The Church | A Pure People - Matthew 18:15-20 (Sept 24) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Father, we have considered together, Lord, as we've sung these songs, your holiness and your greatness and your faithfulness.

And God, for us to do this as a sinful people, Lord.

It's such amazing news, Lord, that we can gather here together to come together into your in your presence and declare your praise, Lord.

And know, God, that you hear us.

To know that we do this from a position of being your children, Lord.

And we don't deserve it, Lord.

Considering your great holiness, considering your great separation from us, God, we don't deserve your nearness to us right now.

And yet, God, we are reminded this morning that you are after our souls, God, that you care for us.

And so, God, we give you all the praise.

And Lord, I thank you for that news, Lord, that for each of us here, God, coming to you in different places, some of us feeling like we're in the highest moment of life, the greatest joy of life, and I'm sure others of us feeling like we're in the deepest valley, in the place where there is no hope, God.

And Lord, your promise to us this morning is that you are after each of us, God.

You are the great shepherd who will not let one lost sheep wander from your presence.

You will redeem all your children.

And so, God, we give you all the praise.

Thank you for your great compassion to us in our sinfulness.

Thank you for your great mercy, Lord.

Thank you for your grace.

And God, we truly do adore you.

We love you, and so we give our hearts to you now, Lord.

We give our ears to you now.

We ask that you would do a mighty work in our midst through the power of your Holy Spirit, Lord.

A work that's so beyond me as a preacher, Lord, a work that only you can accomplish.

And so, God, we lift this time to you.

We pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.

Amen.

You guys can grab a seat.

As you grab a seat, you can grab a copy of God's word and open it up to Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

If you don't have a copy of God's word with you, then the ushers are gonna make their way to the front of the aisles here, and you can put your hand in the air and they will make sure that they get a copy of God's word into your hands.

If you don't own a Bible, you can keep this.

This is our gift to you.

So long as you promise us that you'll read it.

Well, I'm sure that some of you guys have had a very suspenseful week, especially if you were here last week.

There was a lot of uh untied ends, so to say, to our sermon last week.

And I told you guys about specifically a butterfly that we had at home in a chrysalis, and many of you guys were on the edge of your seat all week emailing me, asking me for updates, couldn't wait to hear.

And so I wanted to report this morning that we did not make it home in time.

The butterfly, the chrysalis was a butterfly by the time we made it home, we missed it.

Now, others of you right now are totally confused.

You're wondering what's going on right now.

And I bring up this butterfly story to say this that if you haven't heard the last two messages that we've preached on uh the church as we've been walking through this series, I want to encourage you to go back and listen to those two previous messages.

Now, if it's just for the butterfly story, you don't have to do it.

That's not overly meaningful.

But it is because I do believe that what God has been teaching us as we have been walking through various scriptures and seeing what the church is, is absolutely necessary.

What we've been doing is looking at God's word, and we've been asking God, uh, who and what is the church to be?

Now, this isn't according to me.

I want you to understand that.

Like, if you've thought, like, oh, this is something Pastor Miles was super passionate about, I'm passionate about it, but only because we're asking this question according to what God says.

I want to know what God think about the church?

And so two weeks ago we started our series, and you'll remember that we were in Matthew 16, and there we saw that the church was Jesus' invention, that Jesus, uh, by gathering together the church, by creating the church and himself being the foundation, what Jesus is doing is gathering all of the Christ confessors on earth to himself.

He's looking for those who are making the true confession of him, those who, like Peter, declare Christ to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

And he's giving this group of people that he calls the church an immense authority.

It is the authority to represent him on earth.

So that if the world were to say, where is God?

the answer would be, according to Jesus, look to the church.

My presence is there.

Last week we saw that the effectiveness of the church is really in the holiness of its people, that the effectiveness of the church is in the devotion of the hearts of God's people to himself.

Now, if both of those things are true, if it's true that God is gathering a people to himself and he's commissioning these people to represent him on earth, then it makes sense that as we come to Matthew 18, the second time that Jesus talks about the church, in fact, the second time that the church is talked about in all of the Bible, Jesus' concern here is how is this group of people going to stay a group of Christ confessors?

Jesus wants to answer this question.

So, so what?

These people have made a confession of Christ and I've given them the authority to represent me.

How do I know that these people will continue to represent me?

Jesus is concerned in these verses that we come to in Matthew chapter 18, verses 15 to 20.

Matthew 18:15–20

He's concerned with the purity of the church.

He's concerned with the trueness of the confession that the church that he is building makes, and he desires to care for this confession.

About two years ago, my wife and I, uh, as we had our second daughter and she was growing and growing, the doctors started to become a little concerned with some of the physical developments that were happening.

