Church Discipline B

Good morning, Good News Church.

We are continuing our series, Church Unpacked. We are now at part eight of this

series of sermons on church life. I heard that woo, thank you.

I think it has been very healthy for us to cover these topics.

There are some things that we have said in this series that we have said now for the very first time.

For instance, this is the first series in the history of Good News Church where

we did a sermon on why we do sermons.

It seems crazy to me that it took so long for us to get around to that topic.

Like for the first 15 years of this church, we just assumed you knew why we preach.

And it was not until this year that we actually explained why teaching is such

an important part of Christian gatherings.

So we covered that in this series, but not only that, we've covered a lot of

other topics as well. We've talked about membership. We've talked about worship,

Lord's Supper, baptism.

Last week, we began a short two-week mini-series on the topic of church discipline,

which if you don't know what that is, it's about how to handle sin.

In within a congregation.

And it's a very difficult topic. I mentioned last week that it is a topic that

is usually ignored in most American churches. Like it is not valued,

it is not practiced, it is not taught on very often.

And if you didn't like last week's sermon, I figured you should know.

Like this week's going to be even worse, okay?

Especially if you weren't here last week or especially if you're a visitor.

Oh, visitors.

The only thing worse than walking into a new church on Church Discipline Week,

is walking into a new church that's in the middle of a two-week series on Church

Discipline and hearing only an incomplete second half of the message.

Okay, so if this is your very first time in our church, I am sorry.

I apologize. I apologize on behalf of whoever invited you.

However, in my defense, we did publish all the sermon titles ahead of time,

and so the person that invited you should have known better than to invite you, so it's sort of on them.

All right, in all seriousness, the reason why we are where we are today is this

is an important topic, and I could not fit it all into one week.

So we're going to pick up where we left off last week, but for the new people,

let me go ahead and review just a little bit of what we said last week before

we move ahead, so that this will make sense.

Last week, we began with a definition of church discipline. We were like,

well, what is it that we're talking about this week and next week?

And so the definition is going to come up on the screen, and I'm going to read it for you.

This is what we said last week. We said, 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.

Last week, I also taught six different Bible passages that address this topic.

I will not be rereading all six of those Bible passages today,

but I will be rereading one of them. It's Matthew 18, verses 15 through 17.

Matthew 18:15–17

So if you do have your Bible with you, this would be a good time to turn to

Matthew 18, verses 15 through 17.

Matthew 18:15–17

These words that I'm about to read are the words of Jesus Christ.

This is the most well-known passage on this topic.

And I'm going to read the whole thing, but we're really going to focus more

on the second part of this passage today.

So here we go. Jesus said, 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 If he doesn't pay

attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you.

And then I taught you that passage yesterday as well as five others.

And then last week we ended on a visual illustration and I wanna show you the

visual illustration just so you know where we are. This is it.

It was a staircase that had four steps in it.

And the reason it has four steps in it is because the passage I just read to

you, Matthew 18, 15 through 17, has four steps in it.

I don't know if you noticed that, but it does. Like he said,

if somebody sins against you, do this. And if that doesn't work,

do this. And if that doesn't work, do this. And if that doesn't work,

do this. Did you catch that there were four steps?

If somebody sins against you, go and rebuke him in private. That was step one.

I mean, he doesn't call it step one, but that's what he says to do.

And then he says, if he will not listen, bring one or two others along, right?

And if he will not listen, then tell it to the church. And if he will not listen,

treat him as you would an unbeliever or a tax collector.

So there's four steps in that passage. And so I wanted you to imagine it.

And I also wanted you to know how I'm using the terms that I'm using,

like why I say the things I say.

So I use the word excommunication to refer to that fourth step,

where it's like treat him as a tax collector.

F communication is the word that I think the church I grew up in used to describe

this step. And so that's the word I use. You can use a different word if you

want. I don't think it matters what you call it, but obviously you have to call

it something. Okay. So there's this fourth step.

