The Verses that Changed my Life - Matthew 18

Well, all right, so I have been in the uncomfortable position of having to defend myself a little bit lately, as I'm sure you're you could understand. But I always feel super uncomfortable with it because it never comes across quite the way you want it to.

You know, nothing wrong with defending yourself. But it's just like it just this is very difficult to strike the right balance where you're not saying hey, I'm perfect. But you are saying I think I've done the right thing in this certain circumstance.

Matthew 18 and the Difference Between Private Sin and Public Critique

Anyway, so I want to continue today to talk about the verses that have sort of changed my perspective on things and, and today's comes from Matthew chapter 18. But I want to I want to actually put it in the context of something somebody reached out to me another brother who's in the social justice fight on the side of the good guys.

That's right. So this is somebody that's, you know, he's, he's well known, I guess, in reform, smallish circles. And he asked me he wanted to pick my brain on something because he knows I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and he's kind of facing a very similar kind of circumstance to what I faced.

And if you remember, you know, basically what happened with me is that, you know, very prominent Southern Baptist leader, an author, basically, you know, said that it's it's it's wrong to criticize brothers in Christ publicly.

And that's why I ended up resigning. This guy essentially took that position. I'm not sure why he takes that position. I've never actually had a chance to speak with this guy about it. But that's the position he took.

And that's the position my co elder chose to take as well. It's wrong. It's a sin to publicly criticize a brother in Christ, someone who professes to be a Christian. So that's, that's the position, I'm just gonna take it for face value.

And so, so here, here's what this, this guy who reached out to me said, he said, I wanted to pick your brain on something a classmate of mine is upset at my videos and wants to talk to me about how I didn't go to the brothers I had a problem with.

I don't know. I don't know if he knows that in some cases I actually did. But in other cases, I've been critiquing public figures who I haven't tried to reach out to, nor would I. When I was at blank, I'm going to redact the name of the seminary just to protect this guy.

When I was at such and such seminary, I thought about going to the president's office to talk to him. But I was advised the the advice I was given from a professor who was there was to keep my head down because essentially, these guys are basically dangerous.

Anyway, I find myself similar to the predicament you're that you're in the idea that it's always wrong to criticize another brother unless you go to him, since I'm sure you've had to think through this.

I wonder, I was wondering what verses or thoughts you might have as I address my classmate. Thanks. Okay, so let's get to the verse that I want to talk about. This is Matthew 18. This verse really changed my perspective on a lot of things.

Here's what Matthew 18 verse 15 has to say. These are the words of Jesus. It says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence 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, let him be to you as a Gentile and as a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Again I say to you, if two or three agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where there are two or three gathered in my name, there I am among them.

Why Matthew 18 Requires Confrontation, Not Gossip

Okay, so this is the verse that people would reference very often. Look, did you go to them privately? Did you go to them privately first before you criticize them publicly? And the first thing that you need to notice here is the very first sentence, if your brother sins against you, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

That's good, good teaching from Jesus. If your brother sins against you, don't make it public, don't put him on blast on Facebook, don't do all this stuff, excuse me, go to him privately to hopefully you can get it solved between you and him alone.

Now here's the very first thing that I need to say, if you're publicly criticizing the theology or the ideas or the speeches of public Christians, the question is, has that brother sinned against you by putting forth false ideas?

And I think the answer, at least in this context, is no, no, just because somebody teaches something dangerous about reparations does not mean that that person has sinned against me. So there is no reason to go to them privately, there's no reason, now you still could if you wanted to.

Like if I wanted to reach out to Matt Chandler privately, I could have done that, I could have done that. I have no expectation that Matt Chandler would have ever responded to me, but even if I knew he would, there's no, I don't have a need to do it, I don't have a need to do it.

His public comments are his public comments and so I am critiquing his public comments. Now if Matt Chandler had lied about me or had done something to me personally and I decided to go on Facebook and say, Matt Chandler did this, he's such an evil guy, how dangerous is this guy?

If I never had gone to him about that, about why, hey Matt, why'd you lie to me? Why'd you lie about me? Then I would be in violation. You see, Matthew 18 requires confrontation. This is what I mean by it changed my perspective on things.

When I read this, what is required by Christ, what Jesus is requiring here is confrontation. You directly handle things that directly involve you. You go to the person. You don't talk about them, you don't go to somebody else, you don't figure, you go to the person.

I mean, imagine that. If you have a problem with someone, go to them. That's required. It's not an option. You have a couple, if somebody sins against you, you have a couple things that you could do. You could either go to them directly, get it solved between you two, or you just have to let it go.

You just have to let it go. And when I say let it go, I mean completely. You can't hold it against them. You can't pretend let it go, but still secretly hold it against them. If you're gonna do that, you have to go to them.

The person who sent me a message, the first thing that you need to understand is, this is where I would go. I would say, look, the verse about going to them privately before talking about them publicly, it's not about theology, it's not about critiquing their actions in theology, it's about when someone sins against you.

If somebody sins against you, and you don't go to them, and you instead put them on blast on Facebook, or online, or gossip with them with other people, you're in sin. That's what this is talking about.

It's about someone who sins against you. Now, the other thing I would say is that, obviously, it is okay to critique the ideas and the teaching of other people publicly, because you know how I know? It's because Jesus did it.

Jesus did it. Paul did it. Paul did it. And Paul did it in ways that, you know, softer men would say is not gentle. Paul confronted Peter directly. Jesus called Peter Satan one time. Peter called the Pharisees, who should have known better, they were teaching falsehoods about God, and Jesus calls them out.

