Wearing the Wrong Uniform

If you want to open up to Leviticus chapter 8, we'll be in Leviticus chapter 8.

Also, 1 Peter chapter 2. Leviticus 8, 1

Peter chapter 2. Let us pray and we will get started.

O Holy and Most Merciful God, You have taught us the way of Your commandments, so we implore

You to pour out Your grace into our hearts, cause it to bear fruit in us, that being ever mindful of Your mercies and Your laws, we may always be directed to Your will, and daily increase in love towards You and one another.

Enable us to resist all evil and to live a godly life. Help us to follow the example of our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and to walk in His steps until we shall possess the kingdom that has been prepared for us in heaven.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Alright, any questions come up as a result of the sermon?

Yes, sir, Bruce. Yeah. Yeah.

Alright, so, if you want to talk the greatest and the least now, we're all on the same level, and then the question then comes up, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

So, as all forgiven sinners, greatness then is not according to the way of the world, the way the world works.

We all know how this operates because our sinful nature wants to buy into this whole thing. You become the boss, you have all the power, you get to steer the ship, you're in charge, everyone is accountable to you, you, you, you, you, you, you, and you love it.

Now, greatness in the kingdom of heaven is totally different. So, if you were to take human organizational charts, which are these pyramid shapes like this, now flip it and bring it down.

Christ, the greatest of the servants, right? And so, the greatest among us is going to be the one who is the slave and the servant of all.

Not the one calling the shots, but the one serving. The one loving. The one sacrificially offering themselves as a living sacrifice, not to God, but to each other.

Okay? To do...

Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. So, the point

I was making in the text, and let me pull this up so we can take a look at it, is it's in the portion then of, was it

Matthew 23? And let me pull this up again. I'm going to duplicate this tab, uno momento.

So, the context is Jesus is calling down woes on the Pharisees, that self -righteous sect who believed that they were rich in good works.

And Jesus goes on in this portion of it to talk about how we are to consider each other.

So, this is kind of kingdom ethics, if you would. And so, these are people who they do all their deeds to be seen by others.

They make their flacketeries broad, their fringes long. They love the place of honor at feasts, the best seats in the synagogue.

So, you can kind of see how this works out, right? And greetings in the marketplaces, being called rabbi by others.

But Jesus then says to his disciples, you're not to be called rabbi in this context.

Because this is about... Let me borrow from one of Luther's early categories that he set up.

The theology of self -glory as opposed to the theology of the cross. I like to call it self -glory because there is some confusion when we talk about these distinctions.

This is the Heidelberg Disputation. Luther, really early in the development of his theology, it's not a fully developed concept of law and gospel, but he can see the distinctives already shortly after the posting of the 95

Theses. So, the 95 Theses are posted on All Hallows' Eve in 1517.

And immediately after that, you got the winter. And so, you got the winter in Germany.

As things are starting to thaw out in Germany, then the next big thing that he does is the

Heidelberg Disputation. And so, that's early spring of 1518.

And there he makes this big distinction, the theology of glory versus the theology of the cross.

And so, one of the categories he operates in is that the theology of glory doesn't speak the truth, punishes truth.

The theology of the cross calls a thing what it really is. And so, it's in this category then what we're dealing with.

And so, Luther is making a distinction then because in all religious institutions,

I don't care if they're Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, you're always going to have a group of guys who are in it for their glory.

Plain and simple. And so, these are fellows who are obsessed with how they look to other people.

You know, maybe within a Lutheran, Roman Catholic context, they really care about where they get their vestments from, you know, the colors and all this kind of stuff.

And everything is about how they come off. And these are men then in Rome who love being called father, really lived for becoming a bishop or a cardinal, or even the

Pope himself. And these are ambitious men. And it's all about the theology of self -glory.

And with that comes a narrative. That narrative is, I'm important because I'm getting what

I deserve. God is exalting me because of how obedient I am. Right?

And so, this is the context we're talking about. So, in that context then, the hierarchy for real in the kingdom is we're all on the same level.

Okay? But then, when you talk about who's the greatest and who's the least, now we're dealing with a slightly different category.

But it's in this category where Christ is taking the trappings and the goals of the theology of self -glory and just wrecking it.

Saying, no way. This is not how this works. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm the man.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And your initial question, you talk, isn't that all of us? The answer is yes.

