Church Discipline A

Good morning, Good News Church. Good to see you guys.

We are continuing our series, Church Unpacked, and today we begin a mini-series

within the larger one. So the larger series is Church Unpacked. It's a lot of weeks.

And then today we begin a small two-week mini-series within it.

So today is called Part 7, Church Discipline A.

And the plan, if the Lord wills, is that next week is going to be called Church

Discipline B, and we'll finish up what we start this week next week.

And so the idea is that we're talking about church as a whole,

but we needed two weeks in order to talk about this particular topic.

The reason I did that is just, I just think I cannot say everything that I needed

to say about this topic all in one Sunday.

So as we've been going through these different topics and we've talked about

baptism and Lord's Supper and worship and all these different things,

we've been able to say kind of what we need to say in one sermon,

but I didn't think this one could be done in one sermon.

So we're going to do a little mini series. So this week and next week combined

equals church discipline within the big, larger series.

Now, before we begin, I'd like to talk about why it's important to cover the

topic of church discipline when you're talking about the church.

And so I have three reasons that I wrote down and I wanted to share them with you.

Reason number one that it's important to cover the topic of church discipline

is because it's in the Bible and it's not taught on very often.

It's in the Bible in the sense that the Bible talks about it in multiple places,

but it is not taught on very often at church.

It is sort of a counter-cultural doctrine or counter-cultural set of practices.

Outside of the Christian church, the larger just mainstream culture out there,

does not value church discipline.

Honestly, even inside the Christian church, church discipline is not valued.

I think the broader culture has sort of seeped in in a lot of ways.

And so I would say most churches do not value church discipline.

Most churches do not practice church discipline.

Most preachers do not preach on church discipline, which makes sense.

If there are five or six passages in the New Testament that we all don't obey,

well, then the preacher doesn't get up and talk about them.

If there's kind of an agreement with the congregation, like,

yeah, the Bible says this a few times, and we don't do it.

Well, if everybody's kind of agreed that we're not gonna do these verses,

then nobody gets up and talks about them.

And so that's one reason it's important to talk about this is it is in the Bible

and it's not taught on very often.

Second reason it's important is as Christ's church, it is our job to help each

other stay on track spiritually.

We talked about that in week two of this series that we're in.

And so if it is our job to help each other stay on track spiritually,

it's good to know like church discipline is actually one of the ways that we do that.

And then the third reason I think it's important to cover this is this topic

is often confusing and mishandled.

I say mishandled, meaning just every once in a while I hear like horror stories

of a church discipline thing that went wrong.

Or when I say confusing, I think sometimes I just hear like muddled,

unclear thinking about this, where people will talk about it and I'll be like,

that's not what the Bible says.

And so perhaps that's why people avoid it. I will tell you, it is actually a little exciting for me.

I've been excited all morning. I love demystifying difficult topics in the Bible.

Like that is just like one of my favorite aspects of my job.

And so I think it will be healthy for us to see what the Bible says about this.

I want to teach you six different Bible passages this morning.

Okay. We're never going to get to Sonny's.

We will. I will try to be as quickly as I can without missing anything.

So I want to cover six different Bible passages, but before I do,

let me go ahead and define my terms.

When I use the phrase church discipline, which I'm using this week,

and if the Lord allows, next week, I'll talk about it again.

This is what I mean. The definition is going to come up on the screen.

When I say church discipline, here's how I define it.

Church discipline is a set of behaviors commanded by God for his church,

for the correcting of unrepentant sin within a congregation,

for the purpose of honoring God, preserving the purity and purpose of the church,

and for the good of the individual.

And I will go through that just a little, like quickly, phrase by phrase,

so you understand what I'm saying.

So church discipline is a set of behaviors. It's stuff that you do.

Commanded by God. By that, I simply mean like the Bible says it.

Like these things are in the Bible. The Bible commands church discipline in

Matthew 18, verses 15 through 17, and in 1 Corinthians 5, verses 1 through 13,

Matthew 18:15–17 1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

and in 2 Thessalonians 3, verses 14 and 15.

2 Thessalonians 3:14

It is also implied in James chapter 5 verses 19 and 20 and 2nd Corinthians 2 verses 5 through 10.

James 5:19

So it is commanded by God for his church. Well, that's important to understand.

We are talking about church discipline this morning. We are not talking about

every form of discipline that there is.

There is discipline in other areas and other arenas in life that we are not

getting into this week and next week.

For instance, in the world of employment, it seems to me the most,

I guess, final step or most drastic step of discipline in the world of employment would be firing.

Right? If somebody does something bad enough, they get fired.