Part of being a child of mine is if you get my genetic um, you know, genetics, you have a massive head.

That's the part of, you know, my wife she contributes the beauty.

I just contribute a massive head.

That's all I got to offer to my kids.

And so her head was so massive that the doctors were actually concerned about it.

And there was some serious concern there, and we were really thankful that as we started to go down the process of caring for her and making sure that everything was okay, that they connected her to sick kids.

And I don't know if any of you guys have ever had any interaction with sick kids.

That is a phenomenal hospital, and we experienced that personally, but we also had all these people who had, you know, had experiences with sick kids, and they just kept telling us, you are in good hands.

Like this hospital is going to be able to care for your kids.

It's one of the best places in the world in terms of caring for kids.

And you wouldn't believe the comfort, I'm sure you can imagine the comfort that that brings to parents.

To know that their precious children are being cared for, to know that there is a place where you can go to and bring this child that you love so much to a place where they can be cared for.

And what I want you to understand is that Jesus has created that for you.

He's created a place where we can experience soul care, where our lives can be nurtured and cared for.

Jesus has created that, and that place is the church.

I want you to see that in Matthew 18, verses 15 to 20.

Matthew 18:15–20

Jesus has created a center for care, and that place is the church.

This is the place in which he is creating us to be a pure people.

Let's read this together in Matthew 18, verses 15 to 20.

Matthew 18:15–20

Matthew writes this If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault.

Between you and him alone.

If he listens to you, you've 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 one or 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, 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 I am among them.

I want you to see this this morning, that Jesus cares about the purity of his people, and if that we're going to be a pure people, I want you to see that it requires that we take sin seriously.

It requires then that we take sin seriously.

This is what Jesus is calling us to do, to take sin seriously.

Now, I want to start at the end of this passage this morning and kind of work our way backwards.

And the reason for that is because if you don't see the seriousness of sin, you can't really understand what Jesus is calling for here.

In other words, if you don't see how dangerous it is to trifle with sin, to play with sin, then you'll never care about the institution that is the church that Jesus has created to care for us in our sin.

You'll be like the man who, you know, this is most of our dads, isn't it?

They get they get the cut on their arm or something, and it slowly starts to get infected, and when they say, No, it's fine.

It's fine, I'm gonna be okay.

Not a big deal.

But you know the seriousness of what a small cut can become if it gets infected.

And you try to plead with a person like that, hey, hey, go to the doctor.

And yet until they see the seriousness of that infection, they'll never go.

And I'm convinced that the reason why, especially in North America, but even many of us here don't see the need for the church is because we just don't see the seriousness of sin.

Why do we need the church if sin is not such a big deal?

And so look at verse 17.

Jesus shows us the seriousness of sin by showing us the final step here of what becomes church discipline and really the way that the church can care for people in their sin.

He says in verse 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.

Now for us, that's kind of like a soft insult, isn't it?

Gentile and a tax collector doesn't seem like that horrible of a thing, but to the Jews that Matthew is writing to, that is really like one of the most insulting things that you could possibly say to them.

Think about the considering this person, for one, as a Gentile.

See, for an Israelite to be considered a Gentile would be to lose the most precious piece of their identity.

That's saying you're no longer one of the children of God.

You are now an outsider.

In fact, what that ultimately means is, you know, last week we talked about the temple and the middle of the temple, the place that is called the Holy of Holies, is the very presence of God.

And the way that the temple worked is that there were kind of like uh surrounding zones.

And the closer you got to the Holy of Holies, the harder it was to get, the more pure you needed to be.

Now, the very outside, the outer courts of the temple, well, this was the court that the Gentiles could get to, but no matter how holy you were, no matter how righteous you were as a Gentile, you could not get closer to God because you were a Gentile.

And so you understand the weight then of what Paul is saying.

Like, this is a serious thing.

If you are to be treated as a Gentile, ultimately what God in the church is therefore saying is this you can no longer be in the presence of God.

That's why it's significant what we read, and we'll come back to this, but in verses 18, what Jesus does is he ties this to his presence.

He says, Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth, that is the place that you guys are present right now, will be bound in heaven.

Well, what's heaven?

That's the place of the presence of God.

Jesus is saying, if you cast them out of the presence of the church, ultimately you're casting them out of the presence of God.

Again, he says in verse 19, bringing up his presence again, again, I say to you, if two or 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 I am among them.

To get this far in the church discipline process where you are treated like a Gentile and a tax collector, is ultimately not only to be cast from the church, it's to be cast from the very presence of God.

And some of us this morning are, you know, listening to this and saying, wow, that's that's kind of intense.

Like that's a that's a pretty strong reaction to sin.

And that's exactly what we're saying here.

