This content outlines a four-step biblical process for resolving conflicts and offenses between individuals, emphasizing direct communication and reconciliation, with a critical look at the modern church's capacity to fulfill its role in this process.
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Jesus said it's impossible that rel that
offenses don't come. So they are going
to happen. But he gave us instruction
about how to deal when an offense comes
between a brother or a sister in the
Lord. I'm going to deal with that today.
Welcome to another Caris Daily. I'm
Andrew [music] Wamik and Caris Daily is
a daily Bible study that we do and we
use our different instructors in Caris
[music] Bible College. And one of the
unique things is we all teach on the
same subject for an entire month.
[music] And so you get the same truth
sometimes from the same scriptures but
just with the different personality, the
different way that God has dealt with
each one of us. It's like looking at
something from different angles. You get
a different uh perspective when you see
it in 3D instead of 2D. So anyway, I'm
really excited and we've had a huge
response. This is one of our most viewed
programs on GTN as our Caris Daily. This
month we're teaching about relationships
and we're offering this little book
entitled How to Stay Positive in a
Negative World. And the first two times
that I've taught this month, I have
talked about marriage. That's probably
the foundational relationship. But we
need relationships with people, too. And
so, what I want to do today
is begin to teach about uh how to get
along with people and how to have a
relationship with them. this little
booklet that we're offering. You can
request this as a free gift to you.
We'll send it free and postpaid if you
would like it. You can go to our website
and uh you can get this. You could also
call. We have people standing by our
phone center 24 hours a day, seven days
and they'll be glad to supply that to
you. So, let me turn over to Matthew
chapter 18. And this is Jesus speaking.
And he's teaching on how to reconcile
and overcome problems that arise between
people. And so, he says in Matthew
chapter 18 and in verse 15, he says,
"Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass
against thee, go and tell him his fault
between thee and him alone. If he if he
shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy
brother. But if he will not hear thee,
then take with thee one or two more,
that in the mouth of two or three
witnesses, every word may be
established. And if he shall neglect to
hear them, tell it unto the church. But
if he neglect to hear the church, let
him be unto thee as a heathen man and a
publican. There's basically four steps
that you take, how to reconcile with a
brother. Now, this is talking about a
person who is a fellow believer in the
Lord. But these same principles will
work with people that are outside of the
body of Christ. Maybe not as well
because they don't have their heart
changed and they don't have God living
inside of them and the Holy Spirit
moving inside of them. But nonetheless,
these are principles that you can use
for anybody to try and reconcile when
you have problems between people. So the
first step is that you go to the person
who has done something to offend you and
you talk to him alone. That's the first
thing that you do. I tell you if there
there's four steps right here in just
these three verses. If we were to do the
first thing that Jesus talked about and
anytime somebody offends you, anytime
there's any kind of a conflict between
you and anybody else, if you went and
talked to them first before you talked
about them and what they have done to,
you know, one of your friends, if you
went directly to them, I believe in over
90% of the time that would reconcile and
solve the problem. Now, it's not 100%.
It goes on to say in Romans chapter 12,
"As much as lies within you, live
peaceibly with all men." That's implying
that you can't get along with everybody.
Jesus was the greatest manifestation
of love that the world has ever seen.
And yet, not everybody loved Jesus.
Jesus didn't get along with everybody.
23rd chapter of Matthew, he spent that
entire chapter calling the scribes and
Pharisees hypocrites. Why did you You're
procelites. you go around the world and
you make them twofold more the child of
hell than yourself. Jesus didn't get
along with everybody. It's a false um belief
belief
that if you just do everything right
that everybody's going to love you. And
if that's what you believe and if you
are just absolutely committed to being
best friends with everybody, then you
are going to be manipulated and
controlled by a fear of people and their
rejection and you'll never take a real
strong stand on anything. So you need to
first of all come to a reality that you
can't get along with everybody because
not everybody is willing to do it. But
you should make an attempt to do it. And
the first thing you do when someone
offends you is you go talk to them
directly. Did you know if you go talk to
someone, Christians especially are
really big about this. They will say,
you know, I'm not gossiping. I I I hate
to say anything, but this happened and I
want to know what you think. Am I wrong
in feeling this way? And you can make it
look good and you can whitewash it and
make it look like you're just trying to
get a proper perspective on things, but
you're violating what Jesus said. If
somebody offended you, you go talk to
them before you talk about them to
anybody else. This ought to be a a
standard rule that you just do not
violate. The only way I can see
violating it this is that you know I
have a ministry and we have like 1100
employees and there are times that an
employee does something wrong and a uh
uh manager has confronted them over it.