In the public sector, particularly for like elected positions like governor

or, you know, president or whatever it is.

The highest level of accountability or discipline would be like impeachment

and removal from office.

We are not talking about that. We are talking about discipline for his church.

We are not talking about anybody being impeached. We're not talking about anybody

getting fired. We're not talking about anybody getting arrested.

We're not talking about anybody going to jail. Like we are simply talking about,

within the church of Jesus Christ, how we handle the sin within the church.

And it says, it's commanded by God for his church. Look at this.

This is very important. For the correcting of unrepentant sin.

Okay, that's what it's for. It's for the correcting of unrepentant sin.

It is not for repentant sin.

And that's very important to understand. You might say, well, what is repentant sin?

Repentant sin is like when one Christian goes, hey man, that's a sin.

You shouldn't be doing that.

And the guy goes, you're right. It is a sin. I'm going to stop.

Sorry about that. Okay, that's repentant sin. That is not what church discipline

is for. It is for unrepentant sin.

I bring this up because I think it's important for you to know.

There may be some of you who are new around here.

And you might think like, oh, I didn't even know that I was going to a church

that believed in church discipline.

And I don't even know actually what that is. But it doesn't sound good.

It doesn't sound like something I'm interested in.

And you might even hear it and you might go, yeah, I don't know if I want to

attend a church that practices church discipline because, and this is what you think, you go, yeah.

Because I sin sometimes. And so I don't want to be disciplined.

I don't want to go to a church, the practice of church, because sometimes I

sin. And so I wanted you to know, like, oh, oh, I know. I know you sin. And I do too.

You sin. I sin. We all sin.

Church discipline is not for

every sin. It is for the occasions when someone will not let go of a sin.

It is when they won't fight it anymore. Okay? So it is for the correcting of

unrepentant sin within a congregation, that's also important.

This is a believers only thing. Like this is people who are Christians and we

are talking to other people who are Christians.

Church discipline is not for unbelievers.

So if you say, let's say you're friends with someone, they're not a believer in Jesus Christ.

Okay. Let's say you're friends with a person who, let's say they're going through

a rough patch in their marriage and they're considering getting a divorce.

Okay. And it's the kind of divorce that is forbidden in the Bible.

Like it's one of those cases where it's like, you're not, you shouldn't be getting

a you're not permitted to get a divorce, and they're doing it anyway.

Or imagine, let's say you have a friend who's a lesbian, and she is doing,

like, sexual things that the Bible forbids.

Or let's say you have a friend who, let's say they're, like.

Altering the time clock at work, so it looks like they're working more hours than they do.

Or let's say you know someone, I don't know, maybe you figure out somebody that

you're an acquaintance with, and you're like, oh, I think that guy's a drug

dealer. Like, everyone's always going to his house late at night.

Or maybe not even that, but Maybe it's just a drug user, okay,

whatever it is. But I'm just saying, if you have someone in your life like that,

and you know them, and they do not profess to be a Christian,

okay, this is very important to understand.

When those people are in my life, I do not hold them to the standards of Christianity.

Neither should you, okay?

When somebody is there and they don't know Jesus and they're sinning,

you do not go, oh, we need to discipline you. No, you don't.

They're not even part of the we. Okay?

So what needs to happen in that case for that person is they need to become

a follower of Jesus Christ.

And they need to become a follower of Jesus Christ voluntarily,

not because anybody forced anything on them.

Okay, so that's what we mean by within a congregation. This is for insiders.

For the purpose of honoring God, by that I simply mean like we are obeying God

when we do it and we're doing it.

We're obeying him to honor him. We are honoring him by obeying him.

Preserving the purity and purpose of the church. I think we'll talk about this more next week.

But there are sin within the church that we need to make sure is not there.

The purpose of the church, like there are things the church needs to accomplish.

There are sins that get in the way of that. They need to be removed from the

church so we can do what God's called us to do.

And then for the good of the individual simply means the whole point here is,

not to harm a person, but to help a person.

So that's our working definition of church discipline. Okay.

Everybody ready? Okay, so I'd like to show you six Bible passages on this topic.

Six Bible passages that, honestly, I got this definition from.

Like, if you know where you get this from, this is really kind of a summary

of these six Bible passages I'm going to show you.

And these six that I'm going to read to you are the big ones.

There may be other passages in the Bible that touch on this topic,

but I believe these six that I'm about to give you are the clearest passages on the topic.

And the reason that we're going to do all six at the same time is because each

one includes some information that the other ones don't.

And so I realized like I could do a sermon on this topic and just teach like

one passage of scripture and that would be easier and that would be simpler.

