WHAT

It can feel really good of saying that that our church family loves discipleship. We love sending people to the nations and telling people the good news of Jesus and making more disciples who make more disciples.

We are all about the multiplication here.

You have all the right church lingo that seeks to take seriously the commission from Jesus in Matthew 28:19

Matthew 28:19–20 (ESV)

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you….”

And don’t get me wrong!

Glory be to God for churches who take this Great Commission seriously.

This commission is indeed what we should orient our church around and seek out to go and MAKE DISCIPLES.

And to do well for God’s Kingdom in teaching our congregants to observe all that Jesus commanded!

BUT… what many churches so often are unconsciously telling you in between the lines there that we are really good at Bible study. “

We’re really great at prayer gatherings.

We’re really great at fellowships… you should see the spread on the table when we do our world famous potluck lunches that everybody hears about.

So often… when church says they’re great at discipleship… what can be diagnosed after a few direct questions is that…

——>really this church is spiritually constipated because of a lack of spiritual exercise through biblical church discipline.

I was able to play a season of college football at Howard Payne University… Which it sounds really cool when you get to say I played a season of college football until you get to the Howard Payne University Part, and you look up at how horrendous historically HPU has been at football. (I love my college by the way… we’re just bad at football.)

Anyways… during my playing time at HPU I remember there being a significant step up from the study that was required of me at a HS level and what was required of me at a D3 college level.

In this subject of church discipline… it would have been crazy of me to say to the football coaches… “hey I really just want to study for the game… but you know all that practice… that’s really not for me. It hurts… it’s hard…I sweat too much when I come out there…”

I would rather just stay over here with my notes and watch, observe how the others deal with the different situations on the field.

—->>>this would have gotten me kicked off the team faster than I could retract my statement! The coaches wouldn’t have gave it a second thought!

WHY?

BECAUSE… It is the practice… it is the games that was the reason in which we did all that study and all the film.

IN FACT… i remember a practice where our DC dialed up a offensive play… said right before the play… HE SAID, “Let’s see what Ferguson does…” before the play even started… My coach… dialed up a play in which He knew that I was about to be double teamed while I was hurt by the way…

He wanted to see how I would react to the situation and to see if I had learned anything from film and study.

What kind of a football player would I had been if I had done all the studying, but no drills?

To take it into other fields, what would you think of a math instructor who taught math but never corrected mistakes?

Or a Doctor who would instruct on health concerns but never helped fight the disease?

To answer all of these questions you would say of these people… well you wouldn’t honestly be a real football player…

you wouldn’t be a real math instructor…

you wouldn’t really be much of a doctor.

Why is this?

WHY? Because both formative and corrective discipline go hand in hand in all of life. In all that we do.

And the great commission/making disciples is no different.

Making disciples without discipline just doesn’t make since. There are many who would like it this way… BUT IT JUST DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY.

SO TODAY… our task is to answer the question of

WHAT is church discipline?

WHAT IS IT WE’RE AIMING TO DO HERE?

What is our purpose and goal?

Today’s we’re talking about how Church discipline is the means by which we put to action the formative discipline we have received through formal teaching and instruction and informal study, and we use it in a corrective disciplinary measure in an effort to observe and keep all that Jesus has commanded!

It is the part of discipleship where we correct sin and point the disciple toward a better path.

We will look at CORRECTIVE DISCIPLINE IS TWO WAYS BRIEFLY…

It is seeking to help one another in our pursuit of holiness through one on one discipleship/discipline as we will see in Matthew 18.

But to be even more specific this morning, we are also talking about excommunication.

it is the act of removing an individual from membership in the church and participation to the Lord’s Table. It’s not an act of forbidding an individual from attending the church’s public gatherings… It’s excommunicating, or excommunion-ing.

We see prime examples of excommunication in today’s two passages… Matthew 18:15-19 & 1 Cor. 5:1-6

Matt. 18:15-19( Pg. 28 Discipline)

Step 1:

Matthew 18:15 ESV

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.

V.15 keeps this fairly simple at the very beginning of any offense!

