Biblical Church Discipline, Part Six

The CURE for every conflict

2 Timothy 2:24-26

 

How many of you love conflict? Not a single person can say that they love conflict? One of our elders recently made the plain statement: “I hate conflict.” I couldn’t agree more! If you love conflict you should get your head examined—and your heart as well. We are not called to love conflict, but we are called to love the truth, and a love for the truth will often bring its own share of conflict. For example, I read a letter to the editor in this week’s Broadcaster citing the Quakers opposition to the upcoming Marriage Amendment. More importantly, the Jesus that that was represented in his article is not the real Jesus. Therefore, I feel compelled by truth to enter into conflict by responding to this letter with one of my own. I love the true Jesus and I am willing to bear the consequences of a conflict to present that truth. The Scriptures back me up on this. Paul said to Timothy, “Those who oppose you, you must gently instruct.” I am not saying that we have to respond to everyone who misquotes Jesus or does not agree with us, but we are to correct truth when it confronts us directly.

 

Last week we looked at the first two parts of the CURE to every conflict.

Cultivate a pure heart—every conflict begins by looking into our own hearts and first removing the sinful “logs” in our own eyes.

Understand your role—We have a clearly defined, God-ordained role: to present the truth in love; to gently instruct those who oppose you. But we must never forget that our role requires both parts of the equation. We need truth AND love. We need correction AND gentleness. Truth without love is harsh and love without truth is cowardice. We need a balance between these two. What John Piper describes like this: One “whose might in the truth is matched by his meekness. Whose heights of intellect are matched by his depths of humility.”

 

At the end of last week’s message I asked you to consider which of these two are lacking in your life. Are you more likely to show truth without love or love without truth? This is a problem, however, because we are often so far imbalanced that we cannot even discern that we are imbalanced. As this figure shows, what we seek is a balance of truth and love and truth. To the degree that we achieve this, we become a healthy, balanced believer. However, very few people are balanced like this. Most are imbalanced toward one side or the other. Some have a tendency toward acting in love and others have a tendency toward speaking the truth. But when we are imbalanced, the “truth” people can be harsh and the “love” people can be cowards. The truth-oriented people think they are speaking the truth in love, but they are actually quite harsh. The love-oriented people also think they are speaking the truth in love but they are actually quite cowardice. In other words, we are so imbalanced that we cannot discern what Biblical balance actually looks like. When I describe a balanced believer to a love-oriented person, what they perceive is harshness. And when I describe a balanced believer to a truth-oriented person, what they perceive is cowardice.

 

We are all imbalanced to some degree and the solution to this imbalance is the second half of the CURE for every conflict.

Cultivate a pure heart

Understand your role

Repentance is God’s role

Escaping the snare of the devil

We become imbalanced either because we do not understand our role or else we do not understand that repentance belongs exclusively to God. Our part and God’s part are both contained in this passage.

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth and they may escape the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. (ESV)

Did you notice where our part leaves off and God’s part begins? Our role is to be kind, endure evil insults and gently correct our opponents. That is the point at which our responsibility ends and God’s begins. God’s role is to grant repentance. The word grant accurately depicts the realm of God’s authority. Do we have the authority to grant repentance? No, God alone possesses this authority. He has the right to grant repentance or withhold repentance. God gives repentance, he allows it, he permits it, he authorizes it. Repentance is his alone to give.

 

But we have a problem. We get impatient and try to take God’s role upon ourselves. We accept our role of bringing correction and we also attempt to bring conviction and repentance to the one we are speaking to. In doing this, we become usurpers of God’s sole domain of conviction and repentance. What do you think happens when we try to play the Holy Spirit in the life of another person? The simple answer is that it doesn’t work. Then, when our efforts fail to bring conviction and repentance, we simply try harder. We become more forceful, more harsh and less gentle. It’s frustrating to try and take away God’s role from him, and when it doesn’t work, instead of wising up and letting God be God, we puff up our chests and bellow a little louder. If you tend to be imbalanced toward truth, it is probably because you are trying to fill the shoes of the Holy Spirit’s work of conviction. It doesn’t work and will almost certainly make matters worse. The very repentance that you are hoping for is pushed away even further than if you had done nothing. You are worse off then when you started.

