Church Discipline - The Process (Matthew 18:15-20)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet virtually this week.
Transcript
Good morning my name is spencer i'm one of the pastors here we are in week two of three weeks of walking through uh the subject matter of Church discipline that we're seeing in Matthew 18 so if you have a Bible you can go ahead we're going to be Matthew 18 verses 15 through 20 and you can turn there also be along it'll be on the screen for us to follow along so in college i went to presbyterian college up in clinton south carolina and and i studied religion which was interesting.
Because in the religion department the Bible was neat it was a nice book uh wasn't very authoritative uh certainly wasn't seen to be true so my experiences in in that uh major was was quite interesting i remember one class in particular it's called Christian doctrine you might think oh Christian doctrine where you study the Bible and you look at some of the historical Christian doctrines and you come to class and you discuss kind of you know what lines up with the Scriptures.
If you thought that you would be incorrect again the Bible was just kind of an addendum to christianity uh in my studies up there and uh that class in particular uh basically you just kind of came ready to discuss whatever the subject was kind of shooting from the hip however you felt and uh at times i came ready to defend the Scriptures ready to to make a defense for why certain doctrines were true and etc but there were some days that i was just kind of tired and fighting battles like that sometimes is just tiring.
So there's sometimes i came and i was like you know what i think i'm just going to be a little bit more silent this period and i remember one class in particular the subject matter was was the judgment of God and i just i don't have it in me to really debate this today and i stayed silent and then about halfway through the class right kind of the time was most heated the professor looked at me and said spencer do you think we're called to judge anyone this is going to go.
Well so i said well yes and before i could add the caveats before i could really get into my kind of my argument someone there's there's three people in my class i remember they sat in the back row and they would probably consider themselves to be fairly open-minded but by open-minded they meant open to their own opinions and they hated yours and and they really got aggressive about a lot of things and immediately they just kind of they kind of tightened up and one of them just said uh-uh my.
God says we never judge anyone ever and i just said okay and i'll open up to first corinthians five and i just read start to read one passage verse 12 and 13 i said for what have i to do with judging outsiders is it not those inside the Church whom you are a judge God judges the outside purge the evil person from among you and what i tried to get to and some semblance of somewhat got there and they were very upset about is that there's this idea that yes.
God calls us to hold each other accountable there's this expectation in the new testament Church of of collective repentance of correcting one another of rebuking one another at times that that's a form of judgment sure we don't judge outsiders that's what Jesus is getting at in Matthew 7. that's self-righteous judgment but there is this this expectation of accountability for the Church but there is this visceral reaction from them in our class and honestly i think it is really picturesque of how our uh culture reacts to this type of accountability how it reacts to really this subject matter that we're walking through in these three weeks the subject of Church discipline there's this it's within us.
It just there is this reality that culture has affected us we don't like the idea of this but last week we introduced what Church discipline is and i'll define it again Church discipline is the practice through which the Church pursues holiness and joy by addressing and correcting sin and waywardness read that one more time it is the practice through which the Church pursues holiness and joy by addressing and correcting sin and waywardness and as we're walking through this there was three different weeks last week was uh the purpose of Church discipline this week is the process we're going to.
See how Jesus calls us to walk this out and the next week is the posture and as we walk through this to be honest there's a part of us culturally that's not going to like parts of what we're going to walk through today it's just we're just not but i want to press into that i want to help us see that maybe this isn't a subject matter that we just kind of submit to and obey because the Scriptures call us to that maybe actually.
Jesus is doing something here and that this process of Church discipline actually is a means of grace it is a means of grace that binds the Church and keeps us together so that we all might make it to the end and no one might be led astray and that's what Jesus is going for here so let me read the passage all in one clip and then i'm gonna pray and then we'll walk through this piece by piece so verse 15. 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 but if he does not listen take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses if he refuses to listen to them tell it to the Church and if he refuses to listen even to the Church let him be to you as a gentile and a tax collector truly i say to you whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven again i say to you.
