Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] What a joy to be together today. Amen.
[00:00:08] We are continuing our series in Matthew 18 called how to Church, which I don't know about you guys, but I like that name. It reminds me of, like, DIY shows, right?
[00:00:23] We're doing this short chunk of teaching from Jesus in Matthew 18 is sometimes called the church discourse or the child's discourse. And that's because it's a text, a chunk of text where Jesus gives really practical instruction on how we as his church are supposed to operate in the world and with one another. One of the primary images that Jesus uses in this chunk of text, the analogy he uses for us as his followers in his kingdom, is the image of little ones or children. We as followers of Jesus, are all like little kids. We're weak, we're needy, we're prone to conflict. And above all, we need God's help.
[00:01:08] Like I would say, if you hear nothing else in this series, hear that, like, we need God's help. Amen.
[00:01:19] We need Jesus in a real community, sharing our hearts and lives with one another. Like, to live as sanctified believers, we need Christ.
[00:01:28] And so far in this short section of text, we've only been here a couple weeks, but so far we talked about the reality of childlike faith, right? This trust that children bring, that we can bring to God. We've talked about neediness and being like children, how this can create conflict and sin, how we all stumble. We talked about the necessity of joining with Jesus to not give up on those who stumble, but to chase after them. And today we're going to talk about how we engage sin that is present in the fold. So kind of last week, this parable that Jesus gave said, what do you do when stumbling, when weakness, when sin causes someone to leave the fold, will you chase after them? And today he's going to talk about what do we do when our weakness and our stumbling causes sin within the fold? How do we discipline sin that works its way into the life of the church? Woof. What a fun subject. Does anyone. Does anyone remember conditioning week ahead of sports season, like, when you were a kid? I feel like the reality of, like, club sports and such is I think a lot of young athletes don't really have an off season the way, like, we had it or the way I had it, at least as a kid. And that's fine, that's, you know, whatever. But when I was younger, like playing football or throwing shot or things like that, my friends and I didn't really do much in our off season. Like, the season was Over. And we were like, cool. Now's the time to go back to Xbox and video games and like, pizza, right? Like, that's what we do. And as a result, when the next season rolled around, we were all super out of shape. And so we had to endure conditioning camp. That's how it worked. And by the way, does anyone remember this, right? It's like early August and you're full pads and you just run laps until you throw up. Like anyone.
[00:03:18] It's the worst part of being on a sports team. Like, I'm obviously not much of an athlete in general, but conditioning is my least favorite part, least favorite memory of my. My sports involvement. It was the worst. But, man, it's necessary, right? Like, a good coach knows that if his players are out of shape and not ready and they show up to the first game, not only are they going to do poorly, they're going to hurt themselves, right? And so a good coach does the work necessary to get the athletes disciplined, to get them in shape, to get them ready, because that's actual care for the players. That's caring about the team, caring about the athletes. That means increase the discipline for a season. No more junk food, get back to lifting weights, run more early morning practices, conditioning camp, that everyone hates. This discipline is not pleasant. And if you grew up playing some sport and had to go to summer camp for it, you're like, yeah, I remember. It's not pleasant, but it sets players up to play their best in the season, right? It's why we do it. Beloved. The exact same is true for us as believers in Jesus church today. And I think the plain reality, I don't say this to be, like, too blunt, but I think the plain reality is this many of us live our faith like it's the off season. It's. And we have better things to do with our time.
[00:04:54] We don't read our Bibles because reading is hard and we don't like it. And we're busy and we're tired and then we skip out on gathering for worship or community because we have kids and we have work and we have tired and we are tired and it's exhausting. And we pray at church and then have this moment where we realize, I think that's the first time I've prayed in like four days because we just don't think about it. And guys, this kind of practice of faith, even though it's very normal for many of us, it will always manifest itself in decreased holiness and increased habituated sin.
[00:05:34] And I don't say that to be harsh, I say that to go. We need to be honest about this.
[00:05:40] When we choose to treat our faith as though it's the off season, we have better things to do. We, we should not act surprised when our faith languishes.
[00:05:48] Because that's how you work as a human being, right? That's natural. How many of us, if we're honest, give ourselves a pass on our lusts, on our anger, on our bitterness, on our unforgiveness, on our propensity for gossip, on our divisive and angry attitude, on our self centeredness, our pride, all because life is hard and it's just easier to live with this broken aspect of our person than to engage in just me.
[00:06:27] No, no, no, no. We all do this.
[00:06:30] We justify our slothfulness in our spiritual practice because it is easier, we think, to live in habituated sin than to be disciplined and grow in holiness.