Person sins against you…

Go and tell him his fault.

between you and the offender alone!

(This means nobody else should know about the incident yet except for any witnesses of said offense. This means not mentioning anything to the friend at the park, this friend at Sunday School, asking for prayer when really you’re just gossiping about what was done to you before ever going to the person. Allowing it to be between you and them alone.

If your friend listens to you, you have gained a brother or sister in Christ. There is this automatic restoration that takes place between you and them. And NOBODY else even had to know about it.

THIS IS WHERE 98% of offenses should start and end… right here in option 1. And glory be to God for STEP 1.

Something that I love that Pastor Nathan has lead us in as a staff and making sure that the words, “Have you gone to them” be the first words out of our mouths when we are told of an offense between two people.

And really this should be all of our first words when somebody comes to us, telling us of an offense between two siblings in Christ.

Luke 17:3 ESV

3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him,

JESUS HERE SHOWS HIMSELF TO BE MAINLY CONCERNED WITH

- THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE TO BE AS SMALL AS POSSIBLE.

- THE REPENTANCE OF THE BROTHER,

BUT… we do live in a sinful world where pride tends to be an issue that is held by so many and which puts a veil at times over the eyes of a sinner to blind them from their wrong doing.

Which is why Jesus gave further steps.

Step 2 & 3

Matthew 18:16–17 ESV

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. 17 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.

Step’s 2 & 3 gets a little bit more complicated, but still…

ALL OF THIS, NOTICE… STILL COMMANDED BY JESUS FOR THE GOAL OF GAINING A BROTHER OR SISTER IN CHRIST.

If they doesn’t listen the first time…

Take one or two others with you for the second meeting, for these few people to be witnesses for what will transpired.

two or three other WITNESSES (A person having general knowledge of truth to testify to that truth). BUT ALSO FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE MEETING. … following congruence with Deut. 19:15 which deals this judicial condemnation taken by the entire assembly.

Here we see this line drawn in the sand by Jesus…

this line that is between sins that might be addressed privately

and sins that require the whole membership to become involved.

Within this… is the conversation and reality that there are sins which you will expect from a repentant Christian (nobody is perfect this side of glory), and sins which make you think that someone may or may not be a repentant Christian or even a Christian at all.

Leeman says…

Formal church discipline or excommunication is warranted, broadly speaking, when an individual crosses from the first domain to the second domain, from sins we expect to sins we don’t.

There’s a difference, for instance, between an ordinary lie that is repented of, and a lie that a person builds a life upon and refuses to relinquish.

If they LISTEN in the second meeting—-> Refer to Step 1. Glory be to God because you have gained a brother or sister.

If they refuses to listen again: tell it to the church leadership and even at times, the church as a whole. For them all to reach out to this person in hopes of repentance.

IF HE LISTENS—-> Refer to step 1. And Glory be to God because you have gained a brother.

If He refuses to listen even to the church… “Let him be to you as a Pagan gentile and tax collector.”

Pagan: Those outside the covenant community

Tax Collector: Those who betrayed the covenant community.

After these series of gracious warnings, we see that Jesus is calling upon His bride to act in a judicial way and exclude this person from the fellowship WHILE treating them as if they were a non-believer.

While we as church members go through instances like these, we must remind ourselves that the main issue at hand is not the personal issue that started everything (the “sin against you”).

THE MAIN ISSUE at hand is whether or not this brother or sister in Christ is repentant, and if they should be treated as a brother or sister in Christ or not?

Matthew 18:18–19 ESV

18 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. 19 Again 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.

The larger issue at hand in this text from the perspective of Jesus’s teaching to the church is the individuals repentance or lack thereof.

Jesus reveals that the local church has the authority to assess professions of faith and to act accordingly.

IF, after having sought the brother or sister out by one,

by a few others,

by the church with witnesses…

and the brother or sister continues to exemplify signs of unrepentance… the church then must ask herself.

Is this a valid gospel profession?

What does the evidence suggest?

As far as we know it, only GOD TRULY KNOWS THE HEART.

