Do Not Sharply Rebuke An Older Man

This morning, we are going to be moving into 1 Timothy chapter 5. We're going to be studying verses 1 and 2, and toward the end of the book of 1 Timothy, he gets very practical. And so in this chapter, he's going to be talking about how Timothy generally ought to relate to the people of his church. And so we're going to talk about how Timothy, as a young man, as a young pastor, is supposed to minister to the older men. The older women, the younger men, and the younger women. So it's very practical. In the weeks to come, right after this, there's an extended passage on widows. How are you supposed to minister to widows? What are widows? How should you process them? What are the church's responsibilities to them? What are their responsibilities to the church? It's very practical, how to live your life sort of stuff. And so in our text this morning, verses 1 and 2, Paul teaches Timothy how to rebuke and correct the people of his church. And the rubric or the grid that he gives Timothy to process through is age.

How old are you? How old are they? This is what's going to indicate or show you or give you the rails to run on in terms of how you ought to relate to them. Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word from 1 Timothy 5, verses 1 and 2. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father, to the younger men as brothers, to older women as mothers. And the young women as sisters in all purity. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now, as I said already, there's a very practical approach to this, how to talk to the women. But I want you to know, before we get into how he's supposed to relate to the different age groups in the church, we have to understand what he's actually supposed to be doing with these people. What is the pastor's responsibility to his congregation? Well, in this text, Paul is teaching Timothy not just how to talk.

to his people. He's teaching them how to rebuke them. It says, don't sharply rebuke an older man. It doesn't say, be careful how you talk to him and acknowledge that he's old and wise. He says, don't sharply rebuke them. But he doesn't say, don't rebuke them at all. He says, instead of sharply rebuking him, rebuke him as a son would a father. And that's going to take a little bit of unpacking for us that we'll come to. But first, I want to talk a little bit just about this idea that pastors are supposed to rebuke their people. What does it mean to rebuke somebody? Well, what it means is that in the course of your lives together, you see some sort of sin in their life. And as a pastor especially, though it's not limited to pastors, this responsibility, but we'll stick with just pastors for now. A pastor has a responsibility to go to the people in his congregation when they're in sin, when he sees something, and he says, you ought not to do that. That's sin.

you should repent. I want you to repent because you sinned against God and your brother. In other places, Paul tells Timothy to do the same sort of thing. Just later on in this same chapter in verse 20, when he's talking about how Paul ought to deal with elders when they're in sin, he says, those who continue in sin rebuke in the presence of all so that the rest will also be fearful of sinning. And then again, in second Timothy chapter four, verses one and two, toward the end of Paul's ministry. He's about to die. He writes this to Timothy. He says, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. And so it is the responsibility of the church and her pastors and her elders to rebuke the people. Now, that work

is out of season right now. I do believe by faith that there are times, and there are people, by God's mercy, in every season who appreciate that somebody cares for their soul. But it's not something that's common right now. It's not something that's appreciated. It's not something that we would measure a church by. Say, hey, I'm going to pick a new church. How do you pick a new church? Well, one of the things you could ask is, when was the last time you guys... discipline to somebody? When was the last time you corrected somebody for sin? Your elders, when was the last time you did that? That's a very good question to ask pastors and elders because it's going to give you an insight into their understanding of their responsibility to their congregation. Do they care for their people's souls? Do they involve themselves in their lives? Do they say things that are costly to the people or that may cost them if they say to the people?

So you have to wonder, if I say, and I think most of you would agree with me, that rebuke is not something that we enjoy, not something we look for, and it's also not something that happens very often. It's not like it's a thing that's going on all the time that we just don't like. It's something we don't like and it's not going on. You have to wonder for a minute, why aren't pastors doing this work? Why do we agree that it's out of season? Well, I'm going to offer you a couple of reasons. This is not an exhaustive list, but I can tell you as a pastor and from ministering with other people, some reasons, some things that go through pastors' minds, okay? Or some things that motivate them. The first I submit to you about why pastors don't rebuke their people at all is that they don't have any fear of God. So what is it? Think of it this way. If a pastor is to come to us and say, this is sin and you need to repent, what would motivate him to say that to us?

