A Disciplined Church

Every now and then I sit in the back of the church and it's a blessing.

Not only do I get to hear Connell sing, I get to see everyone else.

Well, you can hear Connell sing from up here, just to be honest.

But I get to see everybody singing and worshipping.

It's very, very encouraging.

Alright, I've switched over now.

Listen, we talk about this all the time, but it really must be more than a catchphrase

for our church.

And that is, Christ is worthy of a healthy church.

And we want to see Christ continue to build a healthy church.

I'm going to say some things this morning that I want to make clear.

It is not my desire to disparage another church.

It's not my desire to point fingers or anything like that.

I want to just continually be pointing our fingers at ourselves, drawing our eyes to the Scriptures and say,

we're going to do everything that we can do as a church to be the

type of church that brings Christ the greatest honor and glory.

And that's what we want to do.

I want you to turn in your Bibles.

This is going to sound surprising to you.

I want you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew.

There are other books in the Bible besides Ephesians.

I want you to turn your Bibles to the book of Matthew chapter

18.

We've been talking about in Ephesians the shield of faith.

And as we have this shield of faith, the reason that we have a shield of faith, the reason that

God has supplied the church, has equipped the church, has given the church sufficient

armor with something like a shield of faith, is because we have a great enemy.

And that enemy, of course, is ultimately the evil one.

That's what Paul is reminding us in Ephesians.

It's not our ultimate...

You have to remember, and I know that we get really, really fired up in a political season.

You have to remember this morning that our greatest enemy is ultimately not

politicians, as easy as they are to pick on.

And I'm willing to pick on them, you know that.

But our greatest enemy is the evil one and the spiritual forces of darkness that we wrestle

against in the heavenly places.

And so the Bible teaches us, Paul teaches us, God teaches us in His Word that He's given us

a shield of faith to withstand and quench the fiery

darts of the evil one.

With that in mind, as you turn to Matthew 18, what I want to talk about this morning

is a disciplined church.

A disciplined church.

This morning from our text, we'll approach verses that for some of you perhaps,

hopefully not for most of you, but maybe for some of you, you didn't even really know that they were

in the Bible.

Or if you did, you don't really understand their purpose and how it is that they are to

really be administrated and walk through in the local church.

But I submit to you this morning that what we're going to talk about is so important to the nature of the

church, it's so important in protecting the church from spiritual warfare, it's so

important that many people in the history of the church, and I agree with them, have said that a

church that just refuses this is ultimately not a church at all.

It may be called a number of things, but in the Lord's eyes, it cannot be called a local

church.

So I seek to preach to you this morning from Matthew 18, 15 -20, and I just want to preach to you

about a disciplined church.

Would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's Word?

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by

the evidence of two or three witnesses.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax

collector.

Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed on

heaven.

And I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them

by my Father in heaven.

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for your Word.

Would you bless it?

Would you bless the preaching of your Word?

Would you bless our church?

Oh, help us to always strive and believe in the worthiness of Christ that we would strive to be

the church that would bring him the most glory.

And seek to be healthy, protect us from the enemy.

Let us know what it is to walk with our brothers and sisters in real time, to love them,

to bear one another's burdens, to confront one another with repentance, to help one another

in our struggles.

We pray that Christ would be honored.

We pray it all in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You can be seated.

Listen, saints, if you think it's a little unusual that we broke rank from Ephesians to the book of Matthew,

there's one person in this church you can blame, and that's Monty White.

And that's because during his prayer for the offering, he prayed about the sermon

being changed.

And this morning, I'll tell you the story real quick, I shared with some brothers.

And by the way, you'd be invited to this.

This is not an exclusive secret club or whatever.

But every morning at 845, or every Sunday morning, sorry, at 845, we gather with a group of men and we pray.

We just pray for our church.

We pray for God to be honored.

We pray for the music.

We pray for the offering.

We pray for the scripture reading, the confession of catechism.

We just, we pray for it all.

We want God to be honored.

And so I shared with some of those brothers, hey, I've been wrestling, and I think I might preach something different this

morning, which is really different for me to do.

Like, this is my page of notes, okay?

So usually, I get up here with a, you know, a binder and all that.

But it's a little bit different this morning.

I'm kind of wrestling with this.

And so Alex asked me, because he's in charge of our putting sermons online and

all that.

So Alex asked me, I think during handshaking time, are you going to change the sermon?

And I was like, well, I haven't decided yet.

I'm praying, like during a service.

I'm asking my wife.

I'm like, you know, what do you think?

I'm praying.

And we sing that last song, Sing, O Sing of My Redeemer.

And I'm just like, Lord, I don't know.

Would you just help me?

And sure enough, when we take offering, Monty prays like the sermon had already been changed.

And so I decided, okay, that's enough.

I'm going to be preaching the different sermons.

So thank you, Monty, for that.

And this is where we're at this morning.

But I think that you'll find this morning that this is an important subject for churches today.