If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask it will be done for them by my father in heaven for where two or three are gathered in my name there i am among them let me pray God we ask that you would speak to us right now and i know that there is probably a lot of different opinions i know there's probably a lot of different even experiences with this God i pray that you would just open up the Scriptures to our hearts and speak to us this morning in.
Jesus name amen all right so again Jesus is teaching he's kind of gone through a little bit of the purpose of what he's getting ready to say and then we launch into verse 15 and instead there's a this is a three-fold process we're about to walk through and here is the first step if your brother verse 15 sends against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone if he listens to you you have gained your brother he says go and tell him his fault we don't like that all right we are a mind your own business type of culture all right you do you and i do me we don't like.
The idea of getting the other people's business we we just don't and we certainly don't like anybody getting and calling out our faults right have you y'all remember uh uh mari that tv show and every now and then they get the kids on there that just were wild and needed discipline and and uh and those kids would just they would just they would say the most outrageous things they you know they try to talk to him they say i don't i go.
Listen to you i do what i want and they just would get really aggressive with lots of curse words about how no one was going to tell them what to do and the reality is is that that's what goes on our own heart we're super polished on the outside we would never act like that but that's truly what's going on when anybody comes to you and corrects you you're like all right tell me how to live my life i'm gonna do me you do you it's just we don't like this at all we're too individualistic to.
See that actually we belong to one another that in the Church we are together we belong to one another therefore we walk this out together in repentance together which means calling one another out and calling out faults within one another but we don't really like that i love what um there's a theologian named john calvin he and his institutes of Christian religion he walks through just kind of a defense of Church discipline it's a little bit of a longer quote but i want to walk through it.
Because i think it's super helpful he says but because some persons and their hatred of discipline recoil from its very name let them understand this if no society indeed no house which even has a has even a small family can be kept in proper condition without discipline it is much more necessary in the Church whose condition should be as ordered as possible what is getting out there is is you may not like the idea of of Church discipline i mean i like the idea of of correcting one of them.
But here's the deal he says no society can function without that society needs order he says no family even a small one can exist and function the way it's supposed to without order how much more so does the Church need this those of us that deal in eternal things he keeps going he says accordingly as the saving doctrine of Christ is the soul of the Church so does discipline serve as its sinews through which the members of the body hold together each in its own place.
Therefore all who desire to remove discipline or to hinder its restoration whether they do this deliberately or out of ignorance are surely contributing to the ultimate dissolution of the Church now as a mouthful but what he just said was is that just as uh the saving doctrine of Christ is the soul of the Church that we have been saved by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross and the empty tomb that as a Church we believe that.
Jesus is better than everything else that we are a Gospel-centered community on mission the things that we uphold that are central to who we are that's the soul that's the heartbeat of the Church but he pushes it further and says that Church discipline is the sin used it's the muscles fibers that bind us together that keeps us together otherwise we dissolve otherwise we don't exist that's a strong statement to say that if we though we believe in the Gospel don't actually walk this out and repentance together we won't exist.
But here's the deal we believe that as a Church we preach this all the time we agree with him we believe as as chet walked us through last week that sin is serious if you weren't here last week i would encourage you to go back and listen to this sermon but what he walked us through to help us see what Jesus was teaching is that sin is very serious we we think it's cute we treat it lightly but ultimately it can lead us to destruction.
Because we believe sin is serious we recognize that repentance is needed and that within us all of us are sinners all of us are jacked up we all need to walk this out in repentance that comes from the cross that ultimately comes from the saving doctrine of the Church and what Jesus has done for us we believe this we that's why we say good news before good advice is the things that we walk out all the all the time together in the Church we believe this and we believe it's actually not only necessary that it's good.
So because we believe this we we take this process seriously in the steps that he lays out so let me read 15 again he says if your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone now he says if your brother sins against you and when you look at luke luke's version of this and his Gospel is even more condensed luke says in verse 17 3 he says pay attention to yourselves if your brother sins rebuke him.
And if he repents forgive him so what we see here is that this is all of sin whether it's against another Christian or it's sin in general the idea is is that if you see a brother or sister in sin that you would go you were to go and tell them their fault because sin affects the whole body of Christ now it's important to see how he says to do it he says go and tell them their fault in private all right this is uh going to them one-on-one this is not you just calling them out in front of other people that's not the process here he says no go and tell them their fault.
