If you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 18. This morning we're in verses 15 through 17. We're returning to our study in Matthew after celebrating the resurrection last week. And it's a return to Jesus' teaching in this chapter about our relationships with other Christians.
A few weeks ago in verses 5 to 9, Jesus pointed out to us the problem of stumbling. With a warning not to cause other people to stumble, and a caution that the world seeks to cause us to stumble, and we may even be a cause of stumbling to ourselves. And then last week following that verses 10 to 14, Jesus spoke of those who've gone astray. That is they have stumbled and veered off the course.
And Jesus said very clearly, we are not to despise them. We're not to look down on them or treat them as if they're worthless for three reasons we noted. Because they're angels always see the face of their Father in heaven. And because, well, God is a shepherd, Jesus in fact is the good shepherd.
He looks for one lost among a hundred to rescue that one. And because as well of the will of God the Father, it's not his will that any of his little ones, any of his people should perish. Now it's a temptation for all of us though to look at sheep who've gone astray, maybe they've stumbled badly, and a temptation to look down our nose at them and to treat them as if they're insignificant or they're worthless or, well, their Christian life in this world is over. There's really no hope for them.
We're not to do that because of their guardian angels and because of the good shepherd and because of the will of God the Father. Now Jesus here in the passage before us presses in even further because it just might be that those who have stumbled and gone astray have sinned against us as they have done so. They may be a person who sinned certainly against the Lord and stumbled, but in doing so and sinning against Him they may have sinned against us too. But whatever the case, what do you do?
How should we treat members of the church, members of the visible body of Christ who are walking away or in a far country who have, it feels like gone to war with us instead of living at peace with us in the Lord? What should we do? Well, we should seek their repentance before God, for their good. And we should seek their repentance and forgiveness from us then so that our relationship can be one of peace together.
We should seek to be reconciled Jesus. And how do we do that? That's what He speaks to in Matthew chapter 18 verses 15 through 17. And so let me invite you to consider the words of our Lord Jesus.
Matthew 18 verse 15, 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, then 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. Amen. This is God's holy word. Let's look at him in prayer.
Father, in heaven, teach us, be gracious to us, help us to be a help to one another, even to speak the truth in love to one another. So help us to understand our responsibility in Jesus' name. Amen. So Jesus here speaks of the very frank reality of Christians continuing to sin against one another.
And sometimes it really hurts. Sometimes it's just a little stepping on the toes and love covers a multitude of sins. Sometimes you really get kicked in the shin. And it's a problem and a problem that ought to be dealt with.
And sometimes the person who kicks you, so to speak, doesn't want to deal with it. They're hard-hearted about it. Their ears are stopped. They won't listen.
They can't be persuaded. And yet it's so serious. What do we do? Well, Jesus institutes a process to follow for their good and your mutual reconciliation.
He doesn't want us to despise, as we said, other believers or treat them with contempt or scorn or simply dismiss them. Let them go their own way. Write them off. No.
No, engage with them. And he does so because of love. I was reading about some well-known speaker who started off a seminar holding up a $20 bill in the room of 200 people. Hey, who would like the $20 bill?
And hands go up, of course. I'm going to give this 20 to one of you. But first let me do this. And then he proceeded to crumple the $20 bill.
And then he asked, well, who still wants it? It's still the hands were in the air. Well, what if I do this? And he dropped it on the ground and he started to grind it on the floor under his shoe.
Then he picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. Now who still wants it? Still hands went up in the air. My friends, he said, we've all learned a valuable lesson.
No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. And many times in our lives were dropped, crumpled and grounded into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. And we may feel as though we are worthless, but no matter what has happened or what will happen, we never lose our value.
Dirty or clean, crumpled or finally creased, you are still, and this is how the speaker put it, you are still priceless to those who love you. Now turning it to the church. Jesus says, I love my sheep. If one goes astray, like a good shepherd, I'll leave 99 to go find them because I love them.
So then you also love them, love them and treat them in love with this process, a four fold process of reconciliation. It's both personal and ecclesiastical. Notice the four steps Jesus lays out. That's the outline.
The first step is what? Verse 15. If we've been sinned against, we should, he says, go to the person personally and privately. Verse 15, 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. Some of us immediately are saying, yeah, I don't know about this. Confronting other people. I mean, we know in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7, Jesus said, judge not that you be not judged.
