Church Discipline - [Matthew 18:15-20]

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Many of you have heard the story, when I was younger my grandmothers would take turns babysitting me.
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I had one grandmother and grandpa and they just lived in a regular house and I had another grandmother and she lived up the hill and so it was grandma up the hill's day to babysit me while my mother was working for Mutual of Omaha.
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My grandmother would always say to me, young man, if you don't obey me, see that yardstick over there, that yellow yardstick, you know the kinds that you used to get from the hardware store that would say, you know,
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Al's Hardware, you get them for free, that's going to go on you -know -where.
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Okay, okay. Then I thought, you know what, over time she threatened me so many times,
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I thought it's a false threat, she's not going to do anything and so I really disobeyed one day and she said you're going to get that and I said no
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I'm not and so I walked over and I got the yardstick and I broke it over my knee and I handed it to grandma and she still didn't spank me.
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What would you think of a society that acted that way when it comes to criminals and murderers?
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Caught red -handed, it's on video, you bring them up before the judge and the judge says free, you can go.
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What would society be like without some kind of discipline or some kind of rules?
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Would it be a good society to live in? You can see some of the anarchy that goes on overseas and you think even a bad government is better than no government.
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It is hard to imagine what it would be like to live in a home where there were no rules, where there was no discipline, where there was no verbal instruction or any other kind of discipline.
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You just are chaos. The kids run the family, Lord of the Flies like. We think there should be discipline in society.
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We think there should be discipline in the homes, but what about discipline in the local church?
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We're going to talk about that today, discipline in the local church. Next Sunday we will begin,
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Lord willing, our verse -by -verse study of 1 Corinthians. Next Sunday I'll do an overview, a jet tour of 1
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Corinthians and then the next week we'll begin to look at it verse -by -verse -by -verse. But today
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I want to talk about something and that is church discipline. If we can't take care of issues of sin in our own church, what right do we have to go outside of the church and talk about sin?
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We would have no right. Some people think Christianity is a very private religion.
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We talk about our personal relationship with Jesus. There's a private part of it, but there's a very communal part as well.
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One man said, Christianity is meddlesome. Christianity is like this.
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You go to the dentist. I have to schedule a cleaning here soon and I'm going to go in thinking that it's going to be a cheap $10 copay and a dental cleaning and then they're going to get in there and they're going to look so long, they're going to find something and they're going to find some crown
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I need or some kind of evacuation or something. And whatever their words are, I know they're going to find it.
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What about discipline in a local church? It's good for society. It's good for the home. But what about the church?
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Now, I have to tell you, if you're from Bethlehem Bible Church today, you'll say, well, pastor, we know this. If you're a visitor, you are either going to, and you live around here, you're either going to come back to this church next
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Sunday because you'll think, wow, they actually preach the whole gospel. They actually preach the whole counsel of God or we'll never see you again.
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And that is just the way it goes. The day that I sat at Grace Community Church and this passage was preached and then executed, and I don't mean they're executing the person, but obeyed, you have to be careful, get your laughing done now because you're not going to laugh the rest of the sermon, so just yuck it up now, congregation.
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The day that it was obeyed, my mouth dropped to the floor. I could not believe it.
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I was flabbergasted. I'd never seen anything like it in my life, a church that is willing to publicly discipline someone by name.
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But then I looked down at my Bible and found out that the Lord of the church, the one who bought the church, the one who is the husband of the church, the sovereign king of the church teaches it in plain
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English. He taught it in plain Aramaic and Greek, but you know my point.
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This is so easy that a child can understand it, but so difficult grown men who are elders agonize to obey it.
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Let's turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 18, please. Every so often, we like to bring this topic up for many reasons.
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Some will be evident today, but we're not ready in our church to have some big church discipline in the next week or two. That's not why
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I'm preaching this passage, so you can just be relieved that that's not happening. We are going to look at church discipline because we need to re -examine again, before we get into 1
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Corinthians, what constitutes a real church. To have a real church, you need to have the word of God preached, you need to have communion and baptism, and you need to have church discipline or you're not a church at all.
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No church discipline, you're not a church. Listen to some of the historical writings, the
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Belgic Confession 1561. These are the characteristics by which a true church is known.
