Reconciliation – Part 3 – Must Risk Confrontation

Matthew 5:23-24 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.”

Matthew 18:15 “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.”

One of the greatest difficulties in the area of leadership is the inability to confront when necessary.  Often the leader gets pushed into a corner where he must confront and then it is done in a wrong manner and does irreparable damage.

Many people fear confrontation. There are probably a number of reasons for this. It might be that we are afraid of making judgmental statements, or we have a feeling of inadequacy ourselves (who are we to judge?), or we ourselves have things to cover up.  In other words, we do not have a clear conscience and so we feel hypocritical.  Whatever the reasons might be, confrontation is something that we try to get out of.

Yet, when I read a verse like this in Matthew the one thing that comes out to me is that God wants a constant movement towards one another.  “If I see my brother… go!” “If I know that my brother has something against me… go!” We need to have honest communication with one another.

Often we go, but not to the one that we should go to, but we go to a third party and there we do our sharing. It becomes more of a time of gossip (God forbid that we call it “gossip!”) than a time of honest sharing and praying.

Some people ask the question: When should I go to another person and confront for any grievance or something that I think is wrong? I have found that before I confront another person I should first bring the matter before the Lord.  I have learned that when I have brought certain things before the Lord that soon they were erased from my mind.  I took this to mean that I was not to confront the other person with it.  However, if after I have brought it to the Lord and it still remains in my mind, often this is something that the Lord wants me to bring out to the person involved.

Sometimes when a person is confronted with something, they deny it. What do we do then? We take it as far as we can and then we leave it with the Lord.  When I was the director of the Doulos (one of Operation Mobilization’s ships) I had a situation where a brother was confronted with a particular thing, but he denied it.  I left it at that. A few months later I was visiting his country and through some rather strange happenings I found out that this brother had lied.  Later I confronted him with this.  At that time there was real confession and repentance.

When I look back over this incident I see a spiritual truth coming out about how to deal with confrontation.  In 1 John 1:7 we read, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”  When I originally confronted this brother I was walking in the light that I had.  When he denied it I had no more light at that time.  However later on, through circumstances arranged by the Holy Spirit, I received more light on this brother’s situation.  I now needed to walk in the new light that I had received and to confront that brother with it.  The result was brokenness, confession, repentance, fellowship and through restoration this brother is now being used by the Lord.  I often thought what would have happened with this brother if these steps were not taken.

In Matthew 5:23-24 the idea is that confrontation is to take place quite quickly, but first we need to pray and make sure that we have the log out of our own eye.  Then sometimes we allow too much time to go by so that when we think about confronting, it seems that we are bringing something out from the past and so we would like to by-pass the incident.

When confronting we need to make sure that we go with humility.  This is the idea that comes out in Matthew 18 where it says that we should “go.”  The Greek word brings out the idea “to lead oneself under, to withdraw or retire as sinking out of sight.”  In other words, we are to go with humility.  It always helps to realize that we have the same capacity for sin as the brother we are confronting.

My prayer for myself and for those who read this is – that we might be the kind of confronters that God wants.

Reconciliation – Part 2

Matthew 7:1-5 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

When it comes to reconciliation one of the first steps we are to take is to start with ourselves. The above passage illustrates the truth that it is easy to see what is wrong with others, but far more difficult to see what is wrong with us.  We are to make sure that the ‘log’ is out of our own eye before we try to take the ‘splinter’ out of the eye of our brother/sister.

This, I believe, is a very delicate matter.  I think this is the reason why the Lord Jesus uses the illustration of the eye since the eye is one of the most sensitive parts of the human body.  So when the Lord talks about relationships and reconciliation, I believe these must be treated as delicate matters.

Ephesians 4:1-3 “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”

We have unity in Christ.  It will take work and effort to maintain this unity.  Here in Ephesians Paul is giving us the type of behavior necessary to maintain unity and to bring about reconciliation.  This is what we must consider to make sure that we have the ‘log’ out of our own eye.

1. Humility:  The Greek word means humiliation of mind, i.e. modesty.

1 Peter 5:5 probably best brings out the idea of what Paul is trying to say here. “Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’”  The idea is to bring ourselves under.

2. Gentleness: The Greek word brings out the idea of mildness, meekness. Matthew 5:5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

Meekness does not mean weakness. Perhaps the best way to describe this is “strength under control.”  It is the ability (or strength) to destroy, but held in check.  A good example of this is Moses.  He was the meekest man on the earth. When he came down from the Mountain with the Ten Commandments in his arms and saw the debauchery taking place among God’s people he could have stepped aside and allowed God to destroy them, but he didn’t. Strength under control.