But you will get a much fuller understanding of this topic if you can see them

all together at the same time. So are you ready for it?

Buckle your church belts. Here we go.

The first passage of the six is Matthew chapter 18 verses 15 through 17.

Matthew 18:15–17

If you have your Bible with you, flip over to Matthew 18 right now.

It's also going to come up on the screen.

So here's our first verse, or passage number one.

I'm going to read it, and then I'll explain it after I read it.

If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private.

If he listens to you, you have won your brother.

But if he won't listen, take one or two more with you, so that by the testimony

of two or three witnesses, every fact may be established.

If he pays no attention to them, tell the church.

But if he doesn't pay attention even to the church, Let him be like an unbeliever

and a tax collector to you.

So this passage is well-known. These are the words of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was teaching his people on an occasion, and this is what he said about

this topic at this time. So these are the words of Jesus. That's why they have been taken seriously.

Not always seriously enough in this country, but they have been taken seriously

historically because Jesus is the one that said it. This is,

I would say, by far the most famous church discipline passage.

And this is one of the ones where you see that the continuation of the discipline

is for the unrepentant. It is not for the repentant.

I think the place that you see that most clearly is the fact that Jesus delineates

what you would do if he listens versus what you would do if he doesn't listen. Did you notice that?

So if your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private.

Hey, that was wrong. Okay.

If he listens to you, oh, you're right. That was wrong. I should stop sinning.

You have won your brother.

What does that mean? I think that means like church discipline over.

Like there's nothing left to do.

You said it was wrong. They're like, you're right. I should stop doing that.

All right. then everyone's back on track. We're fine. There's nothing left to do.

But if he won't listen, right? He's not repentant. I'll do whatever I want.

Who are you to judge me? And you deserved it or whatever.

Okay? If he won't listen, take one or two more with you. And if that doesn't

work, right? If they're not repentant, if he pays no attention to them,

tell the church. If that doesn't work, pay attention even to the church so that

they'll be like an unbeliever and tax collector. You can see it as the unrepentant

that the process continues for. Repentant, you're done.

The other thing that's special about this passage is this is the passage in

the bible that shows that church discipline is a multi-step process,

it is not something that is hastily doled out in five minutes okay it's not

just like everything's fine and then look at you discipline okay this is something

that it takes a while to pull it off like if if you if you read this and you take it literally

like this process requires a minimum of three conversations before you get to

the final step. Do you see that?

They've got to talk to somebody, and they've got to bring more people along

and talk to people, and more people along and talk to people.

So there's at least three conversations. This is not something that's happening

real fast in five minutes.

All right, so that's passage number one. Now we're going to move on to passage

number two, and this one is from 1 Corinthians chapter 5, and I think this one's helpful.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

This is probably the second most famous passage on this topic,

and this one is interesting because it is more, it's not, it's more specific.

It's about an actual situation.

This passage in Matthew 18 is sort of general or theoretical,

like Jesus wasn't talking about any particular person or specific sin.

He was just saying, in general, here's how you handle sin amongst the people, right?

But 1 Corinthians 5 is talking about a specific guy and a specific sin and like

a situation that was ongoing.

And so this is what that one looks like. You can flip over to 1 Corinthians

5. It's going to come up on the screen. Here we go.

As I read it, you'll see this is real specific. 1 Corinthians 5,

it is widely reported, okay? Apparently everybody had heard about this.

It is widely 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 living with his father's wife.

So Paul is talking to the Christians in Corinth and he's saying,

yeah, everybody's talking about this and it is not good. It is a bad rumor.

Okay. And I think it's a true rumor. What's happening is there's someone among

you and this sexual sin is being tolerated.

And it's of a kind that like even people outside the church would be like, ew, like that's gross.

And y'all seem to be fine with it. What is the sin. Now you could tell this

is a very specific situation. He's talking about a particular guy.

There is a guy in your congregation who is living with his father's wife.

And when you use that phrase, living with his father's wife,

coupled with the fact that he called it sexual morality, I think you can figure

out what's going on here.

This is a guy who's sleeping with his step-mom.

Okay, so you have some guy at some point who was married and had a son.

And then his wife, either there was a divorce or she died. And now he remarries

some other woman. And now his son, who I guess is an adult at this point,

is now sleeping with his father's new wife.

And Paul says.

Oh, that's terrible. That shouldn't be happening among you.

Everybody knows that's terrible. And then he says, and look at this,

he says, a man is living with his father's wife, and you are inflated with pride,

instead of filled with grief, so that he who has committed this act might be

removed from your congregation.