Jesus calls them wolves. Jesus calls them snakes. He calls them whitewashed tombs. These aren't nice things that Jesus was saying to them. He wasn't saying, well, you know, I'm going to go to the Pharisees privately first, and then I'm going to...

No, no, no, no, no. These are false teachers teaching false ideas, and Jesus calls them out. There's nothing sinful about that. There's nothing wrong about that. If... Let me make sure I make something crystal clear.

Crystal clear, guys. If it is wrong to publicly criticize false teaching or bad teaching, then Jesus cannot be the Savior, because Jesus did that. If it is wrong, and it's always wrong, to publicly criticize people who profess to be believers in God, the Most High, and it's wrong to criticize their teachings publicly, then Jesus cannot be the Savior, because Jesus did that.

Jesus did that. Now, you might say, okay, Adam, well, it's not always wrong to do that, but it's wrong when you do it. You might say that. Okay, fine. So you need to have a consistent standard, though, because I wonder sometimes how consistent these people are.

Like, it's always wrong for me to criticize professed believer, but, you know, you kind of get away with it if it's Benny Hinn, right? You can kind of get away with it if it's Joel Osteen. It's always wrong to mock fellow believers, professed believers, but we can mock Joel Osteen.

We can mock the megachurch pastors who have their baptism services. We can like Babylon Bee articles that all it is is mockery all day long, and I'm not saying it's wrong, by the way, guys. You got to understand, I'm on the side of Babylon Bee.

Mockery is an effective tool. Ridicule is an effective tool. Satire is an effective tool. But here's the thing. We need some consistency here, because I know the very people who have criticized me and probably this brother who reached out to me about how it's wrong to criticize fellow believers, the very people that do that, I know for a fact they share Babylon Bee articles.

I know for a fact they mercilessly ridicule Benny Hinn and Joel Osteen and all these guys. Guess what? They profess to be believers, too. They may not be believers. I'm not saying that they are, but they profess to be believers, and so how dare you criticize them publicly if this is your standard?

You see, there's no consistency here at all. There's no consistency here at all. It's one thing to say, look, I didn't like your tone. I didn't like your tone, and I think that's wrong. People have reached out to me before.

They don't like my tone. They didn't like a joke. Fine. I'm okay with that. I don't think there's anything wrong with you saying that you think I crossed the line in a certain place. Let's talk about it.

Glad to talk about that. But what I can't understand is people who say, well, it's always wrong to criticize a professed believer, because I know you do it, too. You do it, too. You just have a certain group of untouchables and a certain group of people that you can ridicule and mock and make fun of, and here's the reality.

I don't respect your ideas of who's untouchable. I don't. I don't, because none of that is biblical. None of that is biblical. Nobody is above correction. Nobody is above getting their teaching corrected.

Look, if you have a problem with what I said, go right ahead and publicly criticize it. I welcome it. I'd like to talk to you about it. I mean, personally, I would prefer if we had a conversation, like a debate, but I mean, go ahead.

Make a video about me. Make a video about how I'm wrong about God's law. Make a video about how I'm wrong about social justice. I would welcome it. I think that it would be helpful for the body for more of this to happen.

In fact, I wish more people publicly criticized the big names like Matt Chandler and Russell Moore and all these guys. I wish more people would publicly do it, and I'm not just picking on the Southern Baptist Confession.

I wish more people would criticize Tim Keller and other Presbyterians. We need more of it. In fact, what we need is interaction. We need is interaction in some way, but if one side is unwilling to do it, then all we have are these videos, these monologues where we can critique people's speeches and stuff like that, and so not only is it not a sin to publicly criticize the bad teaching of professed Christian leaders, not only is it not a sin, but I think we need more of it.

Why Jesus Commands Direct Confrontation Among Believers

Anyway, Matthew 18 changed my life because I'm not the kind of guy who likes, you might not believe this, but I'm not the kind of guy who likes direct confrontation. I'd much rather bury it and hold it against you secretly for years and years and years.

That's what I'd much rather do. I'd much rather not have to go through the trouble of confronting you and telling you what you did wrong and hearing the back and forth and trying. I'd much rather avoid all of that and just bury it and bring it up when I need it later.

That's what I'd rather do, but Jesus doesn't give you that option. Jesus commands confrontation among believers. In fact, he says, hopefully you can gain brothers this way. Hopefully you go to him, tell him your fault, even if it's uncomfortable, even if you don't want to, and you gain your brother, and then you bring people with you to confront him.

It's not after that, then you can gossip with people. If you bring brothers with you to confront them with you. I got one guy who said that somebody has brought two or three witnesses against me. He said this publicly.

He said, you, your own pastor said you were in sin and we brought two or three witnesses against you. I'm like, that's news to me. It's not that you have a secret meeting where two or three of you talk about how sinful I am or somebody else is.

No, you have that meeting and I'm there too. You established it with me. You know what I mean? You talk to me about it. It's not like a secret meeting where, oh, the two or three witnesses all agree that you were in sin, but I've never been there.

This verse is so great. Guys, understand Matthew 18 and practice Matthew 18. Without Matthew 18, without doing what Christ says here, there's going to be so much conflict, so much nonsense in your church, so much stuff that just is going to destroy the bones of a church, rot the bones of a church.

Because until you learn how to confront things directly, people sin against you, confront them about it in a polite, gentle way, but confront them directly about it. Until you learn how to do that, we're going to have some serious problems in the church.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful. God bless.