One of the most devastating failures of church leadership in my lifetime has been our refusal to judge God’s way. Our lack of understanding, obedience, and diligence has led to a compromised message and produced a hypocritical body of believers. We condemn the world – something we are commanded not to do (Matthew 7:1-2) – while neglecting our responsibility to lovingly help our sister and brother identify and remove the sin in their life.
We will have to answer for our failure at the judgment seat of Christ. I wish I could say with some certainty that we will not be shown the consequences our disobedience has had on God’s kingdom and His children.
These are hard words to write and read. I am just the pen, and just as convicted by the truth. We cannot go back to correct our mistakes. We must trust God’s grace and mercy for those we have betrayed, and commit ourselves to God’s way for judging the brethren.
Even now, I suspect someone reading this will find issue with this matter of judging. Please read our article on Jesus’ “Judge Not” saying, as well as the first part of this one. I believe you will discover that:
- Jesus’ “judge not” refers to condemnation: the pronouncement of guilt, sentence and punishment for the sin in our sister or brother. Such condemnation is reserved for God.
- Identifying and addressing the sin in a sister or brother is not condemnation. It is an act of love, that they might not face the judgment of God (1Corinthians 5:1-5; James 5:19-20). Conversely, to ignore or accept sin in a sister or brother is failure to love them.
- To hold our tongue when God has made us aware of sin makes us guilty of that sin and subject to God’s judgment (Ezekiel 3:16-21).
- God’s children are to be His instruments of sanctification for the church.
- There is a process for helping our sister and brother – and ourselves – find the grace of God to live a life without sin.
The Part 1 to this article introduced God’s process (aka, way) for restoration from sin. For your convenience, here is a summary of the first five steps:
- Ask God to search our hearts, to see if there is any wicked way in us (Psalm 139:23-24).
- Repentance: to think differently about ourselves and our sin (Luke 5:32).
- Confession: to agree with or concede (1John 1:9).
- Allow the Holy Spirit to remove anything from us that would inhibit His gentleness (Galatians 6:1).
- Focused our minds against the real enemy (Ephesians 6:12).
Now (and only now) are we prepared to meet with our sister or brother. If their sin is against God or someone else, our responsibility is to encourage, to find restoration, and to walk with them as they desire. We must never abandon them in their time of vulnerability to the enemies’ attacks.
For sins directed towards us personally, the following represents the continuance of God’s way for restoration with them. Read the rest of this entry »