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A, the preaching of pure doctrine, B, the administration of the sacraments, C, the exercise of church discipline.
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It was common. It was very broad knowledge back in those days, the Heidelberg Catechism, Germany 1563.
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What are the keys of the kingdom of heaven? The preaching of the holy gospel and church discipline are excommunication out of the
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Christian church. Southern Baptists knew it in the 1863s. You need preaching, you need sacraments or ordinances, and you need church discipline.
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R .C. Sproul said, the church is called not only to a ministry of reconciliation, but a ministry of nurture to those within her gates.
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Part of that nurture includes church discipline. If you see someone's house on fire and they're sleeping in the hammock in the front yard and you do not tell them, what does that make me think of you?
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You would think it was unloving. Who would ever think of something like that? One man said, 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.
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It's logical for church discipline because God is pure, and if God is pure and God's word is pure, and God wants
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His people to be pure, then God would surely want His bride to be pure, wouldn't
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He? You would want your bride to be pure. Why should people practice church discipline?
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Well, I think, first of all, before we dive into Matthew 18, number one, because it's biblical. We are obeying
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God when we do it. People say, well, that's not very loving. What they're not thinking about is this. When we obey
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God, we are loving Him, true? If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And we're going to learn in just a moment that it's very clear.
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It's right there. So, number one, we want to glorify Him by obedience. That's the first reason why we do church discipline.
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Number two, because we want to reclaim offenders. We want to reclaim the sinners who are unrepentant.
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By the way, sin doesn't get you kicked out of a church. Unrepentant sin does, but we want to rescue them.
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That's the high priority. God, you're to be glorified is at the top of the list. But second, we want to reclaim them.
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We're not trying to kick anybody out. We're trying to get repentance. There's a third reason why church discipline is practiced in the
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Bible, and that is to deter other people from sinning. Friends, when I go through this today, if you don't say to yourself, that kind of scares me, that unnerves me,
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I'm not that comfortable with that, I think that should be the right response.
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When somebody is disciplined out of a church, it should frighten you to say, may that never be me.
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There but the grace of God go I, but Lord, I never want that to happen, and we'll see that in 1 Timothy 5.
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And then last reason why we want to do church discipline is that we don't want, according to Revelation chapter 2,
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Jesus setting His face against our church. Do we? Who wants Jesus as our discipliner?
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If you don't discipline in the church, like in Revelation 2 that we'll look at today if we have time,
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Jesus sets His face against the church. It's language that says, I'm against you and I'm going to chasten you.
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Do you want that? I don't want that. When old Puritan said, it's better to be pruned up than to grow up and to be cut to burn.
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So many people won't do church discipline today. They're afraid. They're afraid of lawsuits. They're afraid of some rich person saying,
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I'm going to take away all the money. They're afraid of, I don't know exactly how to do it. They're afraid to rock the boat.
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They'll say, I've never done it before. One man said, we've replaced go and sin no more with judge not lest you be judged.
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Can't judge anyone now. Every time we've done church discipline, all four steps, which has been two times that I can remember, somebody has left the church.
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So you say, well, who wants to preach a sermon like this because this isn't one of those touchy feely sermons where you bring your friends and you go, yeah, pastor's about ready to preach to the first Corinthians.
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Oh, he's preaching Matthew 18. Well, we're never going back to there. That's like in the new
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Testament in Acts chapter five, God did some church discipline and Ananias and Sapphira were killed on the spot.
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I mean, who would go back to that church unless you were really serious? People say it's old fashioned, not good for this generation.
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And here's the rub. A lack of church discipline in churches today isn't even noticed.
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We don't even notice it. It's just so uncommon. It's so pervasive.
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People try to get all the seekers in. Well, let's take a survey of the neighborhood. We'll go down to Lancaster Meadows and we'll go down into Sterling over here in Clinton.
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We'll say, what would you like in a church? We want a rock band, peppy music, my favorite guitar riffs.
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We like, you know, et cetera, et cetera, short sermons, you know, the shorter the better.
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And we would really like to have somebody who's caught up in some kind of affair, leaving their spouse to be publicly renounced by the church leaders during the communion service.