In private. we've had some folks in the past have come to us and they've said listen so and so and the Church did this or so and so said this to me and our kind of our initial response usually is okay well have you talked to them first and they'll say well i'm no i've i'm planning to and it's like well why don't you go and talk to them first if that doesn't go well we can we can go from there.
But you need to actually address them in private first a few months back um some of y'all know jeremy powell jeremy powell serves in kid city and if you know jeremy he's he's light-hearted he's goofball um and jimmy's a friend of mine and every now and then we talk he'll come into my office but a few months back he came in i could tell very pretty quickly that it was it was a little more serious he actually came to address me in some sin he came to call me out on an area of sin and me being the good Christian that i that i am i immediately said yes jeremy i receive your rebuke.
I repent and dust and ashes it was a two-minute conversation no um i'm as jacked up as the rest of us and i just kind of said actually jeremy i think i disagree with you and for the next 15-20 minutes we went back and forth and i was like i don't see the way that you're seeing it because there's this guy there's a part of us that just says i do what i want you you come to my office and tell me that i'm sent boy like this is part of us that just wants to bow up at that.
But the flesh started to subside and the spirit started to take over and i finally realized and i after about 15-20 minutes i just agreed i was like dude i think i think you're onto something i think you might be right i repented and offered forgiveness and it was good but here's the deal that was difficult for him it's difficult to address anybody in sin it's also i would say in some ways a little more difficult to address one of your pastors who is in sin.
But he believes the Gospel right jimmy believes that that that sin is serious he believes that it's it needs repentance he believes that forgiveness comes through Christ and he loved me enough to address me in my sin and some of you might be thinking wait a second we can call out pastors and their sin yes yes you can and nadeem babam will be here after service to take to schedule any appointments you have with chet phillips so that you can meet with him this week and address any grievances you have.
Now we're all this we are a Church together and we uh correct one another in sin it's what we do and i'm thankful for brothers like jeremy who uh who are able to to see something that i'm blind to and call it out i remember watching uh i read the story a while back a few years back this nurse was uh watching hgtv she was watching one of those flipping shows and uh and she saw one of the the main characters in the show she she saw his neck and she saw that there was a a tumor and she called this she called the producers she got in touch with the producers and said.
Listen he i know this episode maybe a few months old but i i saw this and he has a growth on his neck and he needs to get that checked out and he did and it was cancerous and y'all because tvs are super clear now that's happened multiple times on reality tv shows and news stations doctors and nurses are watching and they see a cancerous growth on somebody's neck and they reach out to them to see them get help now how messed up would have been.
If she saw that she was like yeah it looks deadly i hope he figures that out how messed up would have been if he if she said you know what i if i call he could get awkward they might they don't know me they i just i don't want to i don't want to just he'll figure it out on his own how messed up would that have been because that's serious like he i mean he could die if he doesn't get the help that he needs they don't catch that soon enough and that's the reality of sin that's what that's what chet was getting at last week he quoted uh james 1 14-15 that says.
But each person is tempted when he's lured enticed by his own desire the desire when is conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it's fully grown brings forth death the idea is that sin starts small but then it metastasizes and it grows and when it's fully grown it will destroy you how much do we have to not love someone how much do we not to care about somebody's eternity that just see them and send that they're blind to and say you know what they'll figure it out that's not my place all right that's that i need to he maybe someone else will address it maybe he'll figure that on his own how much do.
We have to dislike somebody even possibly hate somebody to not actually address sin and their own life when you see a brother in Christ who is flirting with someone who's not his wife when you see a sister who is gossiping about other Christians and the Church when you see someone who and your group just jokes about cheating on their taxes none of that's okay it starts small and it leads to adultery it leads to division it leads to fraud and degree that completely destroys somebody's life our silence and the face of sin means that we're.
Okay with it we are fine with somebody walking into destruction so that's not the path we take that's not the path that Jesus is calling us to he calls us he says to go and address them and and that y'all takes a lot of work because if we follow what he teaches throughout the whole of Matthew you actually have to do some soul work on yourself in Matthew 7 he says uh check the plank in your own eyes so that you may inspect the spect in your brother's eye right some people take that as oh you can't ever call someone out ever it's like no he literally said.