He runs the risk of you getting angry. He runs the risk of getting accused of sin himself. What would motivate him to do that? Why would he put his reputation, his comfort, your approval on the line? I'm sure there's some men who think that that's fun, but most men don't. They don't think it's fun to offend and to upset other people that they love. Well, the reason is because he knows that Jesus Christ is going to return and that as Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, he's going to judge. the living and the dead. A pastor has to know that that day is coming for each and every one of the souls under his care and even for his own soul. And his job is to make sure that he and his people are prepared for that day. And there's not a person in all of creation who is ready from that day apart from having to repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ every single day.

And we need people in our lives to help us in that process because we are not good judges of our own sins and our own failures and what thorough repentance would be. And so we need people who've been specifically tasked with the responsibility of cultivating in us fear of God. And a pastor can't do that if he has no fear of God himself. If his conception of God is not ever as a judge. never as an examiner who's going to come and to reveal all the secrets of our hearts and lay them bare. Everything done in the dark, everything done behind closed doors is going to be known about every one of us. A pastor's job is to prepare you for that day. First, to tell you that that day is coming, and second, to prepare you to stand in that day and not to fall. But if he has no fear of God, or if he doesn't like that about that perfection of God's character, then it follows he's not going to teach you about it.

He's not going to correct you. He's not going to teach you that you do things that are wrong and you need to repent of them, however right you may feel about it. So I think that's one of the first reasons pastors don't rebuke their people as they should. The second is that the pastor doesn't love God or his people as he should. For a pastor to say something hard to you, to correct you, to risk with you, you don't do that with people you don't care about. You're happy for the people that you don't care about to go on their merry way, but you're not happy for the people you do care about to wander.

toward hell without cautioning them. There was a time in my life right as I was coming to faith that I realized when something hard was said to me, really for the first time in my life, a Christian pastor came to me and said, this is sin and you need to repent of it. And you need to repent in these ways. And I thought, initially I thought, who in the world do you think you are to tell me anything? I didn't know the man very well at the time. But I heard his rebuke. I went away. And I asked the question that I've just asked you, why would he say that to me? He doesn't know me. And at the time, he didn't really know me all that well. He didn't know me. He wasn't a stranger on the street, but he wasn't some lifelong friend. He's not someone I'd known for years. I may have known him for six months, occasionally. Why would he say something like that to me? I thought, well, he must not care what I think of him. And that was refreshing.

Because I thought, this man might actually be honest with me because he's not making his decisions based on what, he's not worried about what I think of him and how I'm going to respond. He has a higher priority or principle than my opinion of him. He might actually do me some good. And so I loved him for it. I thought, this guy must love God. And he must care more about what God has to say and what God thinks of him than I do. That's somebody I can trust. Faithful words. He loved me. And so when a pastor rebukes you, it's not because he's angry at you. It's not because he's grinding you into the ground. It's not because he thinks you're a stupid idiot. It's because he loves you. And if he never does it, it's because he doesn't love you the way he should. Now, granted, the pastor may have a faulty view of love. I find that many pastors, the third reason I think pastors don't rebuke people is because they're weary and they're scared. Many young men, and we'll get to talking about young men a little bit more later.

Many young men, when they come online spiritually, and they go, there's a God in heaven and he cares about right and wrong and he's given us his son and we need to be about his business. And they're on fire for the Lord and they start talking. At some point, pretty early on, their zeal is going to lead them to say something that's over the top, that's disrespectful, that's rude. They're going to be, if they were learning to ride their bike, they're going to fall off. because their zeal kept, you know, they took off not knowing how to use the brakes. And oftentimes, young men who are zealous for the Lord will get taught a very hard lesson because they will be made to pay for their zeal and for their care about holiness and righteousness. And they learn. I listen to other pastors talk, and they say, they're like, well, if you say that, you know what's going to happen.

