What To Do When Another Christian Sins Against You!

My Utmost For His Highest

We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ… —2 Corinthians 5:10

{CHAMBERS} “[…] Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are. One carnal judgment of another person only serves the purposes of hell in you. Bring it immediately into the light and confess, “Oh, Lord, I have been guilty there.” If you don’t, your heart will become hardened through and through. […] No struggling or praying will enable you to stop doing certain things, and the penalty of sin is that you gradually get used to it, until you finally come to the place where you no longer even realize that it is sin. […] The deadliest attitude of the Pharisees that we exhibit today is not hypocrisy but that which comes from unconsciously living a lie.”

{ELGIN} It is a common thing for many Christians, I think, to sit in judgement of others .. especially when their sinful ways are obvious to everyone.  When that sin is directed at us or someone we care about, it is doubly easy to judge them.  But what do you do especially when it is another Christian?  Jesus told a parable about a common man and a religious man who came to pray ….

(Luke 18:9-14) “And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt:  “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.””

The first trusted in his “good works” to make him righteous … the second had no confidence in himself at all, and knew that he was incapable of being righteous on his own.  So what does that have to do with judgement? When you see people around you are sinning, understand that they are merely revealing their nature. When we see others sin, our place is not to judge, which is to condemn, God is the judge.  That is especially hard when the sin is against us.  So what do we do then?  As Christians – we understand the world from a spiritual context.  And, we understand sinful acts from a spiritual perspective.  The government has courts and laws to deal with violators of the law.  (In fact the jails and prisons are overflowing.  The problem with jails and prisons is that they don’t address the heart of the problem which is the heart.) So how do you respond? This is what Jesus said to do if another Christian sins against you ….

(Matthew 18:15-20) “If your brother [a person is not your brother or sister if they are not in the same family - my words] sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence 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, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

Many times though we never get even before the first step .. we stop at the sinful act and harbor a grudge against the offender.  Someone once said “the only part of the Bible that you believe is truth is the part you obey.”  You must address the sin, but if the person will not repent then have nothing to do with them.  But what if they are a blood relative?  That does not matter .. although it does make it more difficult .. but that does not change what the Word says, only possibly what we are willing to do.

What if they do it again? There are two possibilities.  First they may not have repented .. and two, their struggle with sin is overpowering their desire to not sin .. like Paul ... like all of us at times ... and they need to confess and repent again and perhaps again.

(Luke 17:3-4) “Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.””

The key to forgiveness is repentance.  Forgiving before repentance is enabling the sin.  Saying what they did is OK.  Repentance means they know that what they did is NOT OK and they are sincerely sorrowful because of it.

So how many times should you forgive someone that has a repentant heart?  (Matthew 18:21-22) “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? seven times? Jesus said to him, I say not seven times: but, seventy times seven.” In other words, there is no limit.  And that is how it is with you and God.  Aren’t you thankful?  1 John 1:9 makes that promise .. but listen .. it is only because of the blood of Jesus … not because you deserve it … and the same goes for the one who sins against you!  Think about it!