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We really want that. They obviously don't. People think this is going to be like a
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Salem witch trial. We're going to exact revenge. This is the closest thing to the scarlet letter that people even think about today until this, until we all read our
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Bibles. If you don't have one, there's one in the Pew Bible and you see Jesus himself clearly teaching
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Matthew 18. Laney said, quote, the church that neglects to confront and correct its members lovingly is not being kind, forgiving, or gracious.
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Such a church is really hindering the Lord's work and the advance of the gospel. The church without discipline is a church without purity.
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By neglecting church discipline, a church endangers not only its spiritual effectiveness, but also its very existence.
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The Apostle John said, and this is love, that we walk according to his commandments. Friends, if you are just visiting, you don't know me very well, but the church that is here weekly does.
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If you say to yourself that it is an unloving thing to do church discipline, it betrays the hypocrisy that's in you.
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That's really the real issue. It betrays an indifference to say, I will honor
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Christ. Christianity is no cakewalk. It's not easy. Christianity actually requires the ministry of the
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Holy Spirit in your life to obey its commands. God disciplines, and he has told us clearly that we are to, according to the
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Scots Confession, in summary of the Bible, vices to be repressed by discipline and virtue nourished.
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For those of you who think I'm extra strange, in your bulletin today, I put our church constitution section on church discipline right in your bulletin so all could see, for members and for non -members.
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Let me give you four steps from Jesus in church discipline from Matthew chapter 18 so that you will know how to glorify the
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Lord, desiring his pure church. Number two, so that you might recognize exactly what to do.
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This isn't, by the way, as we read the text, for the vicars, for the popes, for the senate, for the presbytery, for any other leader.
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This is for you. This is for the people of the local church.
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Four step process to teach you what Jesus says from Matthew chapter 18.
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Step number one. You must go to a sinning brother in order that you might win him or her.
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Let's look at the passage, Matthew 18 verse 15. What's the first step? The first step is simple.
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If your brother sins, Matthew 18 verse 15, go and reprove him in private. If he listens to you, that's what you're after.
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You have what? Won your brother. True or false?
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Reproof is a Christian duty. You are duty bound to reprove a sinner who's caught up in sin.
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Yes, privately. This is not, I think I better put this on the prayer chain or gossip chain.
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I think I better call. So and so, our brother's really in sin. We ought to pray about it.
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And then it travels around. No, this is in private. Nobody else is to know. This is not to be discussed.
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What does the text say? In private. It is the coward who gossips.
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It is the courageous one who says, who wants to go confront another brother? Do you like to go confront other people?
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By the way, if you have the ministry of confrontation in this church, we will exercise that bad gift out of you later.
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It's not a spiritual gift. Love covers a multitude of sins, yes? You don't want to be confronted for every sin that you commit, do you?
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Then you don't confront people for every sin. But the kind of sin that infects a church, the kind of sin that gives a horrible testimony to Christ's name, there are sins that need to be confessed.
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And so we go privately to our brother. The word reprove there in your text in verse 15 means to bring to light, to put some light on it, to shine the spotlight on it so everyone can say, yes, the
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Bible says this, you've been doing this, I've been watching that in your life, and correct me if I'm wrong, and I want to make sure
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I'm doing this properly, but they seem to differ, and let's expose this for what it is.
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It's the same word used in John 16. And when the Holy Spirit comes, he will reprove the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment.
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Basically, you say, this is your fault. The Bible says this, you've been doing this, is that correct? Did I see it rightly?
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Correct. That is what we do. It's not somehow judging. It's trying to convince that other person that this is actually true.
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They did what you saw them do or say what they said. Proverbs 27, better is open rebuke than love that is concealed.
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Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
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And you go in humility, you go with godliness. Did I understand things correctly? Have I seen this rightly?
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And what's the goal? Look back at verse 15. If he listens to you, now, that's not just decibel language, audible kind of listening, but it's, does he listen and does he agree?
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You can get that nuance right there. It's not just merely hearing. This is right out of Leviticus 19, the idea there.
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And so, we talk to the person, they can explain themselves. Often, it's solved. There's a miscommunication and things are worked out right there.
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Many times, people say, well, I wanted to get this off my chest and I know it's been bugging me and my conscience and I'm just glad to confess it and move on from here.
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And what's the good news? Verse 15, if he listens to you, you have what? One, your brother.