[00:06:42] Beloved, I want to gently remind myself as well as you that, guys, sin is death.
[00:06:51] Sin is death. It's rebellion against our Creator and Jesus died for it.
[00:06:58] It's not something that we're supposed to push aside and justify and comfort and content ourselves with living alongside. No, no, no. It brings me to our main point today. This is what we're going to get at today. The church disciplines sin because it's an act of love that Christ has empowered the church to enact. We discipline sin because that is an act of love. And it's an act of love that Jesus empowered us to enact with one another.
[00:07:27] I think many of us have never given much thought to the idea of spiritual or church discipline. And if we have, it's likely pretty horrifying, right? Like we think of excommunication, we associate it with people doing some grievous sin. A guy cheats on his wife and so we kick him out of the church. Like that's the only real association most of us have with that phrase. And listen, here's the deal. So we're in Matthew 18. We're going to talk about Jesus's own instructions for spiritual and church discipline. And the unfortunate reality is that excommunication is a part of that discussion. So we are going to talk about that. But my sincere hope for today is this. It's that you will be encouraged, reminded and challenged, but mostly encouraged by the truth that 99% of church discipline is way simpler, way more common, way healthier, and way more important than the big scary piece of excommunication. So let's pray together and let's start to Work through this text, Jesus, thank you so much for this morning, Lord, as we engage a text that I think for many of us will just be uncomfortable, I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would be our guide today. Disciple us this morning, Lord. Teach us, encourage us, convict us, remind us, guide us and protect us from wrong or disparaging thoughts and understandings. Protect us from thinking ill of one another. As we engage this, Lord, let us rather engage this with a humility and with an awareness of your presence that we might grow in holiness, that we might meet with you in the way our heart needs today. God, we love you, we trust you. We pray this in your name. Amen. We're going to be in Matthew 18 starting in verse 15 today. If you want to go ahead and turn there. If you don't have a Bible with you, we have house Bibles around the room. Just look underneath the chairs. We really believe in the importance of access to God's Word here at Emmanuel. So if you don't own a physical copy of the Bible, I'd encourage you to just take one of the pew Bibles or even better, talk to one of the pastors and we will get you like a nicer one. But we really believe it's important to have access to God's word. So Matthew 18, we're going to start in verse 15. As you turn there, let me remind us really quickly of where our text is picking up. We are picking up in the middle of a progression of thought. Jesus is like mid speech as we jump in here. He's used this image of little children to describe us as his followers. While this image is beautiful because it points to things like childlike faith and trust that we get to have in God. Jesus is really quick to point out that this also really means immaturity, right? Like calling us kids is calling us immature. We are the poor in spirit to refer to Jesus's Beatitudes. We are bad at kingdom life. We constantly stumble. We cause each other to stumble, we stumble ourselves. We're a mess and this will cause hurt and broken relationship. Because of our weakness. Jesus says to expect that many will wander away. And Jesus is quick to chase after those who do fall through the cracks and we get to join with him in that work, right? But all this is to say we're bad at being spiritual and we should assume that this is the baseline, that we're like little kids who are stumbling our way through this. And so now as we pick up our text, we're going to talk about Jesus is going to tell Us how we deal not with those who fall away from the church, but those who stay within the church and cause hurt and offense and stumbling. So pick up with me in verse 15 where we read this.
[00:11:14] If your brother causes you to sin, go tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he won't listen, take one or two others with you so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses, every fact may be established. If he doesn't pay attention to them, tell the church. And if he doesn't pay attention even to the church, let him be like a Gentile and a tax collector to you. Woof.
[00:11:41] Also, this is the word Lord for us today, right? Like both.
[00:11:45] What we get here from Jesus is one of the most specific and clear instructions in Scripture on how to handle conflict and sin.
[00:11:55] If you are at all conflict averse, this text probably turns your stomach in knots, right? Like, it's not a fun one to read. And if you're like super pro conflict, yeah, this is awesome. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess this text is probably a little convicting, right? Like, this is a rough one for most of us. So let's talk about it. First, I want to note that our text opens with this phrase, if your brother sins against you. There's actually a little bit of debate around the exact meaning of this phrase in the Greek. It's worded in such a way in the original language that some scholars think that part, like against you, refers generally to the presence of sin in the community of the church, rather than a specific offense to a specific believer. And here's why I bring that up.
[00:12:40] Figuring out how we practice discipline together as the family of God. It's just tricky to navigate. It's weird and uncomfortable to work through it. How and when do you engage the kind of activity Jesus is describing? And so I want to give us this practical charge here.
