WWUTT 2051 Church Discipline (Matthew 18:15-17)

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Jesus said, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst.

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That's a really popular verse and you've often heard it applied to prayer meetings. But there's a different context going on there when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Matthew, we are in chapter 18 and coming to a very popular passage today, but one that is seldom practiced.

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This is Matthew 18 verses 15 to 20, which I'm reading from the Legacy Standard Bible.

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Hear the word of the Lord. Now, if your brother sins, go and show him his fault between you and him alone.

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If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed.

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And 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 the

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Gentile and the tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

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Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by my

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Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in my name,

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I am there in their midst. That last verse there, you have probably heard to promote a church's prayer gathering.

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Maybe you've seen it on a flyer or on their social media ad. Come and join us for prayer on such and such a night for where two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus, there he is in their midst.

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But as you've just heard that verse now in context with verses 15 to 20, what are we really talking about here?

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This passage is about church discipline. Now you will find this passage cited in many church bylaws.

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There are many churches out there that will say this is the standard that they will follow for church discipline.

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It might be written in their bylaws or in their constitution or statement of faith or something like that, but does the church really practice it?

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And if they say they practice it, do they follow it correctly? Does such a church that teaches on church discipline, do they acknowledge that there's more than just this instruction concerning church discipline?

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This is but one instruction and it's a four step process, which we'll go through here in just a moment.

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There's another instruction concerning discipline. That's a three step process. And yet another one, that's a two step process.

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What am I talking about? And where are these passages? We will get there, but first let's do an exposition of our text for today.

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I'm not going to quite get all the way through it. So verses 18 to 20, we'll save for tomorrow and we'll talk a little bit more about church polity tomorrow, church governance as well.

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So coming back to verse 15, it says here, now, if your brother sins, go and show him his fault.

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You're probably used to hearing this. If your brother sins against you, and that translation is correct,

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I don't know why the legacy standard omitted the words against you, but those words do actually appear in the most original

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Greek, the, the new American standard, the legacy standard, and the new international version.

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Those three translations do not include the words against you. It's just if your brother sins, but this is where the

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English standard gets it right. Along with the Christian standard, the new King James, they put the phrase, if your brother sins against you, and that's the correct rendering of this text.

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If your brother sins, go and show him his fault. So we're not really talking about any and all sin.

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If you see a brother sinning, then you must now put him through this process of engaging with your brother and confronting that sin.

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Because as I said, there are other processes of church disciplines that are given, and even the sins for which those processes should apply.

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Like I said, we'll get to that here in just a moment. So this is specifically with regards to a brother that sins against you.

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There are sins that are greater than just simply an offense that has been brought to you by a brother or sister in the

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Lord, and sins that need to be dealt with on a different level. Like, for example, if somebody's teaching heresy, this isn't just a matter where you're now going to put him through that four -step process of church discipline, where it's,

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I'm going to go to him and engage with him one -on -one. That's step one. If he won't listen to me,

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I'm going to take one or two others along. That's step two. If he won't listen to them, we'll bring it to the church. That's step three.

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And if you won't listen to the church, well, then he's going to be excommunicated. That's step four.

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Okay, there's the four -step process. But with regards to heresy, there's a different process by which those things need to be handled.

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And if somebody in church were to assault somebody else, like right in the middle of service,

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I mean, would you go to that guy alone and say, hey man, we all saw what you did, but I'm just going to engage you one -on -one here and just kind of have a conversation with you.

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And if you repent, well, then I don't have to bring one or two others along. This was publicly in view of everybody else.

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There's no longer a need for a private one -on -one conversation. Everybody saw what happened.

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So this isn't some private sin that has taken place. It's now a public sin that's obviously going to be dealt with on a different process, on a different level than if someone sins against you.

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So this is the context of this pattern of discipline here. If someone has sinned against you, you go and show him his fault between you and him alone.

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Now, I think that you could also apply this if you see your brother sinning against somebody else, but nobody confronts him.

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Go and do it between you and him alone. You may even want to check with the other person that he sinned against.

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Did I see this right? Do you want me to confront the person? Something like that.

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It's a case -by -case basis. It doesn't always have to be handled exactly the same way.

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But maybe you see this guy doing a sin to somebody else, and so you go to your brother and you confront him one -on -one.

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If he listens to you, then you have won your brother.

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Now this process of church discipline, it begins with this private confrontation. It's between you and him alone,

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Jesus says. So between the two of you together alone means that we're not bringing in all kinds of people into this thing.