I do have three points.

And they are, by God's grace, alliterated.

So the first is this, the rarity of church discipline.

So let me read this again.

Number one, the rarity of church discipline.

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him

alone.

If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the

evidence of two or three witnesses.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax

collector.

In other words, let him be to you as an unbeliever.

Now, I would be interested.

Maybe we should do this, but we're not actually going to do it.

So don't raise your hand.

But I would be interested to know, within our body, how many people have been in a church that has

had to deal with or has walked through church discipline.

This first point, I'm talking about the rarity of church discipline.

And I'm afraid today, in many churches, that this has become obsolete.

We don't want to do it.

Actually, I can prove it to you.

In the Southern Baptist Convention, and this trajectory has only been worse and

worse and worse, but in the Southern Baptist Convention, the

ratio used to be two -thirds to one -third.

In other words, two -thirds of the people on any given church's church

roll were not there on a Sunday morning.

You understand?

So let's do the math real quick.

Two -thirds is a hard percentage.

But let's say you've got a hundred people on your church roll.

On average, one -third of them would show up.

That is 33 .3.

So I don't know who the .3 guy is, but you can pray for him.

But 33 .3 people, average, showing up on a Sunday morning if you

have a hundred people on your church roll.

Now, that's across the SBC.

That's—it gets worse if you have a church with a thousand people on your roll.

You understand?

That holds true.

But that was a number of years ago.

It's worse now.

Now it's more like a fourth.

People on your church roll will show up on any given Sunday.

Now, I understand.

This is not talking about, there's situations that we miss church.

I understand.

There's sickness, or your kids are sick, or you've taken a family vacation and you're down the road.

Okay, that's not what we're talking about.

We're talking about just on average, though, only 25 of a church is

showing up on Sunday morning.

I just say to you this morning to speak to the rarity of church discipline

in our day.

So let me give you three points under this heading of the rarity of

church discipline.

The first is the missing of the message.

Number one, the missing of the message.

I think that churches today get church discipline wrong ultimately because

they don't understand the fullness of the gospel, they don't understand

the definition of Christianity, and they don't understand what is meant

by discipline.

Okay, so first, they don't understand, this is sub points within sub points.

We're in the matrix or whatever.

What is the gospel?

The gospel is this.

Jesus Christ came to redeem a people from their sins.

We don't even have to remove ourselves from the book of Matthew to get that.

Turn over, if you will, all the way to the first chapter of Matthew.

The gospel writer of Matthew is telling us very early on what it is that Jesus came to do.

Matthew chapter 1 and verse 21.

We see this at Christmas, but we need to be reminded of it even today.

Matthew 1 .21, the angel says this to Joseph.

She, that is Mary, will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for

He will save His people from their sins.

Here is the gospel, friends, and I'm going to press it, I think, to its natural

outcome.

First of all, the gospel is the good news that God has determined to

not leave us in our sins.

We were made in the image of God.

We were made to, created to, enjoy God and

glorify Him forever, and yet we have gone astray.

We have fallen in Adam, our first representative.

If you think that that's unfair, we do this stuff all the time.

For example, if you watch a football game, and you see one person go crazy

and get a personal foul, who's punished?

Not just them, the entire team.

We understand the idea of representation.

Adam is the representative of humanity, and we've fallen in Adam.

But what's worse is, or is equally as bad, is that we choose to go astray in and of

ourselves.

We have rebelled against God, and we've gone our own way.

There is no fear of God, Romans 3, 18 says.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

That is an indictment upon American culture today, the biggest indictment.

There is no fear of God.

Why does Joe Biden do the things that he does?

There's no fear of God before his eyes.

Why are there parades like there are?

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Why are people shouting their abortions or living with one another outside of marriage?

Why are these things happening in our world today?

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

But God, two of the greatest words in scripture, in his love and his

mercy and his grace and his kindness, sent forth his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, who

is truly God and truly man, born of the Virgin Mary.

He came to set right what went wrong in Adam.

Adam disobeyed in the garden.

Jesus obeyed in a fallen world.

Jesus fulfilled all righteousness.

He kept the law down to the least jot and tittle.

And that didn't just keep it, but kept it with the proper motivations, full love of God in his heart, in his mind, his soul and his

strength.

And then he died for sinners.

On the cross he is our propitiation, wrath, satisfying, sacrifice.

The Father laid our sins upon Christ and punished Christ in our

place.

Jesus did the time because we did the crime, if you want to think of it that way.

And then he was laid in a borrowed tomb, he was really dead, he was buried, and he rose again on the third day.

Now you should all understand that message and we should probably all in this room, I would imagine,

even those who are not believers, I would imagine, would be able to recite that message.

You would be able to say, I understand this is what the Gospel is.

But let me push it a little bit further this morning to this is what the Gospel does.

Jesus came to save not individuals from their sins, the text says in Matthew 1 .21, but to save

his people from their sins.