This is our old Adam. Our old Adam is in it for himself. Period.

And so, when we talk about our sinful nature, we talk about how each of us are born dead in trespasses and sins, one of the ways in which the

Lutheran confessions will talk about the effects of how sin totally wrecks us is that we are in curvatus and say we're bent in on ourselves.

One of the things I was kind of taken aback by, I was traveling recently, and I was shocked at the number of young kids who, in public, in one context or another, at a restaurant, on an airplane, in the airport, or whatever, they spend an inordinate amount of time with their cell phones trying to get the perfect pose and look for a selfie.

I think that, you know... So we've got to look for it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's selfie after selfie after selfie, and I'm sitting there going, man, when

I was young, I really was that vain. I really was. You know, those were the days when

I had the 29 -inch waist. You know, I had the washboard abs from swimming all the time.

Man, I looked great. And I'd love to look at myself in the mirror, and I'd loved wearing clothes that kind of showed off how awesome

I was and how cool and up -to -date and up -to -speed I was. My kids laugh at those photos now, by the way.

It's actually quite sad. And rightfully so. They actually show them to people to say, kid, you believe that this is...

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So if I had an iPhone back when

I was in high school, I would have been part of that whole selfie culture, too. So the issue is that our old sinful nature is all about self.

It's bent in on itself, and everything is about self. And what I was saying also along with this, then comes this really interesting false narrative about self that occurs when you do not make a proper distinction between law and gospel.

And that false narrative is that I've got my act together. The reason why

I'm successful is because I've earned the right to be successful because I'm obedient.

I'm good. God is blessing me. And if you want to be blessed like I am, you better get yourself in line and get your act together the way

I did. And I'll write a book so that you can learn how I did it so you can apply it to your life, too. Yeah, exactly.

I'm bringing glory to God with my faithfulness. Yeah. All right.

No. And this is one of the reasons why I, in practice, like the old -school way of thinking, we put our pastor in a uniform.

And everything means something. The pastor wears black to remind us he's a sinner.

He wears a slave shackle around his neck to remind us he's the slave of the congregation. He wears a stole, which harkens to being yoked, so that we consider our pastor to be the beast of burden of this congregation.

And then you don't have to worry because now I'm an ox, now I'm a slave, now

I'm a sinner. And then we put the alb on to remind you that their pastor's not robed in his righteousness.

That alb visually reflects the righteousness given to me by Christ, his righteousness, that we all have.

And so that's why we do these things, in order to de -emphasize the pastor and to exalt Christ in his saving office.

The reality is that there have been men who have abused it. So they've taken these things which rightfully were designed to de -emphasize the pastor, and they have found incredible ways to exalt themselves, even in the midst of a tradition designed to de -emphasize them.

And so, sadly, I know guys like this, you know, who have the most amazing chosubles, the most amazing this and that, and who, you know, the way they present themselves,

I mean, if the clergy had a GQ model, they would be that guy. Right?

So, there are ways to take even a well -intentioned tradition and practice, and somehow bend it, and then these are guys then in their office, rather than serve, they rule and reign.

Totally different thing altogether. They make it their own idol. Yeah, right. So, their power, their prestige, or ecclesiastical offices are their idol.

And they, oh boy, do they worship those things like nuts. Yeah. Right, and this is where the opposite error of an error is not the truth.

There's always... So, here's the thing, is that in human history, we human beings have this really bad habit of, like, taking something of one of God's things and just, like, abusing it, so we end up in the ditch on one side of the road.

And somebody points out, hey, we're in the ditch over here, we got to correct this.

And so, in order to keep that from happening again, they overcorrect and they end up in the opposite ditch.

So, in the Scandinavian countries where there was, I would say, a legitimate reaction to an arrogance and an abuse of ecclesiastical offices and authority, that they overcorrected, and now they have an unbiblical establishment that you don't have legitimate pastors, which is a real problem.

Yeah, yep.

And I did know him, and there he is, a casualty.

He was better, he could buy this place. Yeah. He owned 54 quarters of the land.

Yeah, and that's the other thing, yeah, people make... I was down on him, I thought he was... We make judgments based upon appearances, which is a really bad thing.

I had something similar years and years ago. So, Barb and I, when we were first married, we lived in Seattle, and I worked at a bank called

Rainier Bank on Lake Union. Actually, this was just before we got married.