In the forums I'm a part of where pastors are at, I see the questions that they ask. And they ask questions, many of them surrounding the idea of what do you do when your people are out of line? And they'll say, this has been a problem in this church for a long, long time. And I'm the third pastor in seven years. And this is the problem. What am I supposed to do about it? Well, the context is he doesn't want to lose his job. He doesn't want to move again. But he sees the problem. And is he supposed to rebuke or not? He did it once and he lost his job. He did it once and he was punished by his elders. He did it once and the women of the church just ran him out on a rail. And so he's gun-shy. Maybe he has good instincts and even good desires, but he's gun-shy because he's been punished for his faithfulness in the past. And so he learns to make peace with himself, going, well, they don't want to be rebuked. They don't like that sort of stuff. I need to choose when and how I'm going to put myself out there.

And there is wisdom in knowing when to say something and when not to say something, but I come back to you, even to the weary man, even as a pastor myself, and say, that's the nature of the work, man. And you can't just get weary and say, I'm done with rebuking because the people punished me for it, because I might lose my job for it, or because my kids won't have friends, or whatever. Being a pastor and rebuking people means that you're dealing with their sinfulness, and it's a messy job. You guys are messy. Just like I'm messy. You have messes. You have sins in your lives. And oftentimes pastors, as I said, decide to stay above that, that level of involvement in their people's lives. And when they do it, they fail you. And you might sit here now and go, I don't want them to fail me that way. And I go, okay, good. You have a responsibility in this as well. As I just said, sometimes pastors get punished for their faithfulness. My exhortation to you is, don't punish your pastors and elders for their faithfulness.

don't be angry when they come to you and tell you that you're in sin. Love them. Hebrews 13, 17 says that you ought to obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. And then it says this to you, let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. So if we were to put that into our own words, if you punish them for being faithful, you're the one who's going to suffer from it. You need his correction. You need it. Instead, you ought to hear him. You ought to listen to him. If you don't understand what's being said to you, you ought to make it your mission to understand what was said to you and not dismiss it. Proverbs 17.10 says, A rebuke goes deeper into one who has understanding than a hundred blows into a fool.

And so you should recognize that there are times in your life when you're going to be rebuked, you're going to be corrected, you're going to be told not to do something and to do something else, and you're going to have no earthly idea why you're being told to do one thing and not to do another, and you're going to think that it's way overreaction. Like, what is the big deal? Your job is to not be a fool who could be beaten over the back a hundred times and not understand the problem. Your job is to be a wise man and go, apparently I'm missing something because they think this is a really big deal. I need to understand why this is a big deal. And so your responsibility is to hear, to receive the rebuke, and to do what you're told. Not just to listen to it, but to heed it, to obey it. What if the pastor's wrong? What if he tells you something and he's wrong? It's inevitable that he'll be wrong. What do you want me to say? Pastors are never wrong. Elders never do the wrong things. No, we screw up all the time. We're sinners just like you.

The measure of whether you ought to do what you're told is not whether they're ever wrong. Of course they're wrong sometimes. Of course they speak in haste. Sometimes they're overzealous. Sometimes they are frustrated with you. Just like you get frustrated with other people. The question you ought to ask is, am I being told to sin? If you're not being told to sin, do what you're told. Well, it feels like sin. Well, ask the pastor. Say, it really feels like sin for you to tell me to do that. I don't agree. I don't understand. I have a conscience issue about it. Have the conversation with the goal of understanding as well as you can what's being said to you and why so that the rebuke doesn't go to waste. That's your responsibility to the men who love you and care for you by telling you no.