And so as the blood of Christ flows from the cross of Calvary, it flows

into Jerusalem, it flows into Judea, it flows into Samaria, it flows into the

uttermost parts of the world, and what springs up from the blood of Jesus?

Local churches.

People.

God is saving his people.

The Gospel, I'm telling you friends this morning, we don't understand the purpose and outflow of the Gospel

if we separate it from the local church.

God is saving a people from their sins.

And so this comes into what is Christianity?

We don't have to turn out of Matthew for this either.

I'm going to go to Matthew 16.

You want to know what Christianity is?

There's many verses we could use to summarize it, but what if I gave you

Matthew 16 .18?

Jesus says, and I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.

And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

I bet you've never heard of a definition of Christianity like this, but I'm going to give it to you.

Christianity is the outworking of Christ building His church in the world today.

That is Christianity.

You cannot separate Christianity from the church.

We live in a world today, especially in the Bible Belt, especially in central Arkansas, we live in a

society today that wants to understand Christianity separated from the local church.

But I'm telling you, in the New Testament, you can't separate the two.

To be a Christian is literally to be part of the church.

And to be part of the church, if you want to call it the universal church, is to show yourself

attached to, a part of, committed to the local church.

So we're talking about the rarity of church discipline today, and one of the reasons that we have

the rarity of church discipline today is because we don't understand the Gospel.

We don't understand Christianity.

And then thirdly, we don't understand discipline.

We are probably the most undisciplined society ever.

I don't want to pick on younger generations.

I don't want to pick on younger generations, but it just seems to get worse and worse and worse.

And that is, younger generations come in, they see the older generations have this, this, this, and this.

The younger generation comes in and they demand, I want this, this, this, and this.

You have this, this, and this.

You have the truck.

You have the home.

You have all these things.

I want these things.

I deserve these things.

Give me these things or I'm going to cry.

Well, what happens is, we have created a society, again, I'm not trying to be

punchy here, I'm really not, but just the word snowflakes is rattling around my head.

And we've created a society that they don't want to work for anything.

We don't want to be disciplined.

We don't want to have to earn something.

We don't want to have to grow or whatever.

If the young lady has a college degree, she wants to be the CEO and get as paid as much as

whoever's been there for 40 years.

We're an undisciplined society.

But when it comes to the church, we don't understand that God has given discipline to the

church for our good.

There's a man, he's a, I can't even pronounce his last name.

Jocko, I don't remember his last name.

Anyway, he has a little saying called, discipline equals freedom.

When our lives are disciplined before the Lord, when we're disciplined in our Bible reading, in our prayer time,

I'm using a secular concept to apply.

There's freedom in that.

So too when it comes to the church.

A disciplined church is a healthy church.

We'll talk more about that later.

Let's move on.

So first of all, the missing of the message.

Secondly, I want to talk about the marks of a true church.

Now I say secondly, but remember, we're still under the first heading.

The rarity of church discipline.

I want to talk about the marks of a true church.

Now we like verse 20 in our text.

In fact, I've heard Matthew 18, 20

quoted a gazillion times.

More times than our national debt, if that's even possible.

Verse 20, For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am

among them.

Have you ever heard that quoted?

Has anyone ever quoted that to you?

Has anyone ever said to you, well you know what, I can't be gathered with the church today, but I'll be at deer camp and you

know what the Bible says, where two or three are gathered in my name.

Four.

We need to understand what a church is.

Now historically, I'm not really going to defend this from the scriptures this morning just because we have to get moving on, but historically,

let me just give you three marks of a church.

Not a healthy church, of a church period.

So the first mark of a church is that a church has to have the

right preaching of the word of God.

So if you go to a place and they're breaking out, you know, whatever the case may be,

Joyce Meyer books, or Reader's Digest, or whatever, and you may laugh at that, but there are places you could go

today called churches, you could walk in and they will preach to you from a Reader's Digest.

Okay, that's not a church.

Because a church has to have the right preaching.

We must be preaching the word of God in accordance to the word of God.

That means we ought to be exalting Christ from the scriptures because from Genesis to Revelation, the

Bible is about this one main thing, namely Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

So we have Christ, the right preaching.

Without the right preaching of the word of God, a church is not a church.

Secondly, there must be the right administration of the ordinances.

Now we're going to be careful here because I ultimately, even though I would completely

disagree with Presbyterians, I'm not willing to say well, they're not even a church.

But what I really would mainly be talking about here in the right administration of the ordinances, which are what?

There's only two.

Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

We understand that the ordinances are signs and symbols.

They are not means by which we are brought into the kingdom.

You understand?

The ordinances, so if you go to a place and they say these are the means by which redemption is

applied to you.

These are the means by which you are justified.

These are the means by which you are regenerated.

Well, you're not a church.

A church rightly understands and administers the ordinances.

And do you know what the third mark is?

Historically that has been said about a church.

Right preaching, and I would include in right preaching a well -ordered church, you know, ordered rightly.