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This further speaks to the fact that we're talking about something personal, something one -on -one. So this isn't, you know, you caught this guy embezzling money from his company or something like that.

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That probably needs to be reported to his company. But this is something where he has sinned against you.

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You don't want to involve a whole lot of people in this. Let's just handle this ourselves. And you go to your brother with this offense, this sin that he has done, and if he repents of that sin, then that's the end of the matter.

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There's no need for anyone else to be involved. And when we get to the end of this, we get to the end of this passage concerning church discipline.

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Peter asks a question about how often should I forgive my brother? So that's the parable on forgiveness that we see in the last portion of the chapter verses 21 to 35.

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We'll get to that on Wednesday. So you got this situation where a guy is consistently offending you.

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How often should you forgive him? As Jesus points out, 70 times, seven times. In other words, you are not keeping track of it at all.

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If he asks forgiveness, if he's genuinely repentant from the heart, then you forgive your brother and you continue on.

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So you have this private confrontation that takes place at first between you and him alone, not involving anybody else, not trying to make a spectacle out of it, not trying to embarrass him.

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And if he listens to you, you have won your brother. And this is a very charitable, very gracious way to handle this kind of disagreement.

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Not everything needs to have a federal case made out of it. In fact, if you're the kind of a person that whenever somebody offends you, you need to broadcast it, whether it's involving a whole lot of people or going to social media with it before you go to this other brother or something like that.

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Well, then you're all about yourself. And as Jesus said back in Matthew, chapter six, when you want other people's attention and that's what you get, then you've received your reward in full.

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And that's as much as you're going to get. You will get no recognition from your father who is in heaven. In fact, as you go on there in Matthew, chapter six, after the

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Lord's prayer, you have that statement from Jesus where he says that if you forgive others, their trespasses, your heavenly father will forgive you.

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But if you do not forgive others, their trespasses, neither will your father forgive you your trespasses.

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So if you're the kind of a person who is not interested in resolving these things quietly, but rather you broadcast it and get the sympathy of others, get others to throw up their fists with you and go, yeah, you have a right to be angry.

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That guy wronged you. Well, you're probably not about true justice. You're definitely not about the father's justice.

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You're trying to do justice on your own terms, in your own ways to gain the sympathy of others.

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And if that's what you're out to do, then that's what you're going to get. And that's all you're going to get. You're certainly, you certainly don't have your father in heaven who is on your side.

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You don't have Jesus on your side, jumping to verse 20, where two or three have gathered together in my name.

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There I am in their midst. Are you doing what Jesus has instructed you to do with regards to when a brother or sister in the

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Lord sins against you? So if you go to one another privately, and if your brother or sister listens to you, you've won, you've won your brother.

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The matter has been settled. No need to bring it up again. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed.

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Now, this is a reference to Deuteronomy 1915. This is a reference to the law where it is said that when a man is guilty of a crime, there must be two or three witnesses that are able to testify to the crime that this man is guilty and their testimonies have to agree.

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Deuteronomy 1915, a single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed at the mouth of two or three witnesses, a matter shall be established.

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Let me read that again. So I put the emphasis on the right syllable. OK, so again, verse 15, a single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed at the mouth of two or three witnesses.

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A matter shall be established. Two witnesses, that's sufficient. Three would be even better.

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Verse 16, if a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing, then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before Yahweh, before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days, and the judges shall inquire thoroughly and behold, if the witness is a false witness and he has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother.

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Thus you shall purge the evil from among you and the rest will hear and be afraid and you will never again do such an evil thing among you.

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Thus your eye shall not show pity. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, which is a statement of equal weights and measures.

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Whatever this wrong is that this person has done, he should have to pay back on the level of the wrong that he has committed.

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Don't let the penalty exceed the sin that he has done. Okay, that's that's simply the statement there with eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

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Jesus mentioned that back in Matthew five, but in no way does he overthrow the law of equal weights and measures.

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Rather, grace should still be exercised among brothers, not trying to to always be getting payback.

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But if you can forgive your brother, that is better before your father who is in heaven, because he has forgiven us of sins far greater than your brother has ever committed against you.

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The sins that you had committed against God, you deserve eternal destruction for you can't even do that to your brother who is sinned against you.

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Yet God has been gracious to you and through Jesus Christ who died on the cross for you and rose again from the dead.