For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you. And Jesus very famously said, why do you see the spec that's in your brother's eye, but do not know there's the law that's in your own? How can you say to your brother, let me take the spec out of your eye.
When there's a law in your own eye, you hypocrite. First take the law out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the spec out of your brother's eye. And we read that, and we just hear, don't judge others, and don't be a hypocrite. And some then think, so I will never dare to talk to another person about their sin.
But that's not what Jesus is saying in Matthew 7. He is asking us to do self-examination before we go to another, to not come hypocritically, of course, but to come in humility, realizing that we are all sinners. My college camper pastor did a great job at this, forgive me, I think recently I mentioned this, but it's just stuck with me for 25 or more years. When he wanted to confront you, he'd sit you down, and first he would say, you know that I love you, right?
And you were like, yes, I know that you love me, and I know it's coming next. You've got something you want to say to me. And he would. And in my case, he said, I've noticed that you and I are a lot alike.
I was like, oh, really? Yeah, I struggle with procrastination, and I've noticed that you do too. And we had a very productive, helpful conversation about a sin that I continued to struggle with 25 years later. But I really appreciated that gently and lovingly.
Not with a log in his own eye, but out of a genuine care and concern for me, he saw that this sin was a problem, and it was problematic in my relationships with others, working on teams and such. And it is a problem. And anyway, the point is, he didn't come off as self-righteous or condescending. He spoke the truth in love, out of love, for my benefit.
And that's what Jesus is saying, we ought to do here. We ought to so love one another, so care about their sinful patterns and actions, and want to see them forgiven, and reconciliation and peace between us, want them right before the Lord that we talk to them. But what should be our approach? How should we go about it?
Well, notice Jesus says you should do it in private. You begin that way. Verse 15, if your brother sins against you, tell him his fault between you and him alone. But sin should be confronted privately.
Public sins may be confronted publicly. An example of a public sin being confronted publicly would be, well, you remember when the Apostle Paul confronted the Apostle Peter, when decades after Jesus had risen from the dead, Peter had caved under the pressure of the Judaizers, who in their legalism as Jewish Christians would not eat with Gentile Christians, because they said those people are unclean, unclean to us. And Peter, rather than eating with both the Jewish and the Gentile Christians, had separated himself, and the Apostle Paul rebuked him to his face and publicly, because it was so publicly scandalous. I mean, it struck at the very heart of the gospel and at the heart of the unity of the church, and it was a very public sin for which Peter needed to repent.
Some public sins need to be rebuked publicly, of course. But many sins are private and personal between two people, and we in love ought to deal privately with those things. And here, Jesus says, you know, go to them. Go to them.
Talk to them. One on one. That will maintain their dignity. It will keep you from seeking to use public shame as a first resort to get them to repent.
Private sins can be confessed privately, whereas public sins ought to be confessed publicly. Now, what should your attitude be when you approach someone about their sin? What kind of attitude should we have? Relations chapter 1 says, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.
Keep watching yourself lest you two be tempted. Be gentle and beware. Be gentle first. You're to seek to help them, not hurt them.
You're not there to break things. You're there to heal things, to mend things. You seek their restoration not to repulse them, but to draw them when I first started out in vocational ministry. Actually, as a young man right out of college doing high school ministry, he totally clueless, barely knew what I was supposed to be doing.
I was living at the time with a former pastor of the church where I was serving. One morning, Dr. Kirk, that was his name, called me into his study, which was this beautiful garden rock wall with glass. Amazing.
Indoor room. And he called me in. He was sitting down. He told me something that was true about me that made me feel not that not his approach, but I was just ashamed about it.
I was ashamed of myself, but I also was mad that he brought it up. And I kind of stormed off and I went for a long walk. And I knew he was right, but I just couldn't handle it. I got back only to discover Dr.
Kirk in tears. And I came up to me and said, I know that I hurt you. I didn't mean to hurt you. And his whole approach was right on.
But my acceptance of it, it took a little time to come around. What he did was he treated me with respect and gentleness and kindness. It sure made it hard to be hard-hearted towards him or to stay that way after that. We're to come gently, but we're also to beware.
Beware of ourself. Galatians 6, keep watch on yourself lest you two be tempted. You're not above falling into the same sins as other sinners. So if you're going to speak to them about their sin, be careful.