Right administration of the ordinances.

Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Historically, the

third mark of a church is rightly practicing church discipline.

That is a church that does not care about its membership.

A church that lets membership just wander off into sin and doesn't love one another well enough to

confront that.

A church that sees a man or a woman repent of sin and just kind of dismisses them and doesn't care

about helping them or bear their burdens or walk along the pathway of

restoration together.

Ultimately, they're not a church.

So we're not talking about a healthy church versus an unhealthy church.

We're talking about a church versus a non -church.

Gospel preaching, right understanding of the ordinances, and then church discipline in what our text here.

I mean, for example, can you imagine a place, call itself, a following of

Jesus that does not follow what Jesus' words say?

Neither can I.

Thirdly, then, under this heading, the missing of the message, the marks of a true

church.

Thirdly, I want to just touch briefly on the meaning of membership.

Now we're a Baptist church, and we're not ashamed about being a Baptist church.

But one of the things that we believe about a Baptist church is we believe that

the doctrine is called regenerate church membership.

And so what does that mean?

Regenerate church membership means we believe only people who are born again

can be members of the church.

Now that sounds self -explanatory, but there's a lot of weight

in there, right?

And that is, if we believe that only believers are part of the church, then we treat one another

like what?

Like believers.

Even Jesus says it this way, verse 15, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his

fault.

And I'm going to expound on that in just a minute.

Or let me give you another place.

I'm going to flip over to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

1 Corinthians chapter 5.

Now you're going to have to hear me well on this, because you could take this and run with it.

But in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul says something that I think would literally

cause the brains of people in our day to just collapse on

themselves.

Paul commands the church at Corinth to judge.

What?

What?

Let's see what the Bible says.

1 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 12.

This is what Paul says to the church at Corinth.

Now this is with a very serious and public scandal.

A man, and I'm going to say it as PG as I can, but a man essentially was having an immoral

relationship with at best his stepmother.

Maybe his mother, but with at best his stepmother.

And Paul's addressing this, and he says in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 12, For what have I to do with

judging outsiders?

Is it not those inside the church whom you are to, what's your translation say?

Judge.

To judge.

This is not to be judgmental in the sense of casting people like,

we're not talking about, well, I'm going to pick on Connell because I know I can and because he's just standing right there in front of me.

But I'm not going to look at Connell and be like, oh, you're wearing jeans today, Connell?

Well, phew.

That's not what we're talking about.

We're not talking about that.

We're talking about judging with right judgment because we expect that one another is what?

Are what?

Believers.

So we interact with one another as though we are what?

Born again.

As though the Holy Spirit of God is residing within us.

As though we desire to live a holy and proper life before God.

As though we love Jesus and love his word and love the church.

That's the way we look at one another is because we have an expectation that we're believers.

Why?

Because we believe only believers are part of the church.

So, this is some of the reasons for the rarity of church discipline.

Now let's move to point two.

The responsibility of church discipline.

Now let's walk through our text.

I'm just going to tell you when Jesus says this, here's one of the greatest ways to interpret the Bible.

When the Bible says something, it's what it means.

So when Jesus says this, there's no code here.

There's no like, well I wonder what he really meant.

No, no.

This is what he means.

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the

evidence of two or three witnesses.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and

a tax collector.

Okay, first and foremost, I want to say, number one, that this is a command

of Christ.

Now we're going to walk through these verses.

Jesus understands that when his church is gathered, that even

though it's going to be composed of regenerate people, it's going to be composed

of people who are still sinful.

I'll give you an example.

You want me to tell you the number one problem in your marriage?

It's the wife.

Right?

No, it's obviously not.

It's the husband now, right?

The number one problem in your marriage is that your marriage is

composed of two people who still need more sanctification.

Each person still needs to grow in the Lord.

And each person still wrestles with sin every day.

Whether that's a blatant sin or a misplaced motivation, a misplaced thought,

not doing what you're supposed to be doing or spending your time with the Word, whatever the case may be, both parties

are undergoing sanctification and they need to grow in Christ.

Now friends, if that's true in the marriage relationship, can you not see how much

truer that is also in the local church relationship?

Your brothers and sisters in the local church are not yet

glorified.

Did you know that?

They haven't arrived.

They need to grow in grace.

Each one of them, including your pastors, need to grow, need to be more

and more conformed into the image of Christ.

And so our God is so good to us, so kind to us, that He tells us these

commands here that when this happens, here's how you handle it.

Number one, if your brother sins against you, post it on Facebook.

Subtly, subtly.

But you post it on social media and that will get his attention.

No, that's not what our Lord says.

This is one of the most important things that has to happen.

This ought to be happening actually regularly.

If your brother sins against you, what do you do?

You don't get a posse.

You don't even...

Now there can be serious issues, exceptions, you may need to come talk to your pastors.

But you don't even get your pastor.

This is between two people.

Who is that?