They've dealt with it but now they want
to come to me and talk about it to me so
that they can get my input on is this
something that we fire a person over? Do
we put them on probation or whatever.
Sometimes there may be a situation in a
work situation like that, but if you're
just talking about something that
happens between two people, I think that
you ought to always go talk directly to
that person before you talk about that
person to anybody else. If you did that,
it would accomplish a number of things.
For one thing, if you were wrong in your
assessment and then when you go confront
the person, it turned out that it wasn't
really what you thought and it wasn't a
big problem. Now, if you've already
talked about them to somebody else,
you've infected that other person with
your offense, and now you got to go back
and solve things with them. And 99% of
the time, they aren't going to keep it
to themsel, they're going to share it
with somebody else. Ba bad news spreads
really quickly. And if you have a wrong
opinion about something and if you
talked about it, it's going to infect a
lot of people and it just causes a lot
of pe lot of problems. You know, I
remember when I first started pastoring
little churches
that Jaime and I just shared everything.
I shared everything with her. I mean,
there was hardly a thought I had that I
didn't share with her. We were one and
we just shared everything. And people
started criticizing Jamie. They didn't
like the way she played the piano. They
didn't like the way she sang. They
didn't like the way she did this. And I
just was used to sharing everything. And
so I'd come home and tell her what
people had said about her. And it didn't
take very long for me to realize that
this was not blessing her. And she was
really being bothered by it. And the
Lord spoke to me. And I was praying and
I said, "God, what's wrong with Jamie?
How come these things are bothering
her?" And he said, "It's because you are
just like Satan's messenger boy. All
he's got to do is just make any
accusation." And boom, you take it right
to her. Says, "You need to cover her.
You need to protect her. You need to be
a defender for her." And so I quit
sharing the negative things, the things
that were wrong with Jamie. And you need
to recognize that you don't need to just
go to your best friend and your
acquaintances and share with them every
hurt and everything that you have
because you might be totally wrong. The
first thing you do is you go directly to
that person and you talk to them. And
did you know what I found out is that
many, many, many times, it's hard for me
to put a percentage on it, but many
times I take an offense where none is
intended. I've certainly had other
people do this with me. I've had people
come to me and tell me that, "Man, I've
hated you for years because you said or
did this and I didn't even mean anything
by what." Sometimes it was a joke. And I
have gotten trouble joking and and you
know kind of criticizing people as a
joke and stuff and some people take it
uh seriously. So anyway, if something
was done that offended you and if you
choose to go straight to that person,
you're liable to find out that they
didn't mean what they said or you misinterpreted
misinterpreted
something that they said. You read
between the lines. You know, one of the
things that the Lord spoke to me long
time ago, 40, 50 years ago, was one of
the qualifications of an elder is you
have to be sober. And that's not talking
about not drunk. It's talking about you
have to be serious. And as I studied
that word out, you go through two or
three, you know, lay layers of where the
original word came from. The word means
without speculative imagination. Now,
that really ministered to me because I
remember one time that I was there was a
I'd go to Kansas City and there was this
couple that always came to my meetings.
They would get there two hours early so
they could sit on the front row and I
mean they just loved me. We had a great
relationship and I would go to Kansas
City twice a year and they were always
there. And then one time I went there
and they weren't there and it was noticeable
noticeable
and I got to thinking and the previous
time I had been there I had given them a
prophecy that wasn't a generic prophecy
that you know it could be fulfilled in a
number of different ways. This was so
specific like in two weeks you're going
to see this happen or something. And I
gave a very specific prophecy. And when
I didn't see them sitting on the front
row, I immediately got to reading
between the lines speculating that uhoh,
I must not have been completely
accurate. What if something I said
didn't come to pass? I bet these people
have been going out and telling people
that I'm a false prophet. And I went
ahead and ministered that night and got
through the service. But that night, I
hardly slept because I was so offended
at these people being offended at me and
all of the things that they were
probably saying about me. And the next
day, I was just tormented with this. I
mean, for 24 hours, I was just bothered
by this. And the next night when we had
a meeting, there they were on the front
row. And I went up to say something to
them and they said, "We're so sorry we
didn't make it last night. There was a
death in the family and we had to go to
a funeral. we would have never missed
your meeting. And I found out that for
24 hours, I had let these people rent
space in my mind. I'd been focused on
things that weren't true. I was having a
speculative imagination.