[00:12:59] No matter how you wiggle around this first bit, at the end of the day, Jesus leaves no room here for wiggling out of this. In the area of personal offense, when a brother or sister in Christ sins against you and you are aware of it, you are bound to deal with it.
[00:13:21] There's no wiggling out of it. If you are fully aware a brother or sister in Christ has sinned against me, they did it on purpose. It was an accident. They know they did it. They didn't. Doesn't matter if you're aware of that. A brother or sister in Christ, someone who Claims Jesus has sinned against me. You are bound to engage it. You're obligated to engage it. You don't get to ignore it. Now, there's a caveat here to make sure they actually sinned against you, right? Like, sometimes someone does something totally innocently and it just hurts your feelings. Some of us sensitive people in the room, that's the thing. That's the thing we deal with. A forgotten text response, a lack of invitation, a thoughtless remark. These sorts of slights can be hurtful and often don't actually fall into the category of, like, real conscious sin on the part of the offender. I think First Peter 4 is actually really helpful in those cases where he says, above all, maintain constant love for one another. Since love covers a multitude of sins, often what we need to do in response to a slight is absorb it. Just absorb it. Forgive the person and move on. But I would say this is like a really important piece to this. Love covers over a multitude of sins until it doesn't.
[00:14:30] If you can't get past it, if it sticks in your craw, that's a good phrase, right? And you're just stuck with it. And you keep ruminating on it. You gotta go deal with it. You gotta go deal with it. Even if you're sitting there going, oh, no, I should be spiritually mature enough to move past this. Well, guess what? You're not. Sorry. You're a little kid and you stumble and you can't handle this one, so go talk to that person, right? Oh, but it's not really. Yeah, but you're. You're. You're dealing with it. You're stuck with it, so go talk to him. I know that's like me being kind of blunt with you guys, but I think this one is important. When we let offenses that you can't forgive and cover over, when you let it sit, it rots.
[00:15:10] It rots.
[00:15:12] And it affects not just you and them, it affects the whole church. So bring it to them. Guys, we can't ignore the presence of sin in our midst.
[00:15:24] No matter what it is, you can't ignore it. It's rot, it's cancer, it's death. We ignore it at our own peril.
[00:15:34] So even though this says like in our translation, like when someone sins against you, I would tell you guys, when someone seems to be exiting a sinful pattern, but hasn't sinned against you specifically, but you see it in our church, you see it affecting in our church, most likely you still need to bring it to them from a place of grace and discernment and thoughtfulness. But guys, ignoring sin in our faith family, it's. This is the cheesy cliche example, but it's so true. It is ignoring the fox in the hen house.
[00:16:02] Don't do that.
[00:16:05] Left unaddressed, sin grows and sin destroys.
[00:16:10] It's what it does. So having said that, how do we go about this in a way that's actually loving and doesn't further sin and further hurt and further offense and break community? Right. How can we be the kind of people who are willing to address these sorts of things and not just stack offense upon offense and not get offended and hurt and defensive and just splinter off and say, forget this and go do our own thing? Well, I think Jesus gives us some incredibly practical tools to do this. So let's look at what Jesus says here one by one. Look at them in turn and see how they. And just think about how they might work out in the life of the church, in the life of our church. And I think what we'll see in this first chunk of text is this. When we are addressing sin, we should be proactive. We should seek reconciliation. We should clarify and we should involve few.
[00:17:03] I think those details really get at the heart of what Jesus is saying here. Be proactive. Seek reconciliation. Clarify and involve feel. Let's go through these one at a time. Be proactive. Notice how the text says the offended party is to go to the other. To go to the other church. I'm so serious when I say this. Like, I need us to sit in this for a moment. How easy is it to simply sit in an offense, to be hurt and wounded by someone. This person hurt me. They wronged me. They need to come to me and apologize and repent of their sin, right? I didn't do anything. This is a them thing. They sinned against me. So they need to come apologize to me and repent.
[00:17:55] Beloved, with all the grace I can muster as your pastor, I need to say this.
[00:18:02] You don't get to do that.
[00:18:05] You don't get that option.
[00:18:08] Jesus is as blunt here as he can be to sit in your hurt and demand that the offender come to you and repent in order for there to be real forgiveness and real reconciliation. That is pride and it is antithetical to the heart of Jesus.
[00:18:26] If Christ had treated you that way in your sin, if he had looked at you and said, you have rebelled against me, so come on your knees and say sorry, you would stand before a holy and righteous God and face his wrath. Amen.
[00:18:43] If Christ had not been proactive and sought you out and said, you are dead in your transgressions, but I love you too much to leave you there, but not for the grace of God, right?