The offender and the offended.

In fact, it's so beautiful, we're not even leaving Matthew right now in a lot of this, go to Matthew chapter

5 for just a second.

And notice too, I'm giving you the ideal situation, but you understand that we live in a fallen world.

So in Matthew chapter 5,

verse 23.

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,

leave your gift there before the altar and go.

First, be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.

So here's the ideal situation.

You've been offended by your brother.

But then your brother is convicted by the Holy Spirit and he realizes that his brother, that is you,

has something against you.

Or has something against him.

In other words, the offender and the one who are offended both realize they need to go to

talk to one another and they're out heading to each other's house.

They show up at the other one's house and they're not even there.

Why?

Because they went to the other house, right?

They passed each other on the way because they both realized there's been sin and there needs to be

reconciliation.

Now that's the most beautiful and perfect and best scenario.

But the idea is, someone has offended me, I'm going to go tell them privately,

secretly, not on social media, not together with a group of people in the

church.

Let me see if he's asleep.

That had to be public because it's public.

Sorry.

But you go to your brother alone.

One on one.

Now hopefully it ends there.

Hopefully it's done there.

Hopefully it's, you know what I did, I said that and I shouldn't have said it.

You know what, I was rude to you at church.

I shouldn't have done that.

And you forgive, you reconcile, and look at what Jesus says.

If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

Praise God.

This should be happening, by the way, a lot.

As the steps get further and further and further, like the ones that are at the beginning, they should be happening more and more

and more.

The later ones should be happening, you know, more rarely, but they still should be happening.

But let's say that doesn't work.

Well, okay, so what do I do?

This person sinned against me, and they have done something wrong to me.

They've sinned.

Now, the Bible does say love covers a multitude of sins, so it doesn't mean all the time, you know,

so and so didn't wave at you at harps.

It doesn't mean it's like, okay, we got to get this started.

Okay, you can overlook that, right?

Like there are things that we can overlook, and that we should overlook, but there are things that we can't overlook, that we've been sinning against, we need to deal

with.

We go to the person.

Hey, you've sinned against me.

No, I didn't.

I'm not changing.

Yes, you did.

Look at the Bible.

You've done this.

You were wrong.

You need to repent.

No, I'm not repenting.

Okay, well, I guess it's just over then.

We tried Jesus, right?

Nope.

Look at verse 16.

Verse 16, but if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you.

That every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

So let me say a couple of things here.

First of all, this isn't like the next hour, right?

So like he didn't repent.

All right, it's posse time.

Call him up.

Here we go.

We're getting him.

That's not what we're talking about.

We're not even talking about the next day or the next week.

You need to search your own heart.

You need to pray.

You need to, to take it before the Lord.

But then when it is time and that we don't have a specific time, but when it is time you

Take with you another faithful brother.

Two or three faithful brothers with you and then you approach the brother again.

Now I've been told before that these must be witnesses to the sin.

That's foolish.

To two reasons that's foolish.

Number one, there are a lot of things that happen one -on -one that you don't have any witnesses.

Number two, it's foolish because it's not the context of the the passage.

What Jesus is saying is you take two or three others along with you.

You talk to this brother or sister who has sinned and and that way they can hear the case.

You understand they may side with the person that's why you need to get unbiased like you don't take like your Absolute best

friend in the church or whatever.

That's a little bias you understand that these witnesses may hear the case and say II

I know you said you're sinned against but It was really okay that they were chewing gum next to you.

That's you shouldn't that's not a big deal.

Right, you understand I'm being silly, but they may side with the other person.

That's why you want to take godly unbiased witnesses however.

If he does not listen take one or two Others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

That is if these people say, okay, this is warranted brother.

You need to repent now.

You've got a still small group.

The church doesn't know Facebook doesn't know you're not Broadcasting this you're keeping this in a very small

group and you're taking this To this man and or this woman and you're saying we want you to repent you

understand the goal of this, right?

The goal of this is not the Spanish Inquisition.

We're not trying to burn anybody at the stake.

What is the goal.

The goal is?

Godliness for the glory of God.

The goal is that we love each other enough to help if I see if I go by your house and it's on

fire.

And I walk by saying I don't want to get in their business.

I'm a wicked man.

Because I've let your house burn.

With you in it.

And I didn't want to take the time to get in your business.

How much worse is sin in?

One another's lives.

We want to help one another.

So now you have these two or three witnesses.

But he still or she still refuses to repent.

Verse 17.

He refuses to listen to them.

Now we bring the local church into it.

Tell it to the church.

Yet, it's still not over yet.

You tell it to the church.

Why what's getting?

No, you tell it to the church so that the church can talk with this brother sister.

Well, who is the church?

Oh, it's the elders.

No.

The elders, I don't know.

I keep putting air quotes around.

Are not I don't know air quotes around me.

They're not the church.

The elders are not the church.

The church is the people now the elders obviously have to be leading this be involved in this.

