So, little quiz this morning, what is an oxymoron? An oxymoron has nothing to do with the Seattle Seahawks. Sorry, you're in my yard though, okay. Oxymoron, an oxymoron is when you put two words together that don't seem to belong together. Give you a couple of examples just to jar your memory. Someone may say, we want to be alone together. It's kind of an oxymoron. The musicians want to purchase a new baby grand. What's that? That's a piano. And it doesn't sound like those two words should go together. Other examples would be a brief survey, civil war, congressional ethics, deafening silence. Have you heard that one? A down escalator. Elementary calculus. What? Governmental efficiency. Those shouldn't go together. The Great Depression. Or maybe at the Red Lobster after church today, you order jumbo shrimp. A live recording. An original copy. Here's another one. Pretty ugly. I better stop now. There are more I could say. Those are oxymorons. But there are two more words for our concern this morning that don't seem to belong together, but they do. And the two words are church and discipline. Yet, no matter if that lands with us sideways or not, the burden when it comes to church discipline is not on the churches that actually practice it. The burden is on the churches who don't practice it when they come to the text we're going to look at this morning. We're going to direct our attention this morning on the heels of looking at verses 12-14 last week. Today and next time we come to this study, we're going to be looking at chapter 18 verses 15-20. Look at these verses with me. Verse 15. We just came off of the shepherd's reach, remember. Verse 14. If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. 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 have been bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst. I'm not sure that we always grasp the heaviness Yet, at the same time, the joy of the text I just read to you. It is so important for the life of every New Testament local church, including Calvary Baptist Church. And for this reason, though I started our series, The Shepherd's Reach, last Lord's Day, I still have three more messages for this series. We're going to, today, answer the question, what's the big deal? Our next study in this series will answer the question, what is the biblical process? And then our final message in this series will be, what is the personal goal? It's that important. I want you to own this paragraph and an understanding of it in its context when it comes to Calvary Baptist Church. That's why I'm giving you kind of extensive handouts. I'm not using PowerPoint to press through. I want to work directly from my voice to your ear and into your pen. I want you to preserve what we talk about all four of these weeks. Because, you see, I want you to be able to refer back to these notes. I want you to keep us accountable to these notes. You as a church family will soon be revising parts of your constitution and bylaws for this church. And a whole rewrite of a section involves these four studies we're doing together. And then, of course, what we say these four studies will also be preserved in our sermon audio online in case you miss one of these. one of these messages. My question I want to answer this morning is this. When it comes to this topic of church discipline, what's the big deal? What's the big deal? And so what I want to do with you this morning is I want to answer this one question, what's the big deal? I want to answer it with four questions. I'm going to answer a question with four questions just by way of introduction as we press into verse 15 at the end of this sermon and for the rest of this series. Four questions as to why it's a big deal. Question number one, why study it? Why do we have to study church discipline? Attendance doesn't usually swell for a series on church discipline like it might swell for a marriage series or a series on missions. And why is it important to study it? I want to give you several pastoral reasons why I believe it's important to study this text, which I'm going to argue is the seminal text for church discipline in the New Testament. James, as well as Paul, will write much about church discipline aspects, and I believe everything that Paul will refer to in his epistles, and I believe that what James refers to in his epistle reach back to what our Lord is teaching here to His disciples in Matthew 18. So why study it? First of all, it's the next text. It's the next text. Whether we just go from our previous message, verses 12 through 14, as we press through 18, we can't skip to verse 21. If we're preaching through the entirety of Matthew chapter 18, or even the full gospel of Matthew, at some point we get to this paragraph, and it becomes our next text. This is the beauty of Bible exposition. We do some series on Sunday morning from time to time. We do them more so on Sunday night as well where I'll do a topical topic and I'll try to do a biblical approach to a topic like we're doing tonight. How does a spouse who's married to a disobedient or disbelieving spouse, how