Know yourself. Beware, be humbly dependent upon the Lord that you don't be tempted by the very thing. You're speaking in candor with them concerning. And what's your ultimate goal here?
Well, back in Matthew chapter 1815, Jesus says, if he listens to you, you have gained your brother. This is the goal. To win them. To win them over.
Right? Not to drive them away. When King David, very famously you remember, took Bathsheba into his bed committing adultery with her and then had her husband murdered essentially so that he could be with her and cover up his child that was. He was hard-hearted and didn't see the evil of what he had done, certainly was not repentant and at life for many, many months.
And then in 2 Samuel chapter 12, we read that the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to David and he came to him and said to him, he told him a story. There were two men in a certain city, one rich and one poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little lamb which he had bought. And he brought it up and grew up with him and his children.
He used to eat his morsel and drink from his cup and line his arms. It was like a daughter to him. You know how a family pet can be. It was special.
Now there came a traveler to the rich man and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guests who had come to him. So he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. And then David hearing that story, his anger was greatly kindled against the man and he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die and he shall restore the lamb for full because he did this thing, because he had no pity. And Nathan said to David, you are the man.
David, you could, as King, have had any woman you wanted and frankly he had. You took one man's one wife. You're the man, David. And you despised the word of the Lord to do evil in his sight.
And David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. The wisdom of Nathan's approach, telling a story that got David involved. David, you come around to be on the right side of the issue only to be told that you're the wrong side of the sin. Well, it humbled him.
Nathan won him over is what we're saying. And then Nathan said to David, the Lord also has put away your sin. You shall not die. So he confronts him for his sin.
And when David repented, Nathan comforted him with the gospel of forgiveness. That's how we should confront one another. But what if the person won't listen? What if they won't repent?
You gain no traction at all. It falls on deaf ears. Well, Jesus says there's a second thing you should do, verse 16. If they won't listen to you, you should take others along.
Notice this language verse 16. But if he doesn't listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. So if they just won't hear what you're saying, well, Jesus says, first of all, seek to be just in your dealings with them. Before you run off to tell the world what they did and how they won't repent, no, no, no.
Justice says go with others and establish it on the testimony of two or three witnesses. But of course, the point of the two or three isn't first of all to be witnesses against them. So you can then go tell it publicly. The point is with the other one or two, you're impressing upon them the seriousness of this issue.
This is a real thing. It's kind of a big deal. It's a genuine problem. And these other two or three hearing it, knowing about it perhaps can affirm, yeah, you can't ignore this.
That's the point. You're trying again to win them over. But you are doing it in a just way, in a way that's right and not wrong or unjust. That is, in accord with Deuteronomy 19, verse 15, Jesus is referencing that.
A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong connection with any offense that he's committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses shall they charge be established. Don't think about the American system of justice for a second. One witness and all kinds of corroborating evidence and DNA.
They didn't have that stuff. We're not talking about all that. But here, generally speaking, a couple of witnesses establishes the truth of a matter or three. And so you're seeking to do that because your goal is to be fair to the accused and then your effort is not to pile on but to win them.
And so yes, you started out privately one on one and now your circle has expanded a little bit. And now an element not only of personal repentance is involved but the possibility of ecclesiastical judicial process. Not civil judicial process or criminal judicial process. And I'm not saying, Jesus isn't saying you never take criminal things to the proper authorities.
Yes, you do. We're talking about things within the church that aren't criminal here. But do involve the possibility of an ecclesiastical church based judicial process to seek to bring somebody to repentance. And that's the next step in fact.
Step three, if they won't listen to two or three people, take it to the church. And he means for judicial action, verse 17. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. Make it not just a personal and private issue, but now make it an ecclesiastical issue with the church involved.
Now some people think by telling it to the church, Jesus means that you should call a meeting of the congregation and air all the details of their dirty laundry publicly. We don't think you have to read that this way. In our system of government as press paturians, we think this doesn't mean that every detail has to be announced to every member of the church, but that the representatives of the church should now become involved. That is, take it to those who represent the church in her shepherding function and her disciplining function.