So that you can inspect the spec in your others and your brother's eye but that means that when you see someone who's in sin you've got to do the tough work of looking at your own soul and realizing oh i've got my own sin and then you got then you have to go through the emotional process of repenting then you got to go to your group and you got to repent and walk in the light and that's the whole process then you get yourself up and give yourself up to go and have that conversation.
And then Paul says in in galatians 6 1 he says brothers if any of you is caught in transgression you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness then now you have to do it with gentleness and tack and that takes a lot of effort you see how much effort it takes to call somebody out and sin i mean that takes a lot and then you have to address them and wait for the possibility that that isn't going to go super.
Well that might be awkward or uncomfortable but you got to love somebody enough to be able to to call them out and sin and it's because not only it's a good thing it's we're commanded to do this i want you to receive this the God of the universe commands us to do this it is difficult but here's the deal nine times out of ten this goes well nine times out of ten you are filled the Holy Spirit they are filled with the Holy Spirit you love them they know that you that they love you and it goes.
Well and repentance happens and you gain respect for a brother or sister who went out on a limb to be able to call you uh into uh repentance but for the times it does not go well there's a second step in this process picks up in verse 16. but if he does not listen take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses so this is step two and we honestly sometimes want to bail on this step maybe you go and have a conversation and it just doesn't go super.
Well and it's like ah well i did my part i said my peace i got to figure it out for themselves nope now there's there's a second step here he says go and take one or two others with you that uh that may be established in charge of two or three witnesses that is something you see throughout the Bible from old testament anew there's this expectation that there's some collective authority with two or three witnesses so if you're if you're in a car accident and you're trying to explain this to the police officer and it's your uh your take that's one thing.
But if you have someone behind you who saw the accident and you have somebody on the street who saw it well there's three of you saying the same thing there's some collective authority there that adds some legitimacy uh to what you actually saw and that happens throughout the Bible from old testament news that there's some collective authority and a few that are looking at somebody each filled with the Holy Spirit and saying no no this this is serious and we're all seeing the same thing that you need you need to change you need to repent you.
Remember the Gospel there's grace for this but you got to turn from this there's collective authority there and most of the time when this happens if you've got three believers who love you and love Jesus and they're looking at you and they're saying no listen i'm telling you this is serious you need to see this for what it is most the time they're going to be moved by their their hearts will be softened they'll be moved by the spirit and they'll say.
Okay i i understand and repentance happens but you got to do the tough work to address someone who is in sin even if it takes one or two or three together so for us in our Church we say grab your group leader grab another person in your group and go and sit down with them and address them say you shouldn't be living with your girlfriend you shouldn't talk about other Christians like this and walk them through it with a ton of tact and gentleness and grace and pointing them to the Gospel and the forgiveness that.
Jesus offers that's step two and every now and then when this happens that doesn't go well and that is why there's a step three starts in verse 17. if he refuses to listen to them tell it to the Church and if he refuses to listen even to the Church let him be to you as a gentile and a tax collector truly i say to you whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven again i say to you.
If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask it will be done for them by my father in heaven for where two or three are gathered in my name there i am among them so if the way we're Christian doesn't listen to two three other believers who love them it is brought before the Church now this is why this is really important for us to understand in the middle of all this that the Church here has collective authority together.
Now a few chapters ago Jesus is uh Peter proclaims that Jesus is the messiah and he tells Peter we walk through this that your name is Peter you are the rock in which i will build the Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against you the keys the kingdom are being given to you and the picture here is authority is given to Peter and then it goes on to say whatever you bound bind on heaven will be bound and uh with your bite on earth will be bound in heaven whatever loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven same phrasing right here and that is a statement of authority that what you do.
Here on this earth you have authority here it resounds into eternity which means the Church here has the authority together all right y'all that's why one of the reasons why we're baptist we believe this we don't have popes we don't have solo leaders the Church collectively has the authority together and one of the ways that we display this authority one way that we walk this authority out together is in this process and if someone is unwilling to repent and the whole Church is calling them to repentance.