do they handle their daily life? And scripture has a lot to say to that. But on Sunday morning as a norm, we believe in Bible exposition starting at the beginning of a book or the beginning of a segment and pressing through to the end. Why? Because it doesn't allow you to avoid paragraphs like this that aren't necessarily the first paragraph that people want to read in their daily bread devotions. You can't avoid it on purpose and you can't miss it on accident. It's the next text. I love what Paul said to the believers, the elders, from Ephesus. In Acts 20, he says, I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God, not just my favorite verses. In 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 4, Paul says, just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts. It's the next text. Our Lord is in Capernaum in a private home with His disciples and everything He's getting ready to say in this paragraph we're going to dive into. He's saying, remember, cramped in there with disciples who have just been arguing over who's the greatest. And Jesus said you need to become like a child, like a believing child, if you want to be great, if you want to be in the kingdom. you have to be changed to a childlike disciple. And then as he presses through chapter 18, he says, and don't ever make a childlike disciple and one of my disciples sin, because the consequences will be heavier than you want to deal with. If you're going to keep from yourself being an offense and causing other disciples to sin, then you better take care of your private sin. And if your right hand offends you, cut it off and throw it far from you. That's all in Matthew 18. But everything he's saying here, he's got a child on his lap. And then he gets to the text that we looked at last week where the shepherd goes after the one sheep that has wandered away and we tried our best to prove last week that that's not an evangelistic text in Matthew's usage. It is in Luke's. But our Lord here is dealing with believers. When believers go off into sin, He comes for them. And then we come next right to this text. That's why we study it. It's the next text. Why else do we need to study it? It is the first command given to the church, letter B. It's the first command given to the church. You say, what do you mean by that? Well, go back to Matthew chapter 16. You're familiar with this text. Jesus asked his disciples, who do men say that I am? And they have different answers that were popular. Some, verse 14, some said John the Baptist, others Elijah, some Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And look at verse 15. But he said to them, but who do you say that I am? Disciples. And Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said to him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my, and what's the next word? Church, ecclesia. and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." And then he warned his disciples that they should tell no one that he was the Christ. That's the first mention of the church in the Gospel of Matthew. the disciples would have heard that and thought initially Jewish synagogue but as they matured in Christ and as his plan unfolds and by the time they would begin to write even Matthew himself writing this gospel reflecting back a few decades would understand that this gathering was not the Jewish synagogue. It was a new entity that the resurrected Jesus founded at the day of Pentecost. It's the church. It's the local church. This is the first mention of it in the gospel. And what's interesting is in just two chapters later we get our first command for the church. The first command. And what was that first command about? It wasn't about whether or not we should use PowerPoint. The first command of the church was not whether or not we should use QuickBooks or a different program for our finances. It wasn't whether or not you should have a Juana. It wasn't about a dress code. It wasn't about whether it's organs or drums. That's not the first command. The first command given to the church is the text I just read you from Matthew chapter 18. It's church discipline. First command. You know, after you buy a new iPad, you know, they've learned what the consumer here in the West is like. When you buy a new iPad, there's a little sheet of paper that falls out. What's that? The instruction manual. It pretty much just tells you what you need to know to get things started right. Turn it on. Select your language. And then from there, it'll walk you through the rest. It's like that with the church and our Lord's kindness. As he gives us the first command, he says, start out right. The church is to be pure. You say, wow, that's kind of heavy. You want to know something? Actually, it's a selling point for the local church. that our Lord holds us so high in His priorities that it's the first command is actually a selling point. By the time the author of Hebrews writes these words, it had become a well-known selling point. Hebrews 12, verse 11, all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. In other words, the author of Hebrews is