That is, take it to the shepherds of the church, the elders and pastors of the church who on behalf of the whole church, get involved. Get involved because that's what they're there for, to help resolve problems between believers, to call sinners to repentance and faith, to help apply the promises of the gospel, to issues of sin, to help shepherd people to follow the chief shepherd, Jesus. So in our context here in press, we don't mean Jesus means you should stand up during prayer request time five minutes before worship begins, when I call for prayer requests, stand up, point down the pew as I tell the members and call somebody out for their sin, publicly shaming them in front of everybody. We think that would be counterproductive as frankly would, and maybe worse so in some ways, circulating accusatory emails or something around the congregation, which I have never heard of happening here, but I know that it's happened in other places.
We don't think that's what Jesus means here either. So get the shepherds, the under shepherds of the sheep involved because they're the ones who can actually bring the bear, church discipline. Now I will say here, Redeemer, your elders are not eager to be involved in cases of judicial church discipline. There is no zeal here to be involved in cases like this, and we're not eager because our elders love you, and they want you to walk with Jesus, and they never want things to come up between you and the Lord and you and other people where you could be charged with some sort of specific public and scandalous sin that rises to the level of the church actually needing to discipline you.
We're not eager for that because we're eager for your health and all this it will be in happiness, walking in peace with others. But our elders do get involved at times because they are eager to love, and they want to be faithful to the process that Jesus institutes here. It takes great patience, takes great prayerfulness. It always has the goal of reclaiming a straining sheep and protecting God's flock and honoring God's name.
And so I tell folks in new member interviews, you know if you become a member here at Aemir, you should know that we seek to follow the steps of Matthew 18 for your good, for the glory of God, and for the health and well-being of the rest of the congregation. I mean you can imagine if churches just let anything go and never confront any kind of sin, new believers, young believers, those who aren't mature in Christ may become wildly confused about what's acceptable around here, what kind of behavior God countences or smiles upon as opposed frowns upon. No, no, we need to help people see that there are things you need to repent of, not continue in, and that's for the good of other believers. And so in this kind of a situation, but then what if they won't listen to the church?
Step four, it's interesting, I think every commentator I read said there are three steps, but therefore the third step is to take the church, go privately, take one or two, go to the church, and then if they don't listen to the church, step four, treat them as you would attack, select, or other, I think in the mind sometimes commentators just think, well they're not going to listen to the church, so this is all just part of step three. No, the hope is they will listen to the church. And if not immediately, then eventually. I was also struck by one of my favorite commentators on Matthew, faithful is the day as long, but for whatever reason, I mean he almost always sits the nail on the head.
He said, well this person is not to be treated with compassion. And I just scratched my head. Well, when do we ever not treat people with compassion? That doesn't mean we play games or we play pretend.
Tough love is love and it's tough, but why would it be without compassion on a strange center who seems to be at this level of discipline going on their way, apparently, to hell, by their refusal to repent? No, no, no, we're to treat them like we would a tax collector or a Gentile. And how did Jesus treat them? Well, think who's writing this book?
It's Matthew, the tax collector. Where did Jesus find him? He found him when he was serving as a tax collector on the crossroads of foreign trade with Israel, collecting as a Jew from other Jews, important export taxes on behalf of the Roman Empire, and everybody, every other Jew would have said that guy's a traitor. He's taken our money for the Romans and they would have also looked at him as a thief, whether Matthew himself was or not, as beyond the point.
But the tax collector was the fastest way to get rich in that day to skim off the top. Well, anyway, it was to this guy that Jesus came along and said, come, follow me. That's the message we are to have for those who even refuse to listen to the church as we have interaction with them. Say, come, follow Jesus.
You haven't been. You've turned away or maybe you never really ever got started. But now follow him. And so you treat them as you with a Gentile.
Jesus here speaking in the language of, well, his disciples are Jews, so he's having them think in terms of the Jew and Gentile international divide. Treat them as a person who's not part of this covenant community of faith. But invite them to genuinely join it. I mean, did not Jesus go out of his way in the gospels, even this gospel, to show his Jewish disciples that the gospel was for the Jew and the Gentile.
We think of all the examples. Chapter eight, he goes to the Roman centurion. He goes to two Gentile demon possessed men by the lake. And chapter 15, he goes to the Syrophoenician woman.
She's a Canaanite Gentile in the Gentile area of Tyre and Sidon. And he shows her mercy. So what are we to do? We're to care about the state of the soul of folks who want to listen to the church.