But when I say last week's sermon and this week's sermon are on church discipline,

I'm not simply talking about this step. I'm talking about the whole process

that Jesus outlined, right? There's four steps. The whole staircase is church discipline.

Not everybody does that. I know I've heard people sometimes say,

you know, we talked to him and we talked to him and we talked to him.

And finally we had to do church discipline.

But I just want to let you know, like that's not how I use the word.

I use the word church discipline to talk about the whole process of what Jesus said.

And I use the word excommunication to refer to that fourth step.

Now, last week we spent a good bit of time,

talking about the first step, okay? Today, I want to finish up this by explaining

the rest of the staircase.

Essentially, what I'm saying is last week's sermon and this week's sermon is

really, it was just all one long sermon that's like an hour,

hour and a half long, and I just didn't think you could handle it, okay?

Actually, I didn't think KidZone could handle it, okay? So, we broke it into

two things, but the problem is we're just, we're now picking up where we left

off last week. So, last week, we spent a bunch of time on this first step,

and so now I'd like to explain steps two, three, and four as the rest of the sermon.

So step one, just as a reminder, for those of you here, step one is a private

confrontation. It's described in verse 15. I'll read it one more time.

Matthew 18, 15 says, if your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private.

Last week, we mentioned some of the benefits that come from this first step.

We also talked about how this first step is just a very normal part of the Christian life.

So now today, picking up where we left off last week, let's move on to step

two. Step two is found in verse 16, which is the next verse, okay?

But if he won't listen, right? So you went and talked to him,

you rebuked him in private.

If he won't listen, take one or two more with you. So this is step two.

So that by the testimony of two or

three witnesses, every fact may be established. So what is going on here?

Why is there a step two? And particularly, why is step two this?

Like, why do I have to bring two people with me and do it all over again and

why do the two people have to be there?

So, first off, I think I want to just tell you from my own personal experience,

I think adding another couple of people into the room when you're having a conversation

like this causes there to be sort of an added seriousness to the conversation.

Has anybody experienced this before? Like, it says, but if he won't listen.

So Jesus assumes, like, there's going to be a time where you try to talk to

someone and they don't take you seriously. They're just like,

I don't care, and you're sensitive, and whatever, okay?

It seems to me it is easier to take someone, sorry, it is easier to not take

someone seriously or to ignore them when they're just one person,

particularly if they are just one person that you are mad at.

It is a lot harder to do that with three people. The whole, who cares what you

think? It's harder to do that when there's three people on the other side of

the room or the table or whatever it is.

I have noticed, when this has happened, I have noticed people who exhibit,

let's call them non-peaceful behaviors, okay?

People who exhibit non-peaceful behaviors when they're doing like a one-on-one

confrontation, I've noticed some of those people become much more well-behaved,

when other people are in the room watching.

Have any of you seen this? Yes. I mean, I've literally seen this in my eyes.

You go like, this went terrible. And then you try it again and there's two people

in the room and all of a sudden everyone's like, well, I wanted to share a concern

I have. And you're like, whoa, that's not how they said it the first time, right?

Because there's people there in the room watching.

So among Christians, more people in the room often brings about better behavior,

okay? But I don't think that's the only reason that you do step two.

In fact, that's not even the reason that Jesus actually said, right?

I think that the two witnesses are there to ensure the situation is handled

with justice and fairness, okay?

Look at the second half of the verse, right? If you won't listen,

take one or two more with you.

This is, so why, why are they there? This is what Jesus said.

So that by the testimony of two or three witnesses, every fact may be established.

Now, I believe that's a quote from the book of Deuteronomy and it's sort of

legalese. Like Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament, but particularly like

a part of the Old Testament about their law and the way that they handled like

justice and criminal justice and stuff.

And so he takes this principle from the Old Testament and applies it here.

Two or three witnesses, every fact may be established. This is a legal thing.

Like, I think if it's done right, the witnesses can act as a safeguard for the

accuser and the accused person.

Probably most of you have heard this phrase. Have you ever heard this phrase

where somebody says, it was a he said, she said situation. Right?