So, Lake Union, Seattle, Washington, Rainier Bank, and one of our tellers, she was snitty.

This way, her customer service skills were lacking in particular ways, and she was pretty snitty at times.

And there was a fellow who came into our bank on a regular basis. He drove a beat -up red

Datsun pickup truck. Does anyone remember Datsun? Yeah, okay. And it's rusted out, and he wore flannel and Levi's, and you could tell he was kind of a hard -working fellow, right?

And he comes in, and he wants to cash a check, and she's basically saying, yeah, you know, and hemming and hawing and kind of giving him a hard time.

And pretty much told him no. And he says, I want to see the manager. So, the manager comes and has a conversation with him.

And the manager's backing up the teller and thinking, okay, this guy must really be a lowlife, right? And it was just, you know,

I was working the drive -up teller, and I can hear the conversation, it's getting loud. And then you hear the guy say, all right, that's it,

I'm closing my account. And I want the cash now. He closed out his account, and they weren't able to give him all the cash, because he had 1 .2

million in that bank, and we only had maybe a couple hundred thousand in cash. So, yeah, you don't make judgments based on appearances.

So, yeah, the Proverbs talk about fellows like this. The Proverbs talk about fellows who dress shabbily and yet are wealthy, and those who dress really well, but they have no money, you know.

So, yeah, just keep that in mind. Wow, yeah, the bag lady.

So, in the Boy Scouts, it was the opposite of that, generally. You know, it was, the culture was, you know, you emphasize with the voyeurs.

You never really knew who you were standing next. And one of the guys I had been scouting with for a very long time, you know, probably 10, 15 years,

I learned that he was a Superior Court judge for the state. You know, and you would never know it from, you know, the goofy antics he would do, and the skits he would perform with the kids, and, you know, his tall, knee -high socks, and, you know, the rest of this.

What's wrong with knee -high socks? I was a junior judge. Okay, all right, yeah, yeah.

It depends on the culture, too. Yeah. Yeah, you really don't.

And so don't make judgments based upon appearances, and then all of this, when it comes to the theology of self -glory, it's best to recognize what

I like to think about is that when we come to communion, everybody's on their knees, all on the same level, at the altar, forgiven sinners.

And so theology of self -glory has no place in Christ's church at all. And over and again, I have found that the theology of self -glory is the most unloving and unkind religion on the planet, that it doesn't exemplify anything even remotely approaching the love of Christ, the mercy of Christ, and the grace of Christ.

And in order for Christ's love, grace, and mercy to flow from Him to us, and then from us to others, we must first recognize our complete beggarliness.

You know, lose all the pretenses, and come to grips with the fact that we are not measuring up, and that the only way we're getting to eternal life is on somebody else's dime.

You don't even have a dime to get into eternal life. You have no currency that you can offer to God.

When it comes to your salvation, none whatsoever. You know, I remember years ago, when

I was a kid, there was a bank that had a promotion. They had these giveaways. They were giving away wooden nickels. I thought those were the best things ever, man.

You know, it's like, so I would always ride my bike by this bank, and the branch manager would give me a couple of wooden nickels every time

I would come in, because I was so fascinated. I ended up collecting these things. And you know what wooden nickels are good for?

Nothing. I just was so glad I had this stack of wooden nickels.

And so, those wooden nickels are your good works, if you're going to put them out as the currency for your salvation.

They don't spend. So it just doesn't work that way. All right, let's switch gears and come back into the book of...

We are in the book of Leviticus, chapter 8. And we've been looking at the ordination ceremony for Aaron and then his sons into the

Levitical priesthood. And this is where we would be wise to consider where the reality is and how this is a type in shadow.

How is this a type in shadow? So in the Mosaic Covenant, who were authorized to be priests?

Levites. Judah, no. Ephraim, no.

Reuben, Manasseh, no. None of the men of the other tribes were permitted to be priests.

In the New Covenant, who are the priests? All of us.

All of us. Now, in the Old Covenant, priests were required to wear an ephod.

There were priestly garments. According to the New Testament, what are our priestly garments?

Huh? Well, you can call them baptismal robes, but... It's righteousness of Christ.

We're clothed then. And how then are our vestments adorned? Okay, I want you to kind of start thinking in these categories for a minute.

