Sermon 2-7-10

Great God, Heavenly Father, we thank You that You are almighty and that You are all-powerful. We thank You that in your strength, Your might and Your power, You look upon each one of us individually; each one of us are important to You. Thank You, Lord, for being mindful of us and being mindful of the struggles and problem we face each and every day. And now as we read Your words to us, as we hear You speaking to us through the words of the Bible, help us to hear and understand what You have to say about how to handle those problems we have with other people. And we pray this in the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Scripture Readings –

The first reading is a great example of how to go to someone when you have a problem with what they are doing. This reading involves Moses and his father-in-law Jethro. Jethro has some good advice for Moses, Moses takes his advice, and everyone wins!

First Reading – Exodus 18:13-23 The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, “What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?” Moses answered him, “Because the people come to me to seek God’s will. Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and laws.” Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him. Teach them the decrees and laws, and show them the way to live and the duties they are to perform. But select capable men from all the people – men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain - and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make you load lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.”

Our second reading is from the Book of Proverbs. Proverbs contains great wisdom, great wisdom for us, practical ways of dealing with things in daily life. Today’s reading gives us wisdom on how to deal with other people, particularly if they have offended us.

Second Reading – Proverbs 19:8-11 He who gets wisdom loves his own soul; he who cherishes understanding prospers. A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will perish. It is not fitting for a fool to live in luxury – how much worse for a slave to rule over princes! A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.

The Gospel lesson according Matthew Chapter Eighteen serves as the basis for our sermon this morning. These are the words of Jesus.

Gospel – Matthew 18:15-17 “If your brothers 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.”

Sermon –

I have up here in front, two chairs, a chair on the right and a chair on the left. Now let’s say, for example, there is a problem with the chair on the right, it’s dirty and if someone were to sit in it, their clothes would get dirty. The problem is with the chair on the right and to solve that problem, I clean the chair on the left. That will address the problem, right? No it won’t - if there’s a problem with the chair on the right, you go to the chair on the right - you don’t go to the chair on the left!

And all that seems so simple until you put people in those chairs. Ken and Barbie are here this morning and have agreed to sit in these chairs today. Barbie is sitting in the chair on the right and Ken is sitting in the chair on the left. Now, suppose I have a problem with Barbie, suppose she said some things and did some things that are not good. Who should I go to? Think about this, who would you go to? I make this mistake about once a day, I have a problem with Barbie but I talk to Ken about it. When I do that, I’ve just gone to the wrong chair.

That’s what Jesus is addressing in Matthew Chapter Eighteen. When dealing with those problems that people create in our lives, we have a tendency to simply to go to the wrong chair and tell the wrong person about it. Jesus says, “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.” Jesus is saying I should go directly to Barbie, not to Ken or anyone else, directly to Barbie. And that seems so easy, yet how often do we do it? I’d rather go to my friends and tell them what Barbie did wrong!

We see Jesus’ principle in our Old Testament Lesson for today. Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, has a problem with the way Moses is conducting business. But Jethro doesn’t go to Aaron, Moses’ brother, or to Miriam, Moses’ sister, or to his wife or his daughter, Moses’ wife. And he doesn’t go to his buddies who are hanging around at closing time at the local Camel Bar, he goes to Moses explains the situation. Plus, he doesn’t come complaining, he comes with a solution! Consequently the problem is solved and Moses is happy and Jethro is happy and the people are happy and everything functions well because Jethro went to the right chair. He went and addressed the problem with the person who could do something about the problem.

This does work because someone actually did it recently in this congregation. About two weeks ago in Bible Study I asked, “Have you noticed the music in the 10:30 service has been much better?” And everyone said, “Yes, we have great songs that we can all sing and they’re sounding great! It’s fun to worship at 10:30 again!” Well you know what happened? Someone actually went to the right chair with a solution.

The music choices in church are legendary, jokes have been made about it. The Pastor stands up in church and says “Now we are going to sing Hymn 435. We will sing the first verse, we will mumble the second verse, hum the third verse, and, because it’s so hard, we’ll just give up altogether on the fourth verse.” People have always complained about the music saying, “It’s just too hard to sing!”

Well, several weeks ago, someone actually came to the person who can solve that problem. Who is the person to talk to about music? Me! If you talk to the elders about the music, you’ve gone to the wrong chair, they don’t pick the music, I do! You can’t go to Rita with the problem; she simply plays the hymns I select. Someone actually came to me with a solution; they went through the Hymn Book and gave me a list of songs that are proven winners, songs that the congregation has been able to sing well for years. It was great and it solved the problem because now I feel better about picking the hymns, people are not going to the wrong chairs complaining about the terrible music, and Rita doesn’t have to take any complaints about the music, It’s wonderful – problem solved – and all because someone did what Jesus said in Matthew Chapter Eighteen. It does work!

