Dealing with Sin: The Western Church's Lukewarmness is Killing It

The Greek word is elegcho.

It's the word that appears in Luke 3:19-20, which says John the Baptist rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias.

It's a strong word. And...

...It's the word that Jesus uses in Matthew 18:15.

Here's a very literal, artless translation:

"If your brother sins against you, go, rebuke him between him and you..."

If you don't believe this, get out your Bible study resources and dig into the Word of God.

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Jesus calls His people into a relationship with each other rooted in the radical kind of love that He possessed when He abandoned heaven, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and humbled Himself, being obedient to death, even death on a cross.

His sort of love is honest and, by today's churchly standards; it is raw. The love of Jesus could be blunt.

Jesus often, and quickly, rebuked people for their sin, and not only Scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees.

Jesus is the guy who said to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan!"

His love for the person, greater than His discomfort over their sin, drove His rebuke-in-love-lifestyle.

In Matthew 18:15, Jesus commanded that lifestyle for men and women who are His disciples.

One note from church history: Christian movements that were spiritually vigorous, and blessed by the Spirit, practiced love as Jesus loved and commanded it in Matthew 18:15 and in the verses that follow.

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Here's a truth about the Western church today:

The love Jesus commanded in Matthew 18:15 is considered, by the Western institutionized church, to be sin.

What Jesus commanded as love has been replaced in Western Christianity by its lukewarm alternative:

Tolerance.

In my faith tradition, the Churches of God, General Conference, we used to love as Jesus commanded but, these days, we have "lukewarmed" love out of our play book.

We tolerate.

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And, based on my experience, when we deal with what we perceive to be sin against the institution, we don't rebuke it, using the formula Jesus commanded in Matthew 18:15-20.

We never face down the sinner and call sin, sin as John did with Herod or Jesus did with Peter when Jesus called him Satan.

Instead, we pass motions in Committee meetings or Council meetings or in Conference sessions.

But we don't obey Jesus.

No one actually goes to the person who is believed to be sinning, looks him/her in the eye and, being specific, rebukes, and calls that person to repentance. We don't take one or two others along as a second step to be reconciled with the sinner. We don't, in community, rebuke the sinner and the sin before the church...

...As Jesus, the Head of the body, COMMANDED.

We don't do that in my faith tradition. In all of my years, we never have.

We don't practice the radical love Jesus modeled and which He commanded. We don't rebuke sin face to face.

We sometimes claim that we do.

In our past, we did.

But, not today.

And, of course, the Lord of all power and grace and mercy and authority and love and blessing is not blessing us.

We must repent.