saying to those who are still on the fence, and they're not coming all the way to Christ. They're holding on to tradition. They're holding on to the Jewish law. And the writer of Hebrews is saying, jump in the pool of the New Testament church. You will be loved so much here that the church will surround you and help you at whatever it takes to grow in holiness. I think it was John MacArthur who wrote the book, The Love of God. He wrote it back in the 90s. I like the subtitle of that book even better. The subtitle is, He'll do whatever it takes to make you holy. It's a selling point. I remember pastoring in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and having on several accounts to, as a church, we had to go through church discipline of a member who wouldn't repent. And we would do it at the conclusion of the morning service. We would dismiss those that were at an age where they probably shouldn't hear some things. And we would give visitors an opportunity to leave if they weren't comfortable, but we would always let them stay back then if they wanted to learn more about our church. And there was a couple visiting with this particular Sunday named Vernon and Fay. He was a businessman from the Winston-Salem area. I was a little nervous when I saw him back there staying, but hey, as a church, we're obeying the Lord in the next couple of sobering minutes, and it's very tender. There were tears, and the church was mobilizing beautifully. And it was right after that service, Vernon and Faye came up to me. I said, oh boy, here we go. And they said, when's the next Membership Matters class? We're done looking at churches. If you love us enough to obey Jesus this much, and you would give this kind of care to us, where do we sign our name? It's the first command given to the church. Letter C, why study it? Because it equips you for personal ministry. It equips you for personal ministry. For this one, write down Ephesians 4, 12 to 13. I'll read it to you. It says, Jesus, after he ascended, Paul writes, he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ." You say, I know that verse. That's our Four Direction disciple main verse. Ephesians 4.13, it is. And the verse right before it says, I exist merely to equip you to do whatever it takes to help your brothers and sisters in Christ grow towards Christ-likeness. And I take this series very seriously as this isn't just sit forward four times and face forward and take notes and then we're through it. This is a huddle for four services. As we study the shepherd's reach. And then you're going to be deployed as a congregation. And I need to equip you for that. You will play a part in church discipline at Calvary Baptist Church. You say, how? your obedience as a member of the body of Christ here, at least that, or it might be your testimony. Because you may be loved enough and pursued enough and rescued by this church family when you need it, and now you have a testimony to tell others. Why study it? Letter D, it's one of the highest expressions of love. It really is. It's one of the highest expressions of love. You say whose love? Christ's love. Dave Dietz read just a few moments ago Revelation chapter 3 verse 19. Jesus says those whom I love I reprove and discipline. Therefore be zealous and repent. We even read back in the Old Testament in Job chapter 5, verses 17 through 18. Behold, how happy is the man whom God reproves. So do not despise the discipline of the Almighty, for he inflicts pain and gives relief. He wounds, but his hands also heal. It's Christ's love, but it's also the love of the brothers and sisters in this local church for you. Remember Proverbs 27, 6 says, Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Psalm 141, verse 5 says, Let the righteous smite me in kindness and reprove me. It is oil upon the head. Do not let my head refuse it. We're back to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 15. One simple phrase. Speaking the truth in love. It is one of the highest expressions of love a local church is capable of expressing. Authors Wayne Mack and Dave Swavely have written a book called Life in the Father's House. It's a biblical counseling book. It's a book on the local church. Listen to what they said. Just let these words wash over you on church discipline being an expression of love. Quote, Most people, including many Christians, shudder when they read about confrontation that may even involve a public rebuke of a sinning brother. The reason they find this repulsive is that it seems to them to be a very unloving thing to do. But on the contrary, the Scriptures teach that confrontation is actually one of the fullest ways we can express our love for others. They continue, "...ignoring broken relationships or other sin in the body is usually the easier road for us, but it would be harmful to those involved and therefore selfish. If we genuinely care for others, however, we will be willing to sacrifice our own time, energy, and comfort in order to help them have a right relationship with Christ and others." It is one of the highest expressions of love a church, a