Gently Engage

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Welcome to Thrive. It's good to have you here today. We are in a series called Resolve. And that's a question, actually, rather than just a statement, is do we really want to resolve the conflicts and the problems we have? I know that seems like an obvious question. Of course we do, but I look at our society, I look at our world, and I'm not so sure that we want to resolve anything, or we just like to fight. That's part of human nature. That's where we're at. And what we're really trying to do in this series is answer the question in the affirmative that we do want to resolve. And why? Not because it's just good for us. It's because our God has brought resolution. Our God is the one who sought us out, who reconciled us to him when he didn't have to. He forgives. He has resolved. And he will bring resolution to all the issues that were on that screen. Tribalism, racism, you name it. I don't care what it is. What we are seeing, something so countercultural, is that God, through Christ, has reconciled the world, and one day, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father, whether they want to or not, that's the way it's going. And that's what's going to happen, is everything in heaven and on earth will be united in him, and we will be able to spend eternity in that complete state of resolution and celebration. Isn't that great? That's the hope we have, even in very turbulent times, especially in turbulent times. Now, over the last few weeks, since the beginning of January, we've covered how we can get into what Amanda Ripley calls in her book, the tar pits of conflict. That is, we're kind of stuck in it, and it just doesn't seem to resolve, and anything we do gets even worse. So we talked about that, how to recognize it at least, and hopefully how to get out of it. We've talked about how we have met the enemy, as Pogo once stated, right? And the enemy is right here, right? And that I am my greatest obstacle in life. I am my greatest obstacle. It's easy to find fault in others, and we talked as well about the difference between being, last week, between judgmental and having to make judgments, decisions, okay? Today, we're probably getting even more practical, and maybe more down to earth. I think we all struggle with this. I know I do. And we're going to be talking about what happens after we finally realize we've got a conflict with somebody, we have thought through things, I have recognized that I am part of the problem, at least, if not the problem, and I need to connect with that person again. How do I do that? And two words that are going to be very important as we look through Matthew 18 today are these two words, compassionately engage. We're going to focus on those two words and keeping those two together. Now if you've been in the church for a long time, you probably know what this passage is about. And if you haven't, that's okay. But a lot of people say we're following, in our church, we follow Matthew 18 to the letter. Okay, well, let's see if that's true. So we're going to read a section of it, but I'm really going to be using the whole context of the chapter, because what happens before certain verses and what happens after and how it all ties together really matters how you work this quote section of Matthew 18. So we'll read verses 12 to 20 to start. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And you think the answer is of course, but do you realize how crazy that is? Most people say, yeah, we get a little loss in our company. What's 1% loss? You know, that'd be great if that's all it was. Not this shepherd. And he finds it. And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than the 99 that never went astray. So it is not the will of my father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. If your brother 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, and 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. Now I said context is really important for these words because I've heard too many times, and probably Pasto...