it slightly differently will help.

Those passages you referred to do say what you said they said—sort of. Let me explain. If someone sins against you, this is one of the ways you are supposed to restore fellowship. But as one of my seminary professors used to say, “A text out of context, is a pretext for a prooftext.”

What I’m going to be talking about here is about mainly attitude, not logistics. The text does say what it says. But it says it in a particular context and that context has a lot to do with tone, attitude, heart, faith, belief, etc.

Here we go. The chapter (Matthew 18) opens with the disciples coming to Jesus and asking who is the greatest in the Kingdom of God (v. 1). In the parallel passages in Mark and Luke, what precedes this question is a dispute about who is the greatest in the kingdom (Mk 9:33-37; Lk 9:46-48; 22:24-27). I don’t know why Matthew leaves that part out unless perhaps the fact that they were being selfish is shown by Jesus’ response and so Matthew didn’t think he needed to mention it here. Either way, Jesus’ response is to call a little child and set him in their midst. He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me” (Mt 18:3–5).

Notice here the main point Jesus is making is that unless you get converted and become simple like a little child, you won’t even get into the Kingdom of Heaven.  And, if you want to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven, you need to humble yourself like a little child. That means to argue about who is the greatest is antithetical to genuine kingdom membership. If you are a member, you won’t talk that way. If you talk that way, you aren’t a member.

But what do we need to do? What can be done? Nothing! That’s Jesus’ point. You can’t do anything to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact, you need to go the other direction and stop thinking highly of yourself and wanting to be someone great. You need to talk like someone who doesn’t deserve anything, like children do. Stuff happens, receive it, accept it, embrace it, boast in it, be grateful for it, rejoice in it. Stop trying to figure out how it all fits into your plan for your own meaning and life. Talk of fulfillment, needs met, autonomy, control, and meaning are all rebellious ways to talk. This is because the one using that kind of language are self-seeking and selfish. Humble people care about others and particularly God; how they can please him and give him glory.

The next section (6-11) goes the next step and warns everyone that little children, though they are helpless, are being watched over by God. It is worse for you to cause one of them to sin than for you to be thrown into the sea with a heavy weight around your neck. Trouble comes, but woe to those through whom they come (v. 7). Again, this is about attitude. Who causes others to sin? Those who want something they aren’t getting. They might want peace and quiet. They might want more money. They might want more attention, to be loved, to be left alone, to be fed, given a nice place to sleep. Whatever, they want something their brother isn’t giving them and so they make a fuss in order to get it. In the process, they cause others to sin. In trying to get what they want, because others are in their way, they need to walk on them or at least move them out of the way and in doing so, they cause them to sin, by tempting them. God takes that extremely seriously.

There is a sense in which we can’t cause others to sin. They always choose to sin. People are responsible for their own choices and sin. At the same time, people choose to sin in a context. James says we sin when our desires are enticed, and when we give in to the enticement we sin (Jas 1:14, 15). The way we “cause” these little ones to sin is actually that we have tempted them to sin. In Romans 14, Paul says, “Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way” (14:13). In this verse, the stumbling block we might put in someone’s way is a temptation to them to stumble and fall. Later, in chapter 17, Paul said, “Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them” (16:17). There were people who caused division and offenses. I take that to mean that these folks were causing a ruckus in the church and were tempting everyone to divide and to sin. Also, check out 1 Tim 1:4; Heb 12:15; 1 Jn 2:10; Jude 19; Rev 13:12, 15, 16; and 21:17.

Jesus takes all this so seriously, he says in the next section that if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off (18:8) and if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out (18:9). If you can’t stop sinning, if you can’t humble yourself enough to serve God with your whole heart, you need to do whatever it will take even to the point of cutting off parts of your body.

Of course, the problem isn’t body parts, it is humility and Jesus went on to say that you need to make sure you don’t hate these little ones for whom Christ is about to die (1 Cor 8:11). This is because, as I said above, these little ones are being watched over by the God of heaven. So, humble yourself and lay down your life to lift these little ones up to the Lord.

Jesus went on to tell a little story about how much our Father in heaven loves these little ones. He refers to them as sheep. Suppose a man has 100 sheep and one wanders off. Because he loves all his sheep, he’ll leave the 99 and go after the lost sheep (18:12-14). Then, when he finds the lost sheep, he has a little party. What was lost has been found. He rejoices over the one more than the 99 that didn’t wander off. In fact, God hates it when any of his little ones wander off. There isn’t much that God hates, but he hates losing one of his little sheep. Hates it with a passion. Hates it enough to tell us that if our hands or eyes are causing us to wander off, we should cut them off and out.