[00:18:55] Beloved? You don't get to sin and wait for them to come to you.
[00:19:02] You have to be proactive. Praise God that Jesus sought you out in your sin. I urge you, brothers and sisters, if you are holding a brother or sister in Christ at distance because of a sin they have done against you, go to them.
[00:19:19] Go to them. Go to them today, like resolve in this moment that you will take the step of approaching them to seek out real forgiveness and reconciliation. Which brings me perfectly to our second practical teaching Jesus gives here. Seek reconciliation. Why would you seek this brother or sister out? I'm here to tell you guys, it's not for justice and it's not for vengeance.
[00:19:49] You're not seeking them out so they can acknowledge the wrong. You're not seeking them out so you can make them feel what they made you feel in the sin.
[00:19:59] Both justice and vengeance belong to the Lord and you can leave them to him and you can trust him for those things. We are seeking forgiveness, repentance and reconciliation. We're talking about sin between brothers and sisters in Christ. These are those who have been washed in the blood of Jesus. These are those with whom you will spend eternity.
[00:20:22] They've come to the feet of Jesus in desperation, seeking the same salvation and forgiveness that you sought and received. Amen.
[00:20:31] So we approach them not to get our justice, not to make them feel what we felt. We approach them because we see sin in them and that sin is death, and it divides and breaks relationship. And Christians ought not live in division and broken relationship.
[00:20:49] The point of going to them is so that they can see the reality of their sin, that they might confess it to Jesus, who they really sinned against, by the way, and then repent and be restored to full involvement in the body of Christ.
[00:21:04] Like that's what we're seeking out, is for them to be reconciled to you and to the church and to Jesus, which is closely connected to our third instruction here. Clarify, clarify.
[00:21:17] When your goal is to see this person reconciled to you and to Jesus in the church, your task in going to them is not, and I told you so. It's not a gotcha. It's not a look what you've done. No, it is to teach and clarify. Because we are all little ones. We are all immature children. We are all riddled with sin. Even those of us who've been following Jesus for decades are little ones. We are a mess of contradictions. And oftentimes an area of our life which is sin, which is causing hurt to others, is something that we're not even consciously aware of yet, that God in his grace, has not actually brought us to sanctification in that area yet. And so you might be the Holy Spirit's tool of sanctification to help this brother or sister finally see and address this area of weakness. It is so tempting when you work up the courage to approach someone who has hurt you to do so for the purpose of justifying your own hurt. Is it not because you sat on it and you stewed on it and it's so painful and what they did was so wrong and how dare they do that? And you finally got to a place where you're willing to talk to them and everything in you is going, going, okay, cool, finally I'm going to get my justice.
[00:22:38] You want them to know your painful experience, to acknowledge it, to feel what you felt.
[00:22:44] And guys, you gotta understand, depending on the conversation, it's oftentimes very appropriate to share your experience and share your story and let them see what their sin has done to you and let them feel a little bit of that. But you must remember, your purpose is not justice, and your purpose is not vengeance that belongs to the Lord. Your purpose is repentance and reconciliation. And that only happens when someone understands their own sin and their own rebellion against Jesus rather than against you.
[00:23:18] Remember Psalm 51? You guys remember that one? It's David's prayer of repentance after his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah and that whole deal, right? If you don't know the story, it's in First Kings and King David, the man after God's own heart, the super godly king, he decides he's sexually immoral with one of his general's wives. And it escalates and spirals out of control in this terrible situation where he gets her pregnant and then kills her husband to try and cover it up, and then brings her into his house, this whole thing. And it culminates in the prophet Nathan, the prophet who's ministered to David, basically his entire kingship, comes to him and he tells him this parable about a rich guy with a bunch of sheep who steals his neighbor's one sheep to feed his friends. And David's so mad, and he's like, oh, that guy should have to pay a price, and blah, blah, blah. And Nathan goes, yeah, that's you, it's you, that's you. And David is broken. He sees it. And he pens Psalm 51 as part of his experience of processing and repenting of that sin. There's a line in Psalm 51 that's so helpful. A lot of us have heard this. We sing this psalm actually here in Emmanuel. He says, against you and you alone, Lord, have I sinned.
[00:24:26] Which I gotta. I gotta say, like, the first time I thought about that, I went, I bet Uriah would have something to say about that.
[00:24:34] Because I feel like David sinned pretty, pretty badly against Uriah and Bathsheba, right?
[00:24:40] And yet, and yet in the psalm, he says, against you and you alone have I sinned. Lord. Why is that important? Because, guys, that's what actually brings us to real repentance and reconciliation, is to see that at the core, all sin is rebellion against our Creator.
