Do you need help in knowing how to address sin in the lives of fellow believers? I think we all do. Below are some quotes, originally gathered by Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile, from Mark Lauterbach's book, The Transforming Community: The Practice of the Gospel in Church Discipline.

The General Need for Relationships

"Over the years, I have observed that the worst cases of sin in the church have always been in believers who lived a life isolated from the intimacy of sharing the things of God with their brothers. No one knows them. They have no spiritual friends. I believe every believer needs a friend in Christ who knows them and watches over them. I also believe that believers need to be encouraged to go to their overseers when they face troubled consciences or habits of sin they cannot stop." (p. 83)

Seven Principles to Apply

"Let's look at a few more principles. First, it should be evident we are dealing with sin, not violation of church taboos or traditions. We must be careful not to go to a brother or sister for 'sin' for which I have no biblical basis. This takes great care." (p. 85)

"Make sure that the sin you are seeing in the other can be addressed by reading a verse of Scripture, without commentary. for example, perhaps you think a sister you know is becoming greedy. The proof of this is her purchase of a nice car. So, what verse reproves her? Is it 1 John 2:15 'Love not the world'? Will she see the application without any comment from you? Even if you make the connection of this to her car, are you certain of her motive?" (p. 86)

"Second, I must guard the church against an atmosphere that is always pointing out sin. I think the Scripture speaks to this on two fronts. It addresses the danger of a judgmental spirit, and it speaks of love's making kind judgments of others (Matt. 7:1-5)." (p. 86)

"Third, the general tone of the New Testament is encouragement. This does not mean there is no place for reproof. We build character and godliness by listening to reproof. However, we wear people down by constant reproof." (p. 88)

"Fourth, there is the sin that is the normal lapse of the believer in their state of remaining corruption. The first question to ask is simple: Is this sin I am seeing part of the ordinary stumbling of the Christian? If so, then I need not speak to it immediately. Is it hardening their hearts or are they judging themselves? If the latter, I may forbear." (p. 89)

"Fifth, we must take into account the work of the Spirit. He is wisely shaping us into the likeness of Christ in his sovereign love. Rather than expose all our corruption at once, he is gentle. To see ourselves as God sees us would undo us. He points out one thing at a time. As I intend to reprove someone or speak to them of my concern for them in sin, I must be aware of this." (p. 90)

"Sixth, where the believer is judging his sin and admitting it, I have no reason to be harsh. They, like me, are seeking help and encouragement to keep on fighting the holy war. It is not helpful to rub salt in a wound." (p. 92)

"Seventh, sometimes we must intervene quickly. Look at Paul's concern in 1 Corinthians 5 with public sin. Some transgressions are private. Others are public. The list given seems to deal with a believer who has a reputation for these things. Moreover, the sins are evident to others. Immorality, adultery, greed that is evident, idolatry, or swindling and slandering--these are often public offenses." (p. 92)

“The whole initiative in reconciliation rests with God. It is an expression of His love: ‘God was reconciling the world to himself.’ But God’s love is not itself reconciliation. Between love and reconciliation there lies the great transaction referred to in 2 Corinthians 5:21: ‘[God] made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.’ There is a staggering amount of theology crammed into these few words. There is the sinlessness of Christ; there is the fact that whatever it was He suffered, God was the ultimate cause of it; and there is the fact that His suffering itself amounted to His being made sin. He bore it. He identified with it. He was treated as it deserved to be treated – bruised for it (Isaiah 53:10), accursed for it (Galatians 3:13) and rejected for it (Mark 15:34).

But how did Christ contract such sin? How did He become vulnerable to its retribution? What right did God have to bruise Him? Because He was for us. That made His condemnation – His expulsion to the Far Country – righteous. But then, beside the for, there is another preposition, in. The for made Him guilty. The in makes us righteous: ‘We are the righteousness of God in Him.’ That is why God is reconciled to us – because we are righteous. That is why God justifies us – declares us righteous: because we are righteous. We have in Christ all the righteousness God can require. We are righteous as Christ himself. Indeed, we are God’s own righteousness – we have kept the covenant as faithfully as God Himself.”

- Donald Macleod, Behold Your God, pgs. 105-06,
As quoted on the Of First Importance blog.

“One day as I was passing into the field, this sentence fell upon my soul: ‘Thy righteousness is in heaven.’ And with the eyes of my soul I saw Jesus at the Father’s right hand. ‘There,’ I said, ‘is my righteousness!’ So that wherever I was or whatever I was doing, God could not say to me, ‘Where is your righteousness?’ For it is always right before him.

I saw that it is not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness IS Christ. Now my chains fell off indeed. My temptations fled away, and I lived sweetly at peace with God.

Now I could look from myself to him and could reckon that all my character was like the coins a rich man carries in his pocket when all his gold is safe in a trunk at home. Oh I saw that my gold was indeed in a trunk at home, in Christ my Lord. Now Christ was all: my righteousness, sanctification, redemption.”

- John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,
As quoted on the Of First Importance blog.

“The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death - we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise godfearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time - death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call....In fact every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. But we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and his call are necessarily our death as well as our life.”

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, pgs. 89-90.

“It would be easy to make a superficial mistake about the death of Christ as a substitutionary atonement. The mistake would be to say that, since Christ died for me, I don’t need to die for others. Since he suffered for me, I don’t need to suffer for others. In other words, if his death is really substitutionary shouldn’t I escape what he bore for me? How can his death be a call for my death, if his death took the place of my death?”

The answer is that Christ died for us so that we would not have to die for sin, NOT so that we would not have to die for others. Christ bore the punishment of our sin so that our death and suffering is never a punishment from God. The call to suffer with Christ is not a call to bear our sins the way he bore them but to love the way he loved. The death of Christ for the sin of my selfishness is not meant to help me escape the suffering of love but to enable it. Because he took my guilt and my punishment and reconciled me to God as my Father, I do not need to cling any longer to the comforts of earth in order to be content. I am free to let things go for the sake of making the supremacy of God’s worth known.

- John Piper, Let the Nations be Glad, pg. 77.