This is what Jesus is teaching us.

Sin is a big deal.

Now, not only are they to be treated like a Gentile, Jesus says here, but notice in verse 17, it also says that that they are to be to you as a tax collector.

Now, if Gentile wasn't bad enough, tax collector is even worse.

A tax collector was a person who had kind of like turned his back on the Jewish people and had submitted himself to the Roman government and had chose instead of working for the Jewish people, he would work for the Roman government and kind of extort money out of people.

It was really to be an enemy of God's people.

And so not only are you cast out of God's presence, what Jesus is saying here is really you're to treat them as though they are a traitor and an enemy.

Now, what's Jesus doing here?

These are very strong words.

If you will not turn from your sin, you're to be cast out of the presence of God, you're to be treated as an enemy of the church.

Well, this is what Jesus is saying.

He's saying that it's necessary to the mission of the church that we take sin seriously.

Now, for many of us, I truly think this is a culture shock.

In fact, I believe that one of the things that causes the North American church to be incredibly weak is that we are refusing to take sin seriously.

Each of us in the church have this disease that is sin, and in many ways the church is refusing to take it seriously.

Now, I mean here my our personal sin.

For sure we, many of us, and myself included in this, often don't take personal sin seriously enough.

But as a church, I want you to understand we've also kind of watered down what it means to truly love someone who's in sin.

And so as a church, we've kind of like embraced this uh cultural understanding of what it means to love someone.

It means that you don't point out their sin, it means you never talk about sin.

If you really love someone, you'll be willing to welcome anyone without judgment, without saying anything about their position before God.

And that's what it means to love.

It's just kind of like real Canadian understanding of love, where it's like totally free from confrontation, you can do whatever you want, and I'm just gonna accept you.

And we've kind of accepted that in the church, haven't we?

In fact, many churches have even put it up on the front of their board, all are welcome here.

And certainly we agree, all are welcome here, but I want you to understand that if you're here, I love you to such a degree that every week I will tell you about your biggest problem.

Every week we'll talk about sin.

And so, in many ways, the world's understanding of how to love a sinner has kind of crept into the church.

You see, we we've shifted as a culture, haven't we?

You know, 20 years ago in Canada, you could talk to someone about morality, and the average person had a general understanding that morality was objective.

You know, you could talk about the Ten Commandments, and the general person would say, well, yeah, we should live according to those, and then you could look at their life and say, well, you're not really living according to that, and you had an opportunity to preach the gospel.

But we've kind of changed as a society, haven't we?

There's no really there's not really any longer an objective morality.

What our culture preaches, the meshes that we preach, is that there really is no morality, that the only objective morality is what you feel to be right.

That's why the banner of our days is really this question: who are you to judge?

It's this thought that no one can judge me.

Now, in some respect, I want you to understand that this is true, that as a church, as we look at uh those who are unbelievers, in some sense we don't have the right to judge.

That's why in 1 Corinthians 5 verse 12, Paul says to the church there, he says, Who he says, for what have I to do with judging outsiders?

1 Corinthians 5:12

I want you to understand here, if you're not a believer here, there is no judgment from our church.

We're not looking at you and saying, Oh, this person should be, you know, living the life of a Christian.

This person should be changing their life.

We have no expectation of that.

And yet we do love you.

And so we feel the need to tell you what Paul says in the next verse, 1 Corinthians 5, 13, he says, God judges those outside.

And you need to know if you're an unbeliever here, because we love you, we will never stop proclaiming this message.

There is a day where you will stand before the Lord.

In fact, the worst, you know what the worst thing that we could do as a church, the most unloving thing we could do is stop proclaiming the gospel.

The worst thing we could do is stop telling people that there's a day that they're gonna have to stand before the Lord.

That would be the least caring thing to do.

A couple years ago, I was I was at home, my kids were all outside with their mom, and I was cooking dinner, and one of my kids came home, and I came to discover she had been in a serious gardening accident.

Now, some of you guys don't think that's possible.

You thought gardening was safe, but I promise you, this girl had been in a gardening accident.

She was hit with a rake, there was blood coming down from under her eye, and I looked at it.

You know, this wound was like one of those ones that it could talk to you, you know, those kind of wounds.

Like it was wide open, and I did what every responsible dad said.

I looked at her, I said, You're gonna be okay.

You're gonna be fine.

I looked at her mom, I said, We don't need to go to the hospital.

This is just a little cut, it's gonna be fine.

Well, hindsight's 2020, we needed to go to the hospital, it needed like three stitches, she still got a scar under her eye, and I was wrong about that.

And so we look at a story like that and we say, you know, what did this little girl need?

Well, she needed someone who would be honest with her about how severe that cut was.

