Restoring Those Who Cause Grief

For my morning quiet time with God today, I considered 2 Corinthians, chapter 2. There, the apostle Paul refers to someone in the Corinthian churches who had brought grief to the Christians in that area by saying harmful things about Paul himself.

But after the churches had admonished and dealt with the Christian who had done this, Paul said this to the Corinthian Christians:

"...you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him." (2 Corinthians 2:7-8)

There's a difference between sisters and brothers in Christ exercising church discipline, holding each other accountable to their mutual community in Christ on the one hand, and judging others unworthy of the grace in Christ which we claim by faith despite our sinful natures, on the other hand. The former is appropriate and loving. The latter is sinful.

If we Christians use the faults and sinful actions of others as a pretext to withhold the forgiveness that Christ wants to give to those who are repentant and who believe in Him, we put ourselves in places higher than God Himself. We judge God to be too soft on sin. We judge ourselves to be holier than God. Not a good idea!

We are as Christians to speak the truth to each other in love (Ephesians 4:15), but always with the idea of bringing restoration between Christ and the person who has caused us (or Christ or the Church) grief. As Jesus famously puts it:

"I tell you that...there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." (Luke 15:7)

And, by the way, there ARE righteous people in this world, people made righteous by grace through faith in the only righteous One, God incarnate, Jesus.

But there are also NO human beings without the need of repentance and forgiveness. That includes those made righteous by God's grace through their trust in Jesus. Christians are simultaneously saints and sinners, in daily need of repentance and renewal in Christ's power, until the day of Jesus' return when He will make all things right.

Today, every time a sinner repents, that is, turns from their sin and turns to Christ for forgiveness, restoration, and life, there's a party in heaven.

Paul is saying that when that happens, the Church needs to join Jesus in forgiving and have a party too!

If you're a Christian:

(1) Ask God: Who in the Church might you need to lovingly confront--with the aim of reconciliation and restoration--today? (Jesus gives the guidelines for how Christians, who should always be mutually accountable to Christ's community, the Church, are to do this in Matthew 18:15-20.)*

(2) Ask God: Who do you need to release from the grudge you've been holding onto? (Jesus teaches us to pray, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

(3) Remember that when we (or others) honestly own our sins before God through Jesus Christ, we are forgiven and heaven throws a party.**

*Jesus always speaks of Christian faith as a group activity. The Bible knows of no way that a person can be a Christian apart from the Church. 

**Now there's nothing in any of this to suggest that after we've forgiven people who have hurt us, we should have the same relationship with them that we had before. Years ago, I had to tell a woman caught in the snares of alcoholism and self-destructive behaviors, that, for the foreseaable future, she couldn't lead one of the ministries of the church I was then serving. A spouse or child of a repentant abuser is not expected to re-enter into the same kind of relationship they had with the abuser before confrontation and restoration take place. A school should not place someone once guilty of pedophilia alone with kids. Here, I think that Jesus' words to the devil after the devil had tempted Jesus to jump from the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem because God promises in Psalm 91 to faithfully uphold His people should they fall, are appropriate; Jesus told the devil that believers are not to tempt (or test) God. In other words, God doesn't call us to take absurd measures to test our faith. 

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Encouraging others through forgiveness and love

Today for my quiet time with God, I read 2 Corinthians 2. God particularly spoke to me through Paul's words to the first-century church at Corinth in verse 7:

...you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

Evidently, someone in the Corinthian church had incurred condemnation for sin. (That would be no mean achievement in that notoriously sinful group!)

Paul counsels that after the church's appropriate condemnations and the man's authentic repentance had happened, it was time for the congregation offended by the sin to forgive.

Jesus, of course, says that unless we forgive others, we will block God's forgiveness for sin from our own lives.

We can be sure that Paul agrees with Jesus on that count, of course.

But Paul gives the Corinthians a different reason to forgive their sinful fellow disciple: Absent forgiveness and their reaffirmed love for the man (v.8), he might despair of being forgiven by God.

How is that? Well, Paul and the other New Testament writers insist that the Church is Christ's body. We who make up the Church are Christ's presence on the earth. And we are Christ's presence to one another.

It's right that we in the Church should be accountable to each other for the sins we've committed against each other and against Christ's body. That's part of being a loving body of Christ.

But so is assuring one another of Christ's forgiveness and our forgiveness. So is affirming our Christian love for each other.

The last thing we want anyone to feel is that God can't or won't forgive them.

Anyone who turns to Christ with authentic regret for sin and trust in what Christ has done for them on His cross can be forgiven and is forgiven. We distort this truth from God when act "holier than God."

We need to be prepared to actively convey, without condescension, the forgiveness God bears for all who repent and trust in Christ.

Prayer: Lord, in the next twenty-four hours, help me to make some gesture of love or forgiveness to someone in Your Church who needs it. You show me who it should be. In Jesus' name.
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]