Rev. Rob Jones
September 1, 2026

There is a kind of silence that feels peaceful but is not peace at all. It is the silence of a house where people have stopped speaking honestly. It is the silence of a friendship where an old wound has been covered over, not healed. It is the silence of a church where everyone is smiling, but some carry bitterness, others hide sin, and still others are afraid to speak the truth because they do not know whether truth can be spoken with love.

Jesus knows that his people will wound one another. He does not pretend otherwise. The kingdom has come, but we are not yet in glory. We are forgiven sinners learning to live together under the gracious rule of God. So, our Lord gives us not a weapon for winning arguments, but a road for winning back a brother or sister. He says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.”

It’s like the shepherd who notices one sheep beginning to limp. The flock is still moving. The pasture still looks green. Ninety-nine sheep may appear safe enough. But the shepherd sees what others miss. He does not say, “That sheep is an inconvenience.” He does not let the wound fester. He goes near. He stoops down. He binds what is broken so the sheep may walk again. Matthew 18 begins with Jesus warning us not to despise the little ones, then He speaks of the shepherd who searches for the one who wandered. Only after that does he teach us how to deal with sin in the household of faith. That order matters. Correction is not contrary to mercy; rightly practiced, it is one of mercy’s greatest instruments.

The Aim Is Restoration, Not Victory

Jesus’ lesson of reconciliation begins with the smallest circle possible: “between you and him alone.” That is just two. Not because sin is small, but because love is careful. Love does not broadcast another person’s failure. Love refuses the false comfort of gossip dressed up as concern. Love goes directly, humbly, and prayerfully to the one who has sinned.

There is a village story about two neighbors whose farms shared a fence. One morning, the first farmer saw that several rails had been knocked down and some of his crop had been trampled. He was furious. He imagined the worst: “My neighbor is careless. My neighbor does not respect me. My neighbor should know better.” All day he rehearsed the speech he would deliver. But when he finally went, he found his neighbor repairing the fence with bleeding hands. A storm in the night had frightened the cattle, and the neighbor had been working since dawn to make things right. The first farmer came prepared to accuse, but he left ready to help.

How many wounds deepen because we hold court in our own minds before we ever speak to the person? We gather evidence from memory, suspicion, and injured pride. We imagine motives we cannot see. Jesus interrupts us: Go. Speak. Not harshly, not theatrically, not to humiliate, but to gain your brother.

John Calvin observed that Christ gives a “middle course”: not the flattery that ignores sin, and not the bitterness that crushes the weak, but correction seasoned with moderation and aimed at cure. That is wise pastoral theology. Sin cannot be healed by denial, and neither are sinners healed by contempt. We go solely as those whom Christ has first sought. We go as people who know the mercy of being corrected by grace.

So, the first point is this: when sin disrupts fellowship, the first movement is not public exposure but private love. The question is not, “How can I prove I am right?” The question is, “How can this person be restored, and how can Christ’s peace be honored among us?” The goal must always be reconciliation. 

Bring Witnesses in Truth

If the brother will not listen, Jesus says to take one or two others along, “that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.” He is echoing Deuteronomy 19:15, where serious judgment was not to rest on one person’s word alone. Truth and justice matter too much to be handled by careless rumor. Reconciliation is often coupled with mercy. 

Do not think that Jesus is authorizing a mob situation.  The witnesses are not there to intimidate. They are there to establish what is true, urge repentance, protect those harmed, and keep the process from becoming private revenge. The church is never called to choose between truth and love. In Christ, truth and love belong together.

Imagine a small boat taking on water at sea. One sailor sees a crack near the stern and whispers, “I do not want to alarm anyone.” Another says, “It is not my place.” A third says, “Perhaps the sea will be kind today.” But the crack widens. Water rises. At some point, love for the whole crew requires someone to say, “We must stop and repair this now.” In the church, unrepented sin is never simply private. It damages communion. It endangers the vulnerable. It confuses the watching world. It teaches the wounded that their pain does not matter, and it teaches the sinner that rebellion is safe.

This is why Jesus eventually says, “tell it to the church.” That is a fearful sentence if we imagine the church as a courtroom hungry for punishment. But in the hands of Christ, the church is a household called to holiness and mercy. The whole body is summoned not to spectacle, but to sober intercession and repentance.