And if she was around someone who was either unhonest or unable to diagnose the problem, that would be the worst thing for her.

And so it is in the church.

We have a serious message about sin.

A judgment is coming.

There's a great need for the church to be serious about sin.

This is what the Bible is calling us to do all throughout the Bible.

We are called to take sin seriously because God takes sin seriously.

And so as we look through the story of redemptive history, what we see is that all throughout the Bible, from beginning to end, God is a God who takes sin seriously.

So that many of us have read through the Old Testament and we understand this.

God gives his law to the people, and to disobey God's law is a serious problem.

Like, why is it that when Moses goes up the mountain and the people stay down and they build a golden calf and they worship it, why is it right?

Why is it just that then God commands Israel to kill 3,000 people who bow down to this golden calf?

Many of us have read the story of Uzzah and tried to wrap our mind around how God, how it's fair that this man saw an ox stumble and reached down to help this ox, but touched the ark, and because he touched the ark of the covenant, God struck him dead.

Well, the reason we come to understand is because God takes sin seriously.

There is a penalty that is right for sin.

Now, the way that a lot of us, I think, deal with this, I don't know that we'd ever say this out loud, but we kind of have this understanding that, like, okay, well, that was the God of the Old Testament.

But, you know, God doesn't really do that anymore.

The God of the New Testament isn't a God of wrath.

He's not, you know, pouring out his judgment on sin like that.

And I want you to understand that that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Our God, the God of both the Old Testament and the New Testament, is not a God who has mood swings.

He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And so what we notice is that as we come to the New Testament, this God is still the same.

In fact, in the establishment of the church, we see this very same reality that God is taking.

Seriously.

And so I want to show you a few places.

I want to ask you to do something.

And this is like a great, you know, heresy in our day and age.

I want to turn to a few different places in scripture with you, okay?

Will you do that with me?

This is going to be work, okay?

You're going to have to turn, or you're going to have to turn on your phone and flick.

You're going to have to turn or flick.

I love to hear those pages moving.

And so let's hear it.

Let's get loud with our Bibles right now.

Or if you have a phone, you can maybe turn it on so that we can hear the scrolling sound or something.

It's not as satisfying.

But let's go to Acts 5.

Turn to Acts 5 with me.

If you're in Matthew, you're going to get through the Gospels.

And right after John will be the book of Acts.

And in Acts 5, we're told of a married couple, of Ananias and Sapphira, who, in verses 1 and 2, they have a piece of property and they sell it.

And at the end of chapter 4 of Acts, we see something amazing happening.

The church is coming together, and many people are selling their properties and giving it to the church in order that the kingdom of Christ might be established.

And so Ananias and Sapphira say, Let's do this as well.

Let's sell our property and give the proceeds to the church.

And so they sell their property, but in verse 2, we're told that what Ananias and Sapphira do is they keep back a portion of the proceeds for themselves and they give the rest to the apostles.

Now, this wouldn't be an issue at all if that is what they had told the apostles.

But the understanding that we come to in Acts 5 is that Ananias and Sapphira are kind of like doing this under the pretense that they're giving everything that they earned from the land, that they sold this piece of property, and they're saying to the apostles, laying down all of the proceeds at their feet.

And so look at what Peter says in verse 3.

Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?

Well it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?

And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?

Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart?

You've not lied to man but to God.

When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last, and great fear came upon all who heard it.

Well, in the next verses, his wife comes in, and his wife has an opportunity to repent, but the same thing happens.

Instead, she lies until she falls dead.

And here we are in the new covenant, discovering that God takes sin seriously.

And some of us are living with this confidence, like we have this habitual sin in our life right now.

In fact, even as I'm talking about it, you know the sin that you are unwilling to deal with it with in your life right now.

But some of us are testing God.

Like we live day in and day out and saying, listen, God, I know you're not going to do anything.

I'm going to ask you this question: Are you so sure?

Reminds us of 1 Corinthians 11, where we're told that there are some who are taking the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner.

And Paul says to them in 1 Corinthians 11 that that is why many of you are weak and ill, and he says that some of you have even died.

Because you're unwilling to deal with the sin in your life, Paul says.

And listen, last week, you know, we we kind of ended on this note where we as believers just have this confidence that when we get to heaven and we look at all the things we did in devotion to the Lord and in holiness, that we will never regret an ounce of effort that we put towards holiness.

I want you to understand the opposite is true as well.

That there will be so much regret for the areas of our life that we were unwilling to give to the Lord.

That there will be so much regret for the areas that we're of sin that we are unwilling to deal with.

See, sin is so costly.

And so we're in Acts, you're gonna hit Romans, and the next book there is gonna be 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul is dealing with corruption in the Corinthian church.

