Getting Personal: Examining Your Confrontation Style
Chapter Nine
Citizens in Need of Help
Watch your step, friends. Make sure there’s no evil unbelief lying around that will trip you up and throw you off course. . . .
Keep each other on your toes so sin doesn’t slow down your
reflexes.
(Heb. 3:12–13)
HAVE you ever been asked to do something that you really didn’t want to do? You know, one of those jobs that you put off again and again, that you do only when your back is against the wall and you really have no other options? Most of us feel this way about confrontation. The very word sounds ominous to us. In our minds we picture a tense conversation, glaring eyes, pointed fingers, raised voices, red faces, and inflammatory words. This is not a scene that warms us with anticipation!
If I asked to come over to your house tomorrow and rebuke you, would you be excited? Would you say to your spouse or friend, “I just got great news! Paul is coming over tomorrow to rebuke me! I can’t wait—I haven’t been rebuked for so long! It’s about time!” No, we treat confrontation and rebuke with the anticipation we reserve for a root canal. Yet Scripture tells us that this ministry is an essential part of God’s plan for our words.
Why Is Confrontation So Scary?
The easiest answer to this question is that, as sinners, we spend much of our time hiding from, excusing, or blaming others for our sin. Scripture says, “Men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). Surely, this is true. Sinners (and that includes us all) don’t tend to be comfortable when their lives are under inspection. We tend to be better at seeing the speck in the eye of our neighbor than we are at seeing the log in our own eye.
But there is more going on here. Yes, we dread confrontation because we don’t like to look at our sin, but we also dread confrontation because of the troublesome and unbiblical way we’ve seen it handled. There are legitimate reasons for our dread of rebuke.
Let me suggest several ways in which our agenda for confrontation gets confused with the Lord’s.
1. Confrontation often confuses personal irritation and anger with biblical perspectives and purposes. As we will see later, the purpose of confrontation is not to arrange for our opinions to dominate someone else’s. It is not to let another person “have it” when we’ve had enough. Confrontation usually occurs when someone has sinned or hurt and offended someone else. But biblical priorities in such a situation often get crowded out by our frustration with the person whose sin has affected us. He or she has made our lives difficult. So our anger distorts the issues that need to be addressed, and the time of confrontation itself is clouded by our frustration.
2. Poor data gathering can lead to incorrect assumptions about the facts, which derails confrontation. The first important step of confrontation is data gathering. We need to make sure that we see the issues accurately. We need to be sure that the person is guilty of the charge. Otherwise, a distorted perspective will cloud confrontation. We must be careful that what we think we see is in fact what has happened.
3. Confrontation is often marred by a judgment of motives. In times of rebuke, we tend to talk not only about what the person did but also about the reasons behind his or her actions. Unfortunately, this often results in the person being misunderstood and wrongly accused. There are times when we are right in pointing out areas of failure, but we then improperly judge the person for motives that really were not there! In such a case, the person who is accused will miss the accurate part of the message that he or she needed to hear.
4. Inflammatory language, condemning words, and emotional tones often stain confrontation. In confrontation the air is often thick with tension. Things are said more as angry judgments than the gentle but unwavering words of rebuke that Scripture enjoins. In these situations, the person being confronted will forget the message and remember the angry words and tones that controlled the moment.
5. Confrontations are often adversarial rather than moments of loving concern for the person who needs your rebuke. In confrontation we can forget who we are. We can fail to remember that we would be exactly where the other person is if not for God’s grace. We seem to forget that, really, there is only one enemy—and it is not the person being confronted! The purpose of confrontation is not to stand against the person, but to stand alongside him, pointing out the things God wants him to see, confess, and forsake.
6. In confrontation, Scripture is often used more as a club than as a mirror of self-awareness and a guide to change. In rebuke the most important use of Scripture is not its warning of punishment, but the powerful way it functions as a mirror. Scripture enables people to see themselves as they really are. It exposes the wrong not only in a person’s behavior but in the person’s heart as well. The primary goal of confrontation is not to threaten a person with judgment, but to lead him to confession.
7. Confrontation often confuses human expectations with God’s will. The purpose of confrontation is not to get someone to do what you want or to live in a way that pleases you. The goal of rebuke is not to get a person to agree with you, to submit to your interpretation, or to follow your agenda. Confrontation should always call a person to submit to the will of God alone.