Have you heard this? It was a he said, she said situation. And a lot of times

what that means is, well, you know, he says such and such happened,

and she said such and such happened, and we weren't there, so we don't know, okay?

And I think the idea with this Bible verse in particular, step two of Matthew

18, the idea here is this second conversation in the series of conversations,

that's not going to be the case this time, because there's going to be people there.

It's not going to be like, well, I said this, and why? That's not true.

I had a good attitude when I said it, and he said this. No, I didn't say that.

There are going to be two people who were like there that can say,

we were there. We saw the conversation happen. There'll be witnesses for that.

Now, when Jesus says, when you go talk to him, take one or two more with you as witnesses,

I don't think that Jesus means that you have to go find two people who were,

or one or two people, who were eyewitnesses of the original sin, okay?

I guess that's one way you could take this, that somebody sins against you,

you talk to them, they won't apologize.

You have to find like two people who were there and watch the person sin against

you and then you bring them back. I don't think that's what Jesus is saying here.

It seems to me, if that's what he was saying, Matthew 18 would not be able to

be used very often, okay?

There are lots of sins that happen when there are no eyewitnesses around,

right? I mean, I would guess probably most sins happen when there are no eyewitnesses around.

So it seems to me like it would be impossible to apply Matthew 18 to most of

life if the only way to do step two is there had to be two people standing there

when she did it or he did it.

Now, I will say this. If there were witnesses that were present when so-and-so

sinned against you, which sometimes that does happen, okay?

If there were witnesses who were present, well, absolutely those are the two

people who you should bring into this conversation, right? If you're sitting

there, I did this, and they said, no, I didn't.

Like the two people you bring would certainly be the two people who were standing

there when it all went down.

If that happens, definitely that's the people you should bring with you.

But what I'm trying to say is, if the sin took place privately,

the two witnesses, I believe, that Jesus is talking about here,

are not coming to testify about the original sin. They are there to witness

this second conversation.

Are you following? Okay.

They will be able to see who accused who of what.

What attitude did they have when they said it? How specific were they about what offended them?

What did the accused person say back? What attitude did they have when they responded?

Did they admit to doing it? Did they deny doing it, right?

In step number two, there will be witnesses for all of that, which is important.

Sometimes accusers falsely accuse someone did you know this yes this is true

like not every rebuker is correct sometimes there's a rebuker and they rebuke

someone and then you get to the bottom you find out the rebuker was the person that was in the wrong,

right so not every not every rebuker is correct but also it is true sometimes

accused people actually are guilty and they refuse to take responsibility for

what they have done and even lie about what happened,

so I believe the second step of Matthew 18, found here in verse 16,

involves additional witnesses to add like seriousness and better behavior to

the situation and as a safeguard for the accuser and the accused person.

Now, let's look at step three, okay? That's step two. What happens if that doesn't

work? Let's move to the next verse, step three.

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

Oh, that's interesting if he pays no attention to them who's the them that he's

referring to here it's a plural word who's he referring to.

Yeah, you and the witnesses, right? The original person, the original rebuker,

and the witnesses, okay?

So again, when he says he doesn't pay attention to them, it's obvious that these

two witnesses that come along are not, what's the word? They're not just witnesses

in the sense that they just stand there quietly, okay?

We're just here to witness. We're on like an organic security camera, okay?

Obviously, they are adding words to the conversation as well,

trying to bring peace to this conflict. And if they are not listened to either,

he says, tell the church.

Okay, well, what does it mean to tell the church?

Well, at first you might think, well, I think that's pretty straightforward.

It means tell the church.

But I just wanted to let you know, there are actually like at least three different

views on what this means or how you would apply this in real life.

Okay, so I'm gonna share all three options with you. Are you ready?

Okay, well, her service was ready and you guys are gonna get it ready or not.

So what does it mean? if he pays no attention to them, tell the church.

So option number one, the first thing I'm going to share with you are interpretation number one.