And in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 1, he points out that there are some, that there is in fact a man who is sleeping with his father's wife.

1 Corinthians 5:1

Now, likely this is his mother-in-law.

But Paul points out this sin in this man's life.

Now, let me just point out, if you thought that there were problems at Redemption Newmarket, we're doing better than the Corinthian church, okay?

I haven't heard of that happening in our church.

And so, you know, objectively measuring by this standard, we're doing okay in some areas.

But look at verse 4 and ask yourself the question: what's the responsibility of the church in this scenario?

Look at what Paul says in verse 4.

When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, 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.

Paul looks to the church and he says, The best way that you can serve this person is to deliver them over to Satan.

Now, this is accomplishing two things.

The first thing is that this is the best way that the church can care for the man.

You notice that?

You deliver him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

The ultimate goal here is restoration of this man.

The ultimate goal is care.

And we understand that in life, we say this often, don't we?

That sometimes the best thing for people is that they hit rock what?

Rock bottom.

Sometimes people are so convinced that their way of living is the right way, that the only thing you can do is let them go and let them experience for themselves what is rock bottom.

But also notice in verse 6 that not only is the desire to care for this man, in verse 6, Paul also says that by doing this word caring for the church, he says, Your boasting is not good.

Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Cleanse out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are really unleavened.

Listen, what Paul is saying is that sin in the church does not just affect the church.

Or sorry, that person.

There is a ripple effect in which that sin is dragging down the whole church.

The mission of the church is made ineffective because this man is unwilling to deal with his sin.

And so the church needs to deal with it.

The church needs to cast him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh.

One more verse.

Revelation chapter 2.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

Revelation chapter 2.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

Here Jesus is speaking to various churches.

And for some churches he has words of praise, and for other churches he has words of condemnation.

And as he speaks to the church of Thyretira in verse 18, he has some words of praise, but in verse 20, he tells them exactly what they're doing wrong.

Look at verse 20 with me of Revelation chapter 2.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

He says, But I have this against you that you tolerate a woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching seduction and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.

Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her, I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, I will strike her children dead, and all the churches will know that I am he who searches the mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.

Listen, church, what is there to say in reflection on this?

Apart from the from the beginning to the end of the New Testament era, Jesus is serious about sin.

And I think that this is many of our problems.

Many of our problems that is that we worship a Jesus who does not exist in Scripture.

We have made Jesus to be kind of like this hippie who, you know, he kind of wishes that you would deal with your sin and turn to him, but if you're unwilling, he's just gonna wait patiently for you.

You know, don't worry, Jesus is gonna be okay with it, he's okay with your sin.

And yet yet many of us, I think, when Jesus returns, in Revelation 19, we're told that he's gonna return riding a white horse, his robe is gonna be dipped in blood, there's gonna be a sword coming out of his mouth, and we're told that he's gonna come to pour out the wrath of God on all those who have remained in their sin.

And many of us will miss it because we've been looking for a different Jesus our whole life.

We have been serving a Jesus who is not serious about sin and therefore is a Jesus that does not exist in Scripture.

Now, listen, in us right now, in this moment, you know I'm hoping the Holy Spirit is delivering to your heart.

I'm hoping that there is this sense of dread.

I'm hoping in this moment there's this sense of self-examination.

Sin is a serious issue.

To have sin in your life and to not deal with it puts you in serious danger.

And yet, what I want you to understand is that there is great hope because Jesus knows this and Jesus is caring for you in the presence of the danger of your sin.

He's caring for you.

And so he's created a process of restoration and called you into a community that will practice this process.

And so, this is the second thing I want you to understand is that if we're gonna be pure, we not only need to take sin seriously, but we also need to pursue restoration biblically.

Now, what Jesus does for us in this passage is he shows us a four-step process to restoration.

It's really a four-step process to dealing with sin.

And I once had someone share a rhyme with me that made it incredibly helpful for me to remember this process, and so I'm gonna share it with you, and I trust that this is gonna be hopefully helpful.

Here it is, you ready?

Step one, just one.

Step two, take a few.

Step three, for all to see.

Step four, out the door.

Is that good?

Is that helpful?

Some of you guys like that was the cheesiest thing ever.

Some of you guys are like, every week I'd like to hear a different rap from you, and that's that's what you want, I'll do that.

Step one, just one.

Step two, take a few.

Step three, for all to see, step four, out the door.

Now, notice here step one, just one.

It says in verse 15, Jesus says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

If he listens to you, you've gained your brother.

Now, it's really important here that we point out that the second time Jesus is talking about church, he's instructing you what to do when you go to church and you get hurt.