The other thing we learn about rebukes, other than that they should exist and be part and parcel of a pastor's work, we ought to be being corrected by those who have that sort of authority over us. The next thing we learn is that these rebukes ought to be personal, not just general. When Paul's teaching here, older man, older woman, younger men, younger women, he's not talking about preaching. He's talking about conversations, counseling, instruction that is personal. In Acts 20, 20, Paul's... talking to the Ephesian elders and he's telling them how he's never going to see them again and that he's innocent of the blood of all men because of his work among them. And the way he describes his work among them in verse 20 is that he did not shrink from declaring to them anything that was profitable and that he taught them publicly and from house to house. So he was involved in their lives, not just on Sundays, not just in the corporate gathering, but he was involved in their homes.

speaking to them, teaching them, not shrinking back from declaring to them anything that he thought was profitable in their house. So we know that Paul would have been rebuking these men, correcting them, leading them. And these same men are the men that Timothy ministers among. Paul's talking here to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20. Here he's writing to Timothy, who he left at Ephesus to be their pastor. And there's probably 10 or so years between when Paul said goodbye to them and when Timothy's writing, or he writes to Timothy about this. Timothy's been in Ephesus for about 10 years. And so these men have a context for being told that they need to repent, that there's rebuke that's a part of their life. And so to sum up, first, a pastor's job is to rebuke his people. The people's responsibility is to hear it, not punish him for it. In fact, to be dissatisfied if he doesn't do it.

And specifically, not to despise when it's a personal correction, not just a general public correction. Now we can come to the actual categories of people. We know Timothy is a young man. In the previous chapter, Paul tells him, don't let anyone look down on you for your youthfulness, but show yourself an example of those who believe. Give particular attention to your teaching and to your conduct. And as you do that, you're going to ensure your salvation and the salvation of those who hear you. And then he goes into rebuking and giving instructions about that. So the first thing he tells them is, don't sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father. Now, as I look out at you guys, there are many, many young men here. What I would call young men. Far fewer older men. And so that means that I have the privilege and the responsibility, along with the elders, of ministering to a bunch of young men.

And having been young not that long ago myself, I know what it's like to be a young man. You like to fight. You like resistance in your life. You just start pushing around until you find something that's solid enough and doesn't just give way. This is the way of young men. They're looking for something to push against. And so they come into the church and they look for something to push against. But what happens when they push against older men? Well, oftentimes when young men see an older man's sin, an older man's sin, you realize Paul's just assuming here that every category of person needs to be rebuked. Older men, older women are not above being rebuked by younger men even. So then comes the young man and he sees the older man's sin. What's he going to do? What's his temptation going to be? I think his temptation is going to be off with his head. I can't believe he said that. You can't say that.

Maybe his temptation will be to say nothing to that man, but to go complain about him to other people. You never believe what he said and did. Instead of that, any of that, Paul tells Timothy, you need to rebuke the older man, but not sharply. Instead of rebuking him sharply, appeal to him as a father. So can you rebuke someone through an appeal? It's an interesting question. It's a hard thing to do. Can Nick Baker come to me and rebuke me through an appeal? Do you think I'll listen? Nick just won't answer. Do you think your drill sergeants would listen when you were in the service? If you appealed to them? No. And I think that's normal for young men to think that older men will not respond to appeal. And I'll grant to you that there are old men who are hardened enough in their sin and in their conscience that they don't respond to an appeal. And what I would tell you about those men is they're lost. And the fact that they're lost is not a failure on your behalf of how you approached them.

If someone has a hard conscience, if someone is opposed to God and is his enemy, and you come to him and you appeal to him as a father, and he disregards you, bites your head off, you didn't fail because you approached him and appealed to him as a father. That's not a failure. The failure is his. But I think what Nick said about his drill sergeants and his commanding officers is generally true, that young men tend to think that older men are not going to listen to an appeal. that they'll dismiss it. But to a godly older man, an appeal will carry much more weight because it's respectful. And so Paul tells him to appeal to him as a father. Now I want to get a little more personal for Paul and Timothy here. Timothy's father was not a believer. He was a Greek. We know from the scripture that it was Timothy's mother and his grandmother that were faithful and that loved God, but it wasn't his father. His father was most likely, as I said, either a Greek or a Roman. And so what is...

