Mike Novotny - How Should You Correct Another Person?
Where is the line between lovingly pointing out a neighbor's sin versus approaching people the way the Pharisees did? Alright, let's imagine... let's imagine your best friend is gossiping. You know, just trash talks everyone. And let's assume for the sake of the argument she comes to the same church with you. The Bible says we have to be careful about judging non-Christians and holding them to Christian standards. But she claims to be a Christian. She's a member of the church.
Now she's gossiping. Like, do you say something? And if so, how do you say it? I think the question is like how do you lovingly correct someone? The Pharisees were famous for correcting people but they were super proud and self-righteous. And I think a great answer to that is in Luke chapter 18. You can write that down while I'm finding it. Luke chapter 18. Jesus told this story about a Pharisee and a tax collector and this is how it started. It said, "To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable". And I think that's the key.
Things blow up when you honestly think in your heart that that person is a worse sinner than you are. When you look at someone's behavior and instead of like being heartbroken that they're hurting themselves or the people around them, it just, it frustrates you because why would you ever do something like that? Because you don't do it? That's when you need to push pause and check your own heart. Whenever you can look down, you know, it's "those" people in our city, it's "those" people in our country, it's "those" people, whenever you're not like the worst sinner in the room in your own mind, you really, really have to be careful because you're probably not doing it out of love. You're probably doing it more out of self-righteousness. And we just have to correct people like "you" and then things would get fixed.
I think the key is just a wide-eyed awareness of your own sinfulness. To realize that if it wasn't for the grace of God and the Holy Spirit of God, you would do all of that times 100. And then you're going to be humble enough to approach someone in love. Right? This happens all the time because we sin in different ways. I think this is one of the devil's best tools. So let's imagine you're married and let's imagine your husband struggles with sexual temptation and pornography. And you just don't get it. I mean, it's so hurtful. And you've talked to him about it. And it didn't just happen once or twice but five times and 10 times. And you're so frustrated because he should just stop, right?
But the problem is if you don't realize that there's something just like that, like you have your own version of pornography that hurts him and he's talked to you about it and you don't just stop it. But it's different. Like that's the danger, right? When your sin is so easy that we should turn it off like a light switch but mine's more complicated and you don't understand. Like then you're in Pharisee mode. But when you really understand, like sin is difficult to say no to, like, I totally get it, I lose the battle 1,000 times. But you know what, brother, sister? I'm really concerned about what I'm seeing in you and I want to you about it. You're going to have a humble, compassionate, forgiving heart. So look in the mirror, be very aware of your own sinfulness. You'll have the humility that you need to approach sin well.