{"id":15097,"date":"2025-01-20T17:09:42","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T23:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/?p=15097"},"modified":"2025-01-20T17:09:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T23:09:42","slug":"fridays-featured-sermon-the-childlikeness-of-believers-confronting-sin-by-cameron-buettel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/?p=15097","title":{"rendered":"Friday\u2019s Featured Sermon: \u201cThe Childlikeness of Believers: Confronting Sin\u201d by\u00a0Cameron Buettel\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Childlikeness of Believers: Confronting Sin (Matthew 18:15-20)\" width=\"625\" height=\"352\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cDSYtXs-sJQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Human wisdom is always at war with biblical truth. That\u2019s why, as Christians, we need to be careful not to let our biblical worldview become clouded by popular trends and acceptable social conventions. The temptation is often strong to brush aside biblical truth when it assaults our modern sensibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s why there\u2019s widespread reluctance in the evangelical church to confront and correct sin. Churches regularly capitulate to the victim mentality and fragile emotional state of our therapeutic culture. And that\u2019s evident by the widespread absence of congregations that practice church discipline. While Scripture is clear on the subject, what it demands flies in the face of all contemporary wisdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (<a href=\"https:\/\/ref.ly\/Matt%2018.15%E2%80%9317;nasb95?t=biblia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Matthew 18:15\u201317<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>John MacArthur found overwhelming resistance to the practical application of those verses the first time he preached through the gospel of Matthew and arrived at chapter eighteen. John\u2019s message \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gty.org\/library\/sermons-library\/90-348\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>The Childlikeness of Believers: Confronting Sin<\/strong><\/a>\u201d recounts some of the pushback he received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>In my naivet\u00e9 in those days, I asked some pastors about that passage and if they ever applied it or knew anybody that did. To which I received a universal \u201cNo.\u201d No one did it. No one knew anyone who did it. But I said this is the initial instruction to the church. This is where the word \u201cchurch\u201d shows up\u2014Matthew 18. This is our Lord\u2019s priority concern for the church, that the church be dealing with sin within its own members. If it is the first word of the Lord of the church to the church, then it is not something at the end of the list. It is at the beginning, which makes it top priority. How is it that you can read it, understand it, and not implement it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was told by men much older than myself and much wiser than myself that if I tried to do this at Grace Church\u2014if I tried to lead a church to do what it says in this passage\u2014I would empty the place. People wouldn\u2019t stand for that. I was told, \u201cDo you think you can have people in your church walk up to other people in your church and confront their sin without driving them away? Do you think you could possibly get a little group of people to go after a sinning believer without frightening everybody out? And you certainly don&#8217;t believe that you can announce someone and their sin to the whole congregation and anybody would show up the next week. You just can\u2019t do it. And if you\u2019re concerned about church growth, and if you\u2019re concerned about adding people to the church, forget that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>That mindset has only continued to gain traction in subsequent decades. There is now overwhelming reluctance to deal with sin in the camp\u2014primarily out of a fear of offending people or losing them to other churches. And while attendance statistics may seemingly validate that soft approach, those same numbers inevitably hide the cancerous growth of rebellion among congregants. Put simply, healthy numbers don\u2019t matter if unaddressed sin is poisoning the Body of Christ.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Childlikeness of Believers: Confronting Sin\u201d is a profound encouragement to all believers that Christ\u2019s church actually grows through guarding her purity. Furthermore, John\u2019s message explains how to practically address ongoing sin issues in our local congregations.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/ref.ly\/Matt%2018.15%E2%80%9317;nasb95?t=biblia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Matthew 18:15\u201317<\/a>&nbsp;isn\u2019t hard to understand, but it takes some courage to apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, as John explains, our willingness to confront sin hinges on whether we really love our brethren:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>If you, in the church, are not willing to confront someone\u2019s sin, then you don\u2019t see them as having any value. Christ sees them as having value. He paid the infinite price for them, did He not? And He gives us the responsibility like any parent to go after our wandering children. . . . When we were raising our four children, discipline was a regular routine in our family. And it was driven totally by love\u2014our all-consuming love for them. The fear was they would be lost to us and to the Kingdom. And so whatever discipline was necessary to make them feel the pain of their own sinfulness, we inflicted it upon them. And every time they drifted into sin, they were disciplined for the purpose of restoration because they\u2019re so precious. You feel that way about your own children, and our Lord is saying that\u2019s how you should feel about the children of God.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>John\u2019s message is a powerful reminder that if we really trust God, we should obey His Word. And if we faithfully apply His biblical commands, He will honor our obedience. Moreover, if we sincerely care about the health of Christ\u2019s flock, we have a duty to confront those members who persist in sinful rebellion. There is no stronger tangible expression of our love for God\u2019s people and our passion for His glory.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gty.org\/library\/sermons-library\/90-348\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Click here<\/strong><\/a>&nbsp;to watch or listen to \u201cThe Childlikeness of Believers: Confronting Sin.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Human wisdom is always at war with biblical truth. That\u2019s why, as Christians, we need to be careful not to let our biblical worldview become clouded by popular trends and acceptable social conventions. The temptation is often strong to brush aside biblical truth when it assaults our modern sensibilities. That\u2019s why there\u2019s widespread reluctance in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15097"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15099,"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15097\/revisions\/15099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.faithfellowship.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}