8. Confrontation often takes place in the context of a broken relationship. Often there has already been a damaging distance between the parties involved before the confrontation takes place. Both people enter the room nursing their wounds and already feeling a little negative toward the other. This sets the confrontation in the wrong direction before it has even begun. Confrontation is most effective in the context of a relationship where love and trust are mutually understood. This way, confrontation can indeed be the “faithful wounds of a friend.”
9. Confrontation often demands that change be an immediate event rather than a process. Many times in confrontation we fail to give the Spirit room to work. Nothing in Scripture tells us to expect a person to undergo a complete reversal of heart and behavior after one meeting. In fact, the Bible depicts change more as a process than as an event. We are meant to call a person to submit to the Lord and to obey his Word without applying undue pressure, as if we can do the work of the Spirit.
The Fruit of Confrontation Gone Wrong
We have all been negatively affected by these errors. These tend to be the things that produce a feeling of dread whenever confrontation is mentioned. Like the appointment with the dentist, we tend to play out in our minds all of the worst-case scenarios we can imagine, and we try to plan what we will do if this or that scenario takes place. Not only do we dread being on the receiving end of confrontation, but most of us dread being the confronter. We fret about whether we will have the right things to say, whether we will find the right time and place, how our words will be received, and what will be left of the relationship when the confrontation is over. Most of us on both sides find these moments to be unnatural, tense, and uncomfortable. So, as citizens in the kingdom of God, we tend to avoid confrontation whenever and however possible.
I remember being asked by a pastor to attend a meeting where he would be confronting a member of his congregation. (I had previously been this man’s counselor.) The evening had an almost surreal quality to it. The first thing that struck me was the pained, unnatural greetings between the pastor, the elders, and this man. These men had all once shared a close relationship. There was an attempt to be personable and warm, but it came across as labored and difficult. When all the “safe” things had been said, we sat in the room, staring into the silence for what seemed an eternity. No one seemed relaxed, no one had a smile or even a pleasant expression on his face, and no one made eye contact with anyone else. I wanted to stand up and scream, “What is going on here? This is not the way it is supposed to be!” But I restrained myself(!).
The pastor suggested that we start with prayer and he led us. He seemed no more comfortable as he prayed than he had during those initial greetings. He then said, “You know what we’re here for, Bob. We’re here to talk to you about some things that have been concerning us for a long time.” Bob sat there no doubt wishing he were at the dentist. The pastor then pulled from his briefcase six typed pages of charges against this man and began to read, verbatim, through the list. There was no discussion, no interchange. Bob just sat there squirming as charge after charge was read. When the final page had been completed, Bob was asked if he was ready to confess and repent of these things. Bob seemed confused, hurt, and angry. The pastor glared at him like a judge on his bench.
At that point I could restrain myself no longer. I jumped in and asked if I could make a few suggestions (using basic principles of confrontation we will consider later in this chapter). I hoped that somehow we could regroup and get something of lasting benefit out of this horribly uncomfortable moment.
A Very Different Way
I’ve thought back to that evening many, many times. No wonder there is such a negative response to the mention of confrontation and rebuke! Sin is hard to admit and talk about, but our approach to it has made it even more difficult. Consequently, much that needs to be brought into the light never sees the light of day until it has grown so serious that it cannot be ignored. Issues that were once small and simple are now huge and complicated, and the process of confrontation is much more difficult.
Whenever I think of confrontation, my mind goes to Nathan (2 Sam. 12). What a job he had to do! Nathan was called by God to confront King David. This story is instructive for us. First, we ought to be impressed that David needed to be confronted at all! It was not as if the issues Nathan was called to deal with were subtle ones like pride or selfishness, things that can be hard to see. David had committed adultery and murder!
It also ought to impress us that Nathan is confronting David, the anointed king of Israel. This is a man who had been schooled in the things of God from the time of his birth. Surely David knew the law of the Lord. Why wasn’t he conscience-stricken? Why wasn’t he eaten up with conviction of sin? Why did he need someone to stand before him and point out what should have been blatantly obvious?
