Let's open up our Bibles in Matthew chapter 18. You're going to read chapter 18 of Matthew verses 15 to 20. This says the word of our God. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge might be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you lose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." Let us pray. O Father, we come before you in the dependence upon your Holy Spirit to understand this passage and also, and most importantly, to apply this passage, O Lord. Help us to understand with our hearts, not only with our minds, and apply it in our daily lives. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters, this topic of church discipline is a very misunderstood topic among the church. And why is so? Mostly because of the sensitiveness of the topic. We are dealing with sin. We are dealing with transgressions among the church. And sometimes people don't know how to discipline with punishment. And this is what we're going to learn about today, how discipline is different from punishment. Because there are two different purposes in those two different things. You're going to learn the how, the when, and who is able to do church discipline in the church. in the local church, in the local body, in the local community. Before we get into these six verses, I want to look a little bit at the context so that we might understand what is taking place here in verses 15 to 20. So, chapter 18 starts by the disciples coming to Jesus and asking who is the greatest among them in the kingdom. Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus calls a child and says that those who are humble as a child, those are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And He introduces here, Jesus introduces here the topic of the little ones. And then in verse 6, we read the following. So Jesus states here how grievous sin it is to make those little ones who believe in Him to fall into sin. And then in verses 10 to 14, Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep. Jesus is talking here about salvation, about redemption, and he uses the picture of a shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep back at home on the fold to get this only one who went astray, showing that God is the one who goes after this lost sheep. God is the one who brings redemption to this lost sheep. And then we come to our text, verses 15 to 20. So, what is the connection here? God is showing the work of salvation, of restoration, of reconciliation in verses 10 to 14, speaking about the parable of the lost sheep. And then in verses 15 to 20, He shows the how. How? is how God uses you and I to bring forth back this lost sheep to the fold. Jesus is showing us, to his disciples at this time and to us today, that we are God's instrument in his work of salvation, of reconciliation and restoration. He uses you and I members of the church, of the local church, and the pews to do this work of calling back to the fold, the sheep who are lost. So church discipline is a restorative process, is a restorative process that involves the whole church, not only the elders and the pastors, but all the members of the church. We're gonna take a look in this text in three points. First, the process. Second, the acknowledgement. And third, the promise. I will say that the point one will be a little bit longer. So when we get to the end of it, don't think that the sermon will take more time. Points two and three are pretty shorter. So don't worry about that. So in verse 15 we read, Notice here that church discipline does not begin in the concisory room. It begins with you and I, with the normal members of a local church. This is the first step, the first step of the process of church discipline. And notice that he says, if someone sins against you. If he sins against you, it's quite obvious, but sometimes we don't understand exactly. Because what happens sometimes in the church is that when we have any disagreement with someone, or we don't like someone in a certain way, or we don't agree in a certain sense with the person, We think that this is enough to go to the person. But a text is saying if someone sins against you, it has to be a notorious sin against you for you to go to this person and start the process of church discipline. But the Bible also says that the godly man overlooks transgressions against you, right? So, how do we... deal with this seemingly opposition or contradiction in the Bible. Well, I will suggest that there is something different about this sin that people commit against us in order for us to go after them. And I would just like to briefly say five things that we should look at as a difference between overlooking a sin or confronting a person. So first of all, it must be a notorious sin. It must be clearly a sin from the scripture. Not something that you think that might be sin or might imply in sin, but a real sin, a notorious and a grievous sin. Secondly, the sin must be a sin that endangers the purity of the church. Not only the purity, but also the unity of the church. So if this brother sins against you in such a way that this will harm the purity and the unity of the church, you probably want to get to this person. Maybe if the sin will ruin the offender, if something that will ruin the person who offended you, you go to this person. If this sin will eventually hurt others, you should go to this person. And especially if it's a sin that will affect your relationship with the person. If it's something that the person grievously sins against you, and you