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Our sins are forgiven and we've been reconciled to God and we have the promise of eternal life with God.

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So because he is gracious to us, we need to be willing to be gracious to one another.

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The law still applies here, and Jesus is taking from the Old Testament law and applying it to discipline the disciplinary process that happens in the church.

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And the purpose of this law in Israel has the same purpose in the church as well.

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It was to keep Israel pure. And so this matter of discipline in the church is also in the interest of purity, that the body would be holy, that we would be

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Christ honoring. And if there is a person that behaves in such a way, they love their sin, they're resistant to repenting of it, that person's not pure and he is a stain on the whole body.

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And so that person should be removed if he does not repent.

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It's often said of church discipline, and I've done this before too, so I understand why people say this. It's an easy thing to say.

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I've said likewise. But it's often said about church discipline that the intention is to get the brother or sister in the

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Lord to repent. Why would we excommunicate somebody? Because we want them to realize the seriousness of their sins so that they will repent of it and come back into fellowship with the body.

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But say that doesn't happen. Say the brother or sister that had to be removed from the church never repents.

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They never come back to that restoration process. I very seldomly see that happen anyway. In my 13 years of ministry,

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I can count on one hand the number of people that had to be put out of the church and actually came back into fellowship with the church.

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So that seldom happens. If it doesn't happen, did church discipline fail? No. What was supposed to be accomplished was still accomplished.

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The purity of Christ's bride. As the Apostle Paul says concerning discipline in 1

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Corinthians 5, purge the evil person from among you. Get out the old leaven so that you will be a new lump unto the

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Lord. We are supposed to be holy. The Apostle Paul talking about putting out false teachers when he writes to Timothy.

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He says those false teachers spread like gangrene, meaning that they are infecting parts of the body, even causing them to rot and fall off.

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So get those wicked men out that the body may be healed. And so that is the purpose of church discipline, that Christ's bride would be holy.

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We would certainly hope that the person that has to be removed is going to repent of their sin and therefore be restored.

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We should certainly desire for that to take place. We're not vengefully or angrily trying to put somebody out of the church so that this place will be better once that guy or that gal is out of here.

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It's a painful process. We should mourn over that whenever we have to go through it. The desire would certainly be that that person would be restored to the body, that they would repent and come back into fellowship.

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But if that happens, if that doesn't happen, the process of church discipline has not failed.

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And so hearkening back to the law, the same intention for Israel that is the intention for the church.

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Jesus says, may every charge be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses by the mouth of two or three witnesses.

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Every fact may be confirmed. And you might notice from that passage that I read,

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Deuteronomy 19, 15 to 21, same four step process right there that we're reading about here in Matthew 18.

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And notice where we read there in Deuteronomy 19, that when two or three witnesses get involved, those two or three witnesses establish which person was in the wrong and which person was in the right.

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This is not the person who has been wrong, bringing two or three witnesses along to get those witnesses on their side.

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And I've seen that step, the second step of church discipline play out exactly like that so many times.

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It's not that the two or three witnesses actually see and observe and can testify and verify to the wrong that has been done.

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It's that this person who brings two or three witnesses along is just trying to get more people on their side.

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And those witnesses can't actually witness or verify the wrong that has taken place.

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They've just been one to the side of the person who's claiming the offense. And I've had this happen to me.

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There was somebody one time that accused me of something that wasn't true. There were no witnesses to it whatsoever.

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This accusation was just made up. And so this woman who was accusing me of lying, she came and appeared before all of the elders, myself included.

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We're all sitting there together. And she accused me of this wrong, which the elders said, we've tested Gabe based on the accusation that you're bringing against him.

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And we don't find any wrong in him. Can you produce two or three witnesses? And so she tried to do that, just convincing people onto her side.

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And the only people she was able to convince were people that weren't even in our church. So she's trying to bring people from outside into the accusation and say, see,

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I've convinced these two people. And here are my witnesses that can verify that Gabe did this wrong thing.

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Well, the elders thought that was absolutely absurd. So of course, that got thrown out. That's not the only time that's happened to me.

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That's just the one that's sticking out in my mind. So you'll have these persons that they just try to convince others to their side.

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And they will believe that counts as two or three witnesses. Well, these witnesses are there to confirm, here's the wrong.

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Here's the person who's done the sin. Now we as witnesses, as three are coming to this person who has done the wrong and we're asking him to repent.