And I just determined from that moment
on that, you know what? I'm not going to
speculate. If you don't like me, you're
going to have to come tell me. I'm not
going to read between the lines. I'm not
going to take your hints that you drop
along the way and if you turn a cold
shoulder to me, I'm going to look at you
and say, "What's wrong with you?" But
I'm not going to sit there and I am not
going to speculate.
And you can solve that misunderstanding
happens so much. You know, I heard one
woman come and she said, "The pastor
didn't even speak to me this morning.
says, "He always greets me." And we
walked right by each other in the hall
and he didn't even speak to me.
And I just said to her, I said, "Maybe
something happened. Maybe he had been on
a phone call, found out that somebody
died. Maybe there's some leader in the
church that, you know, did something
wrong. Is it possible that he was
focused on something other than you and
he didn't mean it bad at all? Maybe he
was just occupied?" and they said, "Oh,
well, you know, maybe that's true." But
see, people just take the fact that this
person nearly always speaks to you, but
they they could have been thinking of
something else. Somebody changes a lane
in front of you and you are absolutely
certain that they did it because they
just hate you and they don't care
anything about you and you are certain,
you look at things only from your point
of view and you're certain that they did
this out of just meanness and anger.
It's possible that they came from the
hospital and had just been told that
they had a month to live or maybe they
had just come from a funeral and their
mate of 50 years had died and they just
weren't thinking the way that they
should. But see, we take things and we
take an offense lots of times when there
is no in offense intended. How do you
deal with that? You go talk to the
person before you talk about them. And
if you misread the situation, they will
straighten it out. you've reconciled and
that would solve I believe probably 90%
of all problems right there and if the
person really did do something wrong but
they see how it affected you most of the
time we look at things only from our own
perspective and we don't think about how
that we are saying something that's
insensitive to another person and when
we are confronted with it we just I
apologize you know one time I pulled a
joke on Jill Leblanc who's a super good
friend of mine we've been friends for
nearly 50 years. They travel with me and
minister and I pulled a joke that I
thought was really funny. She didn't
think it was funny. And that night in
the service, she got up and led praise
and worship. Then I got up to receive
the offering and I made some reference
to that thinking it was just really
funny. She walked off the stage and they
didn't stay to do the worship music, you
know, during the offering. And so I knew
something was wrong. And as soon as it
was over, I went to her and I said, "I'm
sorry, Jill." I said, "What happened?"
And she told me how offended she was.
And even though I didn't intend it, it
was a joke. I thought it was funny. I
didn't intend it. It didn't matter
whether I think it's funny or not. If
the person you're pulling the joke on
doesn't think it's funny, then it was
out of u it was out of taste. It wasn't
tasteful. It wasn't the right thing to
do. And I literally got down on my knees
and apologized. And I said, "I am sorry.
I never want to make fun of you. And so
I offended a person that was a good
friend of mine without even realizing I
had offended them. But when I it
happened instead of me becoming
defensive and say, "Well, you shouldn't
have been upset and stuff." Man, it
doesn't matter um you know what my
intentions were. If it was received
wrong, you just repent of that. And if
you were to do that and just go talk to
this person, that would solve 90% or
more of all problems. If you go talk to
the person
and they don't repent and they say, "No,
I don't like you anymore and I intended
to offend you and I intended to, you
know, slander your character or
whatever." Well, if you can't reconcile
with them, it says take one or two more
with you. This isn't saying that you go
get two of your friends, tell them your
side of the story, and get them as
prejudiced as you are in this situation,
and then the three of you go and
confront this person. That's not what
that's talking about. This is talking
about arbitration.
In other words, maybe you're only
looking at things from your side of the
situation. The other person's only
looking at their side. You aren't
listening to each other. You're just,
you know, the scripture says Proverbs
13:10, only by pride comes contention.
And that's not just talking about
arrogance. That's just talking about
you're looking at things only from your
own perspective. And so when you take
two or three more with you, that's not
to get them to gang up on this person.
