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Our New Testament reading, gospel reading is a very familiar passage from Matthew 7 verses 1 to 6. I encourage you to take your Bibles and read along as we look into these verses. Matthew 7, 1 to 6, and this is God's word. Judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye, and look a plank as in your own eye? Hypocrite. First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and tear you in pieces. The Spar God's word. One of the things we do as Christians is to confess that we are all sinners. Many of us have memorized Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But brothers and sisters, friends, what does that really mean in practice? In Ephesians 6, we are told, servants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling and sincerity of heart as to Christ, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ. In your daily work, do you give thought to how your work may serve Christ? Or just go about things without thinking about that? Again in Philippians 4, 8 we read, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. And ask yourself, how much of your attention is given to these things? And how much is your focus on your favorite sports or your wardrobe or your vacation? You know the things that you think about. What I'm asking in a different way is how often do you sin? And if you're like me, it's pointless to try to count how often you sin in a year. Or even in a week or a day. It's much more realistic to count how much you've seen in one hour. Isn't that the case? We all have lots of room for improvement in our growing to be like Christ. With all that sin, which we tend to tie to not think about, most of us anyway, at least I do, with all that sin in our practice we need help to change. That's why in Hebrews 10 verse 24 we're told, let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. Because we're God's children, redeemed by Christ we turn to walk with God. But because we're weak we need lots of help to stay on that track. So God tells us to assemble together. Not just so we can be in God's visible house here, but so that we can exhort one another and encourage one another to do better day by day. So we get to know one another and see the needs and help each other. Right over the book goes on in Hebrews 11 to give us a long list of the children of God who clung to him at great cost. And then in chapter 12 we are urged to look to God for help. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. He's our help, he's our goal, he's the one we look to. And they were told to welcome the discipline that he gives us to correct us. My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him for whom the Lord loves he chastens. And he scourges every son whom he receives. And then a little bit further on we're told to encourage others who share the same kind of weakness as we do. Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down in the feeble knees and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be dislocated but rather be healed. And in those verses you see our theme today. Strengthen the knees that are weak. Three points. Accept rebuke. Rebuke others with love. Encourage God's people. It's a very practical message. It starts with a call for us to accept rebuke. You need to face your own sin before you can help others well. A while ago I was taking a man to AA meetings, Alcoholics Anonymous. He probably was not yet technically alcoholic and he was certainly heading that way fast. And the people at AA got through to my friend where I had not been able to. Why? It wasn't that they told him anything I hadn't said about how he should live and how he should act, how he should deal with this. But they had been in the kind of situations which were driving him. When I talked to him he said, well you just don't understand because you haven't been in this situation. When they talked to him, some of them had been in worse situations. In practical everything he mentioned about his bad situation. And he couldn't bypass their comments because they knew him. Not personally as I did but knew him in the problems he faced, the way he lived. The answers he was taking. He couldn't just say you don't understand how bad my problems are because they'd had worse. That's why Jesus took on our humanity. He was, Hebrews 4.15, in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. He took on our guilt to pay for our sins. He took on our temptations, all of them. He took on our pain so that we would be able and willing to come to him. We can come boldly because we know that he understands as he's been there where we are. Brothers and sisters we're not better than Christ. If he had to stand in our shoes so that we could come to him, to help your Christian brothers and sisters you need to be able to stand in their shoes. You have to experience correction yourself before you can correct others effectively. And so we start this with our own need to accept rebuke. And it is very important because rejecting rebuke takes you away from Christ. We read it in Proverbs 15 again and again. He who distains destruction despises his own soul. Verse 32. That gives us the heart of this issue. This is especially true of course of those who disdain God's teaching in the Bible. They show that they do not think highly of their own needs. They despise their souls. They distance themselves from Christ. But the writer of Proverbs is thinking more broadly here. As we see in the rest of this chapter, he's addressing correction by friends, by family, parents, others in the community. He says that rejection even of this kind of rebuke brings you disaster. We can see what that means. It's a very simple kind of level. The young man, Jim, will call him, wants to be a carpenter. So he's an apprentice to a master of the trade. The master warns Jim that the way he's using the power of saw, he's likely to cut his fingers off and shows him how he should do it safely. And Jim looks and says, yeah, what does he know? Can you hear the ambulance sirens ringing? You know, we bring disaster on ourselves. We won't listen. Rejecting instruction is begging for trouble. In the