So if it works, why in the world would we go to the wrong chair? That can be explained by the “Three C’s”. The first “C” is “Comfort”. If I don’t want to talk to Barbie, it’s because I don’t feel comfortable with her. I’d rather talk to my buddy, Ken, because I feel comfortable with him. But does Matthew Chapter Eighteen say, “If someone sins against you, go and show him his fault but only if you feel comfortable with that person?” No, the Bible doesn’t say that!

The second “C” is for “Consultation”. Before we go to someone we always wonder if we really should talk to them. We think it would be better to first consult our Christian friends. But does Matthew Chapter Eighteen say, “If someone sins against you, go and show him his fault but only if you feel comfortable with it and have first discussed it with your Christian Friends?” We don’t have to consult our friends, Jesus has already been consulted and He told you to go and talk to the person.

As an example, the Ten Commandments tell us, “Do not steal” Do we wonder if we should steal or not steal? Do we consult our friends about whether stealing is a good idea? You know you’re not supposed to steal and you don’t consult your friends about it because God has already told you to not steal.

The third “C” is “Complain”. We don’t feel strongly enough about the situation to actually want come up with a solution so that we can go to the person face-to-face, present the problem and solve it; it’s just much easier to complain because when we complain, we feel good, we love to complain.

Now some cautions come with this. God says, “Go to the person”, so go to the person, do not send an e-mail or a letter. People sometimes think I’m still stuck in the ‘80s but this is why I don’t do e-mail. E-mail is good for basic information like meeting times or basic changes, but when it comes to issues and complaints, the Bible tells us to go face-to-face to the person. I’m so glad that people in the secular world are starting to understand this. A gentleman in our congregation who works for a large corporation in this town told me that it is Corporate Policy to speak face-to-face with any co-worker when discussing an issue. Employees are forbidden to send e-mails about problems, they are to go to the person and talk face-to-face.. When I heard that I said, “Thank you, God, someone is finally getting it!”

Now maybe you’re saying, “Well, Pastor, sometimes when we go to the person and talk face-to-face, things really blow up and I’m just not comfortable with handling that.” And that’s ok, because God has a way to handle that situation also. In our Second Reading He says, “It’s to a man’s glory to overlook an offense.” If Barbie has really irritated me, or maybe she has just mildly irritated me, I’m not supposed to go to Ken or to any of my other friends and complain about Barbie, I’m supposed to address her face-to-face. But if I just can’t do that, God again solves the problem. In Proverbs 19:11, He says, “Overlook it; deal with the problem by overlooking it.” You can say, “I’m going to deal with this issue by simply saying, ‘Jesus paid on the cross for it’; I can forgive it just as God forgives me. I can simply overlook it.”

Wait a second folks, my phone is vibrating, I better take this call… (Pastor answered his cell phone). “Hello?” (Then, to the congregation, “It’s God calling!!!”) “Yes Sir? Tonight at nine o’clock? Sure, I can do that. OK. Thank You, Sir. I’ll see You then. Bye.” You know what God wants? He wants to meet with me face-to-face tonight a nine o’clock and address the things I’ve done wrong today. He wants to address all those things personally; He wants to come over and meet me face-to-face as He says in Matthew Chapter Eighteen! Has God ever done that to you? Has God ever called you up personally and made an appointment so that He can address all the things you’ve done wrong today? Well, He hasn’t done it to me either; I’m just trying to illustrate a point.

God doesn’t call us – but He could – He could call us and come over every night and address what we have done wrong, but He doesn’t. He simply overlooks it because Jesus went to the Cross, died and paid for it. God declares us “not guilty” and if He does that for us, we certainly can do that for other people.

These are the tips that God has for us that will actually solve those problems we have with other people. If you have something that someone has done that irritates you, by all means go to them. But don’t email them about those personal things, go and talk to the person and get the problem solved. And f you don’t feel comfortable talking to them, overlook it – again - problem solved! So many of our personal problems are solved in one Bible verse. Amen.

Prayer -

Great God, Heavenly Father, we thank You for the wisdom You give in Scripture. We ask that You would help us follow these guidelines so that our problems can be handled, solutions would be found, and life would be easier. Thank You for the wisdom You have given to us and we pray this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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