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And if he's not going to repent, then you go to step three. If he refuses to listen to them, then tell it to the church.

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And you'll notice here, the progression of discipline, more and more people are getting involved.

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It was just one on one at first, then two or three witnesses came along. He's refusing to witness or he's refusing to listen to rather these continued attempts to get him to see his wrong and repent of it.

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And so it's evident that there's something going on with this guy's heart. And so now it's brought before the church.

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And if he will not listen to even the church, the whole church now is standing as witness to this and appealing to this man to repent of his sin.

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If he won't listen to the church, let him be to you. As the

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Gentile, you have the definite article that's used there, the Gentile and the tax collector.

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The Gentile is a pagan. This is a person who's not a believer, a person who's not part of the church at all.

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The tax collector is the traitor. He's a person who, in the eyes of the Jews, is supposed to be a

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Jew like us, but he's defected to the other side. He's working for the Romans. And instead, he's praying off of who are supposed to be his kin.

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And so both were disgusting in the eyes of the Jews, the Gentile who is the pagan, the tax collector who is the traitor.

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And that's the way that you consider the person who will not repent of their sin, who continues in a way of Satan rather than in the way of Christ.

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He's not among you. And so therefore he is to be put out from you, removed from the church.

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This is the four step process that I was talking about here. We're just getting through verse 17 today.

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So you've seen those four stages. You go to him one on one. You bring along two or three witnesses.

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You tell it to the church at step three. And then if you won't even listen to the church, then he's to be excommunicated.

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And that's the fourth step. Now, like I said to you, there are two other disciplinary processes that that have various steps, varying steps that are even less than these four steps that we've been given here in Matthew 18.

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This is someone who has sinned against you. But when it comes to a person who is teaching heresy, like I said, heresy is a different matter that that has to be handled on a different level.

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There is a three step process. And we see this process in Titus chapter three, beginning in verse nine, avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and conflicts about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.

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So you're you're seeing there different kinds of false teaching, foolish controversies, genealogies, strife, conflicts about the law, unprofitable and worthless.

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Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and sinning, being self condemned.

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You've heard this passage before, but probably didn't realize that it's talking about false teachers, not just anybody in the church.

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So you've often heard it said you want a divisive person once you want him a second time. And after that, you have nothing to do with him knowing that such a person is warped and sinful.

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He is self condemned. But the word there for factious or divisive is the same word that we use for heresy.

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So you're talking about a man who is teaching falsely in such a way that is causing division and factions in the church.

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That's the context. And it's a three step process. You warn him once. There's step one.

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You warn him twice. There's step two. And then after that, you have nothing to do with him. You remove him from the church.

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That's step three. So with a matter concerning a teacher, you're going through a shorter process because as is said in James three, one, not many of you should aspire to become teachers, my brethren, because you know that teachers will be judged with greater strictness, especially in the church.

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But there is another process of church discipline. That's one step fewer than that.

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And that's the discipline that we see in first Corinthians chapter five. And Paul even names which sins that this particular discipline should apply to in verse eleven.

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So this is first Corinthians five eleven, he says. Now I am writing to you not to associate with any so -called brother.

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If he is a sexually immoral person or greedy or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one.

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For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Are you not to judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside,

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God will judge. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves. So here's the two step process.

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You confront that man in his sin, then you remove him. And that's it. That's the two steps.

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If a man is guilty of sexual immorality, this is not some private sin that you just keep between the two of you alone.

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That is a really serious sin and it needs to be dealt with on a more serious level than just this four step process of of personal offense that we have in Matthew chapter 18.

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We're going to consider that further tomorrow as I'm going to talk a little bit more about polity, which is church governance.

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And we'll come back to our passage here in Matthew chapter 18. We've got three more verses to get through.

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

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We'll pick up there tomorrow. Heavenly Father, as we wrap this up today, I pray that our desire would be to honor and glorify you in all that we do, even when it comes to the purity of your church, the way that we engage with one another out of love and grace and care for each other.

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We care for a person that is in sin. That's why we would confront them in their sins so that they would not continue on this path that could lead to their destruction if they don't repent.

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And so give us a willingness to do what is right according to your word.

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It's not about our personal opinions about a matter. It is being submissive to what

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Christ has said for his church. So we consider these things. We take them to heart.

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We love the brethren and we honor Christ. Forgive us our sins and help us to forgive those who sin against us.

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In Jesus name, amen. For more about our ministry, visit us online at www .utt