We'll do a little bit of biblical work here. 1 Peter chapter 2 is where I want to start. Listen to these words.

These are amazing when you think about it. Peter writing to Christians.

This is one of the Catholic epistles. It means it's written for all Christians. You are a chosen race.

Israel was a chosen race. That Israel... We've been grafted into Israel by Christ.

So, Peter is saying to all of us. You are a chosen race. You are a royal priesthood.

A holy nation. A people for God's own possession.

Now remember, and you'll see this kind of again in several places. That the Lord Himself has taken the

Levites and they are His possession. They belong to Him. Isn't that interesting?

And so now in the New Testament it is said of us that God has made us

His own possession. We're a chosen race. Royal priesthood. Holy nation. A people for God's own possession.

So that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

So, one of the phrases that gets kicked around in Lutheran circles and often times it becomes a term of aspersion which

I don't understand at all. Is the doctrine known as the priesthood of all believers.

Priesthood of all believers. Now, granted, this is a biblical concept and it can be abused.

Just because you're a member of the priesthood of all believers does that mean that all of you are pastors?

No, of course not. Or that all of you can do the duties of a pastor? Nope, not at all.

So it gets abused when it's put into that sense. But the reality is that according to this text who in the body of Christ has the privilege of proclaiming the excellencies of Christ?

All of us. All y 'all. Male and female. And you do not need to be an ordained pastor to tell somebody that Christ has bled and died for their sins.

We are all called to proclaim the excellencies of Christ.

Every one of us. So once, you were not a people.

You were just Norwegian. But now... Sorry, sorry. But now, you are

God's people. Once, you had not received mercy. Now, you have received mercy.

Now, as priests then, we have responsibilities. Priests pray. This is what they do.

They pray on behalf of others. So we have a priestly work then to pray for others.

As priests then, what is the sacrifice that we offer? And what's it for?

Who's it for? You offer your bodies as a living sacrifice for your salvation, for the sake of your neighbor.

So we're interesting priests in this sense because like Christ, Christ is our great high priest.

He has offered himself so that we can be forgiven. So that we can be pardoned.

Now, in like manner, we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice not for our salvation.

Your body is a living sacrifice for the sake of your neighbor. His sake. Her sake.

So that life of yours, it's not yours. You are being poured out daily like a drink offering.

For the sake of your neighbor. Full stop. And then our vestments then, if we want to talk in those terms, which

I think I do. Our vestments. We'll take a look at Colossians 3.

And we'll note that in verse 9 it says, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self.

So I think this language that talks about how we take off our old self and put on the new which is created in the image of Christ.

It's a good way to think of those as our priestly vestments. You don't want to do your priestly duties without your vestments on.

In fact, you really can't. So let's see then what those vestments look like. So if then you have been raised with Christ.

Have you? Have you been raised with Christ? Where? Baptism.

So if then you have been raised with Christ seek the things that are above where Christ is seated.

At the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above not on things that are on the earth.

You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears then you also will appear with Him in glory.

So put to death therefore what is earthly in you. And in case you're not sure what that looks like Paul leaves no room for the imagination or the ability to wander.

Here's a short list. Sexual immorality. Impurity.

Passion. Evil desire. Covetousness which is idolatry.

You see on account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked. This is how you conducted your life when you were living in them.

But now you must put them all away. And look what you've got to put away. Anger. Wrath.

Malice. It's quite the word malice isn't it? It's at the heart of both slander and murder.

It's at the heart of it. A slanderer is somebody who's a murderer who's too cowardly to pull the trigger.

Malice. Slander. Obscene talk. From your mouth.

Do not lie to one another. Seeing that you've put off the old self with its practices. And so putting on the new self is something different.

Having put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free.

But Christ is all in all. So put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved.

And here's our vestments. Compassionate hearts. Kindness.

Humility. Meekness. Patience. Bearing with one another.

If one has a complaint against another forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you.

So you must also forgive. And above all, above all these put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

And notice how then here love is almost described then in a similar term to the sash around the vestments of the old

Levites. Paul here clearly has this Levitical ephod imagery in mind as he's describing these things.

There's little tiny hints, callbacks to it. Our vestments then are love, humility, kindness, meekness, patience, forgiveness of one another and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts and whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the

Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Always fascinates me how stubborn and obstinate we forgiven sinners can be, myself included.