say, okay, I will overlook. But then you notice that this starts to bring some avoidance from you against this person because of this sin. So if it's something that will harm your relationship with this person, you probably want to go to this person. And then once you've decided that it's a real sin, it's something that is grievous in the Lord's eyes, what do you do? You go to Him alone. That's the first step. The text said, go and tell Him His fault. The original word is more, not so much as tell Him His fault, but it's something that it's calling to rebuke, reprove. Go to this person and rebuke this person. Reprove. bring to light what this person had done. Because she might not know or he might not know that it was a sinful thing to do. And then you are called by God to do it, to go to this person and to tell him or her his fault. The question is, how do you do it? Because it's easy when someone sins against us. Our tendency sometimes is really go to this person and just ruined the whole thing because of our anger. If you open your Bibles in Galatians chapter 6, it will tell us how we should deal with the person who sins against us. Galatians chapter 6, verse 1. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. And notice here that this is another aspect of a church discipline, because in this text, it's not saying that if someone sins against you, but if you caught someone in any transgression. So it's even serious. So if you work with this person, if you see this person throughout the week and you see this person committing sin, even though it's not against you, You have the command by Christ and by the Scriptures to go to this person and to rebuke this person, to tell them his fault, their fault. But how? In a spirit of gentleness, with a kind heart, with a humble heart, recognizing also your own nature. Because you are sinful as well. And it might be that, not today, but tomorrow, someone might need to come to you and tell you about your sin. So the golden rule of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 7 also applies here. If you were this person who sinned against someone, or who were caught in sin, how would you like to be addressed? How would you like to be addressed by someone who you sinned against? Probably with love. With kindness, right? And with humbleness. This is how we should address the person who sinned against us. And again, what is the purpose of all of this? What is the purpose? Restoration, reconciliation. It says, if he listens to you, you have gained your brother. And that's done. The process of church discipline stops here because the brother listens to you, to your rebuking. That's the purpose of church discipline. Restoration. Reconciliation. We are dealing with this in this text. It's the lost sheep who went astray and now we are calling this person to get back to the fold. And if he listens, we gain this brother and this sister. But what if you don't do it? Because it's very comfortable, right, when we, especially in the context of the text that we read in Galatians 6, if you saw someone sinning, if you caught someone in any transgression, it's very comfortable to just withdraw and just simply pretend that nothing happened. But if we don't rebuke them, We are disobeying God's commandment, Christ's commandment here. Verse 15 says, go and tell him his fault. This is an imperative. You should go. You should get up and do what Christ commanded you to do. So if you're not doing it, you are in a disobedience before the Lord. But also, this might stir up in your heart hatred. Look at Leviticus with me. Leviticus chapter 19 verse 17. Let's see what the Bible tells us about it in the Old Testament. Leviticus chapter 19 verse 17. Look at the verse with me. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur in sin because of him. So the text is implying two things. First of all, that if you don't do this, if you don't reason frankly with your brother, you are hating them. You are hating this brother or this sister. Why? Because if we love the person, we don't want to see them in a wrong way, right? This is what I always tell my children when I'm correcting them. This is not something that we take pleasure in. We don't like to do it, but we do it because we love them, because we don't want to see them in a wrong path. So the very fact that you withdraw and don't do this and don't obey this commandment, you are showing that actually you hate this brother or this sister. But also, if you don't do it, as I said before, this person might come to you and sin against you again, and then again, and then again, and you overlook, and you overlook, and you overlook, and then it starts to grow this hatred in your heart before your brother. This might happen if you don't confront them. You will incur in sin, the text of Leviticus says. What if he does not listen? And then we have the step two of the process of church discipline. Verse 16 says, But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge might be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses." If you want to avoid the first contact, if someone sinned against you, you want to avoid, you have to be careful because someone might call you to confront another brother who sinned against them. So you are called to do something here too. If you want to avoid, maybe tomorrow someone will come to you and say, come and witness with me against this brother. And you have to go as well. And what is the principle that Jesus Christ is laying here? I have to open again in Deuteronomy. Now