 

This Scripture can be applied to corrective church discipline, but it is also an effective way to parent your children. Imagine this scenario—and if you are like me, you don’t have to imagine very hard! Imagine that your daughter comes running into the room crying because her brother just hit her. One second later her brother rushes in behind and begins to defend himself by saying, “But she hit me first!” You have an explosive conflict that needs immediate correction. Let’s assume that you keep your cool long enough to sit brother and sister down on the couch for a little talk. What do you do next? Let’s insert you, the parent, into this Scripture passage. And the parent must not be quarrelsome, but kind to your children, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting your children with gentleness. Your demeanor is to be filled with kindness and gentleness, your task is to correct your children and your ultimate goal is their repentance.

 

Now let’s add a dose of reality and assume that your patient little talk did not have the intended effect. Each child remains sitting with a long, angry scowl etched across their face. They are still angry and unrepentant. What do you do now? It’s your job to correct and it’s God’s job to convict, but it’s not working, so you decide to play God. You begin to raise your voice and/or launch into lecture #217 and attempt to browbeat your children into repentance. It doesn’t work, does it? Your children aren’t led to repentance and you just became a harsh, authoritarian parent. You not only did not lead your children to repentance, but now you have further alienated them from you by your hypocritical behavior. All of this happened because we were not able to separate our role from God’s role. Our role is to correct—and then it stops there! Don’t slip into playing God.

 

 

Picture an impenetrable brick wall in front of you with your role on one side and God’s role on the other. Your job is to gently correct and then you must stop there. Do not enter God’s domain of conviction and repentance. You can also add these other aspects of your role.

You must stay on your side of the wall. On the other side of the wall stands a huge sign which reads: God’s domain—DO NOT ENTER! When we attempt to scale and cross this wall, several things go wrong.

 

1. We become usurpers of God’s holy authority of granting repentance.

2. We become disobedient to the calling of our unique role of gentle correction.

3. We morph from gentle loving parents into harsh critical parents.

4. We do not gain the intended result of repentance.

5. We may further alienate our child and reduce his/her possibility of repentance.

6. We end up feeling like a failure as a parent.

7. Since our method did not work, we may fall into the trap of being more harsh the next time or else the pendulum swings so far that the next time we are overly permissive.

8. Unless we break this habit and learn our lesson, this cycle of problems continues and hardens into a negative parenting style.

 

All of these problems result from a misunderstanding of our roles as compared to God’s role; when we take on the task of both correction and attempted conviction. Now we need to address the opposite dilemma—the person who avoids all conflict and runs form all responsibility. This person is imbalanced in the area of love. They don’t have a problem allowing God to do the convicting—in fact they want no part of it. But the problem is that they also want God to do the correcting. This kind of person completely abandons their divine priority of speaking the truth in love. They don’t usurp God’s authority by attempting to bring repentance, but neither do they take the mantle of loving correction. This person is very imbalanced. But remember—they may not be aware of their imbalance. They may perceive themselves to be abounding in love, but love does not walk away from a friend in need. Love does not allow your children to habitually sin without any consequences. This kind of person will turn into a very permissive parent.

 

We have seen what happens in the home when our role and God’s role are confused. Now let’s see what can happen when this passage is properly applied. Same scenario as before—two children run screaming into the room, both claim the other one started the fight first. The first thing you should remember is that your ultimate goal is repentance and then immediately picture the wall between your role and God’s role. Do not cross over it. Do not attempt to force repentance. Go through the steps

If you stay on your own side of the wall, chances are you will remain gentle, for as James said, man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires (James 1:20). God desires a righteous life you both you and your children. Our anger does not help either of us. If we can regularly practice this Biblical response of speaking the truth in love, it will lead to several positive results.

 

1. You are becoming a gentle parent—you are training yourself to remain calm and gentle in all things. Forcing your children to change will not make them change.

2. You are becoming a restful parent—you realize that you do not have either the authority or the control over your children’s repentance. You can lead them toward repentance but only God can grant repentance. When you do your part you can rest and allow God to do his part.

3. You are becoming a praying parent—If God is in control of repentance, then all you can do is pray. This will train us to be more diligent in praying for the hearts of our children and not just their outward appearance. Instead of praying, “God, change his behavior,” you will start praying, “God, change his heart.”

4. You are becoming a humble parent—You soon realize that while you are training your children, you are also training yourself. As you correct your children, God is correcting you with his word. This leads to humility.

5. You are becoming a confident parent—As you train yourself to be obedient to God’s word, you become more confident in your entire role as a parent.

