What to Do When a Brother Sins
1 John 5:16-17
The Queen Mary was the
largest ship to cross the oceans when she was launched in 1936. Through four
decades and a World War she served until she was retired, anchored as a floating
hotel and museum in
Many believers have much in
common with the Queen Mary’s smokestacks: they have surface sufficiency. They
look okay on the outside and may have looked good for a long time. However, the
weight of years and the trauma of life’s storms weaken them to the point that
they eventually collapse in a cloud of rusty dust. A long marriage ends in
bitter divorce. An addiction takes its final toll. Ethical blunders result in
financial ruin. Moral lapses payoff in public disgrace. It is tragic to watch a
believer fall into sin but it happens all the time. The question what do we do
for our brothers who sin?
Now before we get into the
details of verses 16 & 17 I want to remind you of the relationship of these
verses to what John has said right before this. He has been talking about
answered prayer and praying according to the will of God. Now he then gives us
these two illustrations, one which is in the will of God, one which is not. The
"sin which is not unto death" is the kind which permits a concerned brother to
ask God for deliverance from that sin for an erring brother and the will of God
is to grant that request. The "sin which is unto death" is the kind to which God
has already determined upon a certain response and no prayer is going to change
his mind. Therefore, it is useless to pray. That is why John gives this
illustration.
So the first point I make
about these verses today is:
I. Pray for Each Other
(vv.16-17).
Prayer for each other is
what is most important here. Here is the simple point: if we see another
brother, another believer in Christ, sin, we should pray for them first. All too
often, prayer is the last thing we do for someone caught up in
sin.
Our human nature usually
wants to do one of three things when we see a brother in sin:
1. Tell
someone else. Gossip about the individual. Now this response is obviously
wrong. By doing that we just add our sin to their sin. We must be careful that
when we share prayer requests that we do not slip into gossip. It is better for
you simply to pray.
2. Confront
them. We sometimes want to confront the individual immediately. That can get
a bit dicey. When confronting someone in sin, it is important to pray first, and
get the Lord’s guidance on how to approach the person. Jesus says to be careful
about this. "And why do you look at the
speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your
brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your
own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will
see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.” (Matt. 7:3-5). And
Paul gives this word of warning for those considering confronting a brother in
sin, “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in
any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of
gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.” (Gal
6:1).
3. Ignore
it. Maybe the worst thing we could do is to just try to overlook it
completely. This is wrong too, since your silence may be a silent approval to
that individual. The loving thing is not to ignore the sin, but to pray for the
person. We are to, “Bear one another’s
burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal 6:2).
John tells us here to pray
for the individual. Notice the words in verse 16, “he will ask.” The NIV says, “he should pray.” First thing. Maybe
after you have prayed the Lord will then put it on your heart to approach the
individual. But pray first. It’s a lot easier to approach someone knowing you
prayed about it, you have asked God to examine your own sin and motivations, and
God is in control.
John says that God will
bless the prayer you pray for a brother caught up in sin. I think God will bless
this kind of prayer, when we pray in humility, gentleness and out of love for
that sinning brother. Love for one another has been a major theme of this whole
letter of 1 John. And I think it must be a key to our prayer for each other as
well.
John says here that our
prayer can rescue a man from losing his testimony and possibly his life. What if
before we could remove anyone from our church membership or Sunday School rolls
we had to prove that we had persistently interceded for them in prayer for at
least as long as they had been missing?
II. Sin to pray
for.
A. Sin that is not unto to Death.
1. Three times in these two verses, John tells us
there is "sin not leading to death"
or literally, “sin not unto death.”
Probably most of our sins as believers fall into this category. Sometimes we sin
out of ignorance or ingrained habit. We are to "confess" these sins and receive
forgiveness and cleansing (1:9).
2. You might ask, "How do you know a sin is not a sin leading
to death?" You are still breathing!
3. V.17 says, "All unrighteousness is sin." All sin is
harmful and destructive, but not all sins lead to immediate
death.
B. This Sin Requires Our
Prayers.
1. As I said, the heart of these verses is not so
much about sin as it is about prayer. John says, "If anyone SEES a brother sinning a sin
which does not lead to death, he will ASK and He [God] will give him life for those who commit sin
not leading to death." When we SEE we are to ASK in prayer for God’s
help.