local church, is capable of showing. The highest expression of love for a local church like ours is not to ignore sin. The highest expression of love is not to ridicule someone who's stuck in sin. The highest expression of love is not to gossip about someone who's struggling with sin. The highest expression of love is not to merely lecture people that are stuck in sin. And the highest expression of love, hear this carefully, is not prayer alone. Prayer has to grow feet, feet that obey. The highest expression of love is obeying Matthew 18, 15 through 20. See, that's risky. Yes, someone wrote these words once, not real flattering about the local church. Quote, I've often thought if I ever fell into a sin, I will pray that I don't fall into the hands of those censorious, critical, self-righteous judges in the church. I'd rather fall into the hands of the bar keepers, the street walkers, or the drug peddlers, because the church people would tear me apart with their long, wagging, gossipy tongues, cutting me to shreds." End quote. A note written to a pastor. You'd know his name if I mentioned it. That's not the truth. What we're seeing in Matthew 18 is the highest expression of love. And you're going to see, especially in our next message in this series, how tender it is, how merciful and how patient and how rescuing it is. If you saw someone from Calvary Baptist Church drowning in a pond, what would be the most loving thing you could do for them? Ignore them? Ridicule them? Gossip? Lecture? You shouldn't be out there swimming anyway. Or say, I'm going to pray for you from the shore. The best, most loving thing you could do is to go in and get them. Which we saw with the shepherd and the sheep in verses 12-14. Why study at letter E? It gives heaven's verdict in earthly expression. It gives heaven's verdict in earthly expression. Look at verse 18. I want you to see this. Matthew 18, verse 18. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. So what are we talking about here? Well, this is the context, of course, of church discipline. And it's interesting that this is the same construction of the words that we saw back in chapter 16, verse 19. The first mention of the church. This whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound thing. Whatever you've loosed shall have been loosed. What is that saying? It's saying this, that when a church obediently walks through Matthew chapter 18 and they pursue someone who is in a sin that they won't repent of, you're not informing heaven about something that heaven must line up with. You are going to reach a conclusion already made by heaven. And as a local church, you're going to acknowledge it. That's the structure here. I'm using the updated NASB. The ESV has a marginal note on this. The LSB, the CSB read just like the NASB. This is a very literal way to put this. I'm going to quote two sources to help you understand this. This is very important. Church discipline doesn't reach a conclusion. It agrees with the conclusion reached by heaven. MacArthur says, the church's authority is not to determine these things, but to declare the judgment of heaven based on the principles of the word. When they make such judgments on the basis of God's word, they can be sure that heaven is in accord. End quote. I'm going to jump in the deep end of the pool with you with the next one. It's called the linguistic and exegetical key to the Greek New Testament. You can't wait for me to read this one, right? Hang with me. It's one sentence you can handle. This phrase is the church on earth carrying out heaven's decisions, not heaven ratifying the church's decision. Why study church discipline? Because it gives heaven's verdict an earthly expression. Letter F, another reason, it brings with it a special ministry of Christ. It brings with it a special ministry of Christ. Remember verses 19 and 20 that were read. It says, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. I'm sorry. Matthew 18. I was back in 16 again. Go to verse 19 in Matthew 18. Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst. Verse 18, of course, was the echo of what we saw in verse 16 about binding and loosing. And the very next two verses promise a special ministry of Christ when the church is mobilized to carry out obediently Matthew 18, 15 through 20. He promises a special ministry of Christ. You say, well, Christ is always here. Yes, He is. But he especially wants that to be emphasized and recognized during these moments of tender times of church discipline. It is interesting here, it says, if two of you, and that word agree, that's an interesting word to study. It's the word from which we get our word symphony. It's to be working together towards one cause. Singing off or playing off the same sheet of music, if you will. We're saying the same thing when it comes to church discipline. We are sensing the same urgency. And we know our own weaknesses which tenders us and makes us merciful and gracious. But we're doing this together. He promises His special presence. Why is that? Why did He stick verse 20 in? Merely as a bumper sticker or