Deuteronomy chapter 19 verse 15. It talks about laws concerning witnesses. Deuteronomy 19.15 says, A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses shall a charge be established. This is the law of God, even in the Old Testament, bringing some safety for the person who transgress. Because if there's only two brothers, it's the word of one against the word of another. So we bring two or three testimonies with you or witnesses with you, it is even easier to show the person who transgressed against the law his sin or her sin. Because you have two or three other people who are probably unbiased. And they can reason clearly and frankly with this person and show that what he is telling about your sin actually is true. He is right. And you can reason together with those two or three witnesses. It is also, as I said, to protect the person against false testimony, against false witnesses. And again, what is the purpose? The purpose is not to bring shame to the person, to show his sin to other two or three witnesses, but it's to bring this lost sheep back to the fold. That is always the purpose implied here in this verse of church discipline, to bring restoration to the people of God. But let me add some implication, other implication of this. Because in order for us, those steps here of church discipline, and we didn't even get to the elders and the pastor yet. In order for us to do this, to identify this, we have to be involved in church, right? Think about it. If you have to, to tell your brother or your sister his fault. How would you do this if you just see them or you see each other once a week in two or maybe one service? It's hard, right? We can talk to each other, we can know each other well. So we need to be involved in the life of the church. I'm not saying that we need to be involved so that we can point fingers to others. It's not the purpose of it. We need to be together because we are a community, we are a kind of covenant people, and we need to be united. The Bible is full with one another's statements, to love one another, to care for one another, to pray, and to do all the stuff with one another. So we need to be involved in the church. And as we are involved in the church, We can see the transgressions of one another and exercise church discipline with one another. There is actually such a blessing because, as I said before, when we engage in this, we are telling them that we love them, that we want to make things right, and that we, as a body of Christ, we want to go to the same direction together. So this implies involvement in the church. I know that life is busy, life is hard, I include myself in this. We have many things to do during the week. But we need to have this disposition, to be involved with one another, to meet one another, to see one another during the week, so that we can live a life together as a community, as a local body. And naturally, those things will happen. But what if he does not listen? And we come to step three of the process. Verse 17, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Now the church is involved. After steps one and two, now in the step three, church is involved. And by church, it's not saying that everyone in the church is involved, necessarily. Right? It's not saying that you need to come here in the pulpit and tell everyone in the church what this person did against you. No. You come to the officers of the church, you come to the elders, you come to the pastor, and you and the witnesses, you come together and you bring this case for the officers of the church. And again, this imply, and I would never stress this enough, the purpose of church discipline, which is restoration, reconciliation, to bring this person back from their sins, And from their life, the pattern of sinful life, to the fold and to the body of Christ. If he listens, it's done. Even though it came to this far, if he listens to the officers of the church, to the pastor, it is done. There's reconciliation. But what if he does not listen again? You see, there's a pattern here. If he does not listen, does not listen, does not listen, does not listen. Now the last resource. You consider this person as a Gentile and a tax collector, meaning unbeliever. Now there's excommunication. This person is put out of the communion of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what is the reason? It's not so much about the sin in and of itself, how grievous the sin was. But it is about the rebelliousness of the person. You notice the repetition that this person is not listening. All the way from verse 15 to verse 18, he does not listen. With one person rebuking, with three or four persons, with the elders, he's not listening. What is he showing to the church? That he does not belong to the church, most likely. That he actually hates the church, hates rebuking and reproof. So, it's not so much so as the sin in and of itself, but how this person reacts when he's shocked or he's confronted with his sin. Because if the person loves more his sin than Jesus, he will keep his sin with him. So people are not excommunicated specifically by sin, but by rebellion. Because they have unrepentant sins. And again, even in this case, and you can see this in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, even when we excommunicate the person, the aim and the purpose is that this person will feel this separation and this division from the church and try to come back and repent and come back. Even in excommunication, the purpose is to get this person