Matthew 18:15 “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.”

Talking about someone else’s sins is at one and the same time an easy and a difficult thing to do. Talking about them to someone other than the person who committed the sin is relatively easy. Then we don’t have to risk an unpleasant confrontation. We have no worry that the guilty party will become upset at us and accuse us of judging. We avoid the drawn out debate in which we have to defend and explain what the Bible really says on the matter. We are spared an uncomfortable and awkward scene in which the offender completely comes apart and blubbers their apologies.

Instead, we can talk to friends and neighbors for whom it is none of their business. We might even win their sympathy. It gives a little boost to our self-esteem as they affirm our innocence, praise us for our superior morals, and share in our outrage over the injustice we have suffered. Taking this road is easy because it is so painless. Even more, it is satisfying to hear how right I am.

Of course, this is the sin the Bible condemns as gossip, and it serves no one. Not only is it a loveless thing to do to the brother or sister who sins, but it also reinforces the most dangerous features of our own sinful natures: pride and self-righteousness. Since it fills us full of ourselves, it leads us further and further away from faith and our Savior.

The difficult thing to do is also the loving thing to do: “Go and show him his fault just between the two of you.” The purpose of such a meeting is not to extract vengeance by making the other person feel uncomfortable. We do not go for the sake of venting our own anger. Then we undercut the loving purpose of Jesus’ command. About 130 years ago a pastor in Germany wrote, “It is no help to an unrepentant one to be annoyed with him; what he needs is seeking love.” That is exactly what Jesus proposes here: not angry annoyance, but seeking love. “If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.”

That phrase is the key to understanding everything Jesus asks in these verses. When someone sins, our goal is to win them, not be rid of them. Though he doesn’t lay out the details of our response, we know that he wants us to share the three little words that are arguably the three most important words in Christianity: “I forgive you.” That is why we confess our sins together on Sunday morning–not so that we can embarrass ourselves in front of each other, or lead our non-Lutheran guests and visitors to wonder, “What kind of people are these, anyway?” It is so that we can hear the pastor speak Jesus’ words of promise and reconciliation: “I forgive you.”

That is why Jesus gave his life on the cross–not to prove his dedication to his cause, or inspire us to a greater dedication to our own. It was the payment for our sin, the only payment that would make it possible for him to say to a world of sinners, “I forgive you.” That’s why he wants us to receive his Supper–not because there is great nutritional value in a little bite of bread and sip of wine, but because it is his true body and true blood given for you “for the forgiveness of your sins.” Again he is saying, “I forgive you.” He wants to win us over. He wants to keep us as his own.

Once Jesus has us, he fills us with the same kind of concern for each other. That is why we go and talk to the brother or sister who has sinned against us. Confronting sin and forgiving it is an expression of our love for each other.

Luke 7: 12b-15 “And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, ‘Don’t cry.’ Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, get up!’ The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.”

            Before we get to the more obvious example of Jesus’ assistance, there is a very subtle evidence of our Lord’s helpful intentions. It has to do with the circumstances. Luke tells us that a large crowd went along with Jesus. A large crowd from the town of Nain also accompanied the grieving widow. If Jesus had been traveling alone, or with just a few of his disciples, it is possible that they might have discreetly stepped to the side and slipped into the city without being noticed. But the two crowds meeting at the narrow gate of the city at about the same time forced everyone to stop. This more or less guaranteed a meeting between Jesus and the widow. Just a coincidence?

            Most likely you have experienced a similar conjunction of just the right series of events at just the right time. You were running late, but just as you are about to pull out of the driveway, you remembered something you needed in the house. So you stopped the car and ran back into the house to retrieve the necessary item. Once you were on your way, you came to an intersection where it was obvious a horrific accident had just taken place. Police and paramedics hadn’t arrived yet. You run a few quick calculations in your mind. You think to yourself, “If I had left just a few minutes earlier, that could have been…” Just your good fortune? Just a coincidence?

            The God who has numbered the very hairs of our head, the God who knows the words we are going to say before they have reached our own tongues, knows no such concept as “coincidence.” The psalmist confesses, “My times are in your hands.” We often apply those words to God’s right to determine when our lives end. But they aren’t concerned with the end of life alone. They apply to the beginning and the middle as well. On this day he arranged a meeting between Jesus and a woman who had lost her only son. On any day, who knows what he has arranged to bring you and me the help that we need?