This is to have people who haven't been
prejudiced. You haven't told them you're
just your side of the story. They are
coming in with fresh eyes. They're
looking at it without any prejudice in
them. they haven't been pre-programmed
to reject this person and they're coming
in and listening to both sides of the
story to arbitrate. Did you know in a in
a business you have an arbitration come
in, the arbitrator comes in and looks at
both sides and then makes a judgment
that is agreeable or a compromise that's
agreeable to both sides. That's what
this is talking about. that if you go to
that person and if they are truly upset
and they don't want to reconcile then
you bring one or two more so that you
can see through them which side is
correct. Maybe you are looking at things
completely wrong. You know I arbitrated
one time between two pastors that had
really been at each other's throat and
uh anyway it's a long story. I hadn't
got time to go into the whole thing, but
I sat and listened to both sides of the
story. And then I sat down and told him,
I said, "Both of you are wrong." And I
said, "Maybe this person said something,
but the way you responded to it was
totally wrong." And the way you attacked
them and then the way that because they
were attacked, they attacked you and and
it just mushroomed. I've actually had
counseling session with par with couples
before that they are arguing over
something and I say, "This is not that
big of a deal. Why is this such a
problem in your marriage? And then they
go back 12 years ago this person did
this and it really isn't that individual
instance. It's the fact that 12 years
ago something happened and they never re
reconciled and it's just been piling on
and eventually it becomes this little
tiny thing that's a straw that breaks
the camel's back. So anyway, you need
sometimes arbitration. you need other
people to come in with a fresh approach
to the thing and they might be able to
help. If that doesn't work, then it says
that you bring these one or two others
so that every word may be established.
This is referring back to uh Deuteronomy
chapter 30.
I'm not sure on that. It could be
Deuteronomy chapter 19, but anyway, in
Deuteronomy, it says that you can't
accuse one person with only one
accusation against him. It says
everything has to be established in the
mouth of two or three witnesses. Nobody
could ever be prosecuted or have a
judgment come against them because just
one person because that one person could
lie and railroad them. It's a lot harder
to get two or three people to get their
story straight. And so that's what this
is referring to. So one of the things
that's accomplished, not only do you
have arbitration when you bring one or
two other, but then if you have to bring
it to the next level and bring it before
the church, well then you fulfilled that
requirement in the book of Deuteronomy
and you have more than one person who
can verify all of the things, all of the
accusations that are being made against
this person. So, let me just say that
these first two things that the
scripture here talks about doing
are things that each one of us can do in
any situation that you're dealing with.
You can go directly to the person. If
that doesn't reconcile, you can bring
one or two more for arbitration and we
can do that all of the time.
These other two things that are listed
here in uh verse 17 are really things
that aren't available to us today.
And I know that that's going to shock
some people. What are you saying? Well,
what I'm saying is if if you didn't if
they didn't respond to the first two
levels of trying to reconcile and you
bring it to the church, did you know
that there's not one out of a thousand
churches today that would take the
responsibility for reconciling between
members of that church who are at each
other's throat? Now, if they would,
well, then yes, you could do it. But
most churches, to most churches, it's
just a place you go and you sit for an
hour a week and you hear some teaching
and then you may have some things you
do, a life group or something like that,
but they they don't really function the
way that God commanded the church to
function. Our church today has has it's
just a shadow of what it's supposed to
be. Not all churches, but the vast
majority of them. And so since churches
will not accept this responsibility,
then you don't have this third level of
how to deal with conflict available to
us. If you were to go to the average
church and ask them to uh, you know,
here's the situation. Could you help us
reconcile and solve this situation?
Let's say that it's a dispute between
neighbors and your fence is over on
their property, so they say, and you've
already talked to them individually and
they are not going to change. you've
taken one or two more and you haven't
reconciled. If you were to bring that to
the church, the church would say, "Who
made me a, you know, a judge among you?
I don't care. You go figure this out.
Take them to court." That's what the
average church would do. Go sue them. Go
to the city council or do something.
Churches don't accept this
responsibility. And since they don't,
you can't really take advantage of that.
But let's say that a church did accept
this and a church got involved, found
out the facts, and they made a judgment
and they said, "All right, here's the
right thing to do." And if one of those
people was to say, "Well, I'm not going
to accept your judgment." Did you know
the church in Jesus day in the New
Testament days, there was only one
church in one town.