This is the way I think it was interpreted by the church that I grew up in,

okay? I think the church that I grew up in would say what I'm about to say,

which is that basically what tell the church means is tell the elders, okay?

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

Now, the pro to interpreting the passage this way is, first of all,

it's very practical. It makes sense. Like, okay, so I talk to this person one-on-one,

it didn't work. Then I bring some other people.

It didn't work. Well, I just kind of work my way up the chain and we'll get

some people that are even like more involved and have more authority around here.

Another reason that this is a pro to this interpretation is it fits with the

way that we talk about other groups, okay? Sometimes we do talk about a group,

but when we say the name of the group, we are actually referring to the leaders of that group.

So for instance, let's say you hear someone and they say, I'm going to go tell

the school that there's a misprint in the curriculum, okay? Can you picture someone saying that?

I'm going to go tell the school there's a misprint in the curriculum.

When that person says that, what do they mean when they say they're going to tell the school.

Typically, they don't mean that they are going to tell every single member of

the student body, do they?

No. When they say, I'm going to go tell the school, typically they mean,

I'm going to go tell the leadership of the school, right?

And then the leadership of the school will act on behalf of the school.

And I can see why a lot of people would say, yeah, you tell the leadership of

the church, and then they act on behalf of the church.

The con to this interpretation is that Jesus didn't say, tell the elders.

He didn't say, if he pays no attention to them, tell the elders.

And he could have said that, but that's not what he said. He said,

tell the, anybody remember what the Greek word was for church?

We learned in the very first week of the series, ecclesia, that warms my heart.

Okay, in the first week of the series, we talked about ecclesia is this word

in the New Testament that's translated church, and we talked about what it means,

that it means a congregation.

It means a gathering of people. It's not a reference to an institution,

and it doesn't mean elders.

It means a gathering or a congregation of people, and that's the word that Jesus

used, to which you might go, OK, well, that brings us to the second view or

the second application.

If he pays no attention, tell the church. I guess that means show up on a Sunday

morning and stand up and announce it to everybody, right?

Because that's the church. That's the gathering, right? So someone sins against

you. I talked to them by myself. Didn't work. Then I brought two other people

along. Didn't work. So now I stand up on Sunday and go, hey,

everyone, sinner, right? And then we all get into the conversation.

So the pro to that interpretation is that it takes the words of Jesus seriously and literally.

The con is, depending on the situation, that might be something that doesn't

fit with the gist of what Jesus was trying to accomplish.

I guess what I'm saying is, what if there's 700 people there? Okay?

The interpretation that this means just show up at the next church service,

stand up and tell everybody, it seems to me that application would work great,

in a church size of like 10 or 20 people.

Like if you have a church that's made up of 10 or 20 people,

and you go and you talk to the person and you can't work it out and two other

people and you can't work it out, that you would show up at the next meeting

and tell all 10 of them or all 20 of them, hey, here's the deal.

Like that makes sense to me.

But the question is, what if you are in a situation when a whole bunch of people

all show up at the same gathering? And I guess I'm asking you this.

What if you and the person you're rebuking know, let's say 50 people that are in the room, okay?

And then there's 650 people that you don't know. Do you announce this,

to 650 strangers, okay? It seems to me that is not the point of the passage.

It doesn't seem to fit the passage. And the reason why is because of what he says after it.

He says, if he pays no attention to them, tell the church. Now,

what's the church supposed to do?

Look, it says, but if he doesn't pay attention even to the church,

let him be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you, right?

So he had already said, bring the witnesses. And if he doesn't listen to them,

tell the church. And if he doesn't listen to them.

So it sounds like whoever the church is, it's this group of people,

this congregation, this somebody, who are supposed to also be rebuking this guy.

Can you tell that that's what it is when he says, if he doesn't pay attention even to the church?

Whatever this group of people is, they are joining in the rebuke saying,

yeah, man, you need to repent.

Also, and I guess, sorry, I just thought this would be obvious.

Let me just say it though, just in case.

