Matthew 18:15-20
15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
18 “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.
19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
Christians Take Forgiveness Personally
About 6 years ago, a documentary was released on Netflix called The Last Dance. It followed the Chicago Bulls during the 1997-98 NBA season, with a focus on Michael Jordan’s role in bringing a sixth championship to the city of Chicago in eight years. There aren’t many stories in any sport that detail such sustained success. It’s hard enough to get to the finals at all, let alone 2 years in a row, let alone win 6 of 8.
But as amazing as the success was, it was the character of Michael Jordan that captured viewers’ attention. He told a story about sitting down at a fancy restaurant the night before a game, and the coach of the team he was about to play was sitting two or three tables away. That coach finished his meal before Jordan did and walked out of the restaurant without going out of his way to greet him, and infamously, in the documentary, Jordan explained, “And I took that personally.” Michael Jordan viewed that coach’s actions as an intentional snub, and he used it as motivation to win, which, to his credit, he did.
You and I might sit on our couches and watch a 60-year-old Jordan hold a 30-year-old grudge and think him petty and small – and I think rightfully so – but it was exactly that pettiness that inspired greatness in a competitor of Jordan’s calibre. Spite motivated him to championship-level success. And many athletes in many sports have attempted to channel that same energy in order to experience the same success.
I’m not breaking any news when I tell you that you are not Michael Jordan. And it shouldn’t come as a surprise when I say that you’re not vying for a national championship. So, why are you taking it personally?
Jesus began our Gospel for today by proposing a hypothetical scenario: If your brother or sister sins…[1] That’s probably the least iffy “if” you’ll find in Scripture. This is the world we live in. It’s the air we breathe. Everyone sins all the time, and often against us. It can be malicious, e.g. your rival spreading lies about you, or it can be completely unintentional and yet just as painful, e.g. when the person you thought cared about you, forgot you in your moment of need, which makes you justifiably question their level of love for you at all.
Your brother and sister will sin, and often at your expense. But you are not Michael Jordan and you’re not trying to win your 6th national championship. Taking it personally will do nobody any good. In fact, it will do everybody considerable spiritual harm, and you will lose the one thing God wants you to win.
If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over.[2]
This is the first of a simple 4-step method Jesus lays out for us to win our sinful brother or sister over. Step 1: Go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. Proactive and private. You don’t publish it on the first page of the newspaper. You don’t wait for them to make the first move. You go and talk to them privately.
If that doesn’t work – if they’re not sorry for how they’ve sinned – Jesus gives a second step: If they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’[3] If proactive and private doesn’t work, don’t give up, bring backup. Bring someone with another perspective to overcome personality clashes, provide clarity of communication, and to express the seriousness of the situation.
If that doesn’t work – if they’re still not sorry – Jesus gives a third step: If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church.[4] Bring out the big guns. Get the pastor and faith community involved. Now it’s not a matter of he-said-she-said, and it’s not something they can dismiss as unserious. This is a big deal.
And if that still doesn’t work, if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.[5] In other words, expel them from your fellowship. Treat them as if they are currently – but not irrevocably – outside the kingdom of God, because they are. That’s what impenitent sin will do, i.e. it will disqualify you from heaven. And that’s why God is so clear about what we’re trying to win – not the argument, not the court of public opinion, but our fellow believer’s soul and life.
For such a complex issue like a fellow believer sinning, the process is relatively simple – just 4 steps. It’s easy! That’s why you’re so good at it. You don’t hold grudges. You don’t get frustrated when people fail their responsibilities. You don’t take it personally when someone looks you in the eye and lies to you or betrays you or undermines you. You live a perfectly conflict-free, peaceful life because you follow Jesus’ simple, 4-step process for how to handle other people’s sin.
Or, maybe, like the rest of us, you live in the real world. Forget 6 championships. Forget the 4th step. How many times have you stumbled over the first one? Proactive and private, remember? That’s not our human nature. To be proactive, I’d have to be willing to let go, i.e. I’d have to not take it personally when someone else sins against me. To be proactive, you can’t play the victim, i.e. you can’t wait for them to make the first step and come to you. You have to go.