That should be really instructive of us about our expectations of church, because many of us are looking for a church where we'll just not be hurt.

Many of us are looking for the perfect church.

And yet the reality that Jesus understands is that the church is not people that he is calling together that are perfect.

The church is a group of imperfect people that Jesus is taking down the path of one day they will be perfect.

And so understand this that if Redemption Newmarket is the true church, well, we're not perfect.

And so turn to your neighbor right now, preach the gospel, tell him you're not perfect.

You are not perfect.

Some of you guys less willing to preach that news in the understanding that you will have an awkward car drive home, that's okay.

We're not perfect, and so what Jesus expects here is that there's gonna be some relational turmoil.

I mean, in your family, you know, if you're even if you're married and you just have you know you have no kids, how much relational turmoil is there from just two sinners trying to do life together?

There is a lot of relational hurt, isn't there?

Just from two sinners.

Then you throw some kids in the mix and it's like, okay, well, this is an absolute nightmare.

Like we are driving here to church this morning and there is an absolute meltdown going between two of my kids, this relational turmoil.

Well, how much more is there gonna be like this relational turmoil in a church of a hundred people?

If we're really doing life together, there is going to be brothers and sisters sinning against each other, and and Jesus knows this, and Jesus cares for you in the midst of this.

And I feel the need just to point this out because so many of us we have you know kind of like this relational damage from the church.

You know, we we've done life with people and we've been hurt before, so we're I'm not doing that again, I'm not, I'm not jumping into that again.

And I want you to know this morning that Jesus knows that it's hard, and Jesus cares for you in the midst of your hard relationships.

See, this is what Jesus is doing.

He's building the family of God.

That's why in verse 15 he calls the church the brother.

He says, if your brother sins against you.

And listen, for those of you who are married or maybe you, you know, dated someone, you know, for some time, remember the first time that you brought that person over to meet your family?

You remember the speech that you had to give the person before they met your family?

There's like a speech that no matter how perfect your family is, I don't care, there is someone you need to warn, you know, your significant other about.

And so you're in the car before you're about to go in.

What do you say?

You say, Well, okay, listen, watch out for Uncle Joe, okay?

Do not get stuck in a conversation with Uncle Joe.

Conspiracy theories are gonna be flying out.

You're like, it's just do not do it.

And listen, my dad is going to say something that is incredibly offensive, and just prepare yourself for that now, okay?

Like there's this warning because it's not the fact that we're all perfect that unites this family together.

It's the fact that, like, we're family.

This is what calls all of his people into this room for Thanksgiving dinner.

It's the fact that we are blood.

And so it is here.

It's not our perfection that unites us together.

It is Jesus Christ and the process that he has each of us on to a day where one day we will stand before him in perfection, but we're not there yet.

And so Paul says, if your brother sins against you, notice what he says next, go.

Now we're gonna stop there.

Some really practical instruction here in Matthew 18.

If your brother sins against you, go.

There is a world of practical instruction here.

You know what we often do?

We often actually do the opposite.

You know, the the modern day translation of this verse, as according to how we often, you know, practically react to it, would be if your brother sins against you, stay.

Stay and wait for him to come to you.

Stay and wait for him to apologize.

He better realize what he's done.

And it's not until he realizes that I'm gonna forgive him.

And yet here, Jesus gives us instruction that if we are sinned against, well, there should be such a love for that person in our soul that the the problem with that not is that not is not that we're hurt, the problem with that is that this person has sin in their life, and so out of a desire to love them, to sacrifice ourselves, to live in the thick skin that the gospel gives us, we say, I want to love you, and so I want to help expose this sin, and so I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna go out of my position of being hurt into a position of forgiveness that instead of being offended by you now pursues you.

You can see what Jesus is doing here, he's putting the onus for restoration on the person who has sinned against.

Isn't this what the gospel does?

The gospel makes it so that other people's actions and words cannot hurt you because your identity is so rooted in Jesus Christ, it does not matter what other people say about you, it does not matter how other people offend you, because your identity is founded on Jesus Christ.

And so you receive this hurt and you say, hey, I've done way worse to Jesus, and he still forgives me, and so I'm gonna pursue this person.

You love the person the same way Christ has loved you.

And so Paul says, sorry, Matthew says, go.

Go tell him his fault.

Now, notice also what it doesn't say.

You notice that it doesn't say when you're wronged, go tell your pastor.

It doesn't say go send your email pastor and make sure that he deals with this wrong.

Notice that it doesn't say go gather a group of friends and spend some time, you know, talking about it, have a small group, pray about this person's problem, make sure other believers know about every detail of the way that this person wronged you.

It doesn't say open up Instagram and make a vague post about the way that you have been hurt.