Is it possible for 650 people to rebuke someone that they just met a minute

ago, right? That would be something that would be very difficult to pull off.

The other thing that I want to point out is the punishment that is suggested

here. If they don't pay attention to the church, what are you supposed to do? Look what it says.

Let him be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you. And we talked about

this last week, that the final step of church discipline is like a cutting off of social contact.

You remember that? You remember last week when we looked at 1 Corinthians chapter

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

5, and one of the phrases in 1 Corinthians 5 was Paul said, do not even eat

with such a person. Do you remember that?

The person was saying that they were a Christian, they were sleeping with their

stepmom and he said, do not, he said, the person should be removed from your

congregation, do not even eat with such a person, right?

So if that's the final step is this cutting off of social contact,

here's my question for you.

Now, how would you, if you're in this situation, how would 650 people cut off

social contact with someone that they already weren't hanging out with,

right? It sounds like nothing changes at all there.

So this brings up a third interpretation or a third application,

and that is that what Jesus is saying here is tell the people in the church

who know this person, like tell it to their congregation, tell it to their group.

In other words, step three is sort of like a bigger version of step two.

So step one is I just talked to the person one-on-one.

Step two is, okay, now there's two or three other people along.

Step three is, well, now it's going to involve 10 people or 20 people or 30

people, but here's the point.

But people who actually have a relationship with the unrepentant person. Does that make sense?

Okay, so which view does Jesus, which view does Good News Church take when we

go, okay, Jesus said this, well, now what do we do with it?

Okay, is it tell the elders? Is it screaming at everybody on Sunday morning?

Is it tell the people that know them? And so I would say this,

of the three views, the view that Good News Church takes is,

I would say, mostly view number three.

However, we recognize all three interpretations are valid depending on the situation.

What I mean by that is, well, let's take the elder view first.

We have had situations here at this church where the person who was being rebuked

was so unknown to the congregation that once the elders got involved,

that covered everybody who knew that person.

What happened is you have a person that just comes in, sits on the back row,

leaves, doesn't get to know anybody.

They've got a few friends and family members. the few friends and family members

are the people who confronted them, right? And then they brought the extra friends

and family members and they confronted them again.

And then they brought it to the church leadership and the elders met with them

and got involved. And we were like, hey man, you really need to repent.

You got to stop doing this. And I'm like, no, I won't. Or whatever happened. Okay.

That's not an exact quote, but this has happened a few times.

And so we were like, you're not welcome here anymore, okay? And then who did

we announce it to after that?

Well, nobody. Literally every person that knew that person was already involved at that point.

We have had other situations where a person's whole community group got involved,

that someone was sinning and someone talked to them about it and then someone

else talked to them about it and then their whole community group,

like that was the ecclesia, then got involved. Their whole group went and spoke to them about it.

Okay, what about the other interpretation of Mario, the whole congregation?

Like everybody that shows up, you know, like at both services,

like not a community group, but like everybody that shows up on a Sunday.

Would there ever be a time where we would just announce it to everybody that

shows up at both services? Yes.

Yes. There could certainly be a situation where a sinner is so well known that

it would need to be addressed with the whole congregation, even both church services.

You might go, who would that be?

Well, I think several people fall into that category, but probably the most

obvious would be me, right?

Like, if someone confronts me, and they confront me, and they confront me,

and, you know, I keep saying, like, one day, like, after multiple rebukes,

I sit there, and I go, I don't care what any of y'all think.

If I want two wives, I'll have two wives, okay? Let's just say that happens. I don't repent.

That's going to get announced to the whole first service and the whole second

service, right? Yeah, everybody's going to need to know that.

So, if they don't listen, even to the church, then what?

Okay so that brings us to step four if after warning and warning and warning

the person will not let go of their sin jesus said let him be like an unbeliever

and a tax collector to you,

and that's a little interesting it's a i i think it's translated in a way that

makes it a little bit difficult to understand what he means.

Because I think a lot of people would read this and go, well,

wait a minute, an unbeliever?

