Confronting Straying Sheep, Part 2
Matthew: The King and His Kingdom • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 43:23
0 ratings
· 3 viewsWe confront straying sheep by declaring Jesus’ verdict with His authority and abiding presence.
Files
Notes
Transcript
Call to Worship
Call to Worship
Adoration
Adoration
Confession
Confession
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
Message
Message
“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 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 my Father in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Recap & Review
Recap & Review
Personal Confrontation – Basic CPR (Level 1)
Assessing their pulse – Is this a pattern?
Clearing their airway – Is this observable?
Overcoming bystander effect – Is this serious?
Partnered Confrontation – Calling Paramedics (Level 2)
Public Confrontation – ER Intervention (Level 3)
Formal Excommunication – Spiritual Flatline (Level 4)
Illustration of an Embassy
I love the language of the local church acting as an embassy of heaven on earth.
An embassy doesn’t make it’s own rules.
Instead they act in accord with their home country.
They merely follow the decrees given from their homeland.
The church does the same thing.
We don’t act as lone rangers making decisions on our own.
We carry out the decrees and rulings of heaven.
Shifting from ambassadors to the embassy
Shifting from ambassadors to the embassy
We act as individual ambassadors to our local embassy’s that represent heaven’s authority.
From Matthew 18:17 to Matthew 18:18 there is a colossal shift from “you” (singular) to a “you” (plural).
Jesus placed the responsibility of confronting a brother upon every individual in the church.
But as this process progresses, more and more people become involved.
Until it reaches the point that the responsibility shifts from the individual to the whole.
As an embassy of heaven…
As an embassy of heaven…
We confront straying sheep by declaring Jesus’ verdict with His authority and abiding presence.
We confront straying sheep by declaring Jesus’ verdict with His authority and abiding presence.
What significance does the decision of a local church carry?
Does heaven care what a local assembly decides?
An embassy states Jesus’s verdict.
An embassy states Jesus’s verdict.
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.
Jesus uses the language of “binding” and “loosing.”
What exactly does that language mean?
Literally “tying” and “untying”, but when these words are used together, they refer to an assessment.
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Where Jesus addresses Peter specifically and all those who hold his confession, but now it is expanded to the church as a whole.
It’s not as though heaven responds to the whims of the church.
The church executes the decisive decrees of heaven.
The authority of heaven has already revealed who is IN and OUT.
But an embassy is responsible for executing what has been declared for them.
God has already spoken.
He has revealed what heaven’s and the embassy enacts the judgment based upon the revelation they have already received.
It’s not as though an embassy has some special pipeline to heaven or the church understands mysteries unrevealed to the rest of the world.
We need to consider a pressing question…
What happens when the church makes decisions that do not correspond to the declarations of heaven?
Invalid judgment from incorrect pronouncements.
Invalid judgment from incorrect pronouncements.
An invalid judgment is one that does not accord with heaven.
In 1979, Iran had a major revolution.
The former Iranian monarch fell, the new administration was theocratic and radical.
This new leadership in Iran caused shockwaves across the world.
Their foreign embassy’s experienced this most clearly.
Iran’s foreign embassies refused to listen to the new leadership.
And the authority of the homeland stripped the authority from their embassy’s.
They had the same building, seals, and documents…
But they were severed from the authority of the homeland!
This is what you have when an embassy refuses to act in accord with it’s nation.
The homeland is demanding X, but the embassy chooses to enforce Y.
The homeland will strip those embassy’s of their credentials.
This illustrates how a rogue church is dealt with before Heaven.
In Revelation 2, we see several churches that have begun functioning in this rogue fashion.
The Lord Jesus, who walks among the lampstands (the churches) has the authority to correct, rebuke, or even remove the lampstands from their places.
Jesus’ answer to them is simple: REPENT!
Take for instance the church of Pergamum…
“ ‘I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.
But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.
So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.
Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.
What happens when churches refuse make these sorts of judgments?