back in repentance. But there is also another purpose in excommunication, which is The purity of the church. The church is the bride of Christ. It needs to be pure. It is purified by the Lord Jesus Christ. So, if there's sin in it, it needs to be purged, as the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. But again, it's not sin, simply speaking, because everyone here sins during the week, right? The thing is that, is that an unrepentant sin? Is that a continuing sin? Continuance in sin. Ongoing sin in your life that you are not able, actually not able, but you are not willing to let it go. And that's the difference. And that's the difference. But the question is, how do we treat them? How do we treat those persons who are excommunicated from our church? I will start by reading 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verses 11 to 13. In 1 Corinthians chapter 5, the Apostle Paul gives some instructions about it. Verses 11 to 13. 1 Corinthians 5.11-13 says, But now I am writing to you, not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother, or who considers himself as a Christian, if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, a drunkard, or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one. for what I have to do with judging outsiders. It is not those inside the church whom you are to judge. God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you." So there's a break here. There's no communication, not communication, but there's no communion anymore. There's no fellowship anymore. And in chapter 16 of Romans, the Apostle Paul usually will also use the word avoid to avoid this person. This is how we have to treat those people, not having communion with them anymore. And this will be hard sometimes because sometimes you will find that one of those excommunicated person might be your spouse or might be your cousin that you see each other many times, your brother and your sister. And there is a little bit of flexibility here, of course. You don't need to divorce your spouse if he was excommunicated from church. No, that's not the point. But then there is another instance or example of what to do with this person, and it can be applied as well to spouses or people who are very close, that we find in Matthew chapter 9. Open Matthew chapter 9, verses 9 to 13. The interesting thing is that Matthew is saying, if he refuses to listen even to the church, you consider him or let him to be as a Gentile and a tax collector. What was Matthew doing before Christ called him? He was a tax collector, right? So he's saying, If someone sins against you and doesn't listen to any of those people who are rebuking them, you consider him as myself. It's interesting because he was himself a tax collector. Now the question is, how did Jesus treat tax collectors? We see this in chapter 9, verse 9 to 13. As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at a tax booth. And he said to him, follow me. And he rose and followed him. And as Jesus reclined at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? It seems that we have a contradiction here between Paul and Jesus, right? Paul says, avoid them, do not eat with them, and Jesus is eating with them. Keep on reading. Verse 12. But when he heard it, he said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous but sinners. What is the content of the conversation of Jesus with tax collectors? that we see with Matthew, and then in the end of verse 13, he said, follow me. It's a calling to repentance. This is how Jesus treated the sinners and tax collectors. It was not just community and fellowshipping with them and accepting their sins, but he was there to call them, those who were sick, to repentance. So that's the second point of how to treat them. We need to call them to repentance. If they were excommunicated from church, even though they believed that the excommunication was illegitimate or whatever, they show themselves to be unbelievers. And even though they might consider themselves as Christians, what they need to hear is, you need to repent. You need to repent. You need to know the Lord Jesus Christ truly. And this is how we treat them, as Jesus treated Matthew himself, calling him, follow me, follow me. And then in verse 18, we have our point two, the acknowledgement. It says, This text seems a little bit confusing sometimes because it seems that Jesus is saying that the church and the officers of the church had the power to legislate or to say what happened with this person here will then happen in heaven, in a spiritual reality. But actually, it's the other way around. The Greek original would translate something as whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound on heaven. Actually, it's a reflection of what already happened that the elders of the church and the church as a body is recognizing. It's an acknowledgment that something that has already happened. Of course, that it is not always 100% accurate because this person might come back later and show himself just as a backslider. But we have to judge with what we see, with the fruits. And this is important to notice that in a difference between... this is a difference between the Protestant Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Because they believe that the power of the Church is magisterial, and legislative, which means that the pope or the priest or the bishop have the power in his hand to say, this person will go to hell or will go to purgatory or go whatever, and then, in the heavens, God will submit