He's saying, you guys should have been upset about this that it was happening.

You should have kicked the guy out of the church.

But instead, and this is so weird, this phrase he uses, he says,

you are inflated with pride.

Now, I don't know what was going on in the background of the situation,

right? This is a letter and I wasn't the right, the sender or the recipient.

So I don't know exactly what was going on here, but some sort of pride was related

to this. I don't know if it was just regular, like as this guy was sleeping

with his stepmom, they were just like, way to go, bro.

Or if this was like, well, we think it's wrong, but

we are proud that we are so gracious and so merciful and we are tolerant and,

you know, we're forgiving and we're not making a big deal of it because we're

so, you know, we're so kind about everything.

So I don't know exactly what they were proud of, but clearly they were proud

of something. And he said, that's not even the emotion you should be having right now.

You should be filled with grief, so much so that you would remove this person

from your congregation.

So then he continues. I'm going to skip down to verse 9. We have a lot of verses

to cover, so let me just skip to verse 9. He says, this is the same chapter, same topic.

He says, I wrote to you in a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.

And I think he brings that up because he's saying, you all should have known better.

Like, you all can sit there and go, well, how are we supposed to know the stepmom

thing was a problem? And he's like, no, this has been addressed.

I wrote to you in a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.

And then he clarifies what he meant by that.

He says, I did not mean the immoral people of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters.

Otherwise, you'd have to leave the world.

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a

believer who is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or verbally abusive,

a drunkard or a swindler.

Do not even eat with such a person. For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders?

Don't you judge those who are inside.

And this is very interesting. This is what I said earlier. Remember when I said,

when I was talking earlier about not holding unbelievers to the standards of Christianity?

This is where I got that from. This is why I said that, because that's what

Paul said. Paul said, no, this is not like go out there and try to hold everybody

to God's standards. There's a whole world out there.

We don't, we don't got time for that. There's no way we could do all that.

Like that's not even our job. You don't have to worry about that.

But someone who's a believer and who's among you, oh yeah, that's certainly your business.

With such a person, do not even need. And this is interesting.

What business of it is mine to judge outsiders? That's not our job.

Don't you judge those who are inside? And then look what he says next.

He says, but God judges outsiders.

Oh, that's the reason why we don't need to worry about it. That's God's job.

And by the way, if you're here today and you are not a believer in Jesus Christ

yet, that's a serious thing that you need to know.

God judges outsiders. And so if you're someone who's like, yeah,

I don't want to be, you know, like, I could imagine if you're not a Christian,

you might go like, I don't think I want to become one. Like,

I don't want to be one of them and involved in their stuff and have them judging me all the time.

And I'm just letting you know, like, it's going to be way better for us to judge

you than God to judge you. Way better.

Because he knows everything you've ever done.

And yes, God is merciful, but he is merciful in Jesus Christ,

not like apart from Jesus Christ.

Anyway, back to the topic. So he says, don't worry about outsiders.

You judge those who are insiders. And then he ends with, put away the evil person from among yourselves.

Talking about stepmom guy. All right.

All right. So third passage. Okay. Second Thessalonians chapter three.

Again, I'll just read it and explain it. 2 Thessalonians chapter 3,

2 Thessalonians 3 · chapter mention

starting in verse 14. Paul says.

Okay, so this is pretty interesting. So he says, if anyone does not obey our

instruction in this letter, so there's obviously, this is written in a context.

This is toward the end of a letter.

So when he says, if someone's not obeying our instruction, what is he referring to?

He's referring to the words that were earlier in the book of 2 Thessalonians,

what he had just been talking about.

So if you check it out, like this is the paragraph I just read to you that's on the screen right now.

The thing that's just before it was Paul's condemnation of laziness within the Thessalonian church.

There were people there, you can tell by the way it's written,

there were people there who were able to work and they were refusing to work,

and they were mooching off everybody else.

Okay. They were able to work, but they were committing the sin of laziness or

idleness. They were just refusing

to work or to produce anything to be contributing to society in any way.

But when it comes to living indoors or eating food, they just mooched off the

people who were doing work.

And when Paul heard this was happening, he said, this is not how Christians are supposed to be.

Half of you are not supposed to be sponging off the other half.

You need to get a job. And so he says all that.

And then after he says that, he says, and if anyone does not obey our instruction

in this letter about laziness, right? That's what he, that's the sin he had

just been thinking of. Take note of that person.

Don't associate with him. Now, don't associate with him seems to me to be the

same thing that Matthew 18 said and 1 Corinthians 5 said, right?

Just slightly different words.