a screensaver someday? Verse 20 is there because verses 12 through 14 precede this text. All along when we talk about church discipline, we are really talking about the shepherd going for a strange sheep. That's why we have verse 20. That's why he's so invested. This is the shepherd's reach, see. See, what does it look like for the shepherd to pursue a straying sheep? It looks like you, as a church, obeying these verses. Why else study this? Well, it's a lightning rod, if you haven't noticed, this whole topic of church discipline. A lot of people say it's a witch hunt, it's cultish, it's unloving, it's judgmental, it's public slander, and it's showing impatience and non-mercy. And I can testify too that there will be personal attacks sometimes towards the deacons or towards the pastor or towards the church itself by people outside the church or by non-members that are marginal attenders or even by those who have actually been disciplined. It is a lightning rod. You say, well, do we still preach it? Do we still practice it? Yes. Why? Well, Galatians 1.10, Paul says, am I seeking the favor of men or of God? Am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. And by the way, when we speak the truth in church discipline, it is to be done in love, Ephesians 4.15. There's been a lot of stuff going on in the name of church discipline that's anything but. I've seen some awful examples of church discipline. Arbitrary. unloving, shaming. It's everything that this text is not. But while some would like to dwell on why it's practiced at Calvary Baptist Church, I'd like to take just a moment, since this is an introductory message to these next few verses, I want to take a moment to ask why it's not practiced in other churches. These are, I might be backing away a little bit from the pastoral emphasis here and just giving my opinion, but let me give it to you. Letter A, because of a lack of examples. A lack of examples. There are a lot in conservative fringe wings of Christianity, evangelical Christianity, historical, fundamental doctrine. There are those on the extreme that all they want to talk about is ecclesiastical separation, why they won't hang out with this ministry or go to that conference or listen to this person. And they quote all these verses from the New Testament as to why they're going to separate. And the scary thing is, every text they reach for is a church discipline text. And I find that sad. They're eager to use a text out of its context to build their own kingdom and dig their own moat. There's a lack of examples, sadly. Secondly, there's a lack of teaching on church discipline. When's the last time you heard a sermon on this? I know you've heard it one other time. Within my first five months here, I went through this chapter with you. Many pastors are not committed to the discipline of systematic exposition, and so they rarely, if ever, land on this paragraph. But at Calvary, we have a priority of declaring the whole purpose of God. Another reason it's so rare, lack of mentoring. There's a lack of mentoring. Senior pastors may disciple through their instruction and through their demonstration. A young associate through weddings and funerals and stuff like that, yet they leave church discipline untouched. Not so with the Apostle Paul. Can you imagine? How Paul's understudies by the name of Timothy and Titus. Can you imagine what they'd learn just watching Paul deal with Corinth? But today, it's not passed on often in mentoring. Letter D, often there's a lack of courage. Proverbs 29, 25, the first part of the verse says, the fear of man brings a snare. Sometimes the leaders of the church, plural, Don't want to accept the risk factor when it comes to the offender, or the congregation, or visitors, or outsiders, or the legal system, or their personal reputation. That's a true struggle. That's why I like the rest of Proverbs 29.25. The second line says, but he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted. They're going to live on a higher plane out of the reach of the fear of man. Letter E, why is it so rare to hear anything? Because of a lack of membership. It's popular still to dumb down the need of membership and the urgency of membership. We have many people that will be lost in a faceless crowd as non-members in large churches and sometimes in smaller churches like ours. And it's important for the church to regularly punctuate the importance of church membership. I believe if you talk about church discipline, you can't talk about it unless you talk about the perimeter of membership. Because you're going to see all this talk of what goes on on the inside, what it means to no longer be considered on the inside of the perimeter, you're going to be considered as the outside of that perimeter. That perimeter is membership. If you don't talk about membership, you can't really talk about church discipline. Letter F. Lack of conviction. Lack of conviction. This needs to be preached a little bit in the West, if you haven't noticed, in evangelicalism. You see, the seeker-driven mentality wants to remove anything that could scare