And so the idea then, look at the two lists. One is a list that shows you what you're supposed to be wearing as a priest and the other shows you what's the muck and the dirty clothes that you have of your old

Adam. And it's weird to me when Christians claim that they're doing the work of God while wearing the wrong set of clothes.

It don't work that way. Malice, slander, unforgiveness, unkindness, ruthlessness.

These are not the clothes of a Christian, of a priest. These are the clothes of our own sinful nature.

You sit there and go, yeah, but pastor, you don't understand. I seem to keep putting on the wrong wardrobe day after day after day.

Yeah, me too. So it's best before you put those clothes on, take a whiff of the clothes.

You ever do this? Maybe it's just me. I wasn't sure if I wore that t -shirt yesterday. So I'm just going to take a hit off the armpits and see, oh, whoa, yeah, that's not going back on.

Yeah. So in the same way, if your behavior reeks of your dead sinful

Adam, you put on the wrong clothes. You're wearing the wrong uniform.

You cannot do your priestly work wearing those things. So return to your baptism.

That's where you shower up, if you would, and put again on the vestments that we as Christians are called to wear.

And then confess that you put on the wrong clothes. Ask Christ to forgive you, and He will.

And come to church. Hear the absolution. Receive the body and blood of Christ. Be strengthened in His grace and His mercy.

And put that old sinful Adam to death. Because He's all about Himself.

And yeah, it's a he even if you're a she. Because, you know, we're all made sinners because of Adam. And then wash, rinse, repeat.

Yeah. The experience of being a Christian is a very humbling one if you properly understand law and gospel.

Because you recognize just how far short I fall, you fall, we all fall daily.

And it requires us to humble ourselves and say, Lord, I blew it. But often times it's also going to require us to go to that person and say,

I blew it. I messed up. I sinned against you.

Forgive me. And that's the hardest part, isn't it? It's easy to ask Jesus to forgive you.

It's a whole other thing when you have to ask, you know, someone at church. But to confess your sin.

Hama legeo. To say the same thing. To confess is to say the same thing about yourself that is true.

A theologian of the cross calls a thing what it really is. A sin. A sin. I always find it fascinating.

Theologians of glory, they have this weird thing they do. Sin becomes mistakes.

Sin becomes slipsies, oopsies, or oversights, or you know, just bad habit, a bad behavior, a poor choice.

How about a damnable sin? No, no, no, we don't want to talk that way. But that's what it is.

Theologians of glory always have a fine way of taking God's law and diluting it in such a way that it's incapable of actually doing its killing work.

Rather than being a roaring lion that pounces on you and destroys your self -righteousness, the law turns into pretty much a chihuahua.

You know, snipping and yipping and yapping at you and might bite your leg and you might bleed a little, but you're not going to die from it.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Isn't that fascinating how that works? The theology of self -glory always makes it that the sinner's out there, never in here.

Theologian of self -glory, they're the problem. Theologian of the cross is on the problem.

Right. Right. Right. Coming back to our metaphor from the sermon,

Christ talked about the fact that those Pharisees, the self -righteous, that they are whitewashed tombs.

And so the paint then of the tomb becomes the narrative of how good I am. And if I have to admit fault, admit that I've sinned and fallen short and that I'm a sinner, then the paint starts to come off.

And you can see the tomb for what it is. So they spend an inordinate amount of time slapping fresh paint on, touching up that tomb to make sure it's as glorious and beautiful as humanly possible to the eyes.

But inside, it's just full of death. And then you sit there and you come up to their tomb and you sit there and go, that's a nice amount of paint you put on that thing, but that's a tomb.

Oh no, no, no, no. It's not a tomb. It's a mortuary monument.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. It's a community thing here. Yep. Every single one of us.

But see, here's the sad part. The person who is putting on the pretense that they're not guilty of that, the only person they're fooling is themselves.

The answer is, actually, funny word you used, deserve.

Okay. The answer to the question is, forgiveness is offered to them.

Yes. Absolutely. Forgiveness is offered to them. But forgiveness is only for those who recognize they need it.

If you say, I don't need to be forgiven, what do you do?

That's the same thing with Christ, by the way. The same thing. The message of the Gospel goes out.

And the Gospel says, Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scripture, that He rose again on the third day in accordance with the

Scripture, for our sins, for our salvation, so that we can be forgiven. And the call then of the Gospel is, repent, be forgiven.