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That is great. You notice the text? It says, go. If your brother sins, go.
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You don't wait for them. You don't kind of lollygag around. You don't do anything else. You go. Someone's caught in sin and you are the ones responsible to go.
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And if they missed the mark and they're continuing this unconfessed sin, you go.
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This isn't just the elders, you go. Here's your sin. Example of this, by the way, when
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Paul opposed Peter to the face in Galatians chapter 2, Peter admits his sin, confesses his sin, and years later, what does
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Peter call Paul? My beloved brother, Paul. That's exactly the kind of attitude we should have.
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Sin, by the way, is not cute. It's not to be cuddled. It's not to be stroked. It's not to be winked at. It's to be confronted if it's unrepentant.
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Of course, we want to have a personal purity when we go. And the word there, won,
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I'd like to just show you some of these things here. You have won your brother, you have gained. This is a technical term for profit, gross profit, profit margin.
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You have got a profit. So if your friend is caught in sin and you know it, you ought to go to them.
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If they repent, return back to go. Don't start over. I repent. I'm sorry.
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Please forgive me. Over and done with. Our Constitution reads, it is the duty of any member of BBC who has knowledge of the erring individual's heresy or misconduct to warn and correct such erring individual in private, seeking his or her repentance and restoration.
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If the erring individual does not heed this warning, then the second step in Matthew 18 is found in verse 16.
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The step one to honor God and to reclaim the member and to have purity in the church, first, you go by yourself.
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Number two, you have witnesses to confirm the conversation and confrontation.
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Verse 16, if you have capitals, by the way, that'll be showing you the Old Testament quote from Deuteronomy 19.
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But if he does not listen to you, by the way, these are Jesus's words. So far, is it hard to understand?
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No, it's just hard to do, isn't it? It's hard to do. That's why we can't be a feeling -oriented society. That's why we can't say, we're going to just have some consumer church and the unbelievers come in and they just feel at home.
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I hope unbelievers come in and say, I feel welcomed. But I hope the unbelievers say, do you know what?
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I don't want anything to do with that unless I'm a real Christian. That's a different world in there. They have different kind of music.
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They act differently. They talk differently. There's nothing like that church in the world.
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That's exactly what we want. If we say we're Christians, we have to believe this. There's not a manuscript problem.
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There's not, well, this isn't in the best text. This is some undiscovered Dead Sea Scroll. It's right there. First go, number two, take witnesses.
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If he does not listen to you, meaning not just audibly, like I said, take one or two with you. So by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed.
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We don't prosecute people in the Old Testament by one single witness. Can't be convicted of a crime under Mosaic law.
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Now, some people say the witnesses had to see the sin. They had to see the crime. No, because then you'd have to always have the sinner sin in front of three people.
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These are two or three to observe the confrontation and to lend more weight to the conversation.
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I think if somebody knocked on your door and there was three of them instead of one of them and two of them happened to be leaders of the church, you might try to have a bigger gulp down your throat than you normally would.
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And that's the idea. Strengthening of the reproof. Wanting them to be restored, but this is a bigger deal.
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They are to corroborate what the person says. I repent, great. I don't repent.
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They are to corroborate that evidence. So simple. Step one, privately go.
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Step two, and there should be some time in between step one and two. I don't think you go to some person and say, this is what the
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Bible says. This is what I've seen you do. You've admitted it. And today, you know, get your act cleaned up today or I'm calling the elder board tomorrow.
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Don't we believe in the Holy Spirit to minister and to come alongside and have some time to work in the heart of the people?
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Yes, that's exactly what happens. But then there's a time goes on. We go take one or two.
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The Constitution reads in our church, the warning member shall again go to the erring individual seeking his or her repentance, but accompanied by one or two individuals who will confirm that the sin has occurred or is continuing to occur.
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But if he does not repent, then step three. Again, we want repentance. We want restoration.
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Once there is repentance and restoration, you go back to nothing. You don't say, well, we'll just wait and see.
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One more slip out of you, you know, if there's a slip and there's more fall into sin that we go back to step number one.
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Number three, here's the one that people just gag over. Number three, you must be prepared for the elders of this church to notify the church of this sin publicly so you might pray for the people and that you might privately win them.
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Verse 17, and if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to, what's it say? The church.