God gives pastors to oversee things even like this.

But but the reality is when you say you tell it to the church.

It's so that the members of the church can plead with this brother.

They could or sister.

They can take them out to lunch.

They can go over to their house.

They can say hey, look you've got these things going on.

Explain this to me.

You need to repent and Hopefully at each one of these cases at each one of these steps, I should say

they're repenting.

Hopefully one -on -one they're repenting, but if not you go to step two.

Okay, hopefully you got the witnesses.

They're repenting.

But if not, you take it to the church.

Hopefully now that the whole church is involved.

They're repenting.

But Jesus gives a stipulation.

Even there if they don't and if he refuses to listen even to the

church, you know the idea here is like This guy has or girl has been lit has

not listened to one has not listened to a group and he won't even listen to the whole church.

Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

In other words, it is the church's responsibility.

That's what verse 18 means.

Let me read it first truly I say to you whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be

loosed in heaven.

Again, I say to you if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask it will be done for them by their Father in

Heaven you understand this is all in the context here of discipline for where two or three are gathered in my name there I am among

them when the church gathers together and a person refuses to repent.

It is the church's Responsibility To now treat that person as though they are an

unbelief that may seem hard to some of you.

It may seem foreign to some of you.

Well what I'm trying to encourage us with this morning is that Christ is worthy of a healthy church.

And this is the way that Jesus has taught us how to do church.

That's the command of Christ.

I have another point under here.

Commit the commitment of the church.

I'll just mention these real quick and then we'll get to our last point.

Oh Wait, I need to back up.

Let me say a couple things real quick because of sin and because of the fallenness of humanity not everything

works like this meaning.

It's not always a cut -and -dry scenario, let me just make up a scenario that way.

So I'll be careful if you think this applies to you, it doesn't apply to you.

Okay, I'm literally making it up on my feet.

But let's say a person in the church gets drunk.

They go to the basketball game.

They're drunk.

They make a fool of themselves in front of everybody.

They go on the court.

They you know are saying very Bad things to the referee or the other

team or whatever they get arrested.

Okay, you understand that they have because of their own sin Accelerated the process of discipline.

What I mean is you say well first is we got to go to them one -on -one.

Well, no because they have they have taken a situation of they haven't that it's not personal

sin.

Now it's public sin you understand and when the sin is public There has to be a an

acceleration if you will of the church discipline process where you go now.

They've they've sinned in public now.

You've got to go to them in public.

They don't just show up at church on Sunday and you're like, well, it's nothing.

Well, we're not gonna talk about that, right?

That was a rough weekend man.

Sorry about that.

No, no you you're approaching them.

And what are you approaching them with not like oh, I'm worried about how our church is gonna look.

No, no, I'm worried about our reputation or you're gonna make our pastor look bad.

No.

No, you what are you worried about the glory of Christ?

Right the Fundamental goal the chief goal of church.

This one is the glory and honor of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And so we want to see this center.

Restored and helped and man, we're gonna do everything we can to see that happen.

Now if he refuses then we also have an obligation and let me so now the second point commitment of the

church I'll just mention three quick points.

The first is we do this because we fear God.

Have you considered?

What it is?

For the Supreme God of the universe to tell you to do something and

You say no.

See we presume upon grace now I Praise God.

Would not be where I am today if not for the graciousness of our God.

He is so gracious and he's so good and he's so patient and he's so kind.

But I remind you of stories in the Bible like Uzzah.

You remember Uzzah?

Uzzah is walking and they think they have this great idea but Uzzah has this idea that as the Ark of

the Covenant, which is a representation of the presence of Yahweh and He's walking

behind the Ark of the Covenant, which they weren't supposed to be moving it this way anyway.

But that's another sermon.

He has this great idea that when the Ark of the Covenant is going to fall and it's gonna fall into the mud.

He's all he's gonna do.

Listen, would you put yourself in the man's spot?

This thing is about to fall.

This is representative of the presence of God.

It's about to fall in the mud.

What are you gonna do?

Stop it from falling?

And he does that and God kills him for it

because he desecrated the holiness of God.

Friends I tell us this morning and I've been guilty of it too in my family.

I mean, this is what sin is, right?

So in my family and my in my with my children with my wife with with the church at times.

We've all been guilty of God saying to do this thing and we've not done it or God saying not to do this thing.

And we've done it.

Anyway, what I'm saying is a church cares about church discipline because we fear God.

Secondly a church cares about church discipline because we trust God.

Now this is where I see a lot of places and I don't want this to be true of us a lot of places.

Introducing things that are smarter than God, right?

So, okay God, I understand.

This is how you are telling us.

But maybe you don't really understand the 21st century and man we really got is really kind of hard, you know.

You know Generation Z or or whatever.

It may be we got that.

It's really hard and in and if we do this, you know.

People outside of kind of look at us as like either weirdos or judgmental or mean and

so God.