            Luke then provides explicit proof that Jesus loves us and comes to help. “When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her…” When you go to the emergency room for help, you are met by medical professionals. Whether they like you or dislike you, they take care of you because it is their job. They are “professionals.”

            Jesus is not a mere “professional.” His heart is genuinely moved by the plight of his people. We have no greater assurance of this than the sacrifice he has made to save us from our sin. He did not give up his life to redeem us from sin out of a sense of obligation. He didn’t save us because it was his “job.” No. Think of all the passages of Scripture that associate Jesus’ saving sacrifice with his love. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” “God so loved the world that he gave.” “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” “No greater love has anyone than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

            So there is no surprise when Jesus is confronted with the other sorrows of the people he loves so much, and he is moved. He comes to help. He comes to dry our tears.

            And then he proves his power. “Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, get up!’ The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.” It is true, death is sad. This woman’s situation was sad. Our impossible situations are sad.

            But you cannot concoct a situation so sad, you cannot dream of a situation so impossible, that it defies Jesus’ power to help. He raises the dead! He didn’t give CPR to a man whose heart stopped moments ago. They were carrying his cold corpse to the grave.

            Even more, this was just a little miracle compared to the one he promises is coming. “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice (that is, Jesus’ voice) and come out.” With one command, Jesus will raise the entire population of all the cemeteries in the world from the dead. With one command. Suddenly, with Jesus’ help, our problems don’t seem so big.

            So don’t cry–not because Jesus rebukes your tears, but because he is going to take their every cause away.

Luke 7:11-13 “Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out–the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, ‘Don’t cry.’”

A death in the family is always sad, a trial to bear. This woman’s circumstances were particularly difficult.

First, there was the emotional challenge. This was not her first trip to the cemetery to bury a member of the immediate family. Her husband was already dead. Now she had lost her only son. The separation forced by death is unnatural under any circumstances. But the death of a spouse breaks our closest human bond: two who have been united as one for as long as you both shall live. The death of a child seems against nature. As parents we are supposed to care for our children, not bury them. Now this woman was all alone.

Second, there was the material or physical challenge. This took place in the First Century Middle East, not Twenty-first Century America. She was not going to take a few personal days and then return to the office, not even to the assembly line. There was no life insurance policy to pay her. Public assistance was nothing more than permission to pick up stray stalks of grain left behind by the harvesters, if she still had the strength and health to spend hours bent over in the fields.

Together, these things formed the basis for the most serious challenge: the spiritual one. Her new life was fertile soil for faith-killers like worry: “How will I ever put food on the table? How will I ever make ends meet?” Or anger: “Why did God do this to me? What did I ever do to deserve this?” Or doubt and disbelief: “This is too much, too hard, to fix, even for the Lord.”

Maybe you have heard the irreverent, I might even say blasphemous quip that pro golfer Lee Trevino once made when asked what he would do if he was ever caught in a thunderstorm on the golf course. “I would hold a one iron up in the air,” was his reply, “because even God can’t hit a one iron.” Maybe we don’t speak so blasphemously when we make our situations out to be “impossible.” But we are tempted to hold up our problems, not our one irons, and believe, “Not even God can do anything with this.”

So, then, we don’t have to be people who have recently buried a family member to find something to apply to ourselves in this lesson. Death or no death, we each face our own impossible situations. Months of unemployment may bring us to the end of our rope. The house ends up in foreclosure, the cars are repossessed, all our savings are used up and then some. The situation is impossible.

Years of family fighting have been grinding away at your sanity. “I know these are the people I should love the most. But they give me no peace. Their demands and expectations are unreasonable. Their behavior is just mean. If something doesn’t change, I am simply going to explode.” The situation is impossible.

Jesus’ words “Don’t cry” aren’t a denial of the pain. They aren’t a criticism of our tears as such. They express his desire to take our sadness away. Are we going to face it all in faith or in fear? When he reaches out is hand and tells us, “Trust me. I know what I am doing. I can help you with this,” take his hand and follow where he leads. Death itself is not a problem too big for him to handle. And his heart still goes out to us when impossible circumstances bring us to the point of tears.

Luke 7:6-10 “So Jesus went with them. He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: ‘Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.’ When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him he said, ‘I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.’ Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well.”