[00:25:00] Fighting, it's kicking against the goads of the one who loves us and made us and is guiding us. And David could have done a whole bunch of things to try and restore Uriah's honor and to. He could have paid a bunch of money to their family and he could have apologized. He could have done all these things. But if he didn't come to the Lord in repentance and say, lord, against you have I sinned, he wouldn't have gotten there.
[00:25:23] It wouldn't have actually. Wouldn't have actually fixed what was wrong.
[00:25:27] That is why we clarify. That's why we have to fight against our own flesh that wants to be justified, that wants to seek vengeance, that wants them to hurt like we hurt. We have to fight against that because our actual desire is for them to repent and be restored to relationship not just with us, but with Christ and with his church. We want to see them sanctified.
[00:25:49] We want to see the sin removed from their heart. And Jesus says here, when we do this, well, we win a brother or sister, beloved. What a joy.
[00:26:01] What a joy.
[00:26:03] Like I think most of us, very few of us, especially those of us who've been deeply wounded or betrayed by those who claim Christ, I think very few of us think of that person and go, what a joy it would be to see them in church again, fully restored and connected to Christ.
[00:26:19] Right?
[00:26:21] But that is exactly what Jesus points us to. Here you bring their sin to them not for your vengeance, not for your personal satisfaction, but so they can see the reality of their sin and they can repent and return to God and be restored and you can win them back. What joy to see a wandering sheep drawn back to the flock, to see someone falling away from Christ and blaspheming Christ and rebelling against his heart for them to see them restored. What joy, loving and clear discipline of sin can actually win your brother and sister back.
[00:26:58] It can actually win them over rather than furthering the wound.
[00:27:03] It's a beautiful thing. And, guys, I'm here to tell you, like, please don't hear me dismissing the painful things you've experienced, because I know in a space like this, many of you guys have experienced deep wounds, real wounds that ought not to be.
[00:27:20] Real traumas, real evils, many of them inflicted by those who claim the name of Christ. I know that you guys have. Many of you guys have invited me and our pastors into that with you. And do not hear me dismissing your pain. That's real and Christ sees it. And he is with you in that, I promise you.
[00:27:37] But that's kind of a different category of what we're talking about here.
[00:27:42] Your sin and your wrong and the evils done to you, those are real and Christ died for them. And they will be given. An account will be given for them.
[00:27:52] When Christ judges every sin that is ever committed, that sin done against you will be accounted for.
[00:27:58] But the hope and the prayer is that when that person who wronged you in such an evil way stands before the Lord and that sin against you is brought forward and is there to be paid for that? Christ intercedes on their behalf. It takes the weight of it. Amen.
[00:28:15] Is that not the hope that they would walk in the same forgiveness and reconciliation and restoration that you beloved, walk in?
[00:28:26] It's kind of two different categories, right?
[00:28:29] And so when we actually get to a place of humility where we can seek a brother or sister for the purpose of real reconciliation and restoration with the Lord and with the church, Jesus says there's a possibility here that they are one, that you can actually be a part of God's work to sanctify them, not to further and deepen wounds. That is a beautiful thing.
[00:28:55] Look how Jesus rounds this out. He says that we are to involve as few as possible.
[00:29:02] And we need to talk about this last bit because this is actually really important.
[00:29:07] When we engage in the discipline of sin, you need to seek to involve as few people as you possibly can. And notice how Jesus sets up the progression here. First, you go to this person by yourself, and if they won't listen to you, you go to them with a few witnesses. This is such an important aspect of this discussion. If you approach someone about an area of sin in their life and they don't respond to you well, you have to approach them again with or three other people who affirm that sin. And the reason for that is very simple. You might be wrong.
[00:29:41] You might have missed this.
[00:29:43] Sometimes it's black and white. It's really obvious, really easy. Yeah, no, that was awful. Sometimes you're the fool in the situation. Sorry. But we're all little ones. We're all weak, we're all needy, we're all doing our best. We're all stumbling along. And sometimes you might have pegged some behavior as the presence of unrepentant sin, but really, you are just being overly sensitive.
[00:30:05] And I say this as the one who's guilty of that. Often, coming back with two or three witnesses means that at least three people all see this pattern of sin in this person's life.
[00:30:16] Beloved, can I stop here for just a moment?
[00:30:19] If a friend approaches you and calls out an area of sin in your life, that can be really hard. And I'm pretty sure all of us, when we've experienced that, have responded to being called out by getting defensive and dismissive, right? Like that's a real thing. I think. I think most of us do that, especially when we feel blindsided by something, right? But can I just say, if three brothers or sisters in Christ in your church family approach you about the same area of sin, please take that seriously.