Well, we do welcome an unbeliever to come into church on Sunday morning,

and we do eat with unbelievers, right? I mean, the passage, 1 Corinthians 5

made it sound like with such a person do not even eat.

But I eat with unbelievers all the time. I got tons of friends that are unbelievers.

So wouldn't this be like just treating them like a friend?

So I think what would be helpful to know is the word here that's translated

unbeliever from Greek is the word for Gentile, okay? Jesus said,

let him be like a Gentile or a tax collector to you.

I think the word Gentile is sometimes translated unbeliever because in the culture

of the New Testament, it was the Jewish people who knew Jesus and knew the gospel,

and it was the Gentile nations who did not have the gospel, and those were all

the people that didn't believe in the true God.

And so a lot of times the word Gentile is used like a word for people who don't

believe in God yet or people who don't believe in the true God.

And so I think that's why it's translated that way. But I think it's important

to realize what Jesus actually said, and my Bible actually has a little note

where it says this in the margin, that the word is Gentile.

Jesus said, let him be like a Gentile and a tax collector to you.

And Jesus said this, this is important to know, when he was speaking these words,

he said it to Jewish people.

And he said it to Jewish people at a time period when Jewish people did not

socialize with Gentiles.

So I think they would have known, he said, let him be like a Gentile to you.

I think they would have known like, oh, like don't hang out with him.

And then same thing with the next word, an unbeliever and a tax collector to

you. At this time period, tax collectors would also be people that they did

not hang out with socially.

So this is, this final step is a social penalty, okay? Nobody goes to jail.

Nobody gets beat up. But rather, the person is removed from the congregation, okay?

And I get that phrase from 1 Corinthians 5. It's a passage that I read to you

last week, right? Do not eat with the person.

This man should have been removed from your congregation, is what Paul says.

And this step, this like, you're not one of us step, is the one that is the

least palatable in our culture.

This is the one that like, when I was preparing this, I was like,

oh, visitors, okay? Because I'm aware, like in the culture we live in,

this is the one that's like, oh, I can't believe the Bible says that.

I hope it doesn't mean that.

We live in a society that sometimes says it is unloving not to hang out with someone.

Or it is judgmental to tell someone

that they're sinning or it is a sin to exclude someone from something.

But that's not true. Like, we know that. First of all, we know that because

the Bible commands church discipline, and the Bible does not command sin. Amen?

So we know that that's not true. But I would say this. Even if you're here today,

and you are not a Bible believer, I think you actually know this is true.

Okay, let's say you came here today.

Your friend did not, they invited you on the wrong week, and you're regretting

it now, and I know. And you're here, all right, and they didn't know.

They should read their newsletter better, but they didn't. So they told you,

come, it's going to be great. You're going to love it. And you're like, oh, yeah.

So you showed up and you're not here. So I'm just saying, if you're here,

you're not a believer in the Bible. Okay.

I want to say to you this. I think you actually already know that this is not wrong.

Like, I think you know that it's not wrong for a group to exclude someone who

is acting against the beliefs and goals of the group because all groups police themselves in this way.

This is not unique to Christianity at all. This is not unique to the church.

This is the nature of groups. And if you don't realize that,

I'm going to point it out to you right now.

Let's say that I am a college student and I'm walking around on campus.

I come up to one of the bulletin boards that has like the clubs and the extracurricular

activities on it. And I see that there's a group called the Secular Student

Alliance. Okay. That is a real group on college campuses. I think both of the,

colleges that I went to had a Secular Student Alliance. The Secular Student Alliance is a group.

It's typically made of like atheists and non-religious people and they advocate for secular values.

So imagine I join the Secular Student Alliance. I show up at the meeting,

I become a member, all right?

And then after a little while, I go, hey, I would like to share a thing.

It's called 10 Reasons to Believe in God.

They're going to say like, no, that's not what we do here. Like you do not get

to share that. And I'm like, no, I really want to share it. I'm really,

I'm really loving being a member of this group.