This passage has sometimes been misused as a blunt instrument from the pulpit. Stanley Saunders notes that Matthew 18 is framed by Jesus’ concern for the “little ones” and by the shepherd’s pursuit of the lost, so any exercise of authority must guard the vulnerable and create space for forgiveness and restoration. Nicholas Schaser also points out that since the phrase “two or three witnesses” draws from Deuteronomic legal precedent, these observations help us hear the passage in context: Jesus is not licensing cruelty; he is forming a community where sin is taken seriously because people are loved seriously.

There are two dangers here. One danger is cowardice: refusing to speak because peace seems easier than obedience. The other danger is harshness: speaking truth without tears, forgetting that the one corrected is still one for whom Christ died. Jesus calls us away from both. The church must be neither a place where sin is hidden nor a place where sinners are hunted. It must be a place where the Shepherd’s voice is heard calling wandering sheep home.

Gather in Christ’s Name

Jesus then says, “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” These words are cumbersome. The church does not invent heaven’s decrees. The church is called to affirm on earth what Christ has decreed. Authority in the church is always ministerial, never absolute; always under Scripture, never above it; always accountable to Christ who stands in the midst of his people.

Then comes the promise many of us know by heart: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” We often quote this when attendance is low, as though Jesus was comforting us about small numbers. It may be true enough as a general reassurance, but in this passage the promise is sharper and deeper. Jesus is saying that when his people gather under his name to seek truth, repentance, forgiveness, and restoration, they do not gather alone. He is present, always!

That promise humbles us; it humbles the church. If Christ is in the room, we cannot act petty; can we? If Christ is in the room, we cannot manipulate the process to protect reputation; can we? If Christ is in the room, we cannot pretend that sin does not matter, that the wounded are invisible, or the guilty are beyond grace. Because if Christ is in the room, the church is not left to its own wisdom; it seeks the Spirit’s wisdom. 

There is an old story of a father with two sons who quarreled over the family field. One son built a fence. The other dug a ditch. Years passed. Their children learned the map of resentment before they learned the map of the land. Then one winter, a stranger came asking for work. The older brother hired him to build a wall higher than the fence. But when the brother returned, he found not a wall but a bridge across the ditch. He was angry at first—until he saw his younger brother standing on the other side, weeping, ready to cross. The carpenter had not ignored the breach; he had made a way through it.

That is only a story, but it points us to the truth. Jesus does not build fellowship by pretending the ditch is not there. He crosses it by bearing sin in his own body. He points to our guilt and then covers us with mercy. He confronts us by his word and reconciles us by his blood. He disciplines those he loves and restores those who repent. Therefore, when we gather in his name, we gather beneath the cross, where truth is never less than holy, and mercy is never less than costly.

Practice the Ministry of Reconciliation

So, what shall we do with this word from Jesus?

First, if you have sinned against someone, do not wait to be found out. Go. Confess. Ask forgiveness plainly, without excuses, without shifting blame, without demanding that the other person heal on your schedule. Repentance is not humiliation; it is the doorway of grace.

Second, if someone has sinned against you, ask the Lord for courage and humility. Do not feed resentment in secret. Do not recruit a jury before you seek a brother. If it is safe and wise, go privately. Speak truthfully. Seek restoration. And where harm is serious, or danger remains, bring wise and faithful help quickly; Jesus’ words never require the wounded to face danger alone.

Third, as a church, let us become the kind of people among whom repentance is possible. Let our fellowship be truthful and genuine. Let us protect the little ones and the lost, while seeking the presence of Christ among two or three gathered in his name. 

And let us remember: Jesus preached reconciliation not only with his lips but with his life. He went to sinners. He ate with tax collectors. He called the wandering home. He spoke truth to power, and for that, He was treated as the outsider so that outsiders might be brought near. He was bound in death that we might be loosed into life. He met us in our sin, not to leave us there, but to win us back to God.May we always seek Christ. Tell the truth. Care for the wounded. Pursue the wandering. Forgive as we have been forgiven. And when the work is hard, remember His promise: where two or three are gathered in his name, he is there in the midst of them. Amen.