Restoration and Forgiveness Part 1

Last week we looked at three accounts that all have the common thread of humility woven through them. We looked at Jesus response to those who in their pride reject or disobey the gospel message or the commands of God and cause a little one to stumble. We looked How Christ being the good shepherd pursues those who have gone astray due to the offense of another.

Today still wrapped in the tapestry of humility Jesus teaches us how to deal with a brother or sister who persist in sin. This admittedly is a hard teaching. Yet we see this is Jesus instruction to his followers. Since this is so, we must insist on this instruction being a necessary pattern to follow in the church.

The difficulty of this teaching is the very reason why we must humble ourselves to it and why it is taught in the same instructions of humility. We must trust the God knows better than we and be willing when necessary to practice church discipline.

Matthew 18:15–20 CSB

15 “If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. 16 But if he won’t listen, take one or two others with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. 17 If he doesn’t pay attention to them, tell the church. If he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like a Gentile and a tax collector to you. 18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. 19 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them.”

I. What is Church discipline?

Church Discipline: How the Church Protects the Name of Jesus Chapter 1: The Biblical Basics of Discipline

In more specific and formal terms, church discipline is the act of removing an individual from membership in the church and participation in the Lord’s Table. It’s not an act of forbidding an individual from attending the church’s public gatherings. It is the church’s public statement that it can no longer affirm the person’s profession of faith by calling him or her a Christian. It’s a refusal to give a person the Lord’s Supper. It’s excommunicating, or ex-communion-ing, the person.

In other words, it is a process by which a brother or sister who persist in unrepentant sin is removed from the the fellowship of the church and assumed he/she does not have a genuine faith.

II. Why do we practice church discipline?

A. Because Jesus instructed it.

B. Because it is part of the discipleship process.

2 Timothy 3:16 CSB

16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,

1. Discipleship is formative

a. Teaching

b. Training

2. Discipleship is corrective

a. rebuking

b. correcting

The purpose of church discipline is to lovingly correct a brother or sister and tell them there is a better way.

C. The early church practiced it

1 Corinthians 5:1–5 CSB

1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that is not even tolerated among the Gentiles—a man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Shouldn’t you be filled with grief and remove from your congregation the one who did this? 3 Even though I am absent in the body, I am present in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who has been doing such a thing. 4 When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I am with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Why didn’t they follow Paul’s instructions and remove the person from their fellowship? The answer is of course pride. Paul calls those unwilling to exercise church discipline arrogant.

Why? because one assumes that they know more than Jesus himself.

D. To preserve the reputation and purity of the church

1 Corinthians 5:6–10 CSB

6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new unleavened batch, as indeed you are. For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore, let us observe the feast, not with old leaven or with the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 9 I wrote to you in a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. 10 I did not mean the immoral people of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters; otherwise you would have to leave the world.

Paul is using the imagery of the Ceder meal to illustrate how the church should respond to sin in their midst. For most of my years in ministry I have heard the statement, “the church is a hospital”. All of us are sick(sinners) that need to be made Whole. There is truth that all of us sin.

However, should the church’s reputation be one of a large gathering of sinful people or should it be a large gathering of christ followers who seek to crucify the flesh and live righteously.

The reputation of the body of Christ should not be a bunch of sinners. It should be a bunch of saints that live righteously, yet occasionally sin. Certainly you’d agree that we do not best represent Christ by our imperfection and sin, but rather by Christ’s righteousness in us and our pursuit of him resulting in a pursuit of holiness.

For this reason we read the following scripture.

Romans 6:1–2 CSB

1 What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

We need to remove the old leaven from us and that includes people who claim the name of Christ , yet live in contrast to that claim. Those who persist in unrepentant sin. How can one who claims to be have been repentant and saved live a life characterize by unrepentance and sin?

Again, it is not saying the believer will not struggle with sin and fall prey to it at times, but what it is saying when a believer is confronted by his sin. He will repent and turn from it, Not persist in it.

Yet, the end of removing a person from the fellowship is not where we begin.

III. The Process of Church Discipline.

Now there does seem to be some sins that in the church where this process is bypassed and the offender is to be dealt with quickly for the health of the church.