And yet, this is many of the times the way that we react when we're hurt.

Instead, what Jesus is calling us to, he says, go to the person between you and him alone and bring it up.

Now the goal here is so clear that if this brother or sister listens, you've gained your brother.

But in verse 16, he says, if he does not listen, you move on to the next step.

And so here is step two.

Step two is take a few.

And so in verse 16, he says, if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established.

Now, now here is a judicial system that the Jewish people that Matthew's writing to would fully understand that if you had a charge in the judicial system, uh, you would need it for it to be verified by two or three witnesses.

And so there's some protection here for you.

If you're falsely accused of something in the church, there's some protection before you're cast out, there are others who come and assess, they really mediate the situation to say that the initial step one accusation is a biblical and right accusation.

The desire here is that this church discipline and that this care is being carried out biblically.

And so you take a few so that we come to an understanding that yes, this person's interpretation of the fact that this was sin is indeed right.

Now, if they don't repent at that point, then it moves on to step three.

Step three, all to see.

You see this in verse 17.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

Tell it to the church.

Now I have a really practical question for you, and I'm gonna do this is like a big preaching no-no.

You know, from the way that I learned preaching in Bible college, you never do something like this, but I'm gonna ask you a question, I'm not gonna answer it for you right now, and my homilics teachers would fail me for sure for doing this, but I just feel like I should do it anyway, so here we go.

Let me ask you this question practically here, practically speaking, who is the church?

Practically speaking, okay, so you sin against me, it's probably gonna happen the other way, isn't it?

I sin against you.

You carry out the biblical command, you come to me and tell me.

I say, no, that's not sin.

And so, you know, you grab two of the elders and the three of you, you come and you tell me my sin, and I say, no, that's not sin.

And so then you're going to step three.

Who do you bring that sin to?

Well, Jesus says the church.

And so my question for you then is who is the church?

Is that like the universal church?

Like, should someone be drafting up an email to John MacArthur, to John Piper, to all the Christians that are on the other continent in order to tell them my church?

Well, well, obviously not, it's not that.

It's obviously talking about a local group of Christians.

But then my question is, who is that local group of Christians that you are to tell of this sin?

Is it like, should we pull up a database of everyone who's ever attended Redemption New Market and say, you know, someone came six years ago, but we got to tell them about the sin?

Or maybe it should be just like the last year.

Anyone who's come one time should know about this sin.

My question is this Who is this local body of people that Jesus is talking about?

And I'm gonna leave that with you.

Because I believe the Bible answers that pretty clearly, and we're gonna get to that, and I gotta leave some sort of cliffhanger for you to come back and listen to that.

But I just want to leave that with you for maybe for you to think about for the next few weeks.

Like practically, how as a church do we address this problem that that sin in step three needs to be told to a group of people?

Who is that group of people?

Now, listen, if they refuse to listen to the local church, we go to step four.

Step four is out the door.

We're to treat them like a Gentile and a tax collector.

Now, a few weeks ago we were in this passage in verse 18.

You'll remember that when we were studying Matthew 16 together, we came to verse 18 where Jesus says, Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Maybe as a point of reminder, I'll just remind You that this is the authority that Jesus gave to the church, and for the authority to represent him, it's like an embassy-like authority to say that the local church here has the authority to approve that a person's status on earth is the same as their status in heaven.

And so this is very significant.

What Jesus is saying here is that if it gets to this point and this person is unrepentant, the local church has the authority now, if this whole process has been carried out biblically and rightly, to put a stamp of disproved on this person's passport, so to say, to say that their status in heaven is no longer as a child of God.

So in verse 19, what God is then saying is that his presence in this situation, if it becomes to a point where the church is biblically and rightly carrying out this accusation, and it's the church standing in front of one person who will not repent from their sin, God is saying his presence is with the church.

That's what he says in verse 19.

Many of us have read verse 19.

We think it's about prayer.

We think, you know, we've heard this prayed, or we've even prayed it, where two or three are gathered, whatever you ask in my name.

And he says, There I am with you.

And so we pray in a group and we say, Jesus, thank you that you are here.

I just want to give you a news flash.

If you pray in a group of two or three people, Jesus is there.

I want you to know though, when you pray alone, Jesus is also there.

This verse is not talking about prayer.

This verse is actually talking about church discipline.

It's talking about the system that Jesus has set up for care.

Now, here Jesus gives us a process.

I want you to see his heart in this process.

See, we can look at this and say, this is so rude of the church.

They're so exclusive.

And yet Jesus' heart in here is care.

Which brings us to our third point.

That a pure people will embrace care humbly.

This is what Jesus is calling each of us to do.

He's calling each of us to embrace care.