Paul saying when he tells Timothy, appeal to him as a father. Who is Timothy's father? That's a question. And the answer is Paul. At the beginning of this book, 1 Timothy 1.8, Paul says at the very beginning, this command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son. And again, 2 Timothy 1.2, to Timothy, my beloved son. And to the Corinthian church, if you were to have many tutors, you would have few fathers, for I became your father through the gospel. And so Paul understands the relationships between the people of God to be a familial one. And when he talks to Timothy, he's saying, treat those men, talk to those men the way you would talk to me. Garner all the respect and the love and the deference and the appreciation and the honor that you have for me and speak to those men as though you were talking to me. How would you say it to me, is what he asks him. If I was in sin, Paul.

How would you say it to me, Timothy? How is he to know which men are worthy of that treatment? Well, simply, are they older than you? Are they older men? How much older? I don't know. Older. Or men who are in authority over you by virtue of their office. Your elders. Your deacons. They're older men. Even if they might be younger than you. They have a position or a rank in the church that's over you. Appeal for them. So don't forget their age, Timothy. Don't forget their office. Give them honor. Give them respect, even as you correct them, even as you rebuke them. Don't be disgusted with them. Don't think you know better than them. We have these sorts of sayings that go around where men realize as they get older how much smarter their dads become. You guys heard people say this, man, my dad, you know, he's so much smarter now than he was 10 years ago. Oh, is he? I'm glad he's grown so much in the last 10 years.

And we all kind of chuckle and smirk because we know it's not the father that's grown necessarily, it's the son or the daughter. And so those who are older than us are worthy of our respect and our honor, even when they sin, even when you have to correct them, you honor them. And I think the reason we don't like to do that and the reason that it's difficult is because it requires a certain level of vulnerability that we all want to avoid. I'd rather just punch him than appeal to him. Because if I punch him, he'll just punch me back and then it'll be over.

But if I appeal to him, then I'm not sure what's going to happen next. And I'd rather have the certainty of a rebound, getting hit back. And that's what Paul cautions against, cautions Timothy against. I will tell you, with older men who have a soft conscience and who care about the Lord's commands and who are trying to make progress in their holiness themselves, appealing to them is the most effective way. Arguing and fighting with them is not. Your job as a young man is not to compete with the older men. It's not to play a game of one-upsmanship with them. Simply honor them and say, I think that's wrong. I think you sinned. I think you were angry. I remember one time in my life I had a young man come to me to correct me, if you will. That's what he was doing. About some way I'd handled one of my children. Something I'd said to them.

This man was not a father. This man was not a husband. He was probably 10 years younger than me. So he was young, young. This was a number of years ago. And he came with fear and trembling. I'm not a dad. I don't have kids. I'm sure you've got lots going on and you know way more about this than me. But I don't think the way you said that was good to your kid. Now what am I supposed to say to him? You don't know what you're talking about. You'll understand later. He was right. I thanked him. But the last thing he wanted to do, and this particular young man, this was not his M.O. for how he approached people. When he thought someone sinned, he'd usually bite their head off. But he came to me, and that wasn't how he was. And I listened to him. And if he had come to me and spoken how he normally spoke to men, I probably wouldn't have listened to him. So you appeal to those who are older. And this isn't just in the, this doesn't just, this isn't,

confined to just the church and the church officers. This is how you ought to conduct yourself in your homes, you as children to your parents. This is how you ought to conduct yourself in your workplace, towards your employers. Appeal to them as a father. Then to the younger men as brothers. How are you supposed to rebuke them? As brothers. Now, as I said earlier, and it just so happens, that we're studying here, that we read Psalm 133 about brothers dwelling together in unity. You have a picture here of part of that unity and how it comes about. They rebuke each other. They correct each other. In my house, and I'm sure in your houses, whether it's with your kids or it was when you were growing up, brothers are not always the kindest and gentlest with their peers. They use force. They use intimidation. They use manipulation. They blackmail each other. They threaten. They break each other's stuff.