2. If I had a terrible illness but had not been to a
doctor, what would you do? If you loved me you would make me an appointment,
drive me to the hospital and do everything to ensure my health. Why then when we see a fellow believer
caught up in sin do we say, "It’s his
business, not mine?" We have that attitude because we do not love as we
should.
3. Tony Evans says this verse means that when we see
a brother caught in sin we are to "tell
God on him!" We are to pray for him that he does not go too far. We are to
pray that the brother who is "sinning a
sin which does not lead to death" in order that his sin does not become a
"sin leading to death."
III. Sin Not to Pray For.
A. Some Sin Leads to
Death.
1. John says clearly in verse 16, “There is sin leading to death.” And he
says he is not urging us to “pray about
that.” So what sin is so serious that John says prayer is unnecessary for
it? What is “sin unto
death”?
2. First let me say that the Bible teaches that sin
always brings about death. Rom.6:23 says specifically, "For the wages of sin is death."
To paraphrase, "Because we sin we die." In the
Garden of Eden, God told Adam "of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that
you eat of it you shall surely die" (Gen.2:17). At the Fall, Adam
immediately died spiritually but his sin also eventually brought about physical
death. So there are two kinds of death: physical death and spiritual death.
Death is always a separation. Physical death is separation of the soul or spirit
from the body. Spiritual death is eternal separation from
God.
Now the critical question here is, to which kind of
death is John referring when he calls this a “sin unto death”?
Two
Views:
1.
Spiritual Death.
First, let’s examine the view that this is
spiritual death. At first view, this might seem to make sense. In John’s
letter here the word life almost always refers to spiritual life, to eternal
life. Look back up to verses 11-13, “And
this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in
His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does
not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the
Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may
continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.”
“Life” in
those verses obviously means spiritual life. Back in 1 John 3:14 he also speaks
about spiritual death, “We know that we
have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not
love his brother abides in death.”
But here comes the problem. In verse 16 the one who
we see sinning is a brother, “If anyone
sees his brother sinning a sin.” So the one sinning here is a brother, a
fellow believer in Jesus. Can a believer experience spiritual death? NO. The
Bible no where talks about a true believer, one who has cross over from death to
life, ever crossing back over from eternal life to spiritual death. Jesus said,
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who
hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall
not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” (John
5:24).
The only way that this could be referring to
spiritual death, eternal separation from God, is if the “brother” here is not a true believer.
And certainly John and the church to whom he wrote had experienced false
brothers, false believers. There
had been false bothers who had been teaching false doctrine in the church. John
goes so far as to call them “anti-Christ”. In 1 John 2:18-19 he says, “Little children, it is the last hour; and
as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have
come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they
were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us;
but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of
us.”
In this case the “sin unto death” would be the same as
the “blasphemy of the Holy Spirit”
that Jesus said could not be forgiven.
This is what we call apostasy, someone who has made a profession of faith
in Christ but turns away and ultimately comes to the place where he actually
blasphemes the name of the Lord Jesus and the things of Christian faith, denying
them completely. Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10 and other passages make clear that
such an apostate is in a terrible situation. He has committed blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit, the flagrant rejection of the testimony of the Holy Spirit to
Jesus Christ, and that is unpardonable.
But it is equally clear that kind of sin can never be
committed by a genuine born-again Christian. It is only committed by those who
have made a profession of faith but have never entered into new birth in Jesus
Christ.
In this case, it would do no good to pray for such an
unrepentant and faithless person. God will not forgive and grant life to someone
unless they repent and believe. That is great news if any of you think you may
have committed some unforgiveable sin. No sin is unforgiveable if it is repented
of. John has already said in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.”
2.
Physical Death
Is there Biblical evidence for such a
view?
a. Some
Examples of Sins Leading to Death.
1. Num.3:4 tells of the first two sons of Aaron,
NADAB and ABIHU who "died before the
Lord when they offered profane fire before the Lord." They deviated from
God’s will in worship.
2. Num.16 tells of KORAH who led a rebellion against
Moses and Aaron. God caused the ground to open up and swallow him and all who
followed after him.