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I mean, it is right there. You can't get around it. Tell it to the church. What do you think that means in Greek? Tell it to the church.
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Tell it to the synod. Tell it to the deacon board. What does it mean? Tell it to the church.
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Why? Because the church is told this, here's a brother who's caught up in sin. We are frail and weak just like this brother and we want to restore him in the right way, in the fruit of the spirit way, but you need to pray for this man and you need to come alongside of this man and it's your job to now go.
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If you love this person, you will go. They refuse to listen to them, the witnesses, if they ignore or disregard or get out of my face kind of attitude and that's often the attitude when
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I've ever gone to someone with another person and another person for witnesses, typically by then, the hardness is starting to calcify over their hearts and basically it's, who are you?
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You do whatever you want. You get out of my face. That's typically what happens and it's not very fun at all to do.
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If it wasn't in the Bible, I would never, ever do it. But the church then pleads for the person.
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The church prays for the person. The church comes alongside. The church doesn't go, well, you know what, let's sue the guy and get him out of here and let's take it to Judge Judy or something like that, you know, secular court.
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No, the church handles it. We don't give our business to unbelievers who don't know the Bible to do church business.
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Paul said, does anyone of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to the law before the unrighteous and not before the saints, 1
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Corinthians chapter 6? We don't have to do that. And so the church is told.
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Typically a short while after that, because this has already been going on now for probably months, we have step four.
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Step four. There are four steps of church discipline. You could outline this as easy as I could. Here's how Jesus keeps his
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Father's honor. Here's how we keep Jesus away from judging our church with discipline. Here's how we keep the church pure.
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Here's how we love God by keeping his commandments. And if he refuses to listen even to this large church, whether it's 10 people or 5 ,000, let him be to you, that's a command by the way, as a
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Gentile and a tax gather. You say, well, I don't like the way the elders do it. They're too rough.
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They're too this. They're too that. They don't see it all. They're not loving. We don't like it. We don't like church discipline. But the text here says, let them be to you singular.
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What the elders do, you go along with. Submission, by the way, again, is not
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I agree. Agree is I agree. Submission is I disagree, but I go along anyway because God's in charge.
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Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax gather. There's a detrimental influence in the church and the person has to be taken out of the church.
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The Latin word is excommunicated. Ex out of, communication, a shared communion.
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No longer part of the church. I love the church, by the way. I love to hang out with people from the church. I'm encouraged by people from the church.
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I think I just want to see my family again. I don't really have any other family. They're either in the Midwest or they're deceased.
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And all the things we love about the church and fellowship, encouragement, camaraderie, that person no longer receives.
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If you see them on the street, you say, I'm praying for you. You better repent. But there's none of this fellowship because they have earned their way out of fellowship.
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Gentile means what? A person who was outside of the blessings of Israel.
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But the tax gather was worse. The tax gather says, I am an Israelite, but I choose to take money from the
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Jews. And they were even worse. These are bad words. These are Gentile and tax gather.
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You don't want to be called this today. We have slang words against people today, and people fight over those words.
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Rightfully so. At least fight with their words. This is one of those kind of bad words you don't use.
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Despised dog outcasts. People that persist in their unrepentance get kicked out of the church.
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And it is an imperative, by the way. They are not welcome in the church. Of course, you want to pray for their salvation.
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Of course, you want to do all that. But you publicly dismiss them. Now, look at what goes on here.
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By the way, just a comment first. If they do repent, then what do you do? Then you publicly restore them, and you do what?
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I've always said we're going to do this if it ever happens. We're going to have a huge what? We're going to have a huge pig roast.
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There's going to be a huge party. And we're going to say, you know, we're sinful. You should know what we do is sinful, too.
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And we're sinners saved by grace. Nobody's better. Nobody's worse. You've repented, and we're going to have the biggest party you've ever had.
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Celebrating the goodness of God. Reclaiming the sinner. That's what we want. Say, well, you can do all that on earth, but God's probably up in heaven saying, you're legalistic.
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By the way, it's never legalism to obey the scripture. That's what's thrown out all the way. They're legalistic. If you mean added rules to the
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Bible, that would be wrong. If you mean obeying the Bible, that's just called obedience.
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What does heaven think of when we do something like this? Is heaven applauding? Is heaven sad?