Matthew 18 said, you know, treat him as you would an unbeliever or a tax collector.

1 Corinthians 5 said, like, with such a person, do not eat, right?

Put the person away from yourselves.

And here it says, do not associate with him. So it's the same,

different words, but every passage is saying the same thing.

But this one adds some extra information that was not in Matthew 18,

nor was it in 1 Corinthians 5.

Look at what this one is, at least not written this way.

He says, don't associate with him and then he gives the reason why.

So that he may be ashamed.

The goal is that you all say to the person, hey, you won't get a job or you're

sleeping with your stepmom or whatever the thing was. And so they won't associate

with you anymore. The goal is that the person would go around and go,

wow, like all of my friends think I'm doing the wrong thing.

All of them don't want to have anything to do with me anymore.

Now what do I do? Like the goal is that the person would feel shame for what

they've done. Maybe what I'm doing is wrong.

And then the last thing is also really interesting because after it says that,

it says yet, don't treat him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

So apparently the not associating with him does not mean you can't speak to

him in any form at all, right?

It means that you have to speak to him in a warning way. So what I'm assuming

here is when he says don't associate with him, I'm assuming that means the same

thing that 1 Corinthians 5 meant when it said, with such a person do not eat, right?

What does that mean? I think it means you cannot just go out to Applebee's with

this person hanging out, acting like everything's okay. It is not okay.

But it doesn't mean you can't speak to them at all. It doesn't mean you have

to absolutely ghost them.

Apparently, you can have a conversation with them, but it's not a happy one

at Applebee's where everything's fine.

It's a warning conversation, not an unkind warning conversation,

though. One where you're concerned about someone like they're your own family,

and you're warning them.

All right. Fourth passage. For those of you tracking where we're going,

we're halfway done with our six passages. Here we go. Passage number four.

It's Galatians chapter six, verse one. I'll give you a second to get there.

Galatians chapter six, verse one. Paul writes, brothers, if someone is caught

in any wrongdoing, let me pause there.

So we're, we're on the right topic, aren't we?

That's what we want to know. Like, what do we do if someone is caught in a wrongdoing.

All right, here we go. If somebody is caught in a wrongdoing,

you who are spiritual should restore such a person with a gentle spirit,

watching out for yourselves so you also won't be tempted.

So what are we supposed to do when someone's caught in a wrongdoing?

This one talks about how to confront someone's sin and it specifically says

like the attitude that you are to have, right?

You are spiritual. Again, this is church discipline, right? This is the people

within the same congregation.

Conversation you should restore

such a person that's the goal of this conversation is to restore them,

you should restore such a person and in what way with a gentle spirit you're

supposed to be gentle in the way you bring it up that word can also be translated

humble with a humble spirit.

And then when you add that to watching out for yourselves so that you won't

also be tempted it seems to me that he's saying the attitude that you are to

have when you talk to this person about their wrongdoing is not to be like this.

It's not to be, I can't believe that you did this wicked thing that I would

never do, right? No, no. With a humble spirit, understanding I could also be

tempted. I say, hey, what you're doing is wrong. You need to repent.

And if I were doing this, and I very well could do something like this,

I would also need to repent.

Now, in this passage, it's interesting, no excommunication is mentioned here, okay?

The final step of the church discipline process doesn't come up in this verse.

It seems to me Paul is just talking about what to do with the first few steps, right?

You go to the person, you talk to them about their sin, and you're supposed

to handle it gently, right? So the final step doesn't mention it here.

Paul's just focusing on the positive at this point, saying like what the goal

is. The goal is not to hurt them. The goal is to restore them.

Now we know from other bible passages yes there does come a point where you

disassociate with a person but it seems to me what he's saying here is until

you get to that point the goal is not to disassociate the goal is to restore.

All right passage number five this one is james chapter five verses 19 and 20

these are actually the last two sentences or two verses of the book of James.

James chapter 5 verses 19 through 20 says, my brothers, if any among you strays

James 5:19–20

from the truth and someone turns him back, let me just pause there real quick.

So wait, so a believer in Jesus Christ can stray from the truth? Apparently so.

And then someone could go talk to that person and turn them back to the truth? Apparently so.

Okay, well if that happens, if any among you strays from the truth and someone

turns him back, let him know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his

way will save his life from death and cover a multitude of sins.

This passage, I think, is really interesting because this, out of all the passages

we've read, this one isn't even a command.

Like Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5 were all written like a command,

you know, with a person do not eat, you know, go rebuke him in private.

This one is not written like a command. This is just a description of how wonderful

church discipline is when it works.

Like it's so great when the person strays and the other person says something

and then they go back and they go, oh my goodness, that's so wonderful.