There was no doubt in the mind of this Roman centurion that Jesus could take care of his problem. But that faith was not based upon some worthiness he found in himself. He did not expect Jesus to help him because he was a prestigious Roman soldier who had done such great things. At no point does he believe that he can impress Jesus into helping him. That may work with people sometimes. My brother once worked as a parking valet at a popular Minneapolis restaurant. One night a star player for the Twins baseball team wanted to park his car right in front of the restaurant. When my brother told him to move it, he replied, “Don’t you know who I am? I’m…” For us to try to impress Jesus into doing something special for us would be more like saying, “Don’t you know who I am? I’m the parking valet!” Only the difference between us would be infinitely greater.

The centurion does not find his assurance in who he is. He is all humility. As a Gentile, he even seems to realize that coming into his home would make Jesus ceremonially unclean. Before Jesus he is no longer the impressive Roman soldier. He is merely a powerless, lowly sinner in need of Jesus’ help.

He finds his assurance in what Jesus says! “But say the word, and my servant will be healed.” More literally, he says, “Speak with the word, and my servant will be healed.” Some people think that Jesus’ word is just information. It can inform. It can educate. But after that, it’s all up to you.

This man knew better. Jesus’ word is full of power and authority. When the centurion spoke to the soldiers and servants under him, they had no will to resist. They had to do what he said. If Jesus, as God, speaks to the forces of nature under him, they have no will to resist. They have to do what he ways. That power of God’s word is one of the very first lessons of the Bible, isn’t it? “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” If Jesus spoke the word, the servant was sure to be healed.

Does that kind of assurance amaze you? Jesus thought so. “When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him he said, ‘I tell you, I have not found such great faith, even in Israel.’” Think of the assurances we would have, if only we believed his word: We wouldn’t be weighed down by our guilt, because Jesus has promised, “Son, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven.” We wouldn’t be afraid of death, because Jesus has promised, “I am the resurrection and the life.” We wouldn’t worry about having enough, because Jesus has promised, “Seek first the kingdom of God… and all these things will be given to you as well.” We wouldn’t worry about our children, for Jesus has promised, “Their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” We wouldn’t worry about our troubles, because Jesus has promised, “In this world you will have much trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Like the centurion, we have every reason to believe that if Jesus says it, it must be so. If we listen to Jesus’ promises, he will give us such an amazing faith as well!

Luke 7:1-6“When Jesus had finished saying all this in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, ‘This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.’ So Jesus went with them.”

Ordinarily a wide gulf of class and status would have separated these two men. The Centurion was not only a citizen of Rome, the greatest world power of its time. He was also a highly regarded officer in the army. The Greek historian Polybius tells us that only the best men in the army were selected for this position.

His servant was really his slave. He had no money, no rights, no influence. Still, a great affection had developed between them. The Centurion urgently seeks a cure for his servant’s disease. The “high value” placed on him was more than a matter of losing a good worker. In verse 7, “my servant” might more literally be translated “my child,” or even “my son.” The Centurion genuinely loved this servant who was ill.

Apparently this was not an exceptional episode in his life. Listen to the words of the Jewish elders the man sent to Jesus. If you were a Gentile, and especially a Roman Gentile, it was difficult, if not impossible, to win the respect and friendship of the Jewish people. All Gentiles were unclean, but the Romans were the evil empire. Still, this Centurion had come to know the true God and love his people. He built them a synagogue out of his own pocketbook. Long before public opinion frowned on ethnic slurs and prejudices, this man was loving people who looked and sounded different from him, even at great financial cost to himself.

There is something appealing about that kind of selfless, big-hearted love, isn’t there? It won’t win you heaven. It won’t make you rich. But it can make for faithful friends. Like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, years of selfless love and sacrifice for others may seem to get us behind in the race for success. But when our great time of need comes, our investment of love is returned with interest. Isn’t that what happened to the Centurion here?

Why, then, don’t we find it more appealing? It is sad when we shrink back from offering our love to people because they are racially, culturally, economically, educationally, or even hygienically different. Years ago two families visited my church on the same Sunday. One of them fit the middle class mold. By their poor dress and appearance, it was obvious the other family did not. Later a member of the evangelism committee admitted it was hard to offer the poor family the same warm and loving welcome as the first family. Why should it make a difference? Do we find it hard to love across such artificial divides?

Why was the Centurion different? His love did not exist all by itself. It was the product of his amazing faith. Luke tells us that he “heard of Jesus.” Note that he had not witnessed Jesus’ miracles personally. He simply heard about Jesus. But what he heard, combined with what he knew of God’s promises, produced genuine faith, as Jesus points out later.

