…SOMEDAY YOU MAY have to confront someone you love who is caught in sin…

That’s something we don’t talk much about–confronting in love the person who is caught in a sin.  But the Bible is clear that we have a responsibility to hold one another accountable, to correct and rebuke one another, to confront in love, and to restore people from sin.  If you see a brother caught in a sin and you say, “It’s none of my business,” you don’t really care about your brother, and you’re ignoring Christ’s command (See Luke 17:3; 2 Timothy 4:2; Galatians 6:1).

So one of the applications to the sermon on Nathan and David is that there will be times when you have to confront someone you love.  But a good sermon will take that application a step further and give examples.  I tried to think of times when people might have to confront someone they see committing sin, and I began to write down ideas in my manuscript.  “If you know that your friend is having an affair, or you discover that someone is embezzling money from his business, or you’re a student and you see someone cheating on a test, what do you do?”  Then I remembered visiting the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.  Etched on the wall is their slogan, “We will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.”  That’s a great illustration of how even people outside the church realize the need to confront those who have done wrong.

Then I remembered that a young man in our church is attending the Air Force Academy.  His father once told me a story about his son taking tests there.  He once told his dad that whenever they’re taking a test, they all keep their heads down and nobody ever looks up.  Ken said, “Why is that, son?  Are they afraid they’ll be tempted to cheat?”  “No, Dad,” Josh answered, “We’re afraid we will see someone else cheating and have to turn him in.”

That’s a great story, and it made a good illustration in the sermon because it helped me bring to light situations that might arise in every-day life when we are called upon to confront someone who has sinned.  We don’t go looking for people’s faults.  In fact, we prefer not to find any.  But sometimes we can’t ignore them, and we must lovingly confront.  Bob Russell, “When GOD Builds a CHURCH, 34-35

“Then Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man!  Thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.  I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah.  And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more!  Why have you despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in His sight?  You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon.  Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.”  2 Samuel 12:7-10

–Mike Benson