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Verse 18, truly I say to you, whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
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Friends, the context here is not casting demons out or sending them to Fitchburg or something like that.
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I'm binding demons. I used to send them to Lemonster, but now I've moved them to Fitchburg. If somebody's here from Fitchburg, we'll send them up to,
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I don't know, over to Stowe or someplace. I'm not sure. But people use this for some kind of demon binding.
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A Roman Catholic church will use this for some kind of papal kind of decrees. But what is the context, friends? It's not the doctrine that the church has authority to forgive sin.
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It's not some kind of binding and loosing. It's in the context of church discipline.
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And here's what Jesus is saying. What you've done on earth has already been done on or in heaven.
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The steps that you've done and the commitment that you've had to obey and the pronouncement that you have made, they're kicked out of the local fellowship, pray for them but don't have any fellowship.
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Heaven has agreed with you. Heaven has already rendered her verdict. It's already happened.
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One man wrote, the meaning of this verse is, whatever you shall do in the discipline of the church shall be approved by God or bound in heaven.
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That doesn't go far enough. It's already happened in heaven and we're just a reflection of what heaven has already declared.
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Verse 19, again, he first did the truly, it's important. Now he says, again,
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I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask. This isn't a prayer meeting.
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This isn't, you know, I need a new stereo or something, let's agree. And this is some kind of name it and claim it and grab it and,
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I don't even know what it is, just move on. I was going to say blab it and grab it. You know, let's just agree. Words have power.
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It has nothing to do with it, it's church discipline. That if two of you on earth agree about anything, talking about discipline, that they may ask, it shall be done for them by my
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Father who is in heaven. The word agree there is symphony.
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They come together with a wonderful chorus. And then the most misinterpreted verse maybe in all the
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Bible because it's plucked out of the context of church discipline. For where two or three have gathered together in my name for church discipline, there
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I am in their midst. Aren't you glad in Matthew 28 in the
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Great Commission that Jesus said, when you go evangelize and preach the good news that Jesus is the only Savior, that Jesus alone is a sin bearer, that Jesus alone can take away sins and is raised from the dead?
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Aren't you glad Jesus says, and lo, I am with you what? Always? Because if not, we're just going up to people and we're going to get our proverbial clocks clean.
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But we say we have Jesus with us. Here is Jesus, not visibly, but invisibly, and his
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Spirit of God in us. And we go and we preach the gospel with God's power because, lo, I'm with you always.
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I don't think there's anything maybe more nerve -wracking than evangelism, except church discipline.
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And wouldn't it be nice if you knew God was with you when you had to go knock on that door? I don't know if any of you had to do that, but I've had to do that with elders.
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And you just pray in the car and you take a deep breath and you walk up to that house and you go, and on the inside,
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I've got butterflies. I want to just run. And what does Jesus say here? Thankfully, Lord, I need you.
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Help us in this time where two or three have gathered together in my name for church discipline as a context. There I am in their midst.
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Isn't that good? If this was some unloving thing and Jesus would say, then
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I'm nowhere to be seen. I'm out of here. You're just taking this too far. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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He didn't say that at all. Step one, you go privately.
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Step two, you take one or two. Step three, you tell it to the church. Step four, they're kicked out of the church until they repent.
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But could there be anything so bad that you have to bypass these steps? Is there something that people could do that is so bad
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Jesus says through his apostles, you need to not go to all four steps. You need to cut it off of the paths.
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Yes, there is. Let's turn to Titus 3 for a moment. There is something so bad, so heinous, so dishonoring to Christ Jesus that there will be a bypassing of all four steps for this thing.
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Directly to the end, inform the church. Four steps aren't even needed.
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There are two passages that we'll look at that talk about this, and that is people who get excommunicated quicker than the four steps are those who are promoting false doctrine in the church and who are factious, divisive people.
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Titus 3, verse 10 and 11, those things are so heinous in Jesus's eyes that he doesn't want his bride muddied or sodded or soiled with that contamination.
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False teaching, factiousness will get you kicked out of the church faster because it contaminates the bride of Christ.
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Paul reminds Titus, the pastor, the elder, reject a factious man after the four steps of warning.
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Yes? Reject a factious man after the first and second warning. Why? Verse 11, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self -condemned.