3. Num.20 says that even MOSES rebelled when he
struck the rock instead of speaking to it as God had required. He said, "Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water
for you out of this rock?" God said to him in v.12, "Because you did not believe Me, to hallow
Me in the eyes of the children of
4. Joshua 7 teaches that ACHAN rebelled when he
violated God’s command not to take anything from the destruction of
5. 2 Sam.6 speaks of UZZAH who dared touch the Ark of
the Covenant as it was being moved. V.7 says, "Then the anger of the LORD was aroused
against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the
ark of God."
Now you might say, “yes, preacher but all that is in
the Old Testament, didn’t things change in the New Testament?” Well, let’s look.
6. Acts 5 tells of ANANIAS and SAPHIRA who lied to
the apostles about money that they received from the sale of some land. They
fell down dead one at a time for their lie.
7. 1 Cor.11 teaches that some in the
b. Some Sins
Still Lead to
Death.
Notice that in all these examples it was not the same
sin, by any means. It was simply sin which results in the judgment of physical
death. What then, is the element that turns ordinary sin into this kind of sin?
I think if you look at these examples together you will see what it is. It is
the element of wanton, presumptuous action in the face of clear knowledge that
it is wrong. It is willfulness, a willful presumption to pursue something when
you know God has said it is wrong. This is sin unto death, and the result is
physical judgment.
Now it does not always come suddenly. It did with
Ananias and Sapphira, it did with Achan, but it did not with Moses, and it did
not with the Corinthians. With them it came in stages: first it was weakness,
then sickliness, and finally death.
Some might say, "Pastor, do you really believe that this
still happens?" Yes! We often do not recognize causes of suffering and death
because we are not aware of the circumstances.
John wants us to know that although all sins cause
physical death eventually, there are some sins that cause immediate physical
death.
Some believers die before their time. They disobey,
rebel and refuse to hear the voice of God to the point they no longer serve His
purposes on earth so He takes them from the earth. This doesn’t mean He doesn’t
love them; it means He can’t use them.
Death does not always come immediately but sometimes
it does. Not all sickness and not all premature deaths are because of willful
sin, but some are. That’s why we need to be serious about sin, to confess it
immediately and receive forgiveness and cleansing.
There is much preaching today on God’s love, yet
there is little preaching on the severity of God’s love. God loves us so much He
refuses to let us throw our lives away. He does not want us to destroy our lives
and the lives of others.
You might be tempted to think, "I know this is wrong, but I’m only hurting
myself." That’s not true. As a believer you are not only related to God but
to all His family. 1 Cor.12:26 says, "And if one member suffers, all the members
suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with
it."
John says in verse 17, “All unrighteousness is sin.” Sin is
serious. Deal with it now.
Sin Requires Our Prayers.
What are we to pray? We are to pray that God will do
whatever it takes to restore our sinning brother.
When we earnestly pray for our erring brother, that
person may receive an extra measure of God’s grace because of the faithful
prayers of those in fellowship with God.
I
am spurred on to pray because of the glorious promise in verse l6 that God will
give life to him in answer to my prayers. Intercession is not trivial, it is
used by God to turn people around.
I
want to close this morning with an admonition to all of us to become more
regular and more expectant in prayer; and to urge all of us to become more
sensitive to the spiritual welfare of the brothers and sisters around us. Let us
be diligent in praying for each other's spiritual and emotional and physical
well-being. God has much he wants to accomplish through us in answer to prayer.
I can't help but feel we are on the verge of a new breakthrough in power and
fruitfulness at New Covenant. And it will come through a new surge in
prayer.
And in honor of Father's Day, one final admonition
directed to those of us who are fathers, myself included. Let us, together with
our wives, labor in prayer for our children. Paul said, concerning his spiritual
children in Gal. 4:l9, " My little children, for whom I labor in birth again
until Christ is formed in you..."
There is nothing more important than Christ being formed in our children. Our
prayer lives need to reflect this priority.
Take Job, for example. Scripture says he was an
upright man and Job "would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings
according to the number of his children; for Job said 'Perhaps my sons have
sinned and cursed God in their hearts.' Thus Job did
continually."