off an unbeliever or a believer that's shopping for a new church. Remove all offenses Just win them with the show, the dog and pony show. Bill Hull writes in his book, The Disciple-Making Pastor, in the relationship between clergy and laity, the clergy have become professional performers and the parishioners, the audience. The better the show, the larger the crowd. All this proves is that outstanding performance attracts people. It means little more than that. In no way does it faithfully reflect the priorities of Christ for His church. Man, I believe that. Listen, may God deliver us from the worship of numbers. Going to whatever extreme possible to remove a fence so we can just swell the pew, if you will. Because the worship of numbers often numbs and blinds a church to sin in its midst. Bill Good, who used to pastor Faith Baptist Church in Lafayette. He's with the Lord now, Lafayette, Indiana. Bill Good wrote, the head of the church is better able to determine his methods of church growth. He called us to make disciples, not to gather crowds who will not have this Savior to rule over them. So brothers and sisters, this is not just an item on the church buffet. That's optional. Church discipline. is vital. Why is it vital? Because of point three. Point three, circle this one. Here's the question. When it comes to church discipline, what is at stake? What is at stake? If I seem to be elevating my voice now and really waving my hands out to the side and if you notice veins on the side of the neck and little beads of sweat on the forehead, you're seeing correctly. Because I want to communicate so clearly and tenderly in this moment that what's at stake is not just one reality in church discipline. There are no less than five realities. When you see what's at stake, it must move us into action as a church. What's at stake? Well, first of all, the glory of the Lord. the glory of the Lord. Remember Isaiah chapter 6? Where through Isaiah's ministry we see the heavens opening and we see the seraphim before the throne of God. And the seraphim have six wings. They're flying with two of them. With two of them they're covering their hands or their feet. And with two of them, they're covering their face. Because as beautiful as these creatures are, and as powerful as they are, they themselves can't even look directly at the Father, so to speak. They are blown, an angel is blown away by His holiness. Isaiah 6. In Matthew 5, 48, that adds some weight to what our Lord said in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, now be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. I can't do that. And in our Peter series, from which we are taking a vacation right now, we hear Peter write in 1 Peter 1, 14-16, that we are to be holy because He's holy. The message of Scripture is this. It's charting our course. Our Lord is holy and He saves us to be on that trajectory of becoming holy. Even Peter wrote these words, and we studied them in 1 Peter 2.9. As obedient children, don't be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance. But like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves. Holiness. You would expect me to drop a Jerry Bridges quote about now, and you're correct. The one who wrote The Pursuit of Holiness, he said this. Holiness describes both the majesty of God and the purity and moral perfection of his nature. God's holiness is perfect freedom from all evil. He's right. The writer from another generation, Robert Murray McShane, said this, it's not great gifts that God blesses so much as it is God's likeness in his instruments. Here's the assignment we have. The assignment we have is You don't start with you being holy. Don't hear that. Our assignment is to start with the awareness and the fixation on the holiness of our God. And we as His redeemed are walking by His grace to become conformed to the image of His Son towards holiness. That holiness that we're aware of, which angels can't even gaze on fully. If that's supposed to be our trajectory, and a brother or a sister gets off that trajectory, and starts communicating the exact opposite, we need to go to them. I mean, where should the world be able to look to see God? Well, John answers that question in 1 John 4, 12. No one has seen God at any time. But if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. We never look more like our Holy Father, our God, our Lord, than when we love each other enough to go to them, to other believers, when they struggle with sin. That's what's at stake. Our Lord's holiness is not dependent on our obedience, but it is His holiness that drives us forward, is what I'm trying to say. What else is at stake? The testimony of the church, our local assembly, We have to ask the question, what are we supposed to be here in southeast Michigan? A couple of verses to write down. 1 Timothy 3.15, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. We. Not the bricks and mortar. Not the pavement on the parking lot. Not the grass. We are the household of God. gathered. Paul spoke like this in 2 Corinthians 11-2 about the church at Corinth. He says, I'm