[00:30:48] Please hear that.
[00:30:50] Please, please see the voice of the Spirit in that. Like, honestly, what is more likely?
[00:30:57] That you've got a better read on your own sinful heart than three of your brothers and sisters? Or if the Holy Spirit is kindly inviting you to the next step of holiness in an area that you are unaware of or simply don't want to address, right? Like what's. What's more likely in that situation? But regardless, that's my side note. Look how the progression continues beyond this. If the person in sin won't respond to the group, then Jesus says the sin is to be brought to the whole church. This is the stage that many of us might associate with church discipline. Because if this person digs their heels in and won't respond even to the church, Jesus says to treat them like an unbeliever.
[00:31:35] Now, guys, I've been a part of this kind of church discipline before, and I gotta tell you, it's tragic, it's painful, it's traumatic, and it's also incredibly necessary.
[00:31:46] Incredibly necessary. When a single believer refuses to engage in the spiritual authority of their church and to take a sober and humble look at their own sin, something very serious is happening.
[00:32:00] The plain reality is you can never fully know what is happening in someone else's heart. Right? You are not God. You cannot know if someone else is actually a believer or not. But at the same time, the Scripture is crystal clear that believers are supposed to use discernment and prudence and judgment to consider the lives of fellow believers. And what is the actual evidence that we can see whether or not someone else is a believer in Christ? Like, what's the only thing we can see since we can't see their heart? Or are they continually walking in repentance of sin and growing in holiness? Right.
[00:32:37] So when someone claims Christ and yet digs their heels in and refuses to acknowledge sin, when lovingly and biblically confronted by their entire church, the church must operate under the assumption that person is not, in fact, a believer, regardless of what they claim.
[00:32:54] Guys, that's a big deal.
[00:32:57] It's a big deal because we can't know for sure. But what is being said here is that when the whole church discerns an area of sin and an individual refuses to acknowledge and deal with that sin, the operating assumption is that the church has got it right and the individual has not. Right. That's what Jesus hands us here. Now, let me give a couple caveats as we discuss this bit, because this is messy.
[00:33:23] Note that we're not talking about a believer who wrestles with habituated sin and has varying levels of success. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about someone with a hardened heart who refuses to own the reality of their sin. Let me give an example.
[00:33:39] So we partner with a ministry here at Emmanuel called First Light Ministries that helps men and women walk in repentance and seek healing and holiness with regards to habituated sexual sin. It's a ministry we love and support. This is an issue that if you've been close to it, it really manifests like addiction. And often it takes years and lots of ups and downs and two steps forward and two steps back, lots of relapses and then recommitments. It takes lots of that for a person to walk fully in freedom and holiness. Not always. Sometimes there's really quick, amazing breakthrough, but oftentimes it's a long, painful experience.
[00:34:19] That does not mean that they should be disciplined and excommunicated. Right. This is someone who is wrestling, although at different times, with different levels of success and passion, but they are wrestling with their flesh and their sin. What that person needs is our love and our help and our support and our prayer. Amen.
[00:34:38] But I'VE been a part of the discipline that ends in excommunication. I've experienced that before, and I can tell you it's a haunting experience. It's something that I is. This is not an exaggeration. This is genuinely in my daily prayers for Emmanuel, that we would never have to experience this, because it's awful. I once sat with a young man who had repeatedly been unfaithful to his wife.
[00:35:01] She was desperately seeking a pathway forward for forgiveness and restoration of their marriage. But he decided that his unfaithfulness was actually her fault and not his, and that it wasn't actually a sin. And he believed a false gospel, that divorce and singleness and open sexual immorality was actually his only real path toward freedom. And I sat with him, and our pastor sat with him several times, looking at the scriptural teaching, encouraging him. And it ended him looking me in the eye and saying, so can we just go ahead and schedule the excommunication? I'd like to get that done so I can move on.
[00:35:38] Because I.
[00:35:39] I pray for that man on an almost daily basis. I desperately long to see him walk in real repentance and holiness.
[00:35:47] But that day, I could see none of Christ in him.
[00:35:51] It was haunting. And our church agreed and we treated him as an unbeliever.
[00:35:57] Paul calls this in First Corinthians, handing him over to Satan. And again, it's not vindictive or punitive. Rather, we should take very seriously the risk of causing someone to believe that they are sheep when they are in fact a goat.
