Transcript: Should we call out sin in the lives of other Christian friends? I had a convo with my pastor about this in regard to cussing, and he told me if we don’t have a mutual edification, then it might not be my place.

Well, I mean, that’s a safe statement. If you don’t have mutual edification, a relationship where the two of you can build each other up, like you have that open door to talk to them about things like that and confront them, then it might not be the place. Well, that’s true; it might not be the place.

So I think that your pastor might be just saying, based on your summary of him, he might just be saying it’s not always your role to call people out just because you see something that you don’t like or something that you think is—I shouldn’t say don’t like—something that you know is sinful and wrong. Well, it’s definitely not always your role.

Imagine if Jesus always called out everything he saw everyone do around him. He’s holy; he would just be calling things out all day long non-stop. “Hey, you just thought lustfully about that woman over there; you need to stop that. You just laughed at that guy because I exposed him because you have pride and arrogance in your heart. You’re terrified that I’m going to point out the truth of you because you also have pride.” What if he just looks around and points at people and identifies all the sins that are there? Obviously, this isn’t an example we have in Scripture; it’s not something we’re called to do. So, what sins do you point out? Well, you want to ask, are they going to listen to me? Okay, sometimes, not always, sometimes you don’t bother because they’re not listening. How do you know they’re not listening? Well, life’s complicated, so you may have reason to think that you might not.

Sometimes you call it out even if you know they won’t listen because that’s the right thing to do. There’s just no—I don’t know any formula for this. Maybe someone out there has a formula for when to call out sin in others; I don’t know. It depends. To me, from my own very limited wisdom, it depends on how badly the sin is affecting them. How important is the sin issue in these given circumstances?

Let’s say that your friend just found out his mom died, hangs up the phone, and he starts bleeping and cussing and he’s all mad, and you’re like, “Man, you really shouldn’t cuss,” right? In the overall situation, this is not very important, right? That’s what I mean. Situationally, how much is the sin going to hurt him or her, the person doing it? How much is the sin going to hurt the people around them? Right, so if you have someone who’s doing something sinful and it’s destroying their family, I’m much more inclined to call them out and talk about it. But then you could ask about how you call it out, and a verse for this—one of them is Galatians chapter six.

Brethren, if a man is overtaken—overtaken, right? Not just that he’s, “Oh, you said I got you,” but rather he’s overtaken. This is like a significant issue in his life. He’s overtaken in any trespass. You who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. I love every word of this: restore, because your goal is to bring them back, to fix it, not to just expose them for the self-satisfaction, because sometimes we can feel just a sense of satisfaction, like, “I called you out; I feel good about me for calling you out.” But if my goal is to restore you, it changes my methods; it changes when I do it. My goal is restoration.

Also, I do it in a spirit of gentleness. So you think, “Is there a better way I can say this?” That’s a really important question when you’re calling people out. And three, you consider yourself lest you also be tempted. Okay, is my pride involved here? Is my personal irritation going on here, or am I really trying to seek to serve the Lord and build people up and help people be restored to Him? You check your heart.

I think all those things are important, and Galatians 6:1 is a good one to memorize for this type of issue.

See original video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JNbdt2mZ5E