That's not what Paul's commending here. How good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity. Appeal to them as a brother, not as an enemy, not as an adversary, not as a threat. In my house, we've had to talk with my boys. They say, well, it doesn't work. He doesn't listen to me. I know. You guys have a habit and a way of not listening to each other that we need to work against. And whether it works or not is not the point, at least not right this second. The point is how you speak to him, how you approach him. How do you want him to talk to you when you're in sin? Do you want him to do what you just did? No? Okay then. Rebuke the younger men as brothers. What about the older women? As mothers, right? It's all familial here. Fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters. What about the women? Well, I think that older women are probably the hardest people in the world to rebuke. And I don't mean it as a joke, though I think it's true.

Most of the pastors I talk to, it's the women who cause the most trouble in the church. And it's specifically the older women. They are the ones who run the church. They are the ones who make decisions. Even if they're not formally in positions of responsibility, they do tend to be the ones who calls the shots. They do tend to be the ones who make the decisions. And their husbands, whether they're the pastor or the elders or the deacons or however the church is organized, They're the ones who get to make the decisions. They've played the organ or the piano for the last 50 years and nobody's going to tell her that she's killing the church because she won't give it up. And so then the pastor comes in and he goes, what am I supposed to do? Paul says, here you're to appeal to them as mothers. Why are older women the hardest to rebuke? I thought about whether I should say this or not, whether I should talk about older women because some people, you know, if there's any point to get offended about, this is probably it.

Why are the older women the hardest to rebuke? Well, I think it's because they've lived a life where they've never been corrected before. And they're used to calling the shots and running the shows. They did it with their kids. They do it with their grandkids. They do it wherever they want. Nobody crosses them. No one disciplines them. And that's a failure of the men in their lives to love them. And all we're talking about here now is the fruit of that in the context of a church. What will the women say? You guys should know that the elders really do care what... The women of our church think. But we don't always do what you want. And if you've been around long enough, you know that. So the older women as mothers. What do mothers do? They give life. They sacrifice. It's sort of the definition of motherhood. You give your life for the life of another. So when you rebuke them, acknowledge that they have sacrificed. If they're hardened and calcified in their rebellion, then gentleness isn't going to work. I don't know that anything else will.

But gentleness won't work. But to the woman, to the older woman who needs to be corrected, acknowledge her sacrifice and acknowledge her kindness and her service and her work behind the scenes. Because that's what moms do. That's what they do in their homes. That's what the mothers of the church do in the church. So when you rebuke them or correct them, do it in the context of their love as a mother for a child, as a mother for you. And finally, the younger women. Rebuke them as sisters. And then there's this phrase, in all purity. Now, why would he put that in? Did Timothy have a trouble with impurity with the women? No, we have no indication that there's any reason to believe Timothy had troubles with the young women. But we do realize that there are those who aren't going to like what Timothy has to say, who aren't going to appreciate his ministry. And the place that he's most vulnerable is with the young women. Not just to sinning, but to being accused of sin.

And the court of public opinion doesn't always prioritize facts the way that they should. And so Paul tells Timothy, rebuke the younger women as sisters in all purity. You need to be aware of who's watching, who's around, and how you conduct your business. There's one other note I want to make about the pastor and the women that probably is more specific to reformed circles than not. And it has to do with interactions directly between men and women who aren't in a family together or pastors. When you believe in... male headship, father rule, there's this thing that can grow up that's not good. And that thing that grows up that's not good is that every bit of the pastor's work with the family goes through the husband or through the father and never is directly to the wife or to the children, especially the daughters. And that's not right. Because if that were right, Paul would have simply told Timothy here, talk to the dads about their daughters.

talk to the dads about their the husbands about their wives and pastors do that i do that there are times when there's something going on with a wife and i'll either talk to the husband say hey you're this thing or i'll say hey honey vanessa can you go talk to mrs jones but there is to be a direct dealing with of a pastor with his people not always through an intermediary and that's why paul tells him you should do it with all purity not just whether or not you actually get involved in some sort of impurity, but whether it looks like you are. My habit is not to talk to the women, any of you, privately. I mean, I'll talk to you in the foyer when there's people around, but I might go with a man back to my office to talk to him, but I'll never go alone with a woman. I'll take my wife with me or I'll grab some other woman and the three of us can go talk because I don't want anybody seeing the pastor and who going off by themselves and wondering what in the world is going on.