So, can we officially say whether or not a person knows God and has been restored to God the Father by grace through faith in Christ Jesus? No. We cannot.

BUT… one of the reasons for a good understanding of church membership is for us to know that church membership while here on earth is a…“declaration of citizenship in Christ’s Kingdom.”

It’s a passport. It’s an announcement made in the pressroom of Christ kingdom. It’s the declaration that a professing individual is an official, licensed, card-carrying, bonafide Jesus representative.

Therefore church… if after going through with steps one through three, a person continues to reveal an unrepentant life… the Bride of Christ can then no longer justify publicly affirming this persons citizenship of God’s Kingdom to the nations because of a lack of evidence.

And as Jesus says, the church as a whole reveals through the binding and loosing here on earth what has already been bound or loosed by God according to the Gospel.

We pray this never gets to that point… but we are commanded to be so bold to act if the situation arises.

Within this same conversation of seeking out WHAT church discipline is… 1 Cor. 5 needs to be brought into the mix.

1 Corinthians 5

So, let’s turn to 1 Cor. 5 together.

THE OFFENSE

In 1 Cor. 5, Paul lays out the sin and his reaction to it…

Here we see the Offense mentioned by Paul, and then also the action that should be taken by the church per Paul’s instructions…

1 Corinthians 5:1–3 (ESV)

1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? (Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are those who mourn.”) Let him who has done this be removed from among you. 3 For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.

So, looking at 1 Cor. 5… we do not have the time to do a proper exegete the text here here… but

In this, we see places where there is overlap from what Jesus was telling to the disciples, but then also places where it seems like there is new territory being explained by Paul

OVERLAP:

Paul encourages the church to play a judicial function. (I.e. “judge”, “Judgement”) (v. 3, Vv. 12-13) (Deut. 19:15)

Like Jesus, Paul is speaking to a situation where there is a professing believer in Jesus that is not showing signs of repentance and is calling for this person to be excommunicated from among the church.

NEW TERRITORY:

We seem to find that Paul doesn’t seem to say anything about warning the man, to call him to a place of repentance as Jesus does in Matthew. 18.

He goes straight to calling for the church to remove this man from the body of believers.

REASONS FOR THE DIFFERENT APPROACHES BY JESUS AND PAUL…

There are some who would try to explain these seemingly different approaches to say that

Jesus’ approach is for simpler, more interpersonal sins while

Paul’s approach is for outright scandalous sins which is right then and there hurting the witness of Christ.

Now, there are most definitely details to this that is going to be more on a situational type basis in which we don’t have time to go into today.

Also, we very much care about the witness of Christ, His bride and the Gospel.

But at the same time… we must remember that we need not base our decision on whether to excommunicate someone on the basis of the standards of the world (always changing). Which is what basing it off the heaviness of sin would tend to do.

Also, we should not be excommunicating a Christian who shows themselves to be repentant of the sin that was committed.

Will there be times when there is such a huge and heavy sin that has been done that there most assuredly should be an immediate excommunication by the church because of the harm it does to the witness of Christ? Yes, this could happen. Again, on a situational type basis. BUT, this is not the overall focus that we see in scripture.

The focus we see in scripture is evaluating the person’s posture of repentance.

Is the person characteristically repentant or not?

The church is for the characteristically repentant believers.

As so, we see that PAUL IS BEGINNING HERE JUST SHY OF WHERE JESUS ENDS HIS PROCESS. THIS MAN HAS ALREADY OUTWARDLY SHOWN HIS REFUSAL OF REPENTANCE.

THE CHURCH ACTION

1 Cor. 5:4-6 fills us in on how we should go about this, once we have come to the point of Paul and realizing the extreme nature of the sin and also their refusal to repent…

1 Corinthians 5:4–6 ESV

4 When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. 6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

When the church is assembled,

Deliver the man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

SO THAT, HIS SPIRIT MAY BE SAVED IN THE DAY OF THE LORD.

This is so important in this whole process.

Excommunication… the purpose of it is ALWAYS with RESTORATION in MIND. It should never be administered from a perspective of complete and total judgment and retribution, because the totality of this person’s judgement is not on us, but on God.