Churches that say,
“We don’t discipline people here, we just want to love people”
These churches have said that they are more loving than Jesus.
They believe that they’re more kind, understanding, and compassionate than Jesus.
They have essentially said to their Lord and master,
“No, we will not obey you!”
Application
A church that refuses to render judgment on unrepentant members will not last.
Many local churches that have closed their doors are because of a refusal to obey her Lord in this area.
Jesus’ warning is real for the removal of the lampstand (Revelation 2:5).
Application
Maybe you’re a person who has been wrongly removed from a former church.
If you have been mistreated by heavy-handed discipline for things which are unbiblical, untrue, or even partial.
You have received the stamp from an embassy that is invalid.
A rogue embassy doesn’t bring the weight of the homeland.
You ought to take great solace from the fact that Jesus’ verdict of you is the final verdict.
What happens when the church makes decisions that DO correspond to the declarations of heaven?
Proleptic judgment from correct pronouncements.
Proleptic judgment from correct pronouncements.
We make judgments based upon the revealed will of God.
Those judgments are binding in as much as they reflect heaven’s judgment.
Jesus will one day judge the world in righteousness, but there is a judgment before the final judgment.
For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
We should expect unbelievers to act like unbelievers.
We should not be surprised when they act according to their nature.
Yet at the same time, we should expect believers to act in accord with their “new nature” that was evident in the new birth.
The “fruit” or evidence of the new birth is a person who is repentant.
Therefore we should “judge” or examine if a person is repentant.
“Whenever we as God’s people call one another to repentance, we—united with Christ through faith—join in Christ’s final judgment on sin by concurring in the present with a verdict that God in Christ will pronounce in the future.” —Timothy Paul Jones
Jesus is the King of the whole universe.
You and I share in His rule and reign and we exercise His authority in time and space.
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.
So when we pray…
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
We long to see the glory of God cover the earth like the water covers the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).
We long to see authority of Christ to permeate the whole world.
But His tender-loving authority as a Good Shepherd judges the unrepentant in the midst of the people of God.
Jesus supports the embassy’s decision.
Jesus supports the embassy’s decision.
If a local church rightly divides the Word of God.
Jesus supports their decision.
Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything (Gk: prágma) they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
I can imagine two or three of you in the parking lot later say,
“We agree that we need a new car, in Jesus’ Name!”
That ridiculous picture, which the prosperity gospel embodies, both neglects the wonder of this verse and misuses it for self-centered focus (James 4:3).
Jesus is not writing a blank check here for any whim of the church to spend on our own practice.
The term translated by the ESV as “anything” is unhelpful, because it seems like a blank check.
But here it seems that Jesus’ use of “pragma” is addressing “any judicial matter.”
It ought to sound more like…
Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about [any judicial matter] they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
The word used here in Matthew 18:19 brings the connotation of courtroom language.
And I think Paul picks up on this directly after addressing the sinning man in 1 Corinthians 6:1 he says…
When one of you has a grievance (Gk: prágma) against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?
This amazing claim that anything we ask will be done by our Father in heaven is in reference to an unrepentant church member.
Again we see clearly this interchange between Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility.
The church agrees in prayer about a straying member, and God hears the pleas of His people.
In the Ancient world, lawsuits were similar to today.
If you had an issue with a brother, you could take them to civil court.
Not criminal court, but civil.
This meant they defrauded you in some way, or real harm was done.
What was a person supposed to do?
Take them to court. Get what is owed to you.
Several years back, a Christian brother mentioned that his builder for his house did not complete the job.
This is commonly a problem in the trades.
He was wrestling with what to do, especially because the business owner was a Christian.
The business owner refused to take his calls.
Instead of taking him to small claims court, I encouraged him to reach out to this man’s pastor to see if their church could help mediate the issue.
The pastor responded with…
“We don’t do that here! I wouldn’t want to meddle in his business.”
What has that pastor left this man to do?
