Dismissed. Matthew 18.15 I'm going to preach on a message today that most pastors don't even like to preach about, but I'm going to preach because the Lord laid in my heart. Matthew 18.15, if you have a Bible with you, wherever you have God's Word, a phone, an iPad, just let's look at it. If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. And if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell unto the church, But if he neglect the church, I'm saying neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, whosoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whosoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loose in heaven. Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you Lord for this passage of scripture. There's some verses here that are being misunderstood by many people through the ages, even to this day. Let's give justice to this passage this morning, Lord, and may everything we do and say bring honor and glory to your name. If there's anyone here, Lord, that never received Jesus as Savior, may today be the day of their salvation. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. You may be seated. So I'm going to touch on a subject today and I believe me it is not purposely done to hurt anyone is God's Word. Of course in the title of the message, when your brother sins. when your brother sins or that the subject of sin, the word sin, it's a word that our world outside the walls of the church is not used anymore or many people don't even know. You'd be surprised if people say, what is that? What does that mean? Like, believe me, I'll go through this. You know, the people say wrong and right, you know, all these things, but the word sin, many people don't even understand the definition of it, what it means. It's amazing how people are so disengaged or this so away from church and God and all that. So this morning we're going to look at this passage of scripture about the subject when your brother sinned against thee or against you. All right. So if you saved and you go to a church, it is brothers and sisters in Christ there. People who have the same beliefs, people who have the same heavenly father. But we humans, we have a sin for nature. And we sometimes things don't go the way we want it to go. Sometimes a person robs you the wrong way and you get all ticked off and offended and hurt. And like the chip on your shoulder fell off and out there somebody took that chip out of your shoulder. So you know you just had it and what are we going to do with that. So you know it's a conflict. How you resolve that. I'll give you a story. There was in our church one time at First Baptist Church long ago, many years ago, there was two families there. They wouldn't see eye-to-eye with each other. Now the guys were the wives, okay? Were the wives, now the guys. The guys were fine. It was the wives, you know? And even when the guy said to his brother, I don't know what's wrong with my wife. The other one, I don't know what's wrong with my wife. But anyway, they couldn't see eye-to-eye with each other. Uh, so we got them together, you know, I was one of the deacons they got them together make peace with each other We can see those ladies. I'm not going to make peace So we suggest they will bring like the white little, you know handkerchief thing, you know peace, you know I surrender type of thing, but they wouldn't dare do that and eventually one wound up leaving the church because they could not forgive And the excuse was you don't understand you don't you guys don't understand So we didn't understand why forgiveness was not rendered even though when you think you're right, you know, and you think, you know, but we ought to forgive. But anyway, so this passage is about is if a brother or a sister sins against me, how do I act? So anyway, so our passage this morning raised the question, when someone sends in the body of Christ or the local church, how should you respond? Well, the problem that we see over and over again is the unbiblical way on which people respond to the problem in the church. And this happens all the time. There are four basic ways that church respond to known sin in their midst. The number one, the first one is the first one in the, I'm sorry, indifference. this is when the church says things like we can't be judgmental we all sin it's none of our my business it's it's it's a person's private life however this response is not loving and is not biblical We see something wrong and we say it's not my problem. It's not to do with me. I don't care. So we kind of sweep it under the rug. Number two, another way on which churches do is self-righteousness. This is when the church responds in a way of superiority or in a judgmental attitude. That is not good either. you know they look down at the the person that sinned and there's no remedy for that person that person is judged in the people's eyes and there's no way of forgiveness and that is wrong okay a third way on which things are handling churches sometimes is is a way of malice by spreading gossip and slander about the person going to social media and bringing church problems to a public arena let me put it this way okay family problem stays in the family Whatever happens in your house, stays in your house. You follow that? You need to tell your kids, what happened in here, don't go tell your friends. I tell my kids all the time, you're not going to talk to your friends about what's going on in our home, good or bad, whatever is in our home. It's just family business here. Okay, same thing in the local church, you're part of the body of Christ, you're part of the family, what's in the family doesn't go out. doesn't go to other people from other churches the friends in the workplace you know the social media act these days that's where people go you know so it doesn't go that way so that's malice that's being obviously being wicked So yeah, it's obviously not good. So the fourth way is the way Jesus outlines in our passage for us today, is the way that we should always use as a church response with loving concern and desire to restore the brother or sister. Listen, here's the thing. It's not about being judgmental, but when we confront someone that wronged us, it's always about bringing that person back and not being judgmental. not to hear the person oh i'm going to tell that i'm going to tell what he needs to know that's not what it is isn't that in a an attitude of forgiveness and restoration because it goes this way you somebody can offend you today and you can have you can offend somebody tomorrow You follow that? It goes both ways. So we have to have a sense of the way Jesus puts it right