Again, we see this judicial function that Jesus and Paul is calling on the church to enact when there is not enough evidence to present a person to the nations to be a believer in Christ.

So… what is church discipline? What does it aim to do?

The Purpose of Church Discipline

1. Aims to expose

1 Cor. 5:2; Matthew 18:15

It is prophetic in the sense that church discipline shines the light of God’s truth onto error and sin.

Discipline exposes the cancer so that it might be cut out quickly of the person’s life.

Sin, sometimes like cancer, can be a master at disguise.

You know… one of my favorite games to play in our house with the girls at times is hiding-go-seek. And I’m just saying… I am the master in our household at hiding-go-seek. It’s always so fun to go and hide and let the girls take about 30 minutes to try and find you. But there are times when, this master hiding-go-seeker does too well. And it’s in those times when the girls get frustrated because they can’t find me and I have to start yelling out their names for them to be able to dwindle down the search area for their dad. And if I don’t do this… they will eventually lose interest and stop playing the game and forget about their dad who’s somewhere hiding.

There are often times when sin does so well at disguising itself… that at times brothers and sisters in Christ forget what they are searching for to expose. They forget that they are in this daily fight to expose the sin, to be putting off this sin and putting on righteousness. And there are times when other brothers and sisters in Christ have to come along this person and remind them of the fight that they are in together.

2. Aims to warn

1 Cor. 5:5; Matthew 18:15-17.

Discipline is a compassionate warning that portrays the judgment to come.

In the first part of Church discipline… it’s more remedial in the sense that it’s meant to help the individual Christian and the congregation grow in godliness - in God likeness.

This is why… when an offense has passed the line of forbearance, when through prayer and supplication to the Lord you have come to the point where the Lord has pressed it upon your soul that you should confront… YOU SHOULD NOT ALLOW THE FLESHLY NERVOUSNESS OR ANXIETY STOP YOU. Because when you allow this to happen… you are then taking away an opportunity for there to be growth in godliness.

These are… however big or small all divine opportunities for there to be a fulfilling of James 1:2

James 1:2–4 ESV

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

3. Aims to save (V. 5)

1 Corinthians 5:5 (ESV)

Matthew 18:15b

It’s church discipline that we pursue as a body of believers after which we have already tried to warn, to manuever them off their destructive path… this is the last act, the last resort in the pursuit of bringing an individual to repentance.

This makes you think about passages like Proverbs. 23:14

Proverbs 23:14 ESV

14 If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.

4. Aims to protect

1 Cor. 5:6; Matthew 18:18

Church Discipline aims at protecting other church members from the cancer that needs to be cut out.

Like leaven, sin’s nature is to ferment, corrupt, and spread.

If we allows ourselves to become like the Corinthians to become arrogance and think ourselves outside the realm of needing discipline… then we will witness sin destroy destroy our church family from the inside.

We must protect the rest of the body from the cancer of unrepentant sin form within.

5. Aims to present a good witness for Jesus

1 Cor. 5:1

In a weird way, church discipline believe it or not actually helps the witness of the church to the non-believer because it preserves the attractive distinct-fulness of God’s People.

If we in the church are allowing such sins as the pagans or even sins that not even the pagans would allow, then how do you think Christ and His bride looks any different? Why on earth would I want to be a part of something that I already see throughout culture.

That doesn’t look like transformation to be, that is association.

Conclusion

And so church, may this be our aim in all forms of church discipline.

If we ever find our selves in a place where we cannot forbear. We cannot overlook a particular sin… and through prayer we feel that we must enact the process of what Christ laid out in Matthew 18.

Let our aim in this to be to

Expose,

Warn,

Save,

Protect,

All for the witness of Christ and HIs Bride.

Let us, take on the same mind of what Peter, the apostle was pressing on to the exiles dispersed abroad,

1 Peter 1:13–16 ESV

13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

CLOSE WITH PRAYER

DREW KINGMA MAKING ANNOUNCEMENT AT END FOR THE CHILDREN’S MINISTRY

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