And in fact, the context of verses 15 to 20 in the whole of chapter 18 really shows us this.

Look up with me at verse 10.

Verse 10 of Matthew 18, it's a familiar passage to us.

You see there probably the headline, it's the parable of a lost sheep.

And there are two actually points in scripture that talk about the parable of a lost sheep.

And I think we're actually more familiar with the one in Luke.

Because both of the parables, the one in Luke and the one here in Matthew, actually, Jesus uses them to bring up a different point.

And I think probably what happened was that Jesus used this parable multiple times.

And we have one account in the Gospel of Luke and one account in the Gospel of Matthew.

And in the Gospel of Luke is likely the one you're familiar with.

The idea there is that there is a hundred sheep and a good shepherd, if he loses one of those sheep, that sheep being an unbeliever, he will go and find that sheep.

And the lesson there is that Jesus is going to redeem all of his children.

He will not lose one.

The lesson here is a little different than that because in verse 10 he says, See that you do not despise one of these little ones.

In this context, the the sheep that is lost that Jesus is about to talk about is one of these little ones.

And so it causes us to ask the question: what does Jesus mean by one of these little ones?

Like, is he talking about height?

Is he talking about weight?

He's talking about neither of those ones.

He tells us in verse 3 and 4 what a little one is.

He says, there, look at chapter 18, verse 3.

Truly I say to you, unless you become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Here Jesus really is laying out what it means to be a believer.

Being a believer means that like a child humbles himself before a parent, so a believer humbles himself before God and says, God, I am dependent on you.

It's this humble bowing down of saying, Jesus, you are my Lord.

I no longer care about my will, I only care about your will.

This is what a believer is.

And so it's significant then that as Jesus talks about these little ones in verse 10, he's speaking here about believers.

He says, Do not despise one of these little ones.

And look what he says in verse 12.

What do you think?

If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?

If he truly finds it, or if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray.

So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

Here's what Jesus is saying.

He's saying that if you're a child of God, if you believe in him, he is in relentless pursuit of you.

And no matter how wayward you get, he will always chase after you.

And in this moment, can you just rejoice in the goodness of Jesus Christ?

He loves you and He is in relentless pursuit of you, and He will not stop until He has brought you back to the fold.

No matter how wayward you get, no matter how cold your heart gets, this is God's love for you.

He is committed to you.

The question then is how?

How does Jesus do this?

Jesus cares for us.

Practically, how does he care for us?

How does he get that lost sheep back into the fold?

It's significant that this passage that we studied is directly after that.

Because Jesus is saying this.

This process of biblical restoration that is done because sin is to be taken seriously, this process is practically the extension of Jesus' care for you.

What is the church?

The church is the place where the children of God are cared for in a dangerous world where sin is seeking to destroy your soul.

Sin is a disease that right now is eternally destroying souls.

Jesus has created this place for you to come and find healing.

Is the place perfect?

No, because the people who are giving you healing are not perfect themselves.

And yet it is the place that Jesus has created to be the center of care for your soul.

This is the church.

You know, Amber and I, as we brought our daughter to sick kids, we we had the immense joy of making it to through the other side of all of those meetings with the doctors.

And there came a day where we met with the doctors and they said, Everything's okay with your daughter.

She's just got a really big head.

And you know, we we breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that, you know, there's no better news as a parent.

Some of you guys, I can tell, are judging the size of my head right now.

You have like your phone up, and you're like, yeah, you know what?

I've never noticed it is big.

And I gotta tell you, there's no greater joy.

And you know this.

You know, you can imagine that as a parent to hear that your child is okay, that this hospital truly cared for her in the most significant way, and she made it through to the other side.

And you know, Christian, there is a day coming where this disease that you have called sin will be totally wiped away.

And you will stand on the other side in heaven, and you will be completely pure in the presence of Jesus Christ.

You will be just like Jesus Christ.

And you'll look back and you'll see that the way that you got there was through this institution that Jesus created called the church.

Where step by step you linked arms with brothers and sisters in Christ, and they cared for your soul, and you felt as though it were the hands of Jesus Himself caring for you, pushing you towards maturity, pushing you towards sanctification, so that on that final day you stand before him and you are presented mature in him.

This is the grace that Jesus Christ is pointing us towards when he points us to the church.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you that you care for us.

God, we thank you that you desire to keep us and that you will not let us go.

And Lord, we rejoice in this love that you have for us.

And God, I pray that this love would point would push us deeper into the church.

Lord, I pray that this love would grow in us, a love for your bride, the church itself.

And God, I pray that this love would cause us to receive your care humbly.

Or to push into the relationships of the church to allow other people to speak into our life, Lord.

I thank you that you care for us.

We pray this in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.