You just saved his life from death and a multitude of sins.

It's beautiful.

All right, passage number six. This is probably the least famous of the ones

I'm going to read today, but it's a real fascinating one.

You're going to be glad I'm throwing this one in for free.

2 Corinthians 2, verses 5 through 8. Again, I'll read it, then I'll explain

2 Corinthians 2:5–8

it, but this is Paul writing to the Corinthians, and he says,

if anyone has caused pain, he has caused pain not so much to me,

but to some degree, not to exaggerate, to all of you.

The punishment inflicted by the majority is sufficient for that person.

As a result, you should instead forgive and comfort him. Otherwise,

this one may be overwhelmed by excessive grief.

Therefore, I urge you to reaffirm your love to him.

What an interesting situation. So what's going on here? Well,

first of all, it's important to notice. This is 2 Corinthians.

So this passage was written to the same congregation that had the guy sleeping

with his stepmom. Okay? These are the same people.

That verse that I read to you about stepmom guy was in 1 Corinthians.

This is 2 Corinthians. This was written several months later.

Okay? and there were letters that were exchanged in between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians.

For that reason, I don't know who this guy is. When he said there's this person

that caused pain, right, and you should forgive him, it's very possible that

it's stepmom guy. Like it could be that several months later they are still

dealing with that situation and he is addressing what they need to do now.

But because there's letters that have gone back and forth in the middle,

I'm just saying this could be a whole, like maybe they might've handled stepmom

situation and this might be a whole nother sinner.

So I don't know who this guy is, but I'm kind of imagine it's the stepmom guy.

But whoever he is, he says, okay, so this person, they did the wrong thing.

And look what he says to them. He says, the punishment inflicted by the majority,

is sufficient for that person.

So I assume what he's saying here when he's talking about a church discipline

case. He's saying the punishment inflicted by the majority, meaning the majority

of the church did what 1 Corinthians says to do.

With such a person, do not even eat, right? Expel the evildoer from among yourselves.

Do not associate with him. So they did it, right?

The majority of them shunned the minor, this person.

And then he says, all right, that punishment that you did, it is sufficient. It's time to stop.

You don't need to keep doing it. It's sufficient for that person.

As a result, you should instead forgive and comfort him.

What is happening here? Well, we don't know the backstory, right?

Because this is just a letter written not to us or from us.

But as you read it, you figure out, well, something was going on behind the

scenes. And this is my best guess. My best guess is that either this is stepmom guy or someone else.

And they read the book of 1 Corinthians and said, all right,

we're going to obey this. You are not one of us anymore. We can't even eat with you.

We will not associate with you. And the person went away and they were ashamed.

And they said, I should not be doing this.

And maybe they apologized to dad and maybe they apologized to stepmom or they

apologized to whoever they were supposed to be and they repented and they go

back to the church and they go, I was wrong and I'm sorry and I'm not going

to do it anymore and I just want to ask you all to forgive me.

And this is what I think probably happened. I think they all went.

Paul didn't mention what to do if you came back. So I think like, no, okay, like go away.

And I think he was like, no, but really, like I'm sorry and I repented.

Like I think, like I agree with you. Like, it was wrong, and I feel terrible

about it, and I'm not going to do it anymore. Like, I am sorry.

And I think they were like, you know, I mean, all we got is with such a man

do not eat. Sorry, like, we can't.

And so I now think Paul's writing a follow-up letter going like, people, it worked.

The goal was for the guy to be ashamed and be restored. If he's coming back

and saying sorry, take him back in and forgive him, right?

Otherwise, this one may be overwhelmed with excessive grief.

You're giving him grief on a sin he's repented of, right?

Therefore, I urge you to reaffirm your love to him. That's what I think is going on here.

What's interesting to me about this passage is the same congregation that was

under-disciplining in 1 Corinthians was over-disciplining in 2 Corinthians,

right? Isn't that interesting how that could happen?

Whew. All right. That was a lot of scripture. All right.

And I'm glad I got to read it all to you. And I think that you can see when

you see them all at once, that all of these passages agree that sin among believers must be dealt with.

Do you see that? Every single one of these passages assumes sin among believers

must be dealt with by those believers.

So none of these passages were mind your own business passages. Not a one of them.

There is a mind your own business passage in 1 Thessalonians.

I love it. But that's not what any of these were.

None of these are mind your own business passages. The sin must be dealt with.

You might go, well, that's true. I see that, Mario. So why'd you have to read

all six of them? Like we just same thing over and over and over again.