What we have heard of Jesus and his promises has the same effect on us. Jesus’ love has come to us across the very real divide of our sin. He has removed our sin with his life and death. He does not treat us like outsiders or second class citizens or unwanted pests. He embraces us brothers and sisters and full family members of God!

Such love begets faith. That in turn begets love in us for others. Later in Luke’s gospel Jesus states that when we are forgiven much, then we love much. It was faith in a loving and forgiving God that turned a hardened Roman soldier into a man of great love. The more we hear of Jesus’ love, the greater our faith will grow, and the more we will live a life of love.

Matthew 10:28-31 “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

At first, these words might sound scary. If you are hearing Jesus correctly, you would be right to conclude that he is telling us there is such a place as hell, and that God sends people there, body and soul, to be punished. That’s an unpopular truth today. Some try to associate it with an Old Testament God of vengefulness. But no one in the Bible talks about hell more than Jesus does. No other prophet or apostle even comes close. Almost everything we know about the place comes straight from Jesus’ lips.

We would be wrong to conclude that Jesus is trying to scare us here. In the context, God is not our enemy but our friend. The enemy is the world of people who are trying to silence the gospel. Jesus wants us to remember that the real power is on our side. What’s the most that other people can do to you–kill you? And send you to heaven? They can’t touch your soul. No, the real power is on our side with the God whose message we are trying to share.

He intends to protect us. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Jesus’ pictures offer two reasons we can take God’s promised protection to heart. First, our Father in heaven is intimately aware of everything that happens on earth. I once found a dead bird in our shrubs while I was trimming them. Apparently it had flown into one of our windows and broken its neck. It took me a few days to discover it on my own property. Jesus is telling us here that God, who is running the entire universe while looking after billions of stars and planets, who is running the whole earth while looking after billions of people and animals, was personally aware of this event the moment it happened.

He even has a number for every hair on your head. So don’t be afraid that he has lost track of you, or that he has stopped keeping tabs on the minute details of your life. That includes the heat you or I might take for sharing his word.

Second, our Father in heaven values us dearly. “So don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.” No one knew that better than Jesus did. He was standing there as the one his Father was willing to give up to have us. Almost anyone could figure out that we are worth more than a bunch of birds. That God treasures us enough to give up the life of his Son–that Jesus had to come and tell us. If he loves us that much, he certainly intends to protect us. So don’t be afraid to follow where Jesus leads, believe the things he tells us, or say what you need to say.

Matthew 10:26-27 “So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.”

Preaching, teaching, speaking, telling the gospel out loud and publicly has been God’s plan from the beginning. He did not send Jesus to start a secret society. Sometimes the gospel is described in the New Testament as a “mystery,” but that is not because God tried to keep people from hearing about it. It is because the world valued the message so little that God had to go to extraordinary lengths to keep the message alive and get people to listen.

Even the people of Israel, whom the Lord rescued from Egypt with many miracles and to whom he revealed his promises through many prophets, wanted as little to do with the good news as they could manage. They tried to follow every false and foreign god they could find. They put the prophets to death. They lost whole sections of Scripture for generations.

But God kept the message alive until Jesus came. Then Jesus sent his disciples to the rest of the world so that he could disclose it and make it known to us today. He didn’t do it so that we would sit on it and keep it our own little secret. “What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.”

What did Jesus tell his disciples “in the dark”? What has he “whispered” in our ears? Part of the training to be one of Jesus’ “Twelve” took place as they watched Jesus preach to the masses and perform his healing miracles. But much of their training also took place in private. When Jesus asked the Twelve who they thought he was, and Peter answered that he was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, that was a private time of instruction. Jesus warned them not to tell anyone else…yet. That preaching would wait until after his resurrection.

You received part of your training and instruction in the dark and quiet of your homes and churches. Did your mom read a Bible story and pray with you before she tucked you into bed at night? Did you sit in Sunday School classrooms with just a few others–maybe four, or eight, or a dozen students like Jesus had? How big was your confirmation class? There were just four in mine, and we met in the church basement. Some of you who took the class as adults might have been one-on-one with the pastor.