Recognize you're a sinner and you're in need of this forgiveness. And people sit there and say, no,

I don't need that. You don't know, really, you do. I'm a good person.

I don't need that. It's not that forgiveness isn't offered to them. It's not accepted because they refuse to believe that they are in need of it.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Overtly. Right.

Yeah, no, that's... Yep. Yeah. It's a weird game we play in that sense.

I mean, if I were to go and grab a few plates and go dish up some dog patties, you know, and lay them out here and ask you guys, take a whiff, tell me which one's the worst.

Okay. You're all sitting there going, no, that's all... all that's the same. I don't care which smells better than the other.

That's all the same. Alright. One sin plunged us into the misery that we're in.

And it wasn't adultery. It wasn't homosexuality. It was idolatry.

And the eating of a fruit that they were commanded not to eat of. So you've got idolatry and theft.

And it plunged us into the misery that we're in. And we have this thing that says, well, that sin's worse than that sin.

And, you know, no. Any sin, that white lie you told to your spouse yesterday, that will send you to hell.

Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Practice.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. And here's the thing.

Huh? Say that again? So they're actually, here's the thing.

When you look at the earlier part of Matthew 18. Look at the earlier part of Matthew 18.

In fact, let's do it from the text. Because this will help us out. We'll take a look at the whole text itself.

Because this deals with an issue. And that is, what do you do with the person who refuses to repent and to be forgiven?

Because any Christian congregation is a congregation of the forgiven.

And if you don't want to be forgiven, you elect yourself out of the congregation.

Yeah. Oh, but they can.

Oh, yeah. Oh, they can. Let's work through the text.

It'll help us a little bit. Oh, man. There's nobody. There's nobody that can't be forgiven except for the one who's dead.

Right. Yeah. So let's take a look at this. Matthew 18. Matthew 18 .10.

And this sets our context. It says this. See to it that you do not despise one of these little ones.

This is Christ talking, and this tells us a little bit about how he feels about each of us.

You are his little ones. David, you're one of his little ones. Joan, you're one of his little ones.

Michael, you too. The DeBoer clan, all of you. Dwayne, Gene, you're one of Christ's little ones.

Pam, you too. I'm a bigger one. You're a bigger little one. Yes. So we do not despise

Christ's little ones. He says, I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my

Father who is in heaven. So what do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety -nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?

The answer is well, this isn't good shepherding, but this is how our good shepherd acts. Because he considers his little ones to be precious to him, and so he leaves the ninety -nine on the mountains and goes and searches for the one.

If he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety -nine that never went astray.

So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

Straight up. It's not his will. What follows next then is how in the context of church when one of the little ones of Christ goes astray, that Jesus goes hunting for that lost sheep.

That's what follows next. People describe it as church discipline. I like to describe it as Christ going hunting for that lost sheep.

There's means by which he does it. So if your brother sins against you, have any of you ever sinned against anybody here?

Bruce, you've only been here a few times, and already you've done that. Exactly.

Right on. Okay. Alright. So if your brother sins against you,

I almost think it says when. I think it should say when. When your brother sins against you. You go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

Don't get on the phone. Don't get on social media. Don't take to Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or whatever chat social media thing and let the world know what an idiot your brother is and what a low grade rotten scoundrel he is and let everybody know about it.

That's called slander. That's called gossip. But it's true. You are not in the position to judge.

Read the large catechism. The large catechism is really clear on the 8th commandment.

If you are fully aware of somebody's sin, you're fully aware of it.

Luther says you make your ear a tomb. You don't go telling everybody about it.

Why? Because knowledge of a sin does not give you the right to judge it. Somebody's reputation must be removed from them properly.

And here's what I mean. I mean our constitution recognizes this. You are what until proven what?

You are innocent until proven guilty. Who has the right to determine whether or not you're guilty?

A proper judge, properly installed in a real court, with a real office, with real rules of evidence.

Right? So when somebody is arrested because they supposedly or allegedly robbed a bank, until they are proven guilty, we always refer, the media will always say the alleged bank robber so -and -so.

Yes. Yeah. And then when he's found guilty, then he becomes the bank robber.

Right? So here's the idea then. Is that even when somebody sins against you, this is weird, you are not in a proper office to judge that sin.