[00:36:15] For by involving someone fully and completely in our communion, we're essentially saying, like, I see Christ in you, I affirm Christ in you. And to see someone walking so blazingly in unrepentance and refusing to acknowledge sin, you can't leave them in that you might be partly responsible for convincing them that their eternal soul is in a safe place when it is not. They are in eternal peril.
[00:36:43] What could be worse than to face Jesus at the final judgment and here away from me? I never knew you.
[00:36:51] And to respond, but Lord, I did ministry in your name. I was plugged into my church. I walked with them in full fellowship.
[00:36:59] Oh, as excommunication is a nuclear option and it exists in the hope that person might finally see their sin and walk in repentance and salvation. That's the option, by the way. Short little caveat. This is one of the reasons why I'm passionate about membership in our church today.
[00:37:18] It's a structure we put in place in the hopes of creating space to healthily engage in this kind of discipline with positive outcomes. You know, in Paul's day, if you were removed from your church, you had no other options, right? Like if you got mad or you got kicked out of the church at Corinth, you wanted back in. The only way to get back in was to figure out how to reconcile with the people of the church in Corinth. Because there's one option, right? But there are plenty of gospel preaching churches today. And so if I get confronted in some area that I don't want to deal with, I can just leave and I can go somewhere else. And the reality is they probably won't ask me why I left my last church. And this allows Christians who spend years and years and years of their lives deceiving themselves and avoiding their sanctification.
[00:38:04] Membership is just a structure we put in place, right? It's not a biblical command or anything, but it gives us space to ask these sorts of questions. Questions and to set the expectation that we will actually seek in love to discipline one another. The hope being that when we've consciously chosen to engage in that kind of relationship, we can figure out how to endure it without getting mad and walking, right?
[00:38:25] Because there's. There's something here that's incredibly important for us to remember that kind of brings all this together. It's this, guys.
[00:38:32] Church discipline is a normal part of church life.
[00:38:37] It's a normal thing. We should all expect it, and we should participate in it. Now, when I say that, I don't mean excommunication, right? Like, I hope and I pray that we never have to experience that as Emmanuel. It's the nuclear option. But the vast, vast, vast majority of church discipline, it ends at the first step, guys. And I'm pretty confident that almost all of us have engaged in this healthy and normal form of church discipline. We go to someone or someone comes to us, and they say, hey, you did this, and it hurt me, right? And we acknowledge it, go, oh, shoot, yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, I did that. I'm sorry. We repent. We restore relationship. And guess what? That's church discipline.
[00:39:22] That's how it works. When in love, you go to someone and say, here's a sin pattern. They go, wow, you're right. That's a sin pattern. And they repent of it and grow in holiness. You've practiced discipline together.
[00:39:35] Have you ever sat in GC and shared a prayer request and concern, and your brothers and sisters helped show you that you were failing to believe and live out the Gospel in that area of life so you could engage it differently. Hey, guess what? You just got church discipline in gc. That's great. I'm so glad that happened. Like, that's how we live our lives. We should all be giving and receiving discipline because we're all spiritually little children and sheep.
[00:40:01] Stumbling happens and it happens all the time. And we need Jesus help to grow in holiness.
[00:40:09] I'm going to read a couple more verses here to lay this out for us. Continuing on to verse 18, we read this.
[00:40:16] Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. Again, truly, I tell you, if two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. And where there are two or three gathered together in My name, I am there among them. Now there's a lot in this passage that I'm just going to skip over. Sorry, but what I want you to see in this is this. When you put this chunk of text in the context of what we just read about discipline, you see this in verse 18. It's a Jewish way for Jesus to say the church has authority to discern and apply biblical doctrine. What you bind and loose the God is empowering. Jesus is empowering his church to discern right and wrong, practice right and wrong teaching. Verse 19, where it talks about prayer, we see that Jesus is saying that the spiritual discernment of the church has real authority. That the Holy Spirit will synchronize our discernment with his will. That his church, when it's seeking to live it out, like when he says, oh what you pray for it? Like that'll happen. That's not Jesus saying you have a superpower to manifest xboxes, right? That's Jesus saying the Holy Spirit, Spirit will guide his church to be synchronized with his will. There's an empowerment there. In verse 20, Jesus is saying that the authority of Jesus, his own authority, is present with the congregation of his believers. Jesus is putting a lot of weight on the authority of his church here. And note that this authority isn't being given to elders or bishops or popes. This authority is being vested in not, not solely invested in ordained church leadership. This day to day disciplining and engaging sin authority is being vested in the church. And you guys in the blood bought membership of the local church because this is us.