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Step one, step two, step three, step four, we often do. Actually, even many of those times, it's because of sexual immorality.
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Somebody takes off and is living with a girl and maybe is committing adultery or is fornication, and they moved in.
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That's step one, two, three, four. But there's something more hurtful to a local church, and that is divisiveness and factiousness.
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And so Paul says, you don't go through all four steps. Similarly, turn with me to Romans chapter 16.
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Romans chapter 16 gives us the same kind of idea. By the way, the text here is, again, it's one of those texts where you think, you know, this is, as Dave was praying today, this is
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God's word like a hammer. Sometimes the word comforts and comes alongside. This is supposed to shake you up.
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And by the way, in this culture today, this is so odd, people are going to think we're some kind of troglodytes, cave people, for believing in such a doctrine.
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But you can see it's clearly in the text. And I think it should be said that if this has only happened two times in the last 12 years, all four steps, you ought to think to yourself, it's not like the church is trying to kick everybody out all the time.
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Thankfully, at our church, it's been a rare thing. Maybe the first step isn't so rare, maybe the second step isn't so rare, but steps three and four have been very rare.
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Romans chapter 16, verse 17 and 18, Paul gives us treatise on the righteousness of God in the book of Romans and then says, interestingly, look at verse 16.
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Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. That's the kind of language we like, right?
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Warm, fuzzy, strokey, it's good, there's nothing wrong with that. Encouraging, kiss one another in a holy way.
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We all love one another, kumbaya, you know, we're all together. Now, I urge you, brethren, the kissing's over.
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Keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned and turn away from them.
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These false teachers are like the factious, you turn from them. For, listen to the description of these people, and I read this and I think,
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Lord, it's only the grace of God, that's not me, but I would hate to be one of these men, for such men are slaves.
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They're not a do -law sponsor of the Lord Jesus, not of our Lord Jesus. They should be a slave to the
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Lord, but they're not a slave to the Lord Christ, but of their own appetites.
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They serve themselves, they're masters themselves, their own appetites. And by their smooth, flattering speech, they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.
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Typically, it's four steps in church discipline, but sometimes, you have to go to a shorter route.
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Now, please turn with me to Galatians 6, we're kind of wrapping things up. I want to show you the attitude that we ought to have when it comes to church discipline.
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The attitude is not haughty, the attitude is not, how could you do such a thing? It's unbelievable.
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The attitude for restoration while you go one in private, or two with another witness or two, or even hearing from the church, from the elders about the church sin, this is the kind of attitude we have.
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Now, if you're in the IBS class, you already got some of this, and so I'll just give you a little review. Where's the fruit of the
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Spirit found in the book of Galatians? But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, right?
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Found in Galatians chapter 5. Now, here's my question to you.
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That attitude fruit in Galatians chapter 5, for the most part, attitude fruit of being loving, being kind, being gentle, have self -control, it manifests itself in an action fruit.
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And what's the first action fruit a person who has the fruit of the Spirit should be involved with according to Paul in Galatians when there's this cantankerous fighting for the purity of doctrine by justification by faith alone in Galatians?
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If you have forgotten, 526 is directly linked to 6 -1.
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You should take your pen and write from the bottom of 26, 526, and arrow to 6 -1 because we don't have any favors by those who said there's a chapter break, think something differently.
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It's a different thought. It's a different thought in this regard. The attitude fruit in Galatians chapter 5 is now going to be action fruit.
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And here's the action fruit. When you confront somebody in sin, walk in the fruit of the Spirit.
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Don't walk in the flesh. Take a look. We've got the fruit of the Spirit in verse 22 of chapter 5.
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We've got this patience, kindness, faithfulness. Verse 25, if we live by the
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Spirit, we walk by the Spirit. We don't want to be doing the negative things, boasting, challenging, envying.
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Now, chapter 6, verse 1, how should you do church discipline at Bethlehem Bible Church or where you're from?
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Brethren, see, we're a family. You can almost hear the tone change. Even if anyone or if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, that's not the elders, that's not the leaders, that's not you don't call
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John MacArthur in to take care of business. Those who are acting spiritual, walking by the fruit of the
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Spirit, you restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourselves, lest you too be tempted.