If they're unwilling to do that he says treat them as a gentile and a tax collector and for jewish ears who heard this when Jesus was teaching it they knew exactly what that meant jews did not associate with gentiles and tax collectors they did not eat with them they did not invite them over they did not have fellowship with them what Jesus just said is that if someone if the whole Church is calling someone repentance and they will not repent there's the door the Church has historically called this excommunication they are removed from fellowship.
Now he teaches this very clearly here and the rest of the new testament is going to display this the clearest case study we have of seeing this is in first corinthians 5. it's the passage i read so many years ago in my doctrines class i'm just going to briefly highlight it because i don't have time to walk through that passage but what happens in that Church in the Church of corinth is that there is a man who has had an ongoing affair with his stepmother and the Church is not addressing it the Church in in some ways is by not addressing it is a little bit proud they're not addressing it and Paul really comes.
Hard in first corinthians 5. and i was going to read you two verses that capture what he calls them to do verse 4 and 5 says when you are assembled in the name of the lord Jesus and my spirit is present with the power of the lord Jesus you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the lord and as i read earlier later he says purge the evil person from among you that seems very aggressive and very harsh to deliver this man to Satan.
For the destruction of his flesh what is he getting at what he's capturing is really what the parable of the prodigal son captures in luke 15. you remember the story the man rejects his father he rejects fellowship and life with his father with his father he takes his inheritance and what does he do he goes and he spends his his inheritance on wild and reckless living and where does it leave him it leaves him broke starving in a pig pit working amongst pigs which.
For jews is just an absurd picture that a jewish person would work amongst pigs not only is he working amongst pigs he is longing to eat the food that they eat that's the picture of what sin gets you that's the logical end and that is the destruction of the flesh what Paul is commanding in first corinthians is deliver this man to Satan so that he would experience the end of his sin which is the destruction of the flesh so that he might be saved eternally.
So that he might come home as the prodigal son does he comes to his senses and realizes this isn't what i thought it was my pursuit this isn't worth it and then he repents and comes home that is the picture of what it means to be removed from the Church the hope is is they would experience their sin and that they might come home that's the hope let me tell you a story the family their oldest son turns 17 and he starts uh doing drugs start small pot maybe some pills.
But then it starts to progress and as it progresses he starts doing heroin and they realize that their son is heading towards a path of destruction and what do parents do in that situation they stage an intervention and they say son listen you are going to destroy your life we have we have some rehab set up for you we want you to go and get help we love you and then he half hardly goes he walks through the process two weeks in skips out says i'm not doing this goes back to using drugs in and out of the house they're in tears every night as they're watching their son they don't.
See the strung out lost teenager they see their five-year-old boy who's wasting his life he's about to wreck everything and they've got some tough decisions to make do they let him continue pursuing this or they make some tough choices and say you are no longer welcome in this house because all they're doing is shielding him from the consequences of his own actions and what's worse is that his youngest his younger brother a few years behind him has always looked up to him and he's seeing this and it's possible that his younger brother very soon is going to start going down the exact same path what do they do in difficult circumstances like that they stand.
In front of their son they say you are no longer welcome in this house we love you we want you to get help you are not ready to hit rock bottom you are not ready to change but we are here for when you for when you go if you want to come back if you want to come back and change we're here we are waiting for you but you are no longer welcome in this house y'all that is a story that plays out every day across this country that has been ravaged by drugs and it is a modern day parable.
For exactly what the Church faces the reality is is that people are consistently pursuing sin to their own destruction and we have tough decisions as a Church to make are we okay with that that's the question that i have for anyone that doesn't like this are you okay with someone pursuing sin into hell are we okay with someone possibly leading a weaker brother or sister into sin and we discount that we don't think that that that's big that's that big of a deal.
But it is we've seen what happens in our own Church when gossip and slander run rampant i have heard and read and seen in other churches when they didn't check sin when they didn't check someone who had false teaching they didn't check someone who was living in sin and all of a sudden some weaker believers felt prayer that and they left Jesus all together that is the reality that we face as the Church so we tell people you are no longer welcome here and we've had to do this and it's incredibly painful it's incredibly painful every time we do this it is soaked in tears it is a painful process.
