What’s Our Duty Towards “the Found”?

14th Sunday after Pentecost, 9/11/22 2 Corinthians 2:5-11 What’s Our Duty Towards “the Found”? I. Assure them of forgiveness. II. Welcome them back. Did you have a “busybody” in one of your elementary school classrooms? You know, the person who was constantly concerned about what the other students were doing or weren’t doing? The one who regularly made the trek to the teacher’s desk and informed her of what you or someone else was doing, some egregious violation of classroom decorum? And it didn’t take long for your teacher to size up this pint-sized informant. And she let your classmate know, to his or her utter disbelief—that she wanted this tattling to cease immediately. She may have stated emphatically, “MYOB! Mind your own business!” That’s a lesson some children learn very early in their elementary education. For others, it takes a little longer. But it needs to be learned or the ability to form relationships with others suffers. No one wants to be friends with a snitch. So, we carry that lesson learned into our teenage years and even into adult life. Just mind your own business. After all, you learn that you have plenty of things to pay attention to in your own life without the added burden of being concerned about what is happening in the lives of others. Once again today, Jesus turns that approach on its head. He tells us in no uncertain terms that he wants us to be concerned about the lives of others, especially if they’re straying away from him as their Savior. In today’s Gospel, he exhorts us to go find the lost. And, in this reading before us from 2 Corinthians, he encourages us through the Apostle Paul to get involved in the lives of others especially when it involves repentance and restoration. But that makes even the bold among us a little uneasy. When someone from our congregation or in our lives apart from this congregation has sinned and has been admonished for it, and then repents, how should we feel about it? What should we do? Is it better for us not to get involved? Should we let others take the matter from here? After all, we don’t want to make things worse. Paul reminds us in these words that we all have a responsibility when it comes to dealing with “the found.” But just what is it? What’s our duty towards “the found”? Let’s use that question to focus our attention on this portion of God’s word this morning. I. So, just what was going on here in Corinth? Well, you might recall that the Corinthian congregation was not your model group of Christians. Paul addressed a host of problems in their congregation in his first letter to them, and one of them was that a man in their congregation was having a sexual relationship with his stepmother, and it was public! You and I probably wonder how in the world that could happen, but you need to remember that the entire city of Corinth was a cesspool of immorality. So, how did the congregation react? Well, they not only allowed it to continue, they also took pride in how open-minded they were. The last thing they wanted to be accused of was being judgmental. They didn’t want anyone to poke around in their business, so they refrained from poking around in anyone else’s. You can guess that this didn’t sit well with Paul. In fact, he blasted them for it. He instructed the congregation to take disciplinary action against the man immediately, not out of hatred, but out of love. He reminded them that this man’s soul was in danger of eternal hell. He told them to excommunicate him if he wouldn’t repent. He wouldn’t, so they did. In spite of their efforts to call him to repent, he refused. So, they excommunicated him. And, praise the Lord, it had the desired effect. The man was crushed by the law. He recognized that his sinful lifestyle had separated him from his Savior. He acknowledged his sin and begged for their forgiveness. But evidently, the Corinthian Christians were slow to forgive him. We’re not exactly sure why. Maybe this situation had caused all sorts of factions in the congregation over what needed to be done, by whom, and when, and those wounds were slow to heal. Whatever, the case, the man was crushed with grief over his sin, but he found no relief from the members of the congregation. So, Paul laid out for them what they needed to do. This man was lost and had been found. Here’s their duty towards the found, “The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.” First, he told them you’ve done enough preaching of the law to him. It’s sufficient. You don’t need to remind him any further of what his sins are. He’s acutely aware of them. Second, forgive him. Announce to him that his sins, as grievous as they are, have been washed away by the blood of Christ. Their duty was to share with him the words of Jesus which announced to him his forgiveness. And third, comfort him. Tell him what he needs to hear over and over again. Tell him that Jesus has removed his sins as far as the east is from the west. Assure him that Jesus no longer holds this sin against him and neither do the members of the Corinthian congregation. All is well! So, what’s our duty towards “the found”? Assure them of forgiveness. There you go. It sounds fairly simple. The “found” sinner repents and we are to forgive him. It’s right here in black and white. Looks easy on paper, but it can be difficult in practice, even extremely difficult. Why is that? Because we’re reluctant to approach him or her. Remember? MYOB? What’s more, we’re afraid we might not say the right thing at the right time, and we’ll make the situation worse. Or, we’re reluctant to approach the “found” sinner because his sins hurt us or caused us some difficulty, and we’re not over that yet. And all the while, we know that Jesus commands us to forgive others, but we struggle. We might even hold a grudge. So, what should we do? Recall the forgiveness Jesus displayed. He not only forgave the people who loved him, he forgave the people who hated him. In his first sentence from the cross recorded for us, he prayed for his Father to forgive those who nailed him to it. Incredible! And that’s the unconditional forgiveness he extends to us. The sins of others are no worse than my own, than your own. But they are forgiven by Jesus. What’s our duty toward the “found” sinner? Assure them of forgiveness. II. It's apparent that the Christians in the congregation in Corinth tended to hold this repentant man at arm’s length. By his impenitence, he had placed himself outside of their fellowship. Yes, he had repented, but there was still quite a bit of sinful ice that needed to thaw. And who could blame them? Imagine the heartache he had caused to so many people. Those wounds were still fresh. Paul refers to the overwhelming grief the members felt over a situation that could have and should have been completely avoided. There had been many sleepless nights among the members of the congregation. So, now what? Paul wrote, “I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him.” The word Paul used that’s translated “reaffirm” is notable. It refers to the ratification of a legal contract in some formal way. In other words, Paul is urging them to reach out to this man intentionally. He doesn’t want them to think that their silence in the company of this man should be evidence that they no longer have anything against him. He wants them to go out of their way to show their love for him. Embrace him with your arms and speak your words of love for him to him face to face. Paul realized some of the members of the congregation might not be ready for that. He reminded them that his words to them in his first letter were a test to see if they would do the difficult thing of excommunicating him. His implication is that he’s laying another test before them to see if they will now reaffirm their love for him. And he reminds them how critical this is with these words, “[Forgive him and show your love for him] in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.” The last thing Satan wanted was for this man to repent. The next last thing Satan wanted was for the Corinthians to forgive him. He wanted them to hold a grudge. He was trying to split the congregation. But Paul and the Corinthians knew Satan’s schemes. Satan’s plans would come to nothing if they reaffirmed their love for this man. So, what’s our duty towards “the found”? Welcome them back. Every sin causes undesirable fallout. The Corinthians experienced those painful consequences. And so do we. You don’t have to think very hard or long to recall a sinful situation that has either destroyed your relationship with someone or at least thrown a cold, wet rag on it. The easy thing to do is just let it remain the way it is. The difficult thing is to forgive and then embrace the person in Christian love. When we do that, we now have another person standing with us whose focus is the same as ours—on the road to heaven. The Lord Jesus died and rose again to make us his family members for all eternity. In Christ we have the power to embrace each other in Christian love. That’s the business Jesus has given to each of us. Let’s get busy getting it done! Amen.