sermonette: The Principle of Rebuke

Rebuking With Mercy
Bill Cherry
Given 21-Jun-03; Sermon #618s; 15 minutes

Description: (show)

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Well, greeting to you all. Everybody please turn to Luke 17 verse 3. All right, we will read verses 3 and 4. Take heed to yourselves. If your brother trespassed against you. Rebuke him and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespasses against thee 7 times in a day. And 7 times in a day again, return again and saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. That Jesus taught his disciples here a principle which I will call for the purpose of this sermon, the rebuke principle. And Jesus used rebuke often when people were at his throat, his adversaries were coming and accused him publicly. So the purpose of this sermon. is to understand correct ways to use rebuke. And to see one of the examples that Jesus used when he rebuked somebody. So let's look at what's here in this verse 3 again. It says, Take heed to yourselves. So why does Jesus say, take heed. And the reason is If somebody does something against us, trespass against us, we can easily be led to sin. We want to lash out in anger or retaliate or Do something that can. Make us do something wrong. So that's why he says take heed. Well, Right, it says if he repents. Forgive him. So this rebuke that Jesus is talking about is communication to him, his sin with a forgiving spirit, and the translations and commentaries which I referred to all had the sense of, you know, confronting him, uh. You know, maybe reproveve him, let him know the way you felt, but always the dominating spirit must be the love of Christ and to create peace and not this unity. So it is a spirit that makes our rebuke of somebody righteous and not uh. And not the fact that we are justified in being offended. Now I want to illustrate that in, in this illustration. Suppose a man comes home. And his wife says, Honey you, you promised to fix the door yesterday. Uh, do you think you could fix it today? Now this is a kind of subtle rebuke. You know, you, you promised to do this and you did not do it. But if she said, You promised to fix the door yesterday. Do you think that you could do it today? There is the sin, there is the anger, there is the raising, and there is the intent, and the spirit is evident by the voice inflection and the way it goes, and you can think what would come later after that. So Rebuke is always done in love, the spirit of communication, and the spirit of peace. Now please turn to First Peter 2 and verse 21. We will read a familiar passage that's read during the Passover season. But here. Jesus is, I mean Peter is talking about suffering. Alright, that's one of the things of this suffering and the fact that when we do good. We may be suffered, we may suffer because we are doing good. People say things and do things against us, and it may be even appropriate to rebuke somebody who is inflicting this suffering on us. But listen to what it says about Jesus in this case. Um Verse 21, let me see if I can find it, all right. uh. For even hereunto where you called, so he's talking about you were called to suffer. That was, that's a part of our calling because Jesus also suffered for us, leaving, leaving us an example that we should follow in his steps. So our suffering is like Christ suffered, and we are called to suffer. It's a, it's a part of our calling. Now listen to Christ's example because we are going to read an episode where he was confronted, well, he had a, he He rebuked someone, but if you listen, if you look at it on the surface, you may not think these things are true, but it describes Jesus' character and the way he did. So verse 22, who did no sin, so there'll be no sin in Christ's rebuke. Neither was Gile found in his mouth, and he's going to call the man a hypocrite, and it sounds like Gile maybe, right, who when he was reviled, reviled not again when he suffered, he threatened not. And he committed himself to him that judges righteously. So he committed himself to God. He let God be in charge of his life as we should, and he and all these things apply to the way that he rebuked someone and So keep that in your mind that Christ did no sin and, and that he did not, he did not have any animosity toward the person. So let's now turn to Luke 13. And verse 10 All right, we will start off with 10 through 13, and as he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, And behold, there was a woman, which had a spirit of infirmity 18 years and was bowed together and could in no wise lift herself, lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called to her and said unto her, Woman, thou art loos from your infirmity. And he laid hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God. So from reading this I gather that it was Jesus' custom to go to different synagogues on the Sabbath. It was also his custom to teach on the Sabbath because he said he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. Uh, that's the way I took it. And he saw this woman bowled over, and I, you've seen people that have been bowled over very severely, and it just reaches your heart, and I'm sure Jesus had compassion on this woman, and he wanted to perform an act of mercy and love, and so he made her straight, but listen to the reaction of the ruler of the synagogue. You can see pride, arrogance, condemnation. And I want you to notice, he did not condemn Jesus. He, he made a rule to the people, so listen, what he says. And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignationExcuse me, right, because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day and said unto the people, They are 6 days in which men ought to work. In them, therefore, come and be healed and do not and not on the Sabbath day. So he said, OK, all you people here, do not come to be healed on in my synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he was like making a new rule. And, and this is reminding of the characteristics of the of the Pharisees as it described in Matthew 23. It says they bind heavy burdens on the people. And they are not willing to lift their finger to move any of them. So Jesus showed compassion for this woman. And how much compassion was this man showing at this instance and how much compassion had he shown in any other instance, instance? So the fact that Jesus was showing compassion, now listen to Jesus' answer. Alright, verse 15. And the Lord answered and said, Thy hypocrite. And he rebuked him. But he gives a reason why, as he did in any other times when he rebuked many times he would give an explanation that was clear and understandable. He said, Does not any, each one of you on the Sabbath day loose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away for watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound low these 18 years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day. So he's saying, listen. You have compassion on an animal. When he hasn't had any, he's been bound for one day under hunger. And you do not have compassion on a woman, a human being, a child of Abraham, and she's been under this for 18 years and should not she be loosed on the Sabbath day. What hypocrisy. So in essence he's saying that now. Listen Uh, do you understand that his, his reply had no sin, no guile, and he reported, he supported his rebuke with a fact or an explanation. So listen to the result of righteous rebuke. 17, and when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed. And all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him. Now They may have even repented. I mean, this may have been a sincere shame and not just an embarrassment before the crowd, but the result of Jesus' act and the result of rebuke. Uh, had a very positive effect on the situation. Yeah I want to reiterate some of the principles of righteous rebuke. The spirit of forgiveness and love should dominate. The rebuke is to communicate the offense, support it with fact, help the person to understand the way that you feel about what they did. Now it may even be that they rebuke you, in fact, explain to you in a, in the right spirit, something that you have done. And you may, you'll have your chance to listen and repent yourself, but the spirit of rebuke is never offensive, but it is to create peace. Like sometimes it's appropriate when you are criticized. To rebuke with force, and, and I can imagine this example of Jesus using a, a pretty forceful way of expressing himself because of the way, the force of the man that that condemned him, and I can't say why you hypocrite. I mean, I do not think Jesus did that. He said, you hypocrite, and he told him right, he told him exactly why he thought he was a hypocrite. So, I wanna give you an example of one time that a minister rebuked depression and this was I made a profound impression on my mind it's one of the mildest rebukes I've ever heard. This man was in Florence, South Carolina, giving a Bible study, and he was going over the section in Matthew where it says, if a man smites you on the cheek, turn the other cheek. And a member of the, the audience raised his hand and he said, Do you mean to say that you would sit up there and let somebody hit you and beat you and hit you, and the man that was giving the Bible study smiled and he said, friend, I think you're in the wrong spirit. And that stopped the whole thing. And it helped the guy realize where he was and what he was doing and how he was saying this, and this made, it's, it's an example of righteous rebuke. Well Oh The purpose of The rebuke principle is to is to communicate and not to condemn. It is to create peace and not Animosity. So if a brother trespassed against you. Rebuke him. Or rebuke him in the spirit of forgiveness as Jesus taught. And I'll leave this you with this thought. Rebuke in love, do not condemn. Communicate Don't hate.