jealous for you with a godly jealousy for I betrothed you to one husband so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. And he kind of uses that same language in Ephesians 5.27, that he, Jesus, might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. Corporately, there is a corporate testimony. We are to be seen matured, one believer at a time. But if a member identifying with this assembly attaches themselves to a sin, and when they become aware of that, they refuse to repent and to move away from it, you know they, even if they're indulging in private, they are carrying your testimony with them. I mean, in a way, this is even true for those who attend regularly, but maybe aren't a membership. People ask you, where do you go on Sunday? I go to Calvary Baptist Church. and suddenly you have our testimony attached to you. And we're very serious about what our testimony is supposed to be as a church, as the body of Christ. Wilbert Welch wrote these words, the testimony of the church is no stronger than the collective testimony of the saints in it. If a church tolerates like Corinth, flagrant sins within, the power of that church's testimony is snatched away. That's why it's important. The glory of the Lord, the testimony of the church, this is what's at stake. Thirdly, letter C, the spreading of the sin. That's at stake. The spreading of the sin. For this one, just write down 1 Corinthians 5, verses 6-8. I'll read those verses to you. Paul, in this short chapter on church discipline, a very important chapter that we're going to look at many times, he says in verses 6-8, your boasting's not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Yeast spreads to every part of the lump of bread, of dough. Verse 7, clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump just as you are in fact unleavened for Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. It's a spreading of sin. You say, what kind of stuff are people disciplined for? We're going to get into a lot of details like that, but let me just give you two broad categories now. Things you say, things you believe, and things you do. Or you can say your tongue, your doctrine, your lifestyle. You understand if you just slap on the wrist or don't do anything, and there's unrepentant sin in one of those areas, that will spread to the extremities of this local assembly. At the least, it'll become a toleration, which now makes you complicit. And at the worst, imitation, which means you're participating. Jay Adams wrote a small book on this topic. I encourage you to buy it. It's called The Handbook of Church Discipline. And he says, as I think of the homes that have been hopelessly broken, the estrangements that have permanently resulted, and the misery that has been unnecessarily caused by the failure of churches to practice church discipline, or to practice it biblically, my heart aches. Even more tragically, as I consider the ruins of many congregations torn by schismatic and factious persons who have been allowed to wreak havoc with Christ's flock, and the sickness of many others weakened by the infectious toxin of unrepentant sin that circulates in Christ's body of believers, I am deeply moved. And above all, as I think of the dishonor that has been heaped upon the name of our Lord because of the tarnished witness of churches that harbor glaring violators of His holy commandments, I am appalled. End quote. It's the spreading of sin. You say, well how far does this extend? The whole congregation, including the leaders. 1 Timothy chapter 5 verse 20 says, those elders who continue in sin rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning. We learned in our series on Ecclesiastes last winter in chapter 8, because The sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given to do evil. What else is at stake? There's a fourth thing, the correction of the sinner. the correction of the sinner. For this one, write down 1 Corinthians 5, 5 and hear these words. Paul says, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that, don't put the period in there yet, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Church discipline is a rescue. Galatians 6.1, if anyone's caught in a trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. And again, in 2 Thessalonians 3.14-15, if anyone does not obey our instructions in this letter, take note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame. Yet, do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. Now please understand, Letter D, this fourth reality that's at stake, is not the only thing at stake. If you think that the only thing church discipline deals with is letter D, then you may be easily offended in watching the process because it's going to be hard, especially if there's no repentance. You have to remember there are four other realities at stake. This precludes the question, how could you put someone out of the church? Why do you want to go beyond just mere taking them off the rolls and they can't vote, but they can still hang out? This answers that question. Mark Dever writes, corrective disciplines