When actually what might be going on is completely reasonable and necessary, but it doesn't look that way. And as I've alluded to, sometimes with younger women or with older women, a pastor will ask the women of the church, the Titus II women, the older women, to take up some of that work, to carry some of that water. Hey, would you go talk to them? Or can we go talk to them? What do you think? So to wrap up, what are we supposed to do? How does this text apply to us? Well, the first is... As I said at the beginning, rebuke is an essential part of a pastor's job. You need it. I need it. So listen to it. And don't get angry when someone comes and says there's a problem. Don't be surprised by it. Listen to it. Submit to it. I've sometimes had to deal with men, especially young men, and it's as if the only thing they hear are gunshots. It's like unless you grab them and pin them up against a wall and get right in their face, they don't realize that they've done anything wrong.

That's a failure, men. It shouldn't have to be that intense for you to be like, oh, you think I did something wrong. You think I should change something. You have to cultivate a tender conscience and a softness to what's being said to you so that you don't have to have your back pinned to the mat before you realize there's a problem. Listen to it. Obey it, the rebukes. Don't be deaf to gentle correction. Now, the second application is I've been back and forth between the pastor's job and your responsibility, and I haven't spoken to that directly. And that's one of my applications, is that this is obviously a pastor's job. This is obviously the elder's jobs. But you're not exempt from this work in your life as a Christian. Paul says in Galatians 6, when he says, Brethren, if anyone is caught in a trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself.

so that you too will not be tempted. You say, well, that's not rebuke. And I say, well, if appeals to a father aren't with a spirit of gentleness, then you've missed the point. If you see your brother sin, go to him. Something that you can judge. If you think, man, I wonder how I am. If someone corrected me, how would I handle it? I think one of the best steps toward answering that question is saying, will you correct anyone else? If you're unwilling to go to your brother, and to care for them when they're in sin, and to love them and to correct them, I'm pretty sure you're not going to like it when they come to you and do it. Because you have a principle somewhere inside of you that says, this isn't a part of my life. I don't do it, and I don't want it done to me. And that's no good. Another example of you rebuking other people and not just being the pastor's job is Matthew 18. What's it tell us? If your brother sins, go to him privately. If that doesn't work, go to him with two or three witnesses.

other people who know what's going on. And if that doesn't work, then you involve the church. And so this work starts at the most grassroots level with us in our day-to-day interactions with one another. Sometimes that rebuke is just going to be a look at, you know, you're just going to look at somebody when they say something that's wrong. They say something, they curse, they say something foul, they complain. You may just look at them. And your look may be enough to correct them. There are times I can, you know, My kids will be doing something in the house, and I come into the room, and they don't know I'm there. And all of a sudden, they know I'm there, and they look at me, and I just look at them, and they're like, you know, all right. And that's enough sometimes. Sometimes it's not. And if it's not, then there needs to be a more proactive approach to them. But this is part of our lives as Christians, that we would be involved with each other, and it wouldn't just be glossing over and ignoring people's failures and their sins.

You can't be in real relationship with people if you have a commitment to never seeing them sin. So you see them sin and you go, okay, they sinned. Brother, sister, mom, dad. We have to be committed to this work. We have to be humble enough to do it and to receive it. Because if we're not, we're just cultivating our pride. And we're asking other people to join in in the lie and the deception that we're telling ourselves. And in the end, it will do damage and harm to our souls. And so we need to humble ourselves and say, I sin, you sin. Let's help each other with it. Let's look to Jesus Christ and let's not be perpetuating these lies to ourselves. Let's pray.