You can say, you've sinned against me. You've sinned against me. Well now you have to bring it to the right person.

And it begins in the church, the right person you take that to is the guy who sinned against you, or the gal who sins against you.

You go to them and you say, brother, sister, you sinned against me.

You did this terrible thing. And then you got that awkward pause.

Right? What's going to happen next? And so the person says to you, you deserved it.

I was right in doing that. No, brother, what are you talking about? That's a sin.

You need to repent. Go pound sand. Get out of my face.

Right? A stone wall won't talk to you. Now what do you do? Now what do you do?

Alright. Jesus is hunting for lost sheep. So you go tell him his fault.

If he listens to you, you've gained your brother. If he does not listen to you, take one or two others along with you so that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

Now notice here, I'm going to point this out. In the court of public opinion, and that court is seated every day on social media, how many witnesses are necessary to establish a charge against somebody?

Zero. All you have to do is say, so and so is an awful, terrible person and they did that thing.

And everyone goes, Oh! Really? That lowlife. I can't believe he really did that.

Was there any evidence offered? No! Just the person's testimony. In scripture, the threshold to establish a charge of lay people and pastors is a minimum of two or three witnesses and they've got to agree.

When it comes to slander and gossip, all that's necessary are loose lips.

That's it. But no charge can be established against a Christian without two to three witnesses.

Period. Those are the rules of evidence. In other words, the court of public opinion, which is held every day on social media, that is an illegitimate court.

And the rules of evidence in that court are contrary to scripture. You'd be wise to see it for the sinful thing that it is.

So every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. So if he refuses to listen to them, then, then you tell it to the church.

Not for the purpose of gossip, by the way. You tell it to the church and you say, Church! Brother so -and -so, sister so -and -so.

They sinned against this person. That person went to them. They didn't listen.

Two more went to establish that they had sinned in this way and they rebuffed them. And so now we're going to tell it to the whole church.

Not so that everyone knows what a dirty, rotten, lowdown scoundrel these people are. No! To call them to repent.

Jesus is still looking for his lost sheep. You've got to repent. Be forgiven.

And what happens if that person will not even listen to the whole church? If he refuses to listen to the church, let him be to you as a

Gentile or a tax collector. Now hold on a second here. Alright? So they're not listening.

And this, by the way, is where excommunication comes in. We don't consider you to be a believer anymore.

Because believers, they confess their sins to one another. Believers forgive as they are forgiven.

Believers confess that they sinned against Christ. They sinned against each other. And reconciliation and the peace of Christ that comes through the gospel is the rule of the day.

And so if a person says, I refuse to admit I've done a thing wrong.

You people are crazy! Get out of my face! You give them what they want.

Mm -hmm. Yes. Yep.

Yep. Mm -hmm.

No one said that. No. Mm -hmm.

They've been brought to my attention. I have no idea.

And I would say that patience is a good idea. Really good idea.

But understand this. That when it comes to real bonafide gospel -centered church discipline, the goal is reconciliation and forgiveness.

The goal is never to drive somebody out. Somebody who refuses to be forgiven.

Yeah, that's the issue. And so at the end of this, Jesus says to treat them as a

Gentile or a tax collector. Now, let's talk about that for a second, shall we?

How did Jesus treat tax collectors and Gentiles?

How did He treat them? Huh? That's right. He went to their houses.

Some of them became His disciples. Right? Matthew, the guy who wrote

Matthew, full -blown notorious tax collector. And Jesus makes him a disciple.

So the way we are to treat those who have said, I refuse to be forgiven, is to love them, not treat them with contempt or scorn or anger or malice and sit there and go, well, now that they're out of the church, now we can gossip about them and let everybody know what rotten, terrible people they are.

Sin in the name of... No! Right? No. We treat those outside the church with the same love that Christ demonstrated to those outside the church.

It's our kindness. It's the kindness of Christ that leads people to repentance. Uh -huh.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. And that's the sad part about the parable of the prodigal son.

The one son comes to his senses, but in coming to his senses and being forgiven and received back, then you see the self -righteousness of the other son who literally gossips and slanders his own brother.

And rather than rejoice at his return, somehow basically, now he's dishonoring his father.

You know, when the son of yours who squandered all your inheritance on prostitutes and stuff like that, really it didn't say that he did that.

Where'd you come up with that idea? Right? Alright.