And I really want to share 10 reasons to believe in God. And they would say,

no, that goes against what we believe.

Like that's the opposite of what we believe. You don't get to say that.

And I'm like, yeah, but I, I really think as a member of this group,

I really want to talk about the 10 reasons to believe in God.

In fact, I think we all should. Like, I think we all, you know,

they're going to say, no, that's, that's the opposite of what we are about.

Right. And imagine I keep doing it. And I keep doing it.

They warn me, but I keep doing it. Imagine I even like go do talks on the campus

and I even like use their name. Like I get up and I say, hey,

my name is Mario Vallella. I am a member in good standing of the Secular Student Alliance.

Welcome to my talk. 10 reasons to believe in God, right?

At some point they are going to say, no, he is not one of us.

We've told him to stop saying that. We've like said you're not in the group

anymore. We've said that's not what we do as members.

We've told him to stop using our name when he goes around and saying that stuff.

Like, he is not one of us, right? They would kick me out of the group, wouldn't they?

Wouldn't they? Okay, but here's the thing. I want you to, why would they do it? Here's why.

They would not be doing it because the Bible says so, right?

Because they don't care about that. They would not be going,

oh, well, Matthew 18 says the way to handle it. They don't even care what Matthew

18 says, right? They would remove me from the group because that's what groups

do. Groups remove people who work against their beliefs and goals.

Every group does. This would happen if someone joined PETA and then started

talking about how wonderful it is to eat meat, right?

Or if someone joined a pro-life group and they're like, hey,

I'm so excited to be here. I'm an abortion doctor or I'm a pro-choice advocate

or whatever it is. They'd be like, no, wrong group. That group's down the hall.

Like, no, that's not us. You are not one of us.

That's how groups work. And you might go, well, no, that's how those groups

work because those groups are intolerant.

No, that is how groups work.

That's how all groups work. To prove it to you, I'm going to use an absurd illustration

because I just really want to make this clear.

I want you to imagine there's a group called the National Tolerance Society,

okay? That's their name.

And that's what they're into, tolerance, okay?

Imagine their motto is, we tolerate everything, okay? It's right there at the

front of the website. We tolerate everything.

And I join the National Tolerance Society, and I start making racist comments,

and homophobic comments, and sexist comments. And I'm talking about this,

and Mexicans this, and Asians this, right? And women, women,

right? And I keep doing that. Imagine I'm doing that.

And I do it over and over again. What's going to happen? What's eventually going to happen?

They're going to kick me out. This is so crazy. The National Tolerance Society

would kick me out of the group.

And so my point is, it doesn't matter how tolerant you are. This is how groups work.

Without excommunication or its equivalent, you can call it something else,

but without excommunication or its equivalent, without the you're not one of

us, a group could get turned into its opposite group.

Have you ever thought of that? Let me use PETA as an example here,

okay? Let's imagine PETA. If

you don't, PETA means people for the ethical treatment of animals, okay?

Imagine this guy joins PETA, and he says, hey, you know what I think we ought

to do as a group? I think next week we should do Nugget Fest, okay?

And it would be chicken nuggets, okay? We're going to get Chick-fil-A's and

Zaxby's and PDQ, and we're going to have like just all these chicken nuggets.

It's going to be so great. My friends told me they would totally come if we did that.

And the people who started that chapter of PETA would be like,

oh, no. Chickens aren't nuggets. We don't believe chickens are nuggets.

We don't believe you're supposed to eat them at all.

Yeah, but like, I really like it, and a lot of my friends do.

Yeah, but we don't believe in that at all. Now, imagine at this point,

they have no ability to say, you're not one of us. They go, oh, all right.

And then next week, Nugget Fest happens. And that guy brings all of his friends,

and they're gobbling it up. and the people who started the group were all like,

this is terrible, I can't believe this is happening.

And then while that's happening, he goes, I got an even better idea for next

week. What about Steakathon, okay? And they're all like, no!