spiritual realm, it's begging for eternal destruction. Not just loss of a finger, but loss of your being forever. So we're told to learn to accept rebuke without excuses, not to start saying, well, really, you can understand why I did this. In Hebrews 12, we read, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. This brings us to the other side, accepting rebuke builds you in Christ. Christian wisdom welcomes, put that in quotation marks because which we just read says we don't like it, but we welcome rebuke because it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. We go through tough things because beyond them lies something good. And we all do that in all kinds of ways in our life. You know that. Rebuke is good for you. It's good for your walk with Christ. In Proverbs 15, which we read, repeats this again and again, verse five, a fool despises his father's instruction, but he who receives correction is prudent. Verse 31, the ear that hears the rebukes of life will abide among the wise. Verse 32, he who sustains instruction despises his own soul, but he who heeds rebuke gains understanding because we are so prone to sin we need to welcome godly rebuke, even when it hurts, even when we don't like it. We need to welcome it. Because when we heed it, we are drawn close to Christ. We start there. Then when you have started there, you can go on to correct your brothers and sisters in Christ with love. You start by taking the beam out of your own eye. Matthew seven, very familiar. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye and look, a plank is in your own eye, hypocrite. First remove the plank from your own eye and then you will be able to see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. The World Economic Forum gathers annually in Switzerland. And when you learn that they fly to that meeting in literally hundreds of private jets, are you impressed when they call you to reduce emissions? You know, the most emission toxic vehicles available, hundreds of them gathering to tell you to reduce emissions. Before you call others to purity. You need to take seriously your own need. Otherwise, you just come across as a hypocritical crank to be ignored. We see this all over Galatians six one, brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such one in a spirit of gentleness. Considering yourself, lest also you be tempted. We look to ourselves. And you look at your own sin, it helps you to be gentle and loving and you're dealing with others who share your sinfulness. It gives a boost to your effort to help them. And never forget that in all of this, your goal is not to hammer them down, but to help them. So you're looking at friends, neighbors who do things that are wrong. And we need to recognize that there are different levels of offense which call for different responses. There's a hierarchy, as it were, of offenses. In the Old Testament, the judges were told to set punishments that match the crime. The familiar eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth was their standard for justice. It's not your personal standard for dealing with people, it's the standard of a judge who is to give justice. Some offenses are more serious than others and they should take that into account. That affects how we should deal with sin in Christ's body. Most sins, well, the call to us as individuals is to forgive them and forget them. Especially those in which we are the injured party, turn the other cheek, forgive, forget. Look at Matthew 5, verses 39 and following. We hear that all the time. And that's our pattern for most sins. If you... spoke out against every sin that someone committed, you know what you'd be doing all your life? You'd never ever time to do anything but tell people about their sins. And turn it the other way, how do you feel about people who point out every mistake you make? You know, in a school classroom where they're working on learning something, yes, that's appropriate, but the rest of the time, how long is it before you either ignore such a person or grow to hate that person? It does not build relationships. If anything, it tears the church apart or the admonition God is teaching us is to pull the church together and build it and unite it, to build brothers and sisters in their walk with Christ. Most issues, we should just say, okay, too bad, bye, it's gone, and not even think about it anymore, if possible, forgive the offender. There are, though, more serious issues that have to be dealt with. There are habitual sins which are repeated regularly and you need to challenge somebody on that. There are other issues, things you just can't quite forgive and forget. And they call for you and perhaps others to go to the offender and raise the issues. We'll talk about that and how you do it in a minute. Beyond that, there are some offenses which are explosive. Actions which seriously harm the church, actions which are a black mark on the name of Christ. You might call them rock the boat issues or sink the ship issues even. There are problems so serious that they are worth raising turmoil in the church or even destroying a particular church to deal with them. The kind of offenses which if they are left unchecked would call into question that church's place in Jesus Christ. One presbytery in our denomination recently had to deal with two pastors in the same church, both of whom had engaged in serious sexual sin. And at that level it becomes better that the congregation break up than you leave a public offense by the teachers uncorrected. Hopefully we won't face those, but sometimes we do. But how do we correct brothers and sisters in a loving way, a healing way? For a start, do not exchange gossip for godly rebuke. That basic principle shapes loving biblical rebuke. Love for your Christian brother leads you to hide their sin where it's possible. First Corinthians 13 spells that out. First Corinthians 13 spells that out. Love does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love does not seek out and mark evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth. Not rejoicing in iniquity means it does not spread tales of evil. Instead, love means you go to the offender where that's needed and offer such rebuke as that person needs, privately. Against that, think what is our most common response to someone's evil deeds. Did you see what she did? Right? Did you hear what he said? Sally, this is a secret, a real dark secret. Don't tell anybody. But maybe, you know, go on and tell the secret. We find gossip too easy. Never mind that it's malicious. Isn't that right? For some of us more of a problem than others, but it's just too easy. In Matthew 18, from verse 15 on, Jesus directs us in a better way. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Now notice how this starts. Don't talk to others about the problem. Talk to the offender. Tell him his fault between you and him alone. Alone. What does that say about sharing it with your friends? It's private. Christian love means giving a brother or a sister a chance to repent and make amends without anyone else hearing about the problem. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But what if the offender rejects your complaint? If he will not hear, take with you one or two more that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. Go to him again, taking with you two or three others, people who can be trusted, presumably people whom he trusts, whom he'll listen to, to observe and to meditate. It goes on, if you note in that passage, it goes on to say if he refuses to hear them, they aren't just there to listen and watch and say, well, this is what happened. They're there to be involved, to mediate, to try to draw people together, to try to bring resolution to the problem. They share in the discussion. So you want people that he will listen to if you can. You're still keeping it as private as you possibly can. You're making it as easy as possible for the offender to turn back from his sin. If you value what that means, think about your automatic response if someone makes public some failure in your part. Is your automatic response to say, yeah, I did that, I was wrong? Or is it more natural to cover up and defend yourself? At least say, well, there is a reason for that or something, some excuse. We give that chance. And then only if the offender stubbornly clings to his offense, do you bring it to the elders, tell it to the church, which may lead to somebody being excommunicated in the end. People told that this person is not really a Christian, he's not part of our church. This is not what our church stands for. Note that you are not required to pursue this to the end. If the offense is small, you may go and talk to your brother or sister and just drop the issue of it so you get no positive response. Say, it's not worth going further. Just forgive your Christian sibling and set the issue aside. At the second stage, you and the witnesses may likewise conclude that it's not a big enough issue to push it too far. To hope and pray that God will work in that person's heart and forgive it and let it go. Your goal is to draw the person who offends closer to Christ to build a church. Think of it like building a house. You're building a house and as it nears completion, you find a crooked board at the bottom. What do you do? What do you do? Well, you may decide that the consequences of tearing out that crooked board and building again are worse than just leaving it. Sit there, not quite right. Remember Jesus' parable of the wheat and the tares? You know, somebody went into the grain field and sowed weeds among the grain and the workers came and said, shall we pull them out? No, don't because you may pull out some of the wheat too. Leave it. And when the harvest comes, we'll separate them out. Sometimes it's better to leave an offender in place for God to deal with in the judgment. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's better you need to tear the whole house down for that workboard, but sometimes it's better to leave it there. Stages and rebuke. Rebuke which is designed to help people to turn back to Christ and grow in Christ. But rebuke is not the only or even the most important thing we have to offer. The passages we read told us to encourage Christ's people. Rebuke tends to be discouraging. And rebuke, it's far too easy for us to think we've done our duty by saying, well, you shouldn't have done that. You did that wrong, you know. We need to go beyond. And in going beyond, we need to be conscious of the difference between what has been called legal obedience and gospel obedience. Most of you may not be familiar with those terms. I picked them up from a faithful Scottish pastor in the 1700s. That's a while back, even before my lifetime. Thomas Boston Vetriek. And he said, legal obedience is the obedience you offer to avoid punishment. The law says, do this, so you do this, so you don't get punished. It's the obedience of a servant who does what he needs to do to get his pay, that his pay not be docked, and normally no more. Gospel obedience on the other hand is the obedience you offer for love of Christ. It's the obedience of a son, the obedience of a friend, the obedience of a redeemed sinner. It's obedience out of huge gratitude that leads you to want to please and honour your Saviour, to do just about anything you can imagine to please Him. And brothers and sisters, love for Jesus Christ produces far more committed service than fear of God's judgement. That's plain in so many ways. Perhaps the simplest, the most obvious way is that if you look at charitable giving, Christian believers give far more per capita than all the rest around. It's just an easy measure. But it's much deeper than that. People will do things because they love Christ that they won't do because they're afraid of being punished. Rebuke only takes us as far as legal obedience. Actually, that's not totally strictly true because Rebuke will remind the real believer that he's failing in his service of the Saviour he loves. It's turned to try hard. Even there's no need to fear punishment because Christ is born to punishment for all His people. But Rebuke points you to the law. And the law says, do what I tell you and live. Sinclair Ferguson in a tape I heard, and I tried to imitate it, but I can't really match his deep-based