There might have been 50 different
locations meeting in homes, but it was
one body of believers with one eldership
that ruled it. And if the church was to
make a decision and if that person
didn't hold to it, well then that would
be a serious serious thing. It would
exclude them from that church. But
today, the church is so splintered and
divided. We have hundreds and hundreds
of churches in one town that if the
church did accept this, if they made a
judgment, and if the person says, "I
don't care what you say. I'm going to
quit this church. I'll go to the church
across the street and they could
continue to fellowship with them. That
would just kind of undo all of this
thing. And then it says that if they
don't accept what the judgment of the
church is, let him be unto thee as a
heathen man and a publican. And boy, I
do not have time to get into this on
today's message. The next time I'm going
to turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter 5
and talk about what it means to turn a
person over to Satan for the destruction
of the flesh. That's what this is
talking about. It's treating him as a
heathen man. Now, I hadn't got time to
explain this and so please don't just
reject everything because you
misinterpret what I'm saying, but this
is an effective means of church
judgment. When you exclude a person from
your fellowship, when you turn a person
over to Satan, it doesn't mean that
you're damning them to hell. That's the
Catholic Church is the only church body
really that has a doctrine of excluding
people. They call it excommunication.
And uh often what they mean is since
they since the Catholic Church believes
that you cannot be saved without being a
member of the church, the Catholic
Church. Well, then to exclude you from
the Ca Catholic Church means that you
are damned to hell, that you have lost
your salvation. That's not what turning
a person over to Satan is. That's not
what treating him as a heathen man
that's described right here. That's not
the same thing. So when I mention this,
there's a lot of people that just
automatically transpose this wrong
doctrine from the church uh from the
Catholic Church into what I'm talking
about. You need to uh wait and get the
next teaching that I do on this so that
you can get it from scripture and not
pigeon hole me and just put me into that
box. But nonetheless, regardless of
whether people misunderstand this or
not, if you bring the situation, if
you've gone through the first three
steps and the church has made a judgment
and this person is wrong and you need to
repent and you need to correct yourself
in this, if the church makes that
judgment, which again very few churches
will do this, so it's not usually an
option. But if the church made that
option and the person will not submit to
it, then you were supposed to treat him
as a heathen and a publican. A publican
was a tax collector who had defected
from the Jews and was actually an
employee of the Roman government and he
collected taxes for the Roman government
and he would often cheat the Jews in the
process and take the extra and keep it
for himself. And so publicans were
hated. So this doesn't mean that you
just you refuse to talk to this person.
You talk to people who aren't
Christians, you aren't supposed to treat
them bad, but you don't treat them the
same as you do a brother or a sister in
the Lord. You don't extend the same
love, the same acceptance towards them.
And in the next time, I'll get into more
detail on this. You know, let me say
that there is a group in Colorado
Springs that because the church doesn't
accept responsibility for reconciling
church members and uh they don't execute
this church judgment. There's a group of
lawyers in Colorado Springs that have
formed a group. I don't even know what
they call themselves. I've never talked
to them, but I've heard somebody tell me
that when I was teaching on this. And
they will arbitrate. They will take uh
problems between Christians. You know,
it says over here in the next over in 1
Corinthians chapter 6 that you aren't
supposed to go to law against a brother
or a sister in the Lord. And so based on
that, they will take cases and people
that have had problems, they will come
and they make them sign a piece of paper
that we are going to listen to both
sides. We are going to follow the law
and then we are going to place a
judgment and you are bound by the
judgment that we have. And so it's a
step to kind of compensate for the
church not doing what God told them to
do right here. There are a group of
Christian lawyers that have assumed this
responsibility and you can go to them.
Now that ought to be the church doing
this. But nonetheless, very few churches
will do it. And even if the church did
execute the judgment because of the
splinter in the church and there's so
many different denominations that don't
have anything to do with each other, all
they'd have to do is go across the
street to another church and they could
receive all of the benefits of being a
member of that church. Uh even if you
executed the judgment on them. So it's
somewhat limited because of the uh
impotency of the church today. But
nonetheless, these are things about how
you reconcile and how you get along with
other people. We're offering you this
little book. This is a free gift to you
on how to stay positive in a negative
world. It's dealing with relationships.
and you can request this and we'll send
it to you free and postpaid. You can
also call. We have people standing by
247 on our phones at 719-635
1111 and you can order this. You can
also receive prayer. Uh and you can also
become a partner with us or you can
give. There's a lot of expense to all
the things we do on GTN. So you can go
and you can uh give an offering there
and become a part of what we're doing.
And I tell you, you would be blessed for
it. [music] There's a lot of people's
lives that'll be changed by the things
that I've said today and you can be a
part of helping us get that gospel out.
So, thank you for joining us. Join us
again [music] for another Caris Daily.
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