The reason I included all six passages is because each passage included information

that sort of balances out our understanding of the other passages.

For instance, if you only knew one church discipline passage in the whole Bible,

okay, I could imagine you might, you know, come along and you might say,

okay, yes, church discipline is a thing, but it's not to punish a person.

Can you imagine someone saying that? Like, church discipline is a thing that

God has ordained, but it's not to punish anybody.

And at some point we have to go, oh, yeah, I mean, it is because 2 Corinthians

says that it is, right? Like, the punishment by the majority is sufficient.

Paul didn't say the punishment by the majority shouldn't have happened.

He just said, like, it happened, and then you kept going. But,

like, yes, it is a punishment.

And then I can imagine someone might go, okay, okay, if you're aware of 2 Corinthians

2, you might go, okay, yes, it is, in a sense, to punish a person.

But the goal is definitely not to shame them, right? Can you picture someone

saying that? I believe in church discipline, but the goal is not to shame them.

It is to shame them. Like, 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 14 said,

2 Thessalonians 3:14

do not associate with him so that he may be ashamed now if you only know those

two passages you might go oh okay well,

I guess if you're why you're doing all this punishing and shaming I guess you

got to be like really harsh when you're dealing with these people no Galatians

6 1 said to restore them gently,

and 2nd Thessalonians said don't treat him like an enemy warn him like a brother,

and so when you take all the passages together I think you get a fuller picture don't you.

Another thing that I think is good for us to learn them all at the same time

is this. If all I had was 1 Corinthians 5, I would think the church discipline

was a one-time event that you dole out onto a person, particularly if they're

sleeping with their stepmom.

It's like, okay, here's the thing. This is the thing we do for you. Discipline. Done.

And if all I had was Galatians 6, verse 1, I wouldn't even know excommunication

Galatians 6:1

was an option to consider.

I would just think, well, we've got to restore them. So I guess we just have

another conversation and another conversation and another conversation forever.

It's really Matthew 18 that sort of blends and assimilates all these passages.

It's Matthew 18 that shows us church discipline is a multi-step process of conversations

and conversations for the purpose of restoration that sometimes ends

with a one-time act of excommunication, just like it's described in 1 Corinthians 5.

So I hope that this is helpful to you. I would like to, before I end today,

I wanna give you one more visual that I hope will help you be able to see this

in the right way and realize how it applies to your life. And then I'll close.

So the visual I have is a set of stairs, okay? So I want you to see this.

The staircase that I wanna show you today is, it's got four steps.

And the reason it has four steps is because this staircase is sort of modeled after Matthew 18.

Jesus' words in Matthew 18, the church discipline process he gives has four

steps. Do you see it? Like he said, if your brother sins against you,

go and rebuke him in private. That was step one. That's the first thing you do.

And if he listens, like, then you're done. That's awesome. Jump back off the

staircase. But if he doesn't listen, then you've got to bring one or two others along.

And then if he listens, the assumption is, let's go back down here.

But if he doesn't listen, then what?

Well, then you tell the church. And then that's step three.

And then if it doesn't work after you told the church and all these people got

involved, then you let them be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you.

And that's step four. So like Matthew 18 is sort of a four-step process.

So I got a staircase with four steps.

Now, I wanted to explain the words I'm going to use, particularly today.

And because I'm going to talk about this next week, I want you to understand,

how I'm describing this stuff. I hope this will help you.

I use the word excommunication to describe the final step of this process, okay?

This fourth step where you go, I can no longer associate with you.

I call that excommunication, okay? That's the word I use for it.

You can use another word if you want to. It doesn't matter, okay?

I think that's the word my church used growing up, so that seems like normal to me.

I've heard people that call this step disfellowshipping, okay?

Whatever you call it, it doesn't matter. You've got to call it something.

This step has a name. You have to call it something. And so anyway,

just when I'm talking, just so you know, when I say excommunication,

I'm referring to the first step.

When I use the phrase church discipline, I am referring to the whole process, all four steps, okay?

So excommunication is step four. Church discipline is the entire staircase, okay?

Now, not everybody uses the words those ways, and that's why I'm trying to,

like, make sure there's no confusion here.

I know that there are Christians who sometimes use the words church discipline,

to refer to the fourth step. Like, I've heard Christians do it.

Well, they say, well, we talked to him, and we talked to him,

and we talked to him, and we talked to him, and finally we had to do church discipline.

Okay, and that's fine. I get it. They're using the words church discipline to describe this.

But I use the word excommunication for that step, and I use church discipline

to describe the whole staircase. And you might go, well, why does that matter?

All right, here's why. If you use the phrase church discipline to only mean the final step...