We're gonna do another thing and the thing that we're gonna do it's this we're just not gonna do anything.

Is that okay?

When a church does that it shows that we don't trust God.

God hasn't given us these instructions so that we could Just

do them or not do them.

He's given these instructions to the church for our good.

Please hear me for our good.

The church is to walk with one another to confront sin with one another to walk in repentance with one another to

love one another.

To carry one another's burdens to be there for one another to help one another.

We're to be a family together in accordance with the with the scripture the way the Bible says it because God has given

these instructions for the church is good and When we disagree with the Bible

what we're saying is I don't trust you God.

And then thirdly because we fear God because we trust God.

Thirdly because we love the church.

Do you love the church?

It's easy to say right?

I love the church on potluck Sunday.

That's easy to say that's not today.

But Some of you like what?

No, it's easy, but I love the church love to eat.

It's good.

No.

No, I love the church enough To let them in my life

To point out sins in my life.

So that I can be a better pastor.

And I love the church enough to walk alongside them and to say to them.

Hey, brother.

Don't do it that way.

Hey sister, don't do it there because I love the church because I'm not gonna say, you know.

Imagine what would you say to a father who says look son?

My six -year -old son hadn't I've got all these grenades, you know, it would be really fun hadn't here's some

grenades.

Why don't you play with those?

That'd be a wicked father.

So too are we a wicked people to not care if our

brothers or sisters play with sin?

Okay, thirdly.

The rarity of church discipline.

The responsibility of church discipline.

Thirdly some of this will be reviewed, but I think it'll be helpful.

The reason for church discipline.

First and foremost the reason for church discipline is the glory of God.

Friends we talked about in Sunday school that

Christ gave himself to redeem a people

From all lawlessness and Who are zealous for good works?

I butchered that so much that I'm just gonna read it.

Titus 2.

Titus chapter 2 verse 11 says Jesus gave himself for us to redeem us

from all lawlessness and To purify for himself a people for his own possession.

Who are zealous?

For good works.

First and foremost the reason for church discipline is the glory of God.

We love church discipline because church discipline get this out of your mind church.

Discipline is not the Crusades church.

Discipline is not the Inquisition the even it should be very rare in church.

Discipline that someone actually gets removed from the role like there should be a lot more happening in church discipline without that.

There should be a lot of other things happening and people are being restored and people are repenting and and and there's beauty.

God Sometimes breaks us to show us beautiful things.

Sometimes God even allows sin to come into a situation so that we can learn from it so that we can

grow so that we can.

So it can be stronger that God is not the author of sin.

God has no fellowship with sin, but even he is sovereign over sin even allowing sin at times

so that we can learn and grow and love him all the more and so.

Discipline ultimately is about the glory of God.

Secondly discipline is about the purity of the church.

Christ listen friends.

Let this not just be a silly motto.

Just put it on a bumper sticker and that's all we care.

No Christ is worthy of a healthy church because when the

church is Doing discipline rightly then the church is pure.

She's not perfect, but she's pure.

She's seeking the purity now.

Listen this place.

I mean, I cannot stress this.

This is why we we we love this doctrine so much.

I cannot stress this enough this place.

Providence Baptist Church is a place for sinners.

It is a place for those who don't have it all together.

We if you're perfect, we don't want you to be part of this church.

You'll mess it up, right?

As you don't exist.

This is a place for sinners.

This is a place for broken people, but it's a place where

sinners come to be restored.

It's a it's a place where the broken come to be healed.

Would you love a drug rehab center?

That was like We love people coming here so that we can keep them dependent on drugs.

Like no, that's not your purpose.

Well, yes, the church is a hospital a hospital if you will for sinners.

So that they can be restored right so that they can grow

so that we can be Sanctified not so that we can remain as we were and so we care about

church discipline because we care about the purity of the church.

Thirdly and this may sound funny, but it's because we care about the unity of the church.

You understand that Paul's argument is in In First Corinthians

5 I was there earlier a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

His argument is a little bit of sin Within the body is

going to affect everyone.

I cannot tell you enough and some of you need to hear this you need to hear this very pointedly.

Your sin doesn't only affect you.

Well, I'm just looking at this stuff on the internet man.

Ain't nobody else know about it.

It don't matter.

First of all, God knows about it.

It don't matter if the church doesn't know about it.

It's still affecting the church sin in your marriage sin in the

home sin at work as we it's the difference between a Christian and non -christian is

not one sin and the other doesn't.

It's that Christians repent of their sins, so If you're living in secret or unrepentant sin,

it is affecting not just you it's affecting your home.

And it's affecting the church at large.

This is a terrible analogy terrible terrible terrible.

Forgive me.

Some of you'd be mad that even use this analogy.

But it's gonna fit and that is.

You're baking brownies.

And you're stirring up the batter you leave for a minute.

You're doing something you you see the the your little Four year

old is now stirring the batter.

It's so cute.

You know now they're stirring the batter and whatever.