And you have to keep it just between the two of you, which means the first step you take can’t be to your spouse or your best friend to tell them about how this other person did you wrong. It means you swallow the words you know are true but will nevertheless harm that person’s reputation – even if they deserve it – because, despite the fact that they’ve sinned against you, you’re still supposed to love them like a brother or sister.
That first step is a doozy. The others aren’t any easier. Persisting. Bringing backup. Involving the church, only after the first two steps have been taken, but still doing it and not avoiding it because it’ll be hard.
And finally, there’s the whole pagan and tax collector of it all. That’s probably the hardest line to walk – making it clear that the sinner is outside the kingdom, while at the same time making it clear that you still love them and want them to be inside God’s family.
It may be relatively straightforward on the page. It rarely plays out that way in life. Instead of winning our brother or sister over, we try to win the argument and end up losing a member of the family of Christ. But as I read this text, that’s the beauty of Jesus’ message: If your brother or sister sins…[6] We are all sinners, but we’re all family, because Jesus loved sinners so much that he took it personally.
Jesus loved even those who were once outside his kingdom, i.e. pagans and tax collectors. Who wrote the Gospel we’re reading today? It was Matthew. Do you know what Matthew’s job was? He was a tax collector. In chapter 9, Matthew tells us about that day – that Jesus proactively approached Matthew at his tax collector’s booth and said, “Follow me,” and then Jesus followed Matthew to his home, where he sat down and ate a meal with many other tax collectors and sinners.
The Pharisees didn’t understand. “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”[7] To which Jesus responded, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick… I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”[8]
Jesus came to call sinners. He came to call you to repentance for all the sins you’ve committed – whether you pridefully refuse to forgive those who’ve sinned against you or you fail to even try. Jesus came for you. He didn’t play the victim or take your sin personally. He didn’t walk away or give up on you. He didn’t wait for you to make up for what you’ve done wrong. He proactively left heaven to come to earth to forgive you.
He went to the cross to die for you, and he made the world his witness. Even his enemies were there to attest to the truth. Jesus was a man of his word. When he said he loved you, he meant it to the point of death. When he promised to redeem you, he did it at the expense of his life. He called on his Father to forgive your sin, and it is as true today as it will be in heaven.
Because now you are his brother. By his death and resurrection, by your belief in the proclamation of this gospel, he has adopted you into his family. His Father is your Father. And we are all spiritual brothers and sisters, bought by his blood and bound to spend an eternity together in heaven, because he took our forgiveness personally.
Which is why he wants you to take forgiveness personally too. There’s more at stake than a national championship. The souls of our brothers and sisters are on the line. And God has entrusted to you this precious privilege of announcing the forgiveness of their sins – even and especially when those sins are against you.
It boggles the mind. It’s the last thing we’d expect – that of all people, God would want to involve us; and that of all the things that could possibly make a difference, it’s our words that are as effective in heaven as they are on earth. But it’s exactly as it should be, because as sinners ourselves, there’s no high horse for us to mount. We know the value of forgiveness, because we need it and have received it in Jesus. And it really should come as no surprise that our words would be as effective in heaven as they are on earth, because they’re not our words – they’re Jesus’ words that we relay to our brothers and sisters, i.e. our spiritual family in Christ.
You are not Michael Jordan, and you’re not vying for a championship. So, don’t be petty and small. Don’t take sin personally. Take forgiveness personally, because that’s exactly what Jesus did for you. He died for you 2,000 years ago and then he sent some sinner to tell you about it, so that you could know that it’s as true in heaven as it is here and now. Now go and win – not championships, but souls – knowing that Christ, your Saviour, goes with you wherever you and your spiritual siblings go. Amen.
[1] Matthew 18:15
[2] Ibid
[3] Matthew 18:16
[4] Matthew 18:17
[5] Ibid
[6] Matthew 18:15
[7] Matthew 9:11
[8] Matthew 9:12,13