[00:42:03] Beloved Jesus sees your role as members of his local congregation as an expression of the church. He sees it as vitally important.
[00:42:12] We are the tools by which the Holy Spirit can discipline and sanctify his church. What a sobering and beautiful responsibility. It's one that we should take seriously. In my mind, it's the reason why something like commitment and membership is beneficial. But even taking that out of the discussion, we have a duty as those who profess Christ to lovingly discipline one another to the glory of God and for the benefit of our fellow believers, because Christ loved us enough to seek us out and initiate reconciliation when we were dead in our sins.
[00:42:50] Romans 5:8 says it like this God proves his own love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
[00:42:57] Discipline is an act of love.
[00:43:00] Discipline is an act of love. God has been so kind to us to seek us out in our sin, was not content to allow sin in our rebellion to have the final word in our lives. He sought us out and he saved us. He forgave us, he reconciled us, and he also sanctifies us.
[00:43:19] Ben, if you want to come back up, I'm going to land us out. From Hebrews 12 the author of Hebrews says this for consider him this is Jesus who endured such hostility from sinners against himself so that you don't grow weary and give up. For in struggling against your sin, you've not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood, and you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons. My son, do not take the Lord's discipline lightly or lose heart when you are reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and punishes every son he receives.
[00:43:57] Endure suffering as discipline. God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, which all receive, then you're illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them. So shouldn't we submit even more to the Father of Spirits and live, for they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed best to them. But she he does it for our benefit, so that we can share in his holiness.
[00:44:26] Verse 11 no discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful later on. However, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees, and make straight the paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but healed instead.
[00:44:50] The author of Hebrews here is digging at this idea of his church being persecuted and saying, God is God is using this for you because it's all Connected.
[00:44:58] It's all connected.
[00:45:00] Discipline is the act by which God sanctifies us.
[00:45:03] Sometimes that happens through circumstances and suffering and persecution. But I'm here to tell you a ton of the time it happens when a brother or sister who loves you is brave, and they come to you and say, hey, you did this and you shouldn't have.
[00:45:21] You didn't do this, and you should have.
[00:45:25] And it hurts. And you feel caught off guard, and you want to be defensive and you want to dismiss it, but the Holy Spirit goes, actually, that's true.
[00:45:35] And you go, yep, yeah, I did do that. I'm really sorry. I probably really hurt you. I'm really sorry.
[00:45:46] And you engage it with them, and you engage it with the Lord. And you know what God does in his grace? He heals you.
[00:45:53] He heals you.
[00:45:56] It says here, God's discipline is for your benefit. It's not to break you. It's to heal you, to grow you, to. To sanctify you. It is a sign of God's love for us, which means, beloved, this is part of how we love one another.
[00:46:12] We discipline one another because God disciplines us. It's a necessary part of our life as believers so we can embrace it with dignity, grace, and humility.
[00:46:25] Beloved, I want to encourage you to take a few minutes. We're going to respond in prayer, and I want to push you on this.
[00:46:34] God is. God is convicting you of something. If there is, like, a person that you've been thinking of this entire time, right, that face, that name, that experience, that trauma that you just can't get out of your head, I want you to sit in that with Jesus for a few minutes this morning, and you may be going. You understand? Pastor, I've actually tried everything I know how to do. I've actually sought them out. I've actually done this. I've done. I followed all the steps and nothing happened.
[00:47:01] I hope you don't.
[00:47:04] I want to encourage you to sit with that, with Jesus for a few minutes. Again, consider that person, consider their sin. Consider the way it's destroying them, rotting their own heart, damaging the church.
[00:47:17] And maybe if you've exhausted everything you can possibly exhaust, which most of us haven't, but if you have, you can take a few minutes and you can pray for them.
[00:47:29] I'd encourage you to do that. Write it down. Pray for them by name. Ask God to move in their heart, to bring them to a place of repentance.
[00:47:37] But I think for many of us, what we really need to do is think about that person who's wronged us. Or maybe if you have enough self awareness. Awareness the person you know you've wronged and you need to decide how you're going to go talk to them.
[00:47:53] Like, you actually might need to do that right now, before we take communion in a couple minutes. Like, they might be in the room and you might go, this is awkward, but can we go outside for a minute?
[00:48:01] You might need to do that.
[00:48:04] You know what? That's beautiful.
[00:48:07] It's beautiful. It does take bravery, but the spirit is in him.
[00:48:12] Spirit uses discipline for our good beloved. It heals. It doesn't destroy. Let's take a few minutes to connect with Christ, to ask him what he has for us today. Then in a few minutes, we're going to continue our response time through communion.