And you notice the spoon that you were stirring with is gone, but now he's got a different spoon

stirring the batter.

Like son.

Why do you got this spoon?

Oh, I I had scooped up a little bit of dog poop this spoon.

And now I'm stirring the brownies with it.

It's just a little bit though.

No, no, there's a mom's getting mad.

No, no, mama.

No.

No, it was just a little it's only that much.

It's just a little bit.

Just just just a little bit.

What are you gonna do with those brownies?

Right, you're throwing them out.

I hope.

You're throwing them out.

Why?

Because they've been tainted the whole batter is messed up because

of just a little bit and same two friends with sin.

And if we allow sin in the church unchecked and uncared about.

It will ultimately breed disunity.

Thirdly fourthly, sorry the reason for church discipline.

Restoration and healing.

I've said this a lot, but I just really need to stress this.

In fact, would you please everyone please turn in your Bibles to Luke 17, please turn there because I need you to

see this Luke

17.

Luke 17

first what a great admonition in verse 3.

Pay attention to yourselves.

So if you hear this today and you're like like cuz cuz you're like, okay now we're all sheriffs.

And we're all gonna be in snooping on it.

No, no, first and foremost.

The admonition is to pay attention to who first and foremost yourself number one pay

attention to yourselves and if you ever see a brother or sister fall in sin and your first thought is

Ha that could never happen to me.

What a goofball you misunderstand the grace of God and the depravity of sin.

You need to remember if not for the grace of God there go I.

Okay.

So first pay attention to yourselves, but then listen to this if your brother sins rebuke him

and if he repents.

Rebuke him again.

No forgive him.

Okay, I can do that.

But I ain't doing it more than once he gets one pass.

Okay verse 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day and

turns to you seven times.

Saying I repent.

You can think about forgiving if your translation says that drop it in the trash.

Because that ain't what he says.

You must forgive.

Now we're not talking about Blatant abuse situations and blatant unrepentance, but

what we're talking about what Jesus is talking about here is There's gonna be a lot of sin and this isn't to depress

you.

There's gonna be a lot of sin in the church at times because we're sinners and we need to have a healthy

Understanding we need to have a culture here.

We need to pray that God would build a culture here that we really understand the gospel.

We say we understand the gospel.

But if we are really understand that the worst thing about me, you already know the worst thing about me.

You're like what tell me tell me I will tell you I'm so wretched the Son of God had to give his

life for me.

That's the worst thing about me and we begin to understand one another we say we Understand

that this is a church full of people who are meeting grace who are growing these things.

So we want to see we care about church discipline because we care about Restoration and we care about

healing and so When our brother or sister

repents.

Now again, I'm not talking about false repentance.

I'm not talking about Your donuts are on the on the on the bar and he takes one donut.

He's like, oh, I'm Hey, don't steal my donuts.

Oh, I'm sorry as he's taking the rest of your donuts, right?

He's like, I'm sorry.

No, no, we understand.

He's obviously not repentant at the same time.

1st Corinthians 13 says this about love.

Love hopes all things.

So if my brother sins against me and he tells me that he repents my

first inclination should be I'm going to believe this.

Until until he proves me other like, you know, the idea of innocent until proven guilty.

That's not just a cool like court thing from the United States like that has a biblical precedent.

You understand if my brother looks at me and says I repent then until he proves me.

Otherwise because he may be wrong.

He may just be saying he repents, right?

That is true.

True.

Repentance is going to bear what?

Fruit you don't see true repentance in a single moment of time.

But you see true repentance over the course of time in the course of life.

But as he tells me I repent is my responsibility.

I'm not making this up.

This is what Jesus says.

It's my responsibility to forgive him.

Unless he does it eight times in a day.

Right, that's not what that's not what the Lord is saying.

He's not saying okay, you keep you a little checkbook and on the eighth time you've done No.

The point is we say how many times do I got to be gracious?

Friends, I'm just going to tell you that you've never been more gracious to a sinner in your life.

Then God has been gracious to you.

And so we care about church discipline because we care about our brothers and sisters restoring them helping them

walking alongside them and then.

Finally, let's make sure it didn't happen.

Monty said when I said finally he was gonna stand up and say hallelujah, but finally.

The beauty of the church friends.

I'm gonna say this quick I really time honestly got away from me there.

So let me just say this and I will conclude the plane will land.

The church is the most beautiful place on earth.

It is a foretaste of heaven it is a group of goofballs.

Outcasts.

Sinful people that God has redeemed by his sovereign

grace.

And put together in a family I'll just be frank and blunt with you.

I didn't sit down and choose you to be part of this family.

And you didn't sit down and choose one another.

But God in his sovereign wisdom and goodness.

Shows us to be together and I couldn't have picked a better thing.

So I praise God from whom all blessings.

Let's pray Father help us to love the church.

To see her beauty to be committed to her

health.

To do the hard things and the necessary things for the glory of Christ.