Herein lies the significance of this story. It gives us a real window into the heart of man, and God’s covenant commitment to intervene in our blindness and rebellion with his redemptive grace. David had taken another man’s wife as his own, had her husband killed, and returned unrepentant to his duties as God’s appointed leader. Not until Nathan told him the wonderful story of the poor man and his one little ewe lamb did David see the heinous nature of his sin against God, Uriah, Bathsheba, and the people of Israel. What a glaring example of the deceitfulness of the heart! What a powerful reminder of our need for intervention! We, too, are capable of living with sin against God and others. We, too, are capable of going on as if nothing has happened and we are okay. We, too, need God to raise up people who are willing to accept the hard job of helping us to see ourselves as God does. This is what this chapter is about—re-examining the nature of the intervention God calls us to make in each other’s lives. What is the nature of our need, and what kind of help has God called us to give each other?
Even though we have been transported from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of light, as believers we are still citizens in need of help. We do not want to minimize the significance of our rescue from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God’s Son, but this deliverance is not the end of Christ’s work of salvation; it is the beginning. Once he has broken the dominion of darkness over us, he then begins to remove all the darkness within us so that we may be holy as he is holy. This is the ongoing work of his kingdom rule—our sanctification. All of the writers of the Epistles recognize the glory of our justification, but they also recognize the utter necessity of our ongoing sanctification. (See Rom. 8 and 1 Peter 1 for two classic examples of this balance.)
As we consider the primary focus of God’s kingdom work (our sanctification) we get an even more detailed understanding of what God has called us to in our communication. Here again, we find biblical guardrails for all that we say to one another. Our speaking must have the principal work of God’s kingdom in view. The battle is not over yet. Sin’s dominion has been broken, but the darkness within must be exposed and rooted out wherever it exists. Our talk with one another has been ordained by God to be a vital part of that work. The radical stance of the New Testament is that intervention is not limited to occasional moments of confrontation. Rather, it is a lifestyle, a commitment that shapes all of our interactions as members of the body of Christ. This is the new and higher agenda that makes our talk very different from the talk of the world. In some way our talk should always have ongoing redemption in view. It always goes beyond the surface, horizontal issues of the moment. It always has a vertical dimension.
Maybe you’re wondering, Are we never supposed to deal with the real stuff of life—the nasty comment, the unpaid bill, the broken promise, the family squabble, the inattentive husband, the nagging wife, the car left without gas once again, the loud rock music, the controlling elder, the fight over the bathroom, etc.? Are we called to minister all the time? The issue is not whether you deal with these things—you must. The issue is how. Because of indwelling sin and God’s ongoing work of sanctification, we are called to communication that has a goal higher than solving the problem of the moment. We must see our words as his tools. So we seek to solve the problem of the moment in a way that propels the work God is doing through it. The recognition of the reality of indwelling sin is a key element in a life of God-honoring talk.
Your Talk and Sin’s Deceitfulness
Let me take you to a powerful passage that displays what happens to our communication when we acknowledge indwelling sin.
See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion.” (Heb. 3:12–15)
This passage does more than cause us to sit up and take notice. It also gives us real guidance as to what it means practically to speak as an ambassador of the Lord. It acknowledges the harsh realities of life in God’s kingdom. The battle is not over; the work is not done. We are all citizens who need help and are called to give it. Any other perspective on the Christian life does not do this passage justice.
Notice the way this passage warns against the danger of wandering away from the Lord. The old familiar hymn says:
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above.
This hymn echoes the warning so powerfully given in the Hebrews passage. We have been rescued, but we are still prone to wander away from our Rescuer. Even though we are citizens in the Son’s kingdom, our wandering days are not over.
We wander away when we express the anger we feel toward our spouse or children. We wander away when we covet the blessing of a friend. We wander away when we compromise biblical conviction for acceptance, for possessions, or for position. We wander away when we surrender to a moment of lust. We wander away when we doubt God and his goodness. We wander away when we have opportunity to be salt and light, but remain silent and inactive, when the cares of this world squeeze out a diligent pursuit of God. Wandering does not only refer to rank apostasy. Much of our wandering is subtle and unnoticed. This is why we need one another.
Notice also that this passage speaks to believers, to “brothers.” Four words are used in this passage to describe this wandering away of the believer: sinful, unbelieving, turning away, and hardened heart. The writer is describing something more fundamental than the committing of specific sins. He is warning us against a subtle turn of the heart from God, which results in a change in the way we see God and ourselves. This, in turn, results in a radical difference in the way we live our lives.