And the people he brought were like, yeah, Steakathon! And so they do that the next week.

And he says, I was thinking maybe this weekend we could do Leather Night,

where we all wear leather shoes and not pleather, leather jackets.

Like, wouldn't this be so great?

And here's the thing, without being able to get rid of him, what would happen

is the people who started that chapter of PETA, at some point,

what would happen? They would leave the group.

And then once they've left the group, who's left? All these people who don't

even believe what the group's for, right? So you got all these people and their

steaks and their nuggets and their leathers.

And at some point, they're all looking around going, what's the name of this

group? People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Well, why is it called that?

None of us even believe in that. Let's rename it.

Okay. And what if we rename it People Eating Tasty Animals? And everyone goes,

Yeah, that fits with Nugget Fest and Steak-a-Thon. And everybody raises their

hands and they rename it.

Without excommunication, a group could get turned into its opposite, couldn't it? All right.

Now, here is something that you probably already know intuitively, but I want to say it.

Anyway, there are some groups that are so important that we cannot let them,

turn into the opposite of what they are.

We cannot let the kingdom of God become a kingdom of sin.

We cannot let the church of Jesus become the church of Satan.

We must have boundaries so that we honor God and preserve the purity and purpose

of the Christian church.

In addition to all of that, it is also good for the individual person.

I said that in the definition earlier.

It is also good for the individual person that is being told like,

come back, come back, do the right thing.

And if you need to be reminded of that, I'm gonna go ahead and read to you from James chapter five.

This is one of the verses that I read to you last week. I'm gonna reread it

because I just wanna remind you why this is important even for the individual

person, not just for the group.

James five, starting in verse 19. My brothers,

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. Do you remember that from last week?

It's actually good for the guy who turns back.

In conclusion, if I were not a Christian and or if I didn't understand how destructive sin is,

I might think that church discipline

was terrible and I might pity the judgmental people who practice it.

But as a believer in Jesus Christ, who realizes that the words that we sang

earlier in one of our songs is true.

I don't know if you remember, the last song that we sang, there were lyrics

in it that said this. It said, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.

Prone to leave the God I love.

Like that's true. There is something in us that is prone to stray and go in

the wrong direction sometimes.

And so as someone who trusts in God's word and realizes how destructive sin

is, I believe church discipline is a gift from our creator.

I believe it is a gift from our savior.

And I pity the man who has no one to confront him on his sin.

Let's pray.

Lord, this is a heavy topic, but I thank you for revealing your will. So that we may know.

I want to thank you on behalf of anybody in this room that would agree with me on this.

Thank you for all the people you've put in my life so that I wouldn't stray too far.

Because whether it's by their weird looks or whether we're going to have a conversation

about that or whatever it might be, there have been lots of times in my life

where I think there's this temptation to go the wrong way and then there's a

person in my way. There's a person that's an obstacle to me straying.

And they pushed me back on the path. And I would just imagine in a room this

size, that is probably true of a bunch of us and it's something we've taken

for granted, maybe something we haven't thanked you for in a long time.

Some of us have been faithful to you for like 10 years now. Like we've been

following you and we truly are, like for the most part, like we're obeying you.

And it's been 10 years, it's been 20 years. For some people in this room,

it's been 30 or 40 years. And a lot of times we don't even think about the fact

that it's all these people you've used to keep us on track.

Like those of us who have been following you our whole lives,

I mean, I do believe that that happens because you are in our lives.

You preserve us until the day we meet you. You persevere our faith.

I do believe that, but I also believe that one of the ways you do that is all

these people you put in our life.

And so those of us that that's true about, we thank you. We thank you that as

we sort of started to walk toward a cliff, there were other people that got in the way.

I also pray because I know there are people in Marion County that are walking

toward a cliff and there's nobody trying to stop them.

And I pray you'd get a hold of them and show them your grace.

In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

Let me end with these good words from God's word. This is from 1 John chapter three.

Look at how great a love the Father has given us that we should be called God's children, and we are.

That is good news.