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See, I'm filled by the fruit of the Spirit and I'm kind of on cloud nine and I'm a mystical kind of subjective.
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I've got the feeling and it's just this kind of ooze that's over me. Friends, if you're walking by the fruit of the
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Spirit, many things will happen. But one thing you'll do is you'll be gentle and kind when you have to confront.
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You won't say to yourself, if you're spirit -filled, I'm not going to obey
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God. I don't care what Jesus said. It wasn't even Pentecost yet and Jesus is calling people to church, that's not for us, it's for somebody else,
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I'm not going to do it. That's not what a spirit -filled person would do. A spirit -filled person is not going to go to the person and say,
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I've caught you in a sin, what is this church coming to? I can't believe you'd do that.
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Acting pious and super holy or saying, you know, we love people.
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I'm supposed to go confront you but we love, we sort of love God. That's not what a spirit -filled person would do.
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A spirit -filled person wouldn't say, a spirit -filled person does what?
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Goes. Somebody's caught. They've got their foot in a snare. It's like a wolf that's got its foot caught.
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Some animal, let's not use wolf, that's a bad illustration. Some kind of animal that's got its foot, some little rabbit's got its foot caught in a trap for a wolf.
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And you go over and you could already tell, you know, oh, kinder, nicer. Forget rabbit, especially forget wolf.
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How about a sheep? What are you going to do? How could you get yourself caught in that thing?
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You're a bad sheep. You're just going to have to learn to live with it, sheep. You're engendered to be kinder.
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How much more for Christians? That's what a spirit -filled person does. If they're caught, they're enslaved and snared by this sin.
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You caught them red -handed. You're to restore them. The word restore means to mend. If you've got a net used for fishing and there's got a hole in it, you mend it.
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Repair it. That's what you do. You put it in order. Somebody's arm's out of socket, you put it back into socket.
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In the spirit of gentleness. Look at verse 2. Bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ.
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There's an error to avoid, verse 3. Spirit -filled people need to avoid this error. In confrontation for church discipline.
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For if anyone thinks he is something... That never happened to me. I'm above this.
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I've taken the IBS class. I go to church on Sunday nights. I'm in Steve's class at Sunday school.
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When anyone thinks he's something when he is nothing, he is no thing. He deceives himself.
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And there's another error, too, found in verse 4. But let each one examine his own work. And then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone.
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And not in regard to another who's happy to be caught in sin. Go compare yourself.
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Verse 5. For each one shall bear his own load. Aren't you glad God loves you enough to come after you if you're in sin?
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I remember people who have said, I'm looking for a new church. And they preached on church discipline. Or they did church discipline.
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And I knew that was a church for me because they thought about sin seriously. That's the way you should consider it.
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Don't ever go to a church if they don't consider sin seriously. Because if you don't know the gravity of sin, you don't know the greatness of the
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Savior. They're directly related. And when you realize how low of a sinner you are, and then realize the heights of glory that Jesus Christ achieved in your place, the result is praise.
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The result is, forget this thing where I'm going to church on Sunday and pay my dues. This is my life.
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I'll never forget, as long as I live, when I was talking to Scott Walkton. We were talking about churches. Some people seem to be engaged.
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Other people, it's like a hobby. And Scott couldn't get over it. And Scott looked at me. I thought he was going to cry.
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And he looked at me and he goes, this is my life. This body,
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Christ's word, Christ's honor, the service of this church, it is mine. If it's not your life, then who needs church discipline?
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But if it is your life, you'll be glad that Jesus loves his bride enough to keep her pure, clean, spotless.
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It's for his honor we do things. Lots of times they're for our good. Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, seal these words by your spirit's power to our hearts. We would be first to acknowledge that unless you're in our midst, we can't do any of this.
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We can't even learn it. We can't even grasp it. We are weak and frail, but we know you're powerful and strong.
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And so help us to be a pure church. Guard us from factiousness. Guard us from lack of unity.
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Guard us from somehow claiming rights when it's Jesus' church. We sang over and over and over today, what can make us whole again?
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Nothing but the blood, the sacrificial, substituent death of Christ Jesus. He is the one we want to boast in.
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Increase our praise, not of ourselves. Increase our boasting, but not of ourselves, but in Christ Jesus and his cross, the resurrected