A few thoughts on confrontation...

Man. I hate awkward confrontation. I basically hate confrontation. Period. If I see someone sin it's like, "Sin...what sin??? I didn't see anyone sin...blessed are the peacemakers. Am I right?"

I think the first reason I hate confrontation is I don't like shaking up my comfortable, snow globe world. It's sort of wonderful in here and I would hate to be told the status quo is completely wrong. Another possible reason is that I don't want to lose the friendship.

Sometimes I make excuses for their behavior so it's not really that bad: "I know Suzy has a blabber mouth but it's not really gossip...she's actually giving us prayer requests in a conversational format."

OR worse, I make excuses for myself, "I'm not really the right person to confront, I mean I'm no better than him. I've lied so many times myself and I mean hasn't God forgiven both of us."

Despite how wise all these answers sound (sure) they're all completely foolish. Yes, we shouldn't be a person who's known as a "confronter" like some weird, uncool version of "The Punisher." But we also shouldn't be characterized as non-confrontational. Make sense?

For example, a friendship can be lost over a tiny sin (like an unkind word), but not every tiny sin is WORTH losing a friendship over. In fact, proverbs calls the confrontation ("wounds") of a friend "faithful."

And here's where we get to the heart of the issue...WHY do we confront?

Matt 18 says that we are to confront when a brother (or sister) sins. Why? to "gain your brother." We don't do it because we're out to prove something or because we are more spiritual.  We do it because we love the Lord and we love our church family. Sin will tear us apart as surely as a lion will tear apart it's food (baby antelope- that's us.). It will take our focus off of the Lord and that bad vision will quickly show up in our relationships.

So if we are commanded in scripture to confront but don't that, my friend, is sin.

HOW do we confront?

Let me break it down to you, Paul-style.

In 1 Timothy 5:1 & 2, he says, "Do not rebuke older men but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity."

Remember earlier how I said our church is a family (or something very close to it)...Do you see how Paul brings that metaphor in here? WE are the family of Christ and as such we have fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters.

From here it gets really simple, how we are to treat each person when it comes to confronting sin relates to their God-given station in life. Treat older men like a father, not bringing down the holy fire to rain upon their sinful head, but exhorting them with a million ounces of gentleness to do what is right. We owe them our respect because they are older than us.

Younger men we treat as our brothers. Not treating them like the annoying ones that read our journals, but the ones who are, hopefully, continually growing and maturing in the Lord.

Older women- well- we treat them like mothers, knowing that they could quite possibly be the sweetest people in our church but also the most prone to busy-body-ness, a sin that seems harmless but, if left untouched can be the very material that unseams the family.

Younger women -we treat them like sisters and, just so there isn't any false inuendos when a brother confronts a sister, with "all purity." This means you don't go off by yourselves and don't meet in private just the two of you.

So there you have it- basically  Biblical confrontation says, "You say you love Christ and His church- now prove it."

I think this is one area I still need to work on. I still get that sinking feeling in my stomach and my legs turn into jelly whenever I feel I need to confront. But shame on me if I don't follow through. I may be a nervous, sweaty mess but at least I'll be an obedient nervous, sweaty mess.

One last thing, "Blessed are the peace makers" doesn't mean not confronting sin. In fact, a peace maker WILL confront sin when needed. Because what do peace-makers do? They make peace.

If you would like to hear more on this topic of who and when to confront...click here
 Select the Sermon on 1 Tim 5 and you're golden.

Thanks for being an awesome reader!!!