like surgery, it corrects something that's gone wrong in the body so that more serious injury doesn't result. You say, well, Jesus is mad when he's talking like this in Matthew 18. No, no, now's a good time to remember that he's got a child on his lap. He's talking with tender terms, gesturing towards his child, because that child is us. We are to be childlike disciples. Every tone of every verse we've been through is one of love and rescue, that of a shepherd. There's one more reality, and then we'll finish this up. What's at stake? The obedience of the church. That's a pretty big one. The obedience of the church. For this one, write down 2 Corinthians 2, verse 9, where Paul is dealing with the church there and making a recommendation about someone that that church had to correct with discipline. And he says in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 9, For to this end also I wrote, so that I might put you to the test. whether you are obedient in all things. I mean, here's the bottom line for us as a local church. We want first-time obedience with our children, right? We like that. They are to obey without delay, without excuse, and without debate. We're okay with that in parenting. How do we do when it comes to us as adults in the church? Do we give our Lord first-time obedience? When God says, Matthew 18, verses 15-20, will we obey? When the Lord of the church puts this in his word, Romans 16, 17, I urge you, brethren, keep an eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned and turn away from them. Will we obey? First time. In 1 Corinthians 5, 13, where it says, remove the wicked man from among yourselves if he won't repent, will we obey? 1 Thessalonians 5.14, we urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly. Will we obey? 1 Timothy 5.20, those who continue in sin rebuke in the presence of all so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning. Will we obey? When we read in Titus 3, verses 10 and 11, reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned, will we obey? There's a lot at stake. That's why when we come back to this text in our next sermon, we need to buckle in. There's heavy realities at stake. The glory of God, the testimony of the church, the spreading of sin, the correction of the sinner, and the obedience of the church. So here's our last question. We close with this one. This is a short one. When does it begin? When does this process begin? Simple answer, one sentence. Whenever there is a need for restoration. If you're asking the question, when does it begin? Just go back to verses 12 to 14, when that one sheep has strayed. That's when. If anyone's caught in a trespass, you who are spiritual, restore them, Galatians 6.1. Whether it's a sin of doctrine or lifestyle or your tongue, this process is to begin immediately without delay. It's to begin privately to get the facts and express love. And it's to begin quietly. It begins quietly, one-on-one. Why? Because you're going to start creating a crescendo at this passage. teaches us how to build, and if need be, a stunning silence at the end. So maybe you can see why the likes of Dr. Bill Good, Pastor Bill Good, used to tell his church in Lafayette, Indiana all the time, quote, church discipline is part of the benefit package of Christianity. So what do we do with this? I think there are three responses we could consider in these last 30 seconds. Number one, thankfulness to the Lord. for loving you like this shepherd does that will leave the 99 for the one. That's you. When you stray, your shepherd comes for you. I guess I need to take a moment, invite you into the family if you have not accepted Christ. Come be loved like this. Number two, not just thankfulness to the Lord, but marvel at the grace from the Lord It takes grace for Calvary Baptist Church to be a church like this. We are the household of God, Paul writes, the church of the living God. Can you imagine Calvary, not just practicing churches, but practicing it consistently and with the tears and the tenderness that it was intended to have? And this creates a third response. It's humility before the Lord. because we must biblically understand this so we can obey it. Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I shall keep it unto the end. So it's a big deal. There's a lot at stake. The stage is set in our next sermon to push in at verse 15 and head through three verses. Father, thank you for this time. It's a harsh, topic according to the world and many parts of Christianity, many parts of evangelicalism. But Lord, as we see it in the context of the whole chapter of 18, it's one of the most loving, tender, precious, merciful texts that will come across. It reflects your heart. And so Lord, we can't answer for other churches. But we will answer for ours. Help us to be faithful to this text. Help us to see the urgency and the joy in this text. It's the joy that belongs to the shepherd, the shepherd of rescue. And it's the joy of the rescued when they're brought back to the 99. Thank you for the shepherd's reach. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.