There is a progressive character to this string of words that describes the turning away of the believer. The sinful heart, not wanting to live under the convicting light of truth, lives in the shadows and becomes weak and unbelieving. The unbelieving heart, having lost its confidence in God, has no reason to continue to persevere and begins to turn away. And the heart that has turned away, no longer sensitive to the truth of God, becomes increasingly hardened to the things of the Lord. What the passage describes is a subtle acceptance of sin patterns, an acceptance that grows until it becomes a hardened turning away from the living God. What a terrifying warning!
Perhaps you are asking yourself at this point, How could this happen to a believer? After all Christ has done for him, how could a believer become so hardened? This question gets to the heart of the warning and the passage. When we answer this question, we will also get a sense of God’s practical, everyday agenda for our talk.
This horrifying progression in a believer’s life is explained by a little phrase that is probably the key phrase in the passage. The passage says that we can become hardened “by sin’s deceitfulness.” There is a world of theology hidden within this little phrase. Sin is by its very nature deceitful. The heart is by its very nature deceitful (see Jer. 17:9). The writer of Hebrews is alerting us to the reality of the spiritual blindness that exists to some degree in the life of every sinner. We do not see ourselves as we need to. Sin is deceitful—and guess who it deceives first? I have no trouble seeing the sins of my wife and my children; their sins are obvious to me. Yet I am regularly surprised when mine are pointed out! And too often, when my sin has been confronted, I am tempted to conclude that I have not sinned. Rather, my actions and motives have been once again misunderstood. This, my friends, is spiritual blindness, and all of us suffer from it to some degree.
If you accept this reality, it will change the way you think about the Christian life and your relationships. Being a Christian does not mean that we are free of spiritual blindness or the potential for self-deception. As long as there is indwelling sin, spiritual blindness and self-deception will exist. It is because of this reality that the writer says that we need one another daily. You see me in ways that I will not see myself. As you walk in the truth, you can bring a level of clarity to me that I would not have alone. I need your daily encouragement so that indwelling sin would not blind me. Your encouragement is a principal means that God uses to keep me from sin and unbelief.
As a young pastor, I got a call one afternoon from a couple who had attended our church. They were desperate for help and wanted their situation to change. Yet at the same time they were victims of their own blindness. That night I sat in their living room and listened to their sad story; her slide into a paralyzing depression, his growing addiction to drugs and alcohol, and four children who seemed increasingly out of control. What impressed me that night was that, when viewed from their perspective, life gave them little reason to continue. They were blind to two fundamental realities that would form the substance of my ministry to them.
First, they were blind to themselves. They did not see that they were now harvesting the seeds they had planted. So there seemed to be no way out. Second, they were blind to the powerful presence of the Lord. So they felt helpless and hopeless. My calling was to be used of God to open their eyes to these two realities, and in so doing, give them powerful, solid reasons to continue. We all need this ministry so that we would not give way to sin and unbelief.
What does this mean practically? It means that none of us, this side of heaven, can say that we don’t need help. Even citizens of the kingdom of light need the daily intervention of fellow citizens! Notice, too, that we are not called to exhort and encourage one another daily because of a particular sin we have seen someone commit. We are not called here to be spiritual detectives, trying to get the “goods” on one another. We are not being called to catch someone in sin. No, the reason for this daily ministry is not a specific act of sin, but the overall condition of spiritual blindness that results from the deceitfulness of sin. We suffer from this condition even when we are not committing sins that are obvious and visible to others. This means that, this side of eternity, there is never a moment when I do not need your help! I need your daily ministry to me as long as sin remains within me.
The Presence and Power of
Indwelling Sin
I believe that the church of Jesus Christ seriously underestimates the power and presence of indwelling sin and its effect on our spiritual life. Remember, although we have been rescued from the kingdom of darkness, God is still working to remove the darkness within us. (See Rom. 7:14–25 for a gripping picture of indwelling sin and the resulting war within.)
When we do battle with sin in others and in ourselves, our intervention is not meant to be critical or judgmental. It is intended to point us to Christ and the glories of his grace so that we would be encouraged to follow more humbly, carefully, and faithfully.
Each One a Helper, Each Needing Help
Did you notice that there are no haves and have-nots in this Hebrews passage? Instead, it describes humble, mutual, interdependent, peer ministry. Each believer is called to humbly recognize his daily need for help and each believer is called daily to be one of God’s helpers. We all are helpers in need of help! We are each called to serve and to be willing to be served. In fact, this humble recognition of our own need is what enables us to be God’s instruments of encouragement to others. We come recognizing that we need everything that we have come to give.