tones in this, but he pictures a man standing before Mount Sinai and seeing the law condemning him. He cries out to the law, have mercy on me. And the law responds, I know no mercy. And the law knows no mercy. Leviticus 18.5, You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them. Romans 10.5, From Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, The man who does those things shall live by them. Ezekiel 18.4, The soul whose sins shall die. Read the Ten Commandments, God's summary statement of the law. Not one of those commandments offers mercy. That's why you need Christ. But he's the one who gives you mercy. If any of you here have not yet come to Christ, if you have never seen your need for that, look and read God's law and see how it condemns you and condemns you and condemns you, and it's a schoolmaster, we're told in Galatians, to direct you to Christ. Come to Christ if you never have, because he brings mercy. He brings forgiveness. He brings healing and strength. Of course, God's mercy is offered to us in the Old Testament, even before Christ came, but it's not offered by the law. And so in rebuking offenders, we need to be careful to remind them of the saving love of Christ. Not just say, here's the law, you're in trouble, but say, here's Christ, follow him out of that pit. We need to go beyond rebuke. The text we read at the beginning spoke of encouragement as well as admonition. In some ways, that's the biggest, most important thing we can do. We need to encourage one another in gospel service of Jesus Christ. We exhort you, brethren. Worn those who were unruly, encourage the faint-hearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all, see that no one renders evil for evil, but always pursue what is good, both for yourselves and for all. 1 Thessalonians 5, from verse 14. We follow the example of Christ. We're told he will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young. Isaiah 40, 11. Encouragement means showing approval and support for people's efforts, not just their successes, but their efforts. We have a big snowstorm. It happens here once in a while. And a small boy comes out and shovels your sidewalk. He doesn't do a great job of it, but he gets a lot of the snow off it. Do you go and tell him you should learn to do that job right? I don't think so. Would you thank him for his kindness? Thank him for his effort. And if you encourage him with your thanks, he'll likely do it again. And over time, he will learn to do it better. Encourage people. You see how they try. You see what they're working at and encourage them. And welcome what they say. Thank them. It may mean redirecting someone a bit. Thank you so much for your work. But you know, I think you have a gift for name or whatever it may be. And we really need somebody with that gift to do this and direct them into a path where they can use their gifts well. It's so good to see you working to control your temper. You know, I found that when I get upset, it helps if I call a Christian friend and ask him to pray with me. You encourage them to grow and to find means of growing. Encouragement always means pointing people to Christ. You reassure them of his love. They're not cut off because they failed. You remind them of how he came to save them from their failures. If they're not yet believers, you urge them to come to Christ. If you're not yet a believer, you need Christ more than anything else in this world. He alone can take away your guilt. He alone can free you from God's condemnation. He alone can free you from the slavery that sin locks onto you. Come to him now if you never have. If the person you're talking to is a believer, encourage them in their walk with Christ. Encourage them to respond more and more to the love which he has shown them. To follow in the joyful path of his obedience. To remember the reward which he has given and will give them. We can be bold and go forward because he has given us an inheritance with him with heaven. We don't have to earn it. It's ours. Encourage people to look to the Spirit of Christ for help as they seek to live for Christ. Strengthen the feeble knees. Help people to grow in Christ. Helping the weak starts with recognition of your own weakness. You need to face your own sin before you can help others well. It's very important because if you reject rebuke, it takes you away from Christ. It makes you less able to help others. Christian wisdom welcomes rebuke. Not that it's enjoyable because we know it's good for us. We accept it and welcome it. Helping the weak in Christ means correcting brothers and sisters in love. Not gossiping about them, not revealing their failures to others, trying as privately as possible to show them their need to change and how they can change. You're called to encourage God's people to walk with him. Just pointing out their offenses sets their deeds against the law. There's no mercy in the law. There's no strength, no help to obey. It's a standard for us, but it doesn't do the work that we need to do to change. You need to encourage another to gospel service of Jesus Christ. Not just to point out their sin, but to welcome their obedience, to encourage them to walk closely with Christ, to help them to see his grace, his kindness to sinners, to show them how far he has gone to bring them cleansing and freedom and peace, teach them and stir them to walk with him. Let's pray. Father, we come to you as sinners, sinners who fall short day by day, hour by hour of your righteousness, your truth. We thank you for Christ, that he has taken our guilt upon himself. He has become sin for us, that he's walked in the dust of the earth with us, that he shared our weakness, but he has not sinned. Lord, we ask you to cleanse us and you day by day to show us the ways of Christ and to give us the strength to walk more and more in them. Help us to reach out to one another and to show one another the things of Christ that we need to know, to encourage and help one another to walk more and more with him. Grant that we may be a body so focused on you, so filled with you, that the world around is wowed by your love and drawn to Christ. We ask it in his name. Amen.