6. You are becoming a discipling parent—God wants us to use the daily activities of life to disciple our children, and what is a more common daily activity then sibling conflict and disobedient children? Discipleship is applying the word of God into everyday activities, and this is what you are doing.

7. You are becoming a wise parent—You will learn for yourself that training and correction are two sides of the same coin. Remember that the words for discipline and training come from the same Greek word. They are inseparable from one another.

8. You are becoming a joyful parent—Imagine if all of these things lead to a healthy pattern in your life—how will that feel? You will increasingly be filled with joy!

Isn’t that a great list!!

 

Please notice that all of these results include the word “becoming”. As Christians we are always becoming and never arriving. You never “arrive” at gentleness. You will never be completely humble, but you are on your way to becoming these things. Looking back at our original diagram, we see that truth and love and teetering on a balance beam. I did this on purpose to remind us that none of us are ever perfectly balanced. We will imperfectly teeter back and forth between truth and love, but our goal is to avoid the extremes of either side. Your kids do not expect perfection from you, but they do deserve a certain level of consistency.

 

At this point many people ask, “How do I know if my child is actually repentant? That is the right question to ask. I don’t believe you can know this for certainty in every instance, but we are given clues to discern true repentance. Paul said that if God grants repentance, it will lead to a “knowledge of the truth”. If you have patiently corrected your child, they will agree with you that their actions were wrong. We are given another description in 2 Corinthians 7:10 which reads, “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret.” Repentance should be accompanied by some kind of sorrow for sin. It may or may not include tears but it will probably be seen by the discerning parent. But please be careful here—don’t make the mistake of thinking that your child must show all of the signs of repentance at that very moment. Husbands and wives, have you ever said or done anything to one another that you later regretted? I know that it often takes me hours or even days to realize that I sinned against Karen with my words or actions. Perhaps I am slower than most, but if it takes me time to process sin, sorrow and repentance, then we should allow our children some time as well. If not, we will be again tempted to force repentance and wreck the whole process.

 

To finish out our acronym, we need to make sure and add the E to CURE.

Escaping the snare of the devil

It’s sobering to realize that when we walk into sin we are walking straight into the snare of the devil. As a parent, I think it is helpful to picture your children caught in this enormous vise-grip trap of the devil. So the next time you have an eruption at home and your children run into the room crying, picture them dragging this trap which is clamped down into their leg.

 

Just last night we had a crazy thing happen. Ethan was sitting on a kitchen chair on his knees and his foot slipped through the wooden slats and got caught. He started crying because his foot was trapped and any slight movement pinched his foot even further. Karen and I had to work together to keep him calm and work his foot out. I used Vaseline to thoroughly grease up his ankle. Then Karen and I had to lower him and the chair gently to the ground so he could maneuver his foot more freely. The three if us struggled together for at least fifteen minutes and I was just about to get a saw and cut him to when his foot finally slipped between the slats.

 

This is a good picture of being trapped by sin. At that very moment of the conflict, they are trapped by the snare of the devil. We are not saying they bear no blame—they walked into the trap—but now they can’t get out. In order for them to escape the devil’s snare you need to walk through the steps of this passage. If we do this well we will help our children escape the snare of the devil and you will have a cure for every conflict. One last reminder—what  does Galatians warn us to do when we are helping a brother who is caught in sin? We are warned to “But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted”. We can just as easily fall into the same trap that is clamped onto our kids. Been there, done that—right?

 

What does any of this have to do with church discipline? It has everything to do with church discipline because everything we have applied to the role of a parent also applies to the role of every Christian who loves his brother or sister enough to gently correct them. It also has perfect application to the elders and leaders of a local church. Next week we will be entering into the most difficult step of corrective church discipline often called excommunication. As a church body, what kind of men do you want leading a process which may lead to excommunication? You want men who are training themselves to be gentle in all things; men who can endure evil insults; men who are actively cultivating hearts that are pure; you want men who can understand and gently apply Biblical truth. These same principles work in your personal life, in your family life and in our church life. These principles are lifted directly out of God’s word. Don’t you find that there is something deeply satisfying when you can take a clear, Biblical principle and apply it to your life? This is what can happen when we apply the principles of formative and corrective church discipline—it results in healthy Christians, healthy families and healthy churches. May God richly bless all our efforts!!

 

Rich Maurer

October 15, 2006