So, where we are attitudinally is that if we want to be great in the kingdom of God we’ve got to humble ourselves and become like children; innocent and open to what God has for us. In addition, God thinks highly of all of his sheep, especially those that are caused to sin and wander off. And he takes a very dim view of anyone who causes one of these little ones to sin. Put together, we are to get out of our own heads, realize that we aren’t God. Not only are we not God, but we need to be very careful that we don’t do anything that will cause one of his special little ones to wander off. That would be bad. Really bad.

Now, suppose someone sins against us. First, let’s go back over how sin occurs. We are tempted, and we succumb to the temptation, go for it, and sin. Why did your brother sin against you? What was the process? Did you tempt him? Were you the reason, the cause of his sin? Did you cause your brother to stumble?

Of course, he chose to sin. That’s true, but we aren’t talking about him, we’re talking about you. Are you the greatest in the kingdom? According to the world? Greatest means most justified, most important, biggest, best, greatest, most wonderful. But according to God, you are supposed to lay down your life for your friends (Jn 15:13). They matter more than you do, to you.

Therefore, when you go to your brother, who has sinned against you, you go with your hat in your hand, knowing that more than likely you had a hand in his sinning against you. So, you go to him and tell him his fault, just between the two of you (18:15), but you do it knowing that he is a lost sheep. You are representing God, the great shepherd, in seeking to find and restore a lost sheep to the 99, of which you are one by the grace of God.

This really changes the way you approach your brother. Before, you might have been one of the disciples who came to Jesus at the beginning of the chapter. Now you go to your brother with much more of the attitude Paul spoke of when he penned Galatians 6:1, “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.”

You’ll go, now, as a representative of God, “you who are spiritual.” You’ll go gently, knowing that (1) you are probably the cause of his sin and (2) apart from the grace of God, it could be him coming to you. The goal is to restore him to fellowship, “restore him gently.” And you go carefully knowing that if you were the reason for his sin, he might still be upset with you and if you aren’t careful, he might come unglued at you again, thus tempting you to sin against him, “considering yourself lest you also be tempted.”

Now, suppose you go with all the right attitude and your brother still won’t change? The next verse says you should take a couple of friends with you. Now, these guys aren’t supposed to gang up on your brother, they are supposed to go and adjudicate a restoration between the two of you. It could be that you’re wrong. He didn’t sin against you. In fact, the broken fellowship might be because you’ve actually sinned against him. Suppose, however, that after listening to both sides they agree that your brother sinned against you. They, in the same spirit we’ve been talking about share their news with him and he still refuses to listen. Jesus said, in that case, you take it to the church and failing their work of restoring fellowship, they are to treat him as a heathen and a tax collector, in short, like a non-Christian (18:17).

Remember, the goal is to bring a lost sheep back. The means is humility and kindness, gentleness and sacrificial graciousness.

What happens if, at some point in this process, the fellow admits to his sin and suppose it is very serious sin? The whole last part of the chapter (18:21-35) talks about how childlike humility will look when someone who has sinned against us is supposed to be treated. If we have gotten Jesus’ point in the first part of the chapter about becoming like a child, we will have no problems with how we are supposed to forgive our brother when he asks for forgiveness. It fits with the way we pray when we say, “And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us” (Lk 11:4).

Forgiveness is supposed to be a joyous, grateful, and wonderful experience. It means that someone you were out of fellowship with is back in fellowship. It means the sheep that wandered off has come home. God has found that lost sheep and is having a big party. If you don’t forgive him, you aren’t going to be part of the party. Not forgiving means you don’t understand what has been done for you. It also means that you probably aren’t a member of the kingdom of heaven. You’ve not become like the little child the chapter started with. Instead, you are like the prodigal son’s brother (Lk 15:11-32).

So, does that mean we don’t get to “give him what he deserves”? Yes. And that isn’t because he doesn’t deserve it, he probably does. It just means that you are called to acknowledge that whatever he’s done to you is nothing compared to what you have done to God. You give the just desserts to God and let him judge justly (1 Pet 2:23). God sent his only son to take the punishment for you because it was so severe and heinous. He loves you. When you believe that, you will imitate him (Eph. 5:1) and that means you will delight to forgive your brother who sinned against you. You love him.

I hope this clears it up some.

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