When church leaders refuse to help members resolve serious disputes or confront the unrepentant, they are being unloving.
Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?
Lawsuits aren’t the problem.
That’s how the unbelieving world works.
The problem is believers preferring to take their issues before the world instead of dealing with them inside the church.
Application for all
If you think that your local church is too incompetent to try “trivial cases” (1 Cor 6:2), then you need to consider the wisdom of the church you attend.
If there is so much partiality and incompetence within the church as a whole that men cannot be gathered to help weigh a dispute, then something is wrong.
“If we bring up this issue, they might leave.”
“This family might leave!”
“We don’t want to stir the pot!”
If the HIGHEST court is willing to heed the decision of “two or three” in a church assembly, then why do we think a puny little judge would be any more helpful?
We must pray and cultivate a culture that submits to Christ honoring leadership while taking Jesus’ authority seriously.
Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!
So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church?
I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers,
but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers?
Application to churches
This is one way churches can work together.
We ought to be able to call up other local churches with serious grievances between members and work these things out.
To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?
But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!
As an embassy of heaven…
As an embassy of heaven…
We confront straying sheep by declaring Jesus’ verdict with His authority and abiding presence.
We confront straying sheep by declaring Jesus’ verdict with His authority and abiding presence.
Jesus stays among the embassy by the Spirit.
Jesus stays among the embassy by the Spirit.
For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Jesus is ruling and reigning at His Father’s hand (Hebrews 1:3-4).
And He is present by the Holy Spirit with every gathering of believers in the hardest cases.
This verse has also been known as the “justification of house churches” verse.
The logic goes something like this,
“If you don’t like your church, where two or three are gathered, Jesus is present, so a church needs formed.”
This is not what Jesus is talking about here.
Instead, the promise of this passage is the abiding presence of the Risen Lord in the hardest situations a church may face.
The same promise that Jesus makes for all discipleship and teaching…
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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
He makes the same promise to His church about challenging cases of false teaching and false living.
Jesus promises to attend to the decisions of His church body when removing or pronouncing His verdict.
Why would Jesus offer His very presence, doesn’t His presence always attend to the church?
Yes, but there is a special emphasis on His presence in the midst of trial.
In Revelation, Jesus commands the church of Pergamum to put out those who teach and live falsely.
These people are friends, deacons, and even leaders.
In Revelation 2:15, Jesus tells the church of Pergamum to get rid of those who hold the teachings of the Nicolaitans.
Church history holds that the leader of the Nicolaitans was one of the deacons commissioned in Acts 6:5.
Jesus promises His presence to the church in those moments because He knows they’ll be tempted to fear.
Fear of others opinions.
Fear of making the wrong decisions.
Fear of pushing others away.
Friend’s fade off into false teaching, Jesus is near.
Family members carven off into immoral living, Jesus is near.
Best friends betray you through gossip and slander, Jesus is near.
Churches needing to put out vile false teachers, Jesus is near.
As an embassy of heaven…
As an embassy of heaven…
We confront straying sheep by declaring Jesus’ verdict with His authority and abiding presence.
We confront straying sheep by declaring Jesus’ verdict with His authority and abiding presence.
What is it all for?
The glory of Christ.
The good of His people.
But I still think there is a lingering question we have to answer…
Maybe you wonder, “Will this really work?”
For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough,
so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
The man who the Corinthian believers put out of the congregation.
They delivered him over to Satan, that is putting him outside the church “for the destruction of the flesh” (1 Cor 5:5).
And it worked!
This man repented and “his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (1 Cor 5:5).
Where is this man?
He is with the “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) because this church loved him enough to believe the warnings of Jesus.
So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.
For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything.
Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ,
so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.
It’s the “punishment by the majority” and the fruitfulness of the repentance of the sinner in 1 Corinthians 5 that is sufficient for Paul to say they should restore such a one.
For the church body as a whole to be in unison in removing a person from their midst, they make clear God’s judgment on a matter.
