My friends, we've been talking about Matthew chapter 18 and Jesus instructions regarding what to do

if things get weird in a relationship. Is somebody quote sins against you? Or if there is destructive

sin within the new family of faith within the church. And you probably remember this, but I just

want to read it again right now. Matthew 18, 15 through 17, very practical. This is Jesus talking

about how to get this stuff straightened out when it goes wrong. Here's what he says. Verse 15,

if your brother or sister sins go and point out their fault just between the two of you,

if they listen to you, you've won them over. But if they won't listen, take one or two others

along so that quote, every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church. And if they refuse to listen even to the

church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. This is a very important, very straightforward

and also very difficult to get right passage. And my guess is that the vast majority of you who've

been in on this conversation with me for the last couple of days can think of a time or two

when maybe this hasn't gone perfectly. Maybe you can even think of a time or two where it didn't go

perfectly and you bear some of the blame for that. You, my friends, will get no judgment for me,

but I do want to carefully think through what this thing is because I think doing so gets us

to a place of having soft hearts, gets us to a place where maybe we can even think of what we need

to do with the stuff that's gone wrong, relationally in the past and think about how to get things

right in future situations that are a little bit sideways as well. I'm going to have Jeff

play some music and we'll pick it up where we left off right there.

The simple version of this passage is as follows. Jesus just spent the last chapter plus explaining

to his guys that he's going to die at the hands of the religious leaders, that he's going to be

raised and that he's going to ascend. He's communicated. I'm not going to be with you forever.

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