You will think that this topic only takes place on rare occasions,

and it's not really relevant to your normal everyday life.

But if you use the words church discipline the way that I'm using them today

and next week, if you use the words church discipline to refer to the entire

staircase, including all of the little conversations that happen in step one,

then you will realize that church discipline is just a normal part of the Christian life.

Because step one includes all the times that there is a Christian that looks

at another Christian and goes, not cool, man.

And then that guy goes, sorry, bro.

And I mean, that's Matthew 18, 15. That's five words, not cool,

man, sorry, bro. You can accomplish Matthew.

You can accomplish Matthew 18, 15 in five words if you're in a pinch.

And that happens every week, like in a church this size, That kind of thing

happens every week, and it's not a big deal, and most people don't even think

of it as church discipline.

It was just a little interaction that happened that you don't even remember a couple of days later.

In fact, I believe Matthew 18, 15 can be accomplished with no words at all.

When I was growing up, my mom was able to rebuke me with her face alone.

You've seen this? Yes. So I would be sinning in church, okay?

And she would look at me. No words came out of her mouth, okay? She would just...

And I knew, like, she is rebuking me in private. Matthew 18,

15 is happening right now, okay? Like, she's showing my fault just between the

two of you, right? And then I would look back at her, and I would give her a

favor. Oh, sorry. Please don't, please, please don't. I'm sorry, right?

No words were exchanged, but there was a rebuke, and there was repentance.

Now, I know a lot of you go, that's a mom thing. No, that is a human thing.

In fact, I'm going to use an example of it that involves no moms at all,

okay? I want you to imagine there are four or five Christian men.

They're all having a meal together at Longhorns, okay?

Four or five Christian guys, they're all eating at Longhorns,

and one of the five guys does something or says something that is like inappropriate

or immoral in front of the other guys, okay?

Maybe he tells a lie and everybody knows it's a lie.

Maybe he gossips or maybe he slanders someone. Maybe he's disparaging his wife

and talking about her in a way he should not be talking about her when she's not around.

Maybe he loses his temper and he has like a sinful sort of anger and he's cussing,

whatever it is. I don't know.

But let's just imagine he does or says something that is immoral.

And after he does it, the other guys just look at him like, what is wrong with you, man?

And they don't say anything. Like maybe one guy just drops his fork,

okay? Just cling. And then they just look at him.

Can you picture this? They're all looking at him like, what's your deal?

And then he looks at the body language that's coming at him and he goes,

oh, sorry, sorry. I crossed the line there. Sorry, guys.

Have you seen this? Yes, you've seen this. This is normal life.

Many of you have been in Bible studies where somebody spouted off about something,

said stuff they shouldn't have said. people looked at him like,

right? And then they were like, sorry, all right, I didn't realize.

I'll get better at that.

And when that happens, nobody ever says, Galatians 6 chapter 1 just happened, right?

Matthew 18, 15 happened. No, but that is what happened.

And once you realize that that is included in church discipline,

you will realize it is absolutely a normal part of the Christian life.

If you've been a Christian even for just a few months, you probably already

have given church discipline and received church discipline.

It happens all the time, and it's good for you. Like spiritually,

it is one of the things that has gotten you to where you are right now.

Like some of you, you have to

admit, you are farther along in your spiritual life than you used to be.

One of the reasons is because of this. Praise God.

All right, Lord willing, we will do more on this next week. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for being so clear in your word and so practical.

Thank you for giving us to each other so that this could happen.

Thank you for not making it to where we would just live our lives,

straying from the truth, walking like toward the edge of a cliff,

and there's no one there to say anything, to warn us so that we don't keep stepping that way.

In fact, I know there are people in Marion County that they are headed toward

a cliff, and nobody's saying anything.

And so I pray for them,

I pray that someone would say something I prayed you put them in a community

of people where that wouldn't be a normal part of their life I thank you for

those of us who have placed ourselves in your community actually you saved us

and brought us into your family adopted us into your family

so that we have a community of people that aren't just sitting there going like

well I'm just going to walk off the cliff thank you so much for that,

there has been a lot of spiritual progress in this room because of that.

And so we thank you. We thank you and praise you for that.

I pray for us in this room that we would be people who are good at gently rebuking

for the purpose of restoration,

and people who are teachable and desire us to repent.

I know a room of the size, some of us are probably thinking of difficult situations

even right now, but I just pray you'd help us to be faithful to you and then trust,

in what you've said and what you've done.

I pray that you would bring us back together next week and that it would be

your will that we would be able to finish this up.

Thank you for your grace. We love you and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.