Don't completely write them off, even as the church imposes discipline. But treat them as life they are a person who is not a Christian, not a believer in Christ, not a member in good standing in the body of Christ, because their faith appears to be spurious, appears to be based as evidence is consistent with it. They have a hard heart and an unrepented disposition. They certainly ought not come to the Lord's supper and pretend otherwise.
And the church shouldn't pretend that their members in good standing when they're clearly not. Now could elders of the church be wrong in its exercise of church discipline? Certainly. Could we be mistaken?
Man sees and looks at the hour of appearance the Lord looks on the heart. The Lord knows better than anybody what's really going on with a person, whether they're on the trajectory of a Judas or they're on the trajectory of a Peter, both of whom failed Jesus spectacularly. And the Lord does know the end of an outcome of that. And elders of the church don't always know.
So what do you do? You say, come follow Jesus. We want you in the church. We want you to walk with Jesus.
We want to fellowship with you. You apparently need to genuinely sincerely believe in Him with a soft and not a hard heart. But we don't want them to be fooled. We don't want them to fool themselves thinking it's okay.
And we don't want to fool others by suggesting it's fine. But seek their salvation. You know, just a short story and a couple of pages before talking. When Dr.
Dick tuning was alive and some of you know him from when he was an elder covenant in Fayetteville. Some of you know his son Jeff tuning, he was likewise an elder there. And Dr. tuning was also involved here in the JBU University community at one time.
He's now home with the Lord. And in any case, one of us not Jeff had grown up more theology-ly interested than any of the others. You know, all the right Bible verses? He was really into all the right doctrine.
And then somewhere in his later youth, he went off the deep end as it were in rebellion. Some of you know this story, I've told it some years ago. And he refused the entreaties of his parents and others. And so his dad, Dr.
and elder Dick tuning brought his son to the elders, to the church to be disciplined. Discipline that eventually through Matthew 18 led up to the point and threw into excommunication. So hard was his son's heart. Then at some point along the way, his son went riding.
I think it was on like a dune buggy type thing or something like that. He rolled it. He flipped it. He broke his neck.
And if I remember correctly, he became I think a quadriplegic. And Dr. tuning, hearing of the accident rushed to his side at the hospital. Having father, of course, also caring for his soul.
But before he could even really say much at all, his son said to him, it's okay, dad. Jesus and I have made our peace. Between the accident and the hospital bed and his dad's arrival, his neck had been broken. Yes, but his hard heart had been broken too.
And he had repented of his sin and been reconciled to his savior. And though the effects of that accident certainly remained permanent in this life, of course, that son would tell you it was worth it. He was glad that coming home to Jesus was most important and the greatest blessing. And of course, there's the promise and hope of the resurrection of the body into wholeness and health to you.
What I'm saying is, you know, sometimes the Lord uses the disciplinary process of the church to turn sinners from the way of death. Sometimes God uses his own other means. Either way, the goal is to reclaim strange sheep, to seek the lost and to win them, not kick them in the shins on the way out the door. Would you love them like a person who's not in Christ?
So it's important then, and we'll close with this. It's important then that we remember that the church institutes discipline not to punish her people, but out of loving concern. That is to say, our book of church order puts it this way in chapter 27 verse 4, the power which Christ is given the church is for building up and not for destruction. It is to be exercised under a dispensation of mercy and not of wrath.
In other words, we're not in the business of punishing people for their sins. Now I know in the history of the church, we've gotten this wildly wrong at times. We've even used civil means. We've used the sword to try to coerce people to repent and punish them for going astray, which is absurd, is absurd.
We're not in the business as a church of punishing people for their sins. We don't punish anybody for their sins. Why? Because either Jesus was punished for their sins thoroughly and completely for every last one on their behalf or else God himself in his own time will give them the just desserts due to them for their sin.
We don't punish people, but we do have a responsibility to discipline disciples in love, aiming at their correction. It's not retributive justice. It's treating them with grace and patience, speaking the truth in love and in love, speaking the truth to them because we have a Savior who we invite them to believe in, who offers them complete, total forgiveness of all of their rebellions and straying and stumbling. And it's to that Savior we call them and it's that Savior we offer to you.
Let's pray.