The ministry described in this passage cannot be left to the professional clergy. There is no way that there will ever be enough trained and ordained men to meet the “everyone–everyday” nature of this calling. It is a call that encompasses every member of the body of Christ. God’s plan is that the professional clergy concentrate on training and equipping every member of the body of Christ for this essential ministry. It is also clear that this ministry will not primarily take place in the regular, formal gatherings of the church. It is most needed (and most successful) in the mundane moments of life. I need your encouragement along the way, as I am doing what God has called me to do in my personal, family, church, and community life. I need you to encourage me to hold on and to persevere.
There is one other thing to say about this important passage. It is not only a warning; it is a call. The turning point of this passage is a command—a command to communicate to one another with a certain frequency, spirit, and message. If we understand these three elements, we will begin to understand God’s agenda for our talk. Let’s consider each in turn.
Frequency:
An Everyday Readiness
When you think of ministry—how it is done and who does it—what comes to your mind? Perhaps you immediately think of the “professional” ministers, that is, the professionally trained (and paid) pastor, counselor, evangelist, and missionary. Perhaps your mind goes to all of the programmed opportunities for ministry in your local church: the Sunday morning worship service, Sunday school, the new members’ class, the discipleship class, the home group meeting, Saturday afternoon evangelism teams, the nursing home ministry, short-term mission trips, the women’s group, the men’s fellowship, and the youth group. We should surely be thankful for these programs, but the writer of Hebrews sees the ministry of the body of Christ in much more robust and comprehensive terms. His view is nothing short of everyone ministering everyday!
This astounding call to daily ministry is necessary because of what we are dealing with. It reflects the universal spiritual struggle of all sinners. As long as sin remains in us, there will be some degree of deceitfulness in our hearts, with a resulting spiritual blindness. We carry this with us wherever we go. This means that in every situation, to every person, daily ministry is needed. This call extends far beyond the scheduled gatherings of the body of Christ.
Thus we recognize that our talk is meant to be a tool by which God protects us, not just from the temptations of external evil, but literally from ourselves! When a mother is in the kitchen discussing the school day with her son, she is doing more than getting a news report. She is looking for those spontaneous, God-given openings to encourage commitment to Christ. There is a friend at the coffee shop with his buddy, but he is doing more than talking about the news, the weather, sports, and the job market. He has submitted to God’s call: he has accepted the harsh reality of the Christian life, and he is looking for opportunities to encourage hope in Christ. A husband and wife are out on a date, but they remain open to this higher calling because they have recognized their mutual spiritual need.
What all of these people have in common is an attitude of readiness. They all see ministry in much broader terms than the formal opportunities that church programs afford. And they are prepared to make the most of the opportunities God gives them every day. They really do believe that every day is a day for ministry. They understand the implications of being sinners; they embrace the fact that God places them just where he wants them to be used as his instruments; and they see their own need and are ready to be ministered to as well. Theirs is an everyone, everyday view of ministry. They rejoice in the fact that they are citizens in the kingdom of light, but they recognize at the same time that we are all citizens still in need of help.
Spirit:
The Humility of the Gospel
The spirit that underlies God’s plan for our talk is the spirit of humility. That is the only appropriate response to the gospel realities revealed by this passage. In the gospel, the magnitude of our sin and the grandeur of God’s grace are revealed. These realities leave no room for boasting (see Rom. 3:23–34, 27–28; 1 Cor. 1:26–31; Gal. 6:15; Eph. 2:8–9).
This humility echoes the spirit of Paul, who saw himself as the worst of all sinners (1 Tim. 1:15–17). It recognizes not only the grace given at conversion, but the daily grace that flows into our lives so that we may live and speak as God has planned.
An everyday ministry of intervention is not born out of the pride of personal accomplishment, experience, wisdom, or success. Nor is it born out of a subtle belief that the persons giving and receiving ministry are somehow essentially different from each other. Rather, it admits that there is nothing that I can give another that I do not need myself. I may have known the Lord for many years, but I need his grace as much today as I did the first moment I believed. If there is any truth, life, hope, grace, and good in my life, it is because of his work. The only thing I bring to the table is my weakness and my sin. So I do not approach ministry from a position of confidence in my own strength and wisdom, encouraging you to be like me. No, I come in weakness and sin, to lead you to the only One who has strength and deliverance to offer!