to their wills. But actually, it's the other way around. The church does not have power over those things. But the church is just a minister. So their power is ministerial and declarative. They are ministers of God. They are servants of God. They rule over the rule of Christ, who is the head of the church. And they just declare what they have received. And this is what happening, what is happening here in this chapter is an acknowledgement. They just look at the person, look at the fruits, and they, they declare. Not something that now God will have to submit to, but because of what they see, they recognize as what had already happened spiritually with this person. And then in verses 19 to 20, we have point three, the promise. It says, again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. This verse is one of the most misinterpreted in the whole scriptures, in the history of Christianity. What is he talking about here? Is he talking about the lost sheep and salvation and reconciliation and then church discipline and all of a sudden now he's talking about worship and prayer meeting? I don't believe so. If we look at the context again, Jesus is developing this process and the authority of the church in church discipline. And then he comes to verse 19. And he says, again, I said to you. There's a connection here that he's following a certain argument, a certain reasoning. So there's a connection here. Again, I said to you. And he talks about prayer. But the context here is church discipline. So what he's saying here is that prayer in relation to church discipline will have those promises here. Those promises here in verses 19 to 20 are related to church discipline. If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, who are those two or three? We just read in verses before, 16, two or three witnesses, right? He's talking about the same thing. If they ask about anything, they ask, they pray, they're praying concerning what matter? The matter of church discipline, this case of church discipline. It will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For two or three, again, the witnesses gather, are gathered in my name, there am I among them. This is prayer in the context of church discipline. is in the context of church discipline, showing that how important it is, prayer, in the process of church discipline, because Jesus Christ had promises attached to this, that if they gather together in his name, they pray fully, ask for wisdom to work those things through, he will give his wisdom, he will give his spirit, and he will help the church or it will help the two or three witnesses, or it will help even you as a person who goes after the lost sheep, and He will be with you. There's a lesson here for the officers of the church, that our church discipline, the process of church discipline must be done with much prayer, independence upon the Holy Spirit to give us insight, to give us wisdom, to do the will of our Father in each case. with godliness, with piety, thinking always about the purpose, which is to get this person back to the fold. This is also a call for the members of the church who elect the elders, right? We must elect elders who are concerned with the souls of the people. who we know that are men of prayer that, in those cases, would not rule over the person, would not belittle the person who is sinning, but will protect them, will care for them, and will pray for them and with them in the whole process. That is what He is saying here. Those promises are attached here in the context of church discipline. And there are many other things that could be said here in this topic. It's a huge topic, church discipline. But the main thing again is that God gave church discipline to His people to help one another, for us to care for one another. When we see our brother, when we see our sister going astray, we call their attention to come back Church discipline is God using us even as broken vessels to bring reconciliation and unity in the church and to purify His church, His bride. The very fact that we are disciplined by God and not punished is an act of grace from the Lord. Because in order for us to be received as adopted children and be disciplined by God as a father, someone had to be punished by our sins. And we know who was this person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was considered as an illegitimate son, was not disciplined for restoration. He was cast out, he was crucified and punished because of our sins, so that we can have the privilege of call God our Father and be disciplined as children. That's the grace of church discipline. It is only possible It is only conceivable because of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross being punished for ourselves so that you and I could be restored as children, as adopted children, and have the privilege to be disciplined and restored when we go astray. Let us pray. Oh God, we thank you for the doctrine that you have settled here in your word. We acknowledge, O Lord, that it's hard to be reproved by someone when we sin, because we show all our weakness. It shows all our nature, our sinful nature. But help us, Lord, to be wise and love those who reprove us, love those who come to us. And not be mad at them, but look with good eyes and react how your Bible tells us to react, in love. and coming back to the fold. As you, with your mighty hand, in your providence, through our brothers and sisters, call us back to the fold. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.