3. Patience:  Perhaps one of the best definitions of the Greek word for

patience is, “to be long-tempered.”  One of the problems in relationships is anger. This is something that we will look at later.  When it comes to establishing and maintaining relationships, anger is something that will have to be dealt with.

4. Forbearance: Again the best definition for this word is, “to put up with.” In the New King James Version of the Bible it says: “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4) We see that ‘forbearance’ is one of the attributes of God.

In closing I would like to say that the prayer for myself and for those that read this is that we might experience daily revival.  We need to see afresh how important relationships are and yet often how difficult they are to maintain.  Still maintain them we must.  This is our message of reconciliation and we cannot allow anything to interfere with that message.

Reconciliation – Part 1

Matthew 5:23-25 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.”

“Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison.”

Matthew 18:15-17 “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony 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, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

We live in a world where man is not only separated from God, but also separated from his fellowman.  We see the reality of this when we look back over the 20th century.  There never has been such a century of bloodshed.

Even now when we look forward to the 21st century it does not look any better.  We see disputes among the nations, marriages that are falling apart, children estranged from their parents and churches breaking apart because of disunity.

We who are in Christ have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”

The Gospel is the power of God to bring reconciliation between a Holy God and a sinful man.  What a powerful message this is in the Muslim world where two billion people are trying to find peace with God.

Satan knows that this is a powerful message that we have to offer to the world and the world is waiting to hear.  This is why broken relationships and disharmony among God’s people is so evil.  It takes away the message that we have.

We cannot separate the message from the messenger.  Broken relationships among us distort the message.  How can we talk about reconciliation when there are broken relationships among us?

The definition of reconciliation: to harmonize, to restore to union and friendship after estrangement.

Matthew 18:19-20 “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.”

It is interesting that the word for ‘agree’ is the word ‘sumphoneo:’ to be harmonious. 

It brings out the idea of a symphony with different musical instruments all in tune with one another bringing out tremendous sound of harmony and beauty.

Take a family, church or community of people who come from different backgrounds and cultures living and working together in harmony.  What a testimony! What a powerful message this sends to a world that is divided.

Back in the early 70’s the OM Logos ship was in the Sudan.  The Minister of Education came to open the book exhibition.  He was a Muslim.  When he looked around and saw all of the different nationalities on board the ship speaking different languages and working without salary, he said that we were like a small United Nations, except, he said, we had unity.  The second comment was a question.  How could we live together like we did?  He knew it was not the money, but he could not understand how it was possible.  This was how we brought Jesus Christ in; how Christ has broken down the barriers and brought us together.

It is hard for a Muslim or any person no matter what religion he might have (or no religion at all) to argue with this type of testimony.  Jesus knew this and He prayed in John 17 that His people might be one as He and the Father are one, so that the world might believe.  The opposite of this is true as well. If we are not one – then the world will not believe.

What To Do About Conflicts

Now that we know that conflicts are inevitable the question comes up: What do we do about them?  How do we handle them in such a way that they might be growth oriented and not disintegrate into a problem?

If I look back over my ministry, there seem to be four ways that conflicts have been handled:

1.         Unwillingness to face it.  Often we have been like an ostrich with our head in the sand unwilling to face the reality of a developing conflict. “Conflict?  What conflict?” seems to be the response of some.  However, this is one way of confronting a conflict and sadly this is the way some handle it.

2.         Dealing with side issues instead of the real issue. In English we have a saying: “Beating around the bush.”  Basically, what it means is that we skirt around the real issue and never get to the heart of the matter.  Sadly this is the way conflicts often have been dealt with.  Instead of getting to the heart of the matter we deal with things that might seem important, but in reality all it is doing is putting a band-aid on something that might need an operation.

3.         Trying to ignore it.  This is a little different than the first one where we are unwilling to face a conflict.  This is where we know there is a conflict, but we believe that if we ignore it somehow it will go away; somehow it will take care of itself. All we have to do is wait and eventually it will work itself out. This is wishful thinking.  It never happens because we have an implacable enemy who is making sure that it never will go away.

4.         Working it out Scripturally.  This is the only way that we can deal with a conflict.  Working it out scripturally means that we will move towards true reconciliation.  We will be looking at this later on. Reconciliation does not necessarily mean that the conflict is resolved as far as the issues are concerned.

When we work on reconciliation we are dealing with personal relationships.  We may not be able to resolve the issues completely because there will always be a difference of opinions that stem from our background, experience, culture, language, etc.

We need to keep in mind that in any relationship (marriage, etc.) the goal is not for us to think alike, but to think together. The goal in a relationship is unity not uniformity.

We need the difference of opinions. There are no two people alike. However, when there are differences that grow into conflicts, we need reconciliation.