When Paul describes the communication of the body of Christ, he always has this spirit in mind:
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. (Eph. 4:1–2)
Humility means acknowledging that I can offer only one thing that will help—Jesus Christ. There is a kindness, compassion, and gentleness that flows out of recognizing that we are brothers and sisters in the struggle, and that his grace is our only hope.
The Message:
Encouragement to Persevere
The message we are called to bring to these everyday opportunities is this: Don’t give up! There is reason to continue! Be encouraged! Don’t turn away! Believe in God’s promises! Be tender in heart and keep following the Lord! The message is not just confrontational. It is not a message of judgment, criticism, or condemnation. We are called to do more than point out another’s sin. We are called to encourage faithfulness in battle until the victory is won.
Every one of God’s war-weary soldiers needs this ministry of encouragement. We are all, at times, like the young child embarking on a long family trip who asks after three miles on the road, “Are we almost there, Daddy?” We all have to face the discouraging reality that the trip has only just begun. Life is a long journey. The Christian life is a long war. We all lose sight of our goal. We all go through times when it all seems too big and too hard. We all go through periods when we simply want to quit. We all have wandering hearts.
I once sat in my office with a father and his teenage son. I had witnessed the scene many times before. Neither wanted to be there. The father did not think he needed any help; he had only come as a way to get his son there. The son, meanwhile, sat slouched down in his chair and stared at the floor. He gave no indication that he was ready to be a participant. I could almost feel the anger between them. There was no warmth, no friendliness, and no familial love. They were trapped in their relationship and they both hated it.
The father spoke first. It didn’t take long for his face to redden and his voice to rise. Although I had asked him a question, he spoke directly to his son. “I’ve fed and clothed you. I’ve taken you on great vacations. I did Little League and swim team. I taught you to drive and got you your car. And what do I get from you? Nothing but a pile of grief. Look at you! Everything about you says, ‘Loser!’ You’ve got no job, you’re flunking out—you can’t even keep your own room clean. All it is is your personal garbage dump!
“When I was your age I participated in sports, held two jobs, was an officer in my youth group, and had a ‘B’ average in school. I respected my parents, and you could walk through my room without stepping on yesterday’s trash. I don’t know what your problem is, but you better solve it quick or you’re outta here! Sometimes I wonder where you came from! I just can’t relate to who you are and what you do. Why don’t you tell Paul what a good guy you are and how much you are mistreated at home?!”
I suppose that in the loosest sense of the word you could call this a confrontation or an exhortation. It certainly met the father’s definition, but it doesn’t meet God’s. Is this your nightmare of confrontation? No wonder we all try to avoid something so cruel and unproductive! This kind of talk doesn’t meet any of God’s standards for communication, particularly in its message. What the father unwittingly communicated was this: “You are essentially different from me. You are a loser; I am a winner. You are irresponsible; I have always been responsible. I have hope; there is not much hope for you. I am righteous; you are tragically bound in sin, and judgment is coming soon.”
I am sure that this is not what the father “officially” believed theologically. But in the heat of his struggle, he greeted the sinful, unbelieving, turning, hardening heart of his son with self-righteous, impatient condemnation. He did not offer him what he really needed: a humble, compassionate message of the grace of God for the struggle. Please understand: the grace of God never minimizes our sin, but it does give us a reason to face it, confess it, and forsake it. Grace is the only reason we have hope to continue our fight against sin. It is all we are called to offer others who blindly are beginning to turn away.
This father did not realize that he and his son were the same—not in the sense that they had committed identical sins and expressed identical attitudes, but in their need of the moment-by-moment grace of God. They were the same in the fact that thinking, speaking, and doing good were beyond their ability without the grace of God. They both needed to see God’s hand at work in their daily lives. And they were the same in their need to follow him by faith, loving him above anything else.
But neither of them saw these things. They both sat there, in their own ways tired, discouraged, doubting, rebellious, deceived, self-righteous, and confused. Dad thought, “I am a much better father than you are a son, and I have a right to give up on you.” Joe, his son, thought, “I am a much better son than you are a father, and I have the right to give up on you.” Both of them were self-deceived and ready to quit. Both needed a reason to continue. They needed someone to lovingly help them see their sins, just as King David once needed Nathan to do that for him. But they also needed to see the powerful presence of a loving Redeemer and his glorious grace at work in their lives. They needed to be compelled by his love, to stop living for themselves, and to start living for him. This is the everyday ministry of encouragement that should color our talk with one another. As we meet believers discouraged in the battle and blinded by sin, do we give them reason to hold on, to stay confident, and to continue the fight?