Titus 3:10–11 CSB

10 Reject a divisive person after a first and second warning. 11 For you know that such a person has gone astray and is sinning; he is self-condemned.

a divisive person is one that brings division in the community of Christ by stirring up trouble over non-doctrinal or essential issues.

This is not saying their cannot be healthy dialogue or disagreement over an issue, but rather the disagreement must be tempered by the supremacy of scripture in all things, love, and humility.

One can disagree without hostility, stirring up trouble or creating factions.

However, for most sins in the church this is the process by which we are to approach restoring someone living in sin.

Step #1- Private Confrontation

Matthew 18:15 CSB

15 “If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother.

Notice how if possible the sin is to be kept private between the person who has been offended or witnessed the sin.

Step #2 - Witnessed Confrontation

Matthew 18:16 CSB

16 But if he won’t listen, take one or two others with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established.

This concept of two or three witnesses is found through out the O.T. Judicial system established by God. So in this way church discipline turns into a court of such weighing the actions of an individual by scripture under the protection of witnesses to issue a judgement against the offending individual.

In this sense God has given the church the authority to execute the next two steps.

Step #3 - Public Confrontation

Matthew 18:17 (CSB)

17 If he doesn’t pay attention to them, tell the church.

Step #4 - Excommunication

Matthew 18:17 (CSB)

17 ...If he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like a Gentile and a tax collector to you.

The phrase “let him be like a gentile and a tax collector to you” is referring to a cultural understanding of these two people groups. The gentiles were not allowed to participate in the temple worship unless they had converted to Judaism and submitted to the old testament law. In other words, they were people outside of the faith. The same is true of the tax-collectors. They were the traitors of Israel sacrificing their faith and people for monetary gain. Again, they were to considered outside of the community of faith.

So the the phrase “let them be like” is describing a person or group of people the church can no longer trust to have had a true salvation experience due to their rebellion.

Their membership is removed and they are asked to not participate in the Lord’s table or communion. This is not to say they cannot attend the public gathering but we are not to consider them to be one of us. They are not allowed to serve or to participate in the fellowship of the saints. We are to assume this person has never come to Christ.

IV. Does the Church really have this authority?

Matthew 18:18 CSB

18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.

This phrase is one that has often been taken out of context by the spoken word/prosperity preachers.

When we look at this sentence we must consider the context. This is a statement of authority given to exercise the judgement against sin.

Exalting Jesus in Matthew Step 4: Church Excommunication

Again, Jesus is not giving some special authority to us outside of Himself, but rather it is attached to Him and His Word. He is saying that what we do as a church in His name, with His authority, is a reflection of what He does in heaven. So, if someone comes to the church and says, “I am living in sin and I am unrepentant—I will not turn to Christ,” then we can say to that person with authority, “You are living bound in sin and your sin is not forgiven.” To be clear, their sin is not unforgiven because we said so; their sin is unforgiven because Christ has said so in His Word. Similarly, if someone says that they are willing to turn from their sin, then we can say to them with full confidence that their sin is forgiven and they are now free from it. Jesus has given us the privilege of proclaiming what He has said to be true.

The fact that Christ has given us His authority is important to remember as we carry out the work of excommunication. Someone might ask, “By whose authority are you doing this?” According to Matthew 18:18, we are doing this by Jesus’ authority. One writer said, “Never is the church more in harmony with heaven and operating in perfect accord with her Lord than when dealing with sin to maintain purity” (MacArthur, 1 Corinthians, 126). There is a humble confidence that comes with knowing that Christ has given us His authority to speak against sin in the church.

V. Objections to Church discipline.

#1 It is not kind or loving

An objection to church discipline by Gods people is a result of not understanding God’s love and how church discipline exemplifies the parable of the good shepherd and lost sheep.

Church discipline is the example of the kind of love that pursues the lost sheep that went astray.

Sometimes we can look at this process and make the assumption that it doesn’t seem loving or kind. We fail to see the love of God in this.

Think of it. God loves you so much that he will send an entire church to plead with you to repent and turn back.

Once the process is complete this doesn’t mean the pleading with the individual stops. If they come to the gathering then every-time we should lovingly plead with them to repent. Just like the good shepherd pursues the lost sheep. We continue to plead with God and the individual to turn away from sin and to be restored.

Church Discipline exemplifies Christ love.