What did you hear in those dark and quiet places? Was it secret handshakes, mysterious rituals, and strange words to mumble under your breath? No, it was the best good news there has ever been! It was God’s own promise that he does not hold your sins against you–not a one of them. Instead he sent his one and only Son to bear the guilt of all our sins, give his life in payment for them on a cross, and rise again three days later as victor over sin and giver of life that never ends.

He did it freely. He did not and does not require that we bring him something–not a single dollar, not a one-time favor, a minute of our own sweat or effort–in order to receive the gift.

He did it completely. He did not exclude crimes of a certain size or greater consequence. He did not leave scattered petty sins for us to clean up ourselves. Jesus did it all, and he did it for free.

That is a great thing to say! Shout it from the rooftops! Tell your neighbors. Work it into your conversation with the person buckled into the seat next to you on the airplane. Post it on your Facebook page. Make it part of your email signature. Instead of small talk in the waiting room, make it big talk about Jesus. Wherever you can find an opening, let your Savior be known. His words deserve to be shared.

Matthew 10:24-25 “A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!”

You know who is who in the illustration, don’t you? We are the student or servant, and Jesus is the teacher or master. And that is the way it will always be. In many cases, a good student can rise to become the equal of his former teachers. In some cases, he may even rise above them. On a few occasions I have taught classes in which men who were once my teachers were now my students.

That will never happen with Jesus. He loves us. He is supremely interested in us. But he will never ask us to educate him. He is not interested in receiving our advice. Until the end of the world, and throughout all eternity, we will be his children, always students, always servants. We may rise, and mature, and grow in our faith, but we will never be Jesus’ master or teacher.

“Of course,” we may think. “I don’t expect to put myself above Jesus. I would never try to make myself his master or teacher.” But don’t our prayers sometimes suggest we do? “Here is what you are doing wrong in my life, Jesus. Here is the problem with the way you are running the world. And here is what you can do to fix it.” Then what have we made ourselves? We have presumed to put ourselves above him. We make ourselves his master or teacher. He is pleased when we go to him for help. He wants us to tell him how we feel, to ask him for what is good and right. But he isn’t going to sit for a lecture. We sin when we take that tone with him.

If we remember our place, then we won’t expect to receive different treatment than he received. And by “different” we mean better. “If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!” They called Jesus a devil for preaching the gospel of grace and forgiveness. They said that the mercy he showed to the sick and the hurting came from Satan himself. Why should the gospel sound better to people when it comes from our mouths instead? Are we better preachers than he was?

Why should love and kindness look better when it comes from our hands than when it came from his hand? Do we do more for people than he did? I am tempted to complain when people make fun of me. Even worse, they say I am evil for talking and living like a student and servant of Jesus. It makes me afraid to open my mouth anymore. That’s exactly what they want. They want to shut us up.

On the day Jesus spoke these words, maybe the Twelve had similar fears. But a few years later they had learned to see this in a different way. In Acts chapter 5, after spending a night in jail and being whipped for preaching the gospel, “…the apostles left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.”

No need to fear, you see. When we are abused and mistreated like Jesus was, that is a good sign. We are becoming like our master and teacher. Not only has he saved us, forgiven all our sins, rescued us from hell, secured our place in heaven, and done it all for free. His gospel is showing itself in our lives by changing us. He has made us bold to speak. We know our message is on track, we must be doing something right, when we are being treated like Jesus was.

Matthew 5:10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

“Bullying” has become a fashionable target for social activists. Jesus would be against it, too. But he wants his people to be prepared for it.

In these words he has a particular kind of bullying in mind, the kind that comes because we want to live a Christian life and believe Christian beliefs. In order to make sure we understand the connection to our faith, he explains further, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” He isn’t saying we need to go looking for this kind of treatment. He isn’t suggesting we should make a campaign to stop it. He is saying that we can expect it, and that we are blessed in spite of it, if we are seeking to follow him.

Why blessed? Two reasons– one: “…because great is your reward in heaven.” How people treat you here doesn’t change how God will treat you there. The same good gifts are waiting for us just the same. There is no use changing our faith to stop the persecution when heaven is waiting with Christian faith, and lost without it.

Two, this kind of treatment puts us in good company: “…for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” People criticizing our beliefs, mocking our lifestyle, even calling them evil is a pretty good sign that we are on the right track. Abel, Noah, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, John the Baptist, Jesus, and his disciples all got the same kind of treatment. It is an honor and blessing to share their faith and its consequences for Jesus’ sake. Today it may be persecution. Tomorrow it will be heaven.