A Model of Biblical Confrontation
What could Joe’s father have done differently? What are the elements of proper biblical confrontation? What must we do to avoid the pitfalls we’ve discussed in this chapter? To answer these questions let me present a model of confrontation that uses the word ENCOURAGE as an acrostic.
Examine your heart. Confrontation always begins with you. Because we all struggle with indwelling sin, we must begin with ourselves. We must be sure that we have dealt with our anger, impatience, self-righteousness, and bitterness. When we start with our own confession, we are in a much better place to lead another to confess.
Note your calling. Remember that confrontation is not based on your opinion of the person. You are there as an ambassador and your job is to faithfully represent the message of the King. In other words, your goal is to help people see and accept God’s view of them.
Check your attitude. When you speak, are your words spoken in kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, forbearance, compassion, and love? Failure to do this will hinder God-honoring, change-producing confrontation. We need to examine both our message and our attitude as we speak.
Own your own faults. It is vital to enter moments of confrontation with a humble recognition of who we really are. As we admit our own need for the Lord’s forgiveness, we are able to be patient and forgiving with the one to whom God has called us to minister.
Use words wisely. Effective confrontation demands preparation, particularly of our words. We need to ask God to help us use words that carry his message, not get in the way of it.
Reflect on Scripture. The content of confrontation is always the Bible. It guides what we say and how we say it. We should enter moments of confrontation with a specific understanding of what Scripture says about the issues at hand. This means more than citing proof texts; it means understanding how the themes, principles, perspectives, and commands of Scripture shape the way we think about the issues before us.
Always be prepared to listen. The best, most effective confrontation is interactive. We need to give the person an opportunity to talk, since we cannot look into his heart or read his mind. We need to welcome his questions and look for signs that he is seeing the things he needs to see. We need to listen for true confession and the commitment to specific acts of repentance. As we listen, we will learn where we are in the confrontation process.
Grant time for a response. We must give the Holy Spirit time to work. There is nothing in Scripture that promises that if we do our confrontation work well, the person will confess and repent in one sitting. Rather, the Bible teaches us that change is usually a process. We need to model the same patience God has granted us. This patience does not compromise God’s work of change, but flows out of a commitment to it.
Encourage the person with the gospel. It is the awesome grace of God, his boundless love, and his ever-present help that give us a reason to turn from our sin. Scripture says that it is the kindness of God that leads people to repentance (Rom. 2:4). The truths of the gospel—both its challenge and its comfort—must color our confrontation.
Do you remember the tense and awkward scene between the man I counseled and his pastor and elders? How different their interaction would have been if the pastor had followed this model! Imagine how different the results would have been if Joe’s father had approached him this way! Imagine the good that can result when confrontation is not a club, but a light, not a sentence of judgment but a loving call to change, not an announcement of hopelessness, but an encouragement to continue the fight with sin until the battle is finally won!
We all, in our own way, struggle with weariness, discouragement, doubt, rebellion, deception, self-righteousness, and confusion. We all need more than someone to point out all our sins! We need someone who will point us to Christ, reminding us of the confidence we once had in him and calling us back to a heart of faith. We need our blinders removed—not just the blinders that keep us from seeing our sin, but also the blinders that keep us from seeing Christ! Only in the light of his grace can we find a reason to confess and forsake sin. This is the encouragement we need every day.
Don’t give up! There is reason to continue! Open your eyes to God’s truth, open your heart to his conviction, open your life to his grace, and follow him by faith. There is help and there is hope!
God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
(Ps. 46:1–3)
Getting Personal:
Examining Your Confrontation Style
1. Critique the last time you confronted someone (spouse, child, or friend) using the ENCOURAGE model as a guide. In what ways did you follow a biblical model? In what ways do you need to change the way you confront others?
2. Where have you avoided confrontation, leaving issues unresolved and relationships unreconciled?
3. Are you harboring anger or bitterness toward anyone that can hinder opportunities for constructive confrontation?
4. What sin has God recently shown you to remind you of your ongoing need of his grace? Does this keep you humble as you consider the failures of others?
5. What Scripture passages help you face your sin and continue your fight with it? What are your God-given opportunities to share these with others?