But they got to hit rock bottom elsewhere so they can come back home the most unloving thing you can do to someone who is pursuing unrepentant sin who has fallen headlong into this world is to cosign their path to hell with our silence with our apathy or with our cowardice we don't get to sit on the sidelines while someone derails their eternity tough decisions and bold actions are required for us as the Church because the hope is is that they would come home the hope is that they would.
See this as a means of grace that we would stand between them in hell and we call them to come home being on the outside of fellowship it's not good and that's the point it's not supposed to be but if anybody understood that if anybody knew exactly what that felt like it's the very person who wrote this letter Matthew was a tax collector he knew exactly what it felt like to be on the outside he knew what it meant to be avoided you know what i meant to not be invited to dinner he knew what it meant to not be invited to the festivals to seder mills to rosh hashanah or yom kippur to miss.
Out on the fellowship of his own people he knew what it meant to choose a life that was crooked and be outside the fellowship of God and yet the picture of the Gospel is that Christ steps into his path in the midst of his path he calls them into faith and he calls them in repentance and Matthew is brought into fellowship and that is the hope there's so much unknown when someone is sent out of the Church but the hope is and our prayer and our longing is that Christ meets them in the destruction of their flesh he meets them and says come home the hope is that people would come to repentance and we.
Are here with open arms ready to receive them this is a difficult process it is hard for us to walk out but we are commanded to and it is ultimately for the good of our Church may we be a people that is not okay with anyone walking into hell may we stand the path and plead and say don't choose sin don't choose the world i love you i don't care about the things you're going to say to me i don't care about the hurtful things you're about to throw at me i will stand between you and the path to hell.
Because i love you if it takes one or two or three others if it takes the whole Church we will stand in the way because i am not okay with you walking away from Jesus that is the hope and the heartbeat that we want to embody as we live out this command as a Church and it is difficult i am not understanding how difficult it is but it is ultimately for the good for the hope that we would see sinners come home matt's going to come up and he's going to lead us in a song and honestly he's just going to sing over us.
For a lot of it and i want us to absorb this i know it's difficult i know these words are not easy to absorb i know this process is not easy to walk out it takes a ton of grace for a bunch of sinners like us redeemed by Jesus to walk this out and the first thing we have to do in receiving a difficult teaching like this is to check our own hearts because we got sin in our own hearts there might be things that you haven't brought to the light there might be things hidden beneath the surface maybe you don't think it's a big deal and i'm telling you it is whatever that is.
Right now whatever is the one thing you're trying to ignore in your head right now it is a big deal and my hope is is that you would walk in the light of the Christians and you would bring that go to your group this week and be honest and open about the brokenness and the sin that you're living in we need this together we've got to look at our own hearts and we got to repent from up sin but also maybe you are in a group and you've seen somebody else who's living in sin maybe you've seen someone who is pursuing sin and it leads i make an appeal to you it leads to destruction.
And if you see that and you are unwilling to address it then you are showing an incredible lack of love for your brother and sister and i am hoping this morning that you would love your brother or sister enough to stand in the way and say i love you but this is sin and it's going to be hard at times and it's going to be difficult and it's going to be awkward but 10 000 years from now when they've repented and they are singing in the presence of.
God is it are you even going to remember the moment that awkward conversation that took place it's worth it eternity is on the line and we've got obedience to walk out for the good of our Church may we respond to this and the way that Jesus calls us to let me pray God these words are heavy and they are hard to hear because we are hard of hearing but God i pray that you would help us receive this i pray for anyone here that's walking in sin right.
Now that they would walk in the light they wouldn't wait for someone else to address it that they would come in repentance God go to work on their heart right now God i pray for anyone right now that is feeling the weight of this that they need to have conversations God i pray that you would bless those conversations i pray that the person they need to talk to will receive it in repentance got to pray that everyone in our Church will continue to walk this out together making it to the end we ask us all in.
Jesus name amen.