here. That's the way we should do. So you might wonder, why don't we take the restored path more often? Well, because it involves something very uncomfortable. It involves confrontation. You know one thing is, if you do counseling, confrontational counseling, you're not going to have many people come to counseling. You follow what I'm saying? Confrontational counseling is telling the person, you are wrong. You know, and listen, you are wrong. You need to, or the other type of counseling, which is this worldly counseling, which many people go to therapy over and over again, is just they butter it up, they cover it up, and make you feel like you're the victim. If you're wrong, you're wrong, right? Listen folks I see this in my job all the time. It's just covering it up and bothering it up. So you have confrontation counsel right here in this passage Jesus gives us confrontational counsel. Okay you have a problem let's deal with it. Okay so why people don't because they're uncomfortable, they don't like confrontation, you cannot restore without confronting and we don't like confronting other people but the church is in trouble when we either don't confess it or don't confront it what the person is going through whatever that person is doing so Unfortunately, the pattern that I have seen over and over in churches is people leaving because they don't want to confront the person who have done them wrong or because they're wrong and they don't want to ask forgiveness. Okay? One thing that I have seen in my 57 years of living is that people have an easier time to trash somebody down when then they have to admit they're wrong or ask somebody to forgive me. you know I see this over and over I'm not in the church outside the church same thing you know boom to tell people something they'll go right ahead but to say I'm sorry I was wrong that's a problem they're not going to humble themselves you know I'm going to say you know but instead of asking I'm sorry they don't so so how are we supposed to deal with sin in the church What should you do if your brother or sister sin against you? What should you do if you sin against your brother or sister? So let's look about this from several points this morning, okay? Number one, follow the Bible process, okay? Follow the Bible process. Let's keep in mind that here that the church is the bride of Christ. Okay. We are the bride of Christ. We're the children of God. We have one heavenly father. So let's keep in mind that that Jesus is the founder of the church and he set the standards for his church. okay folks we're just a local church we're part of the bride of Christ but God is the one who sets the standard for his church not me that's why it's there in the bible that's not my words it's God's word okay and it's Jesus speaking here so first you need to follow the process on which lays out for us in verse 15 and 17 there are four steps In this process and those four steps need to be taken in order So listen, please even though most of us are saved here this morning doesn't change the fact that we are sinful people Okay, and sinful a sinful nature gets in the way many times Okay, sometimes it's an action. Sometimes it's an attitude. Sometimes it's a word. It's all kinds of things Sometimes you take in a wrong way. I mean, you know, there's all kinds of things but you know what there is a word called forgiveness and you know okay so follow the bible process letter a go and communicate look at verse 15 moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone if he shall hear thee thou has gained thy brother so all right so brother mary I have some disagreement with brother many right here you know it's nobody's business nobody know just be so I go to him hey brother please forgive me I was wrong whatever I you know whatever is you see what any given the opportunity I ask forgiveness give an opportunity for him to say I forgive you we hug each other we go on it's over you gain your brother that's what God says so God says you know what you don't go then so no no we ask forgiveness it takes a lot to admit that we are wrong you know it's pride gets in the way so we go and communicate is the thing that you should should never do what we don't go as judges neither we go to trash people down and should and show them how wrong they really are listen if somebody wronged you they already know they're wronged you they might not admit it but they know listen when you wrong somebody don't you know you're wrong somebody i know too okay Say, notice Jesus calls this person your brother. In other words, we have a family relationship with the body of Christ. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. We share the same Heavenly Father, right? It's bad enough when friends separate because of problems. How much worse when brothers or sisters don't get along, especially in a local church. Now, we need to practice discernment and balance this instruction with other scriptures. For an example, look at it says in Proverbs 19.11, you see Jesus is not speaking about small matters here of offense here or little disagreements where we can you know just go over which we can just go over rather he's talking about serious sin in a life of a brother or sister or something they did very serious to us and needs to be resolved you know you don't want to come to church and have an issue with somebody and every time you look at that person it's like a stumbling block doesn't get off your mind and every time you see it hurts you. God says that's not the way I want you to come to my house and worship me. So you come in at that disagreement now you need to get alone with your brother and sister whoever however is and make peace with each other. So when both come into the local church we worship in spirit and in truth. otherwise you look to the to the side and you saw oh and you know it was that anger comes to the surface and and you're not thinking about worshiping god anymore you're thinking about getting even or whatever the person is okay so don't think this personal you know it was just i'm just general generalizing this thing okay so jesus said when that's the case you go you take the initiative don't wait for them to come to you to uh you go don't don't don't get to the uh the the nip nitpicking don't go to uh don't go to him and like you know just no just don't go to to spew our anger or bitter words jesus said go and show them their fault the world translate the word i'm sorry translate show them their fault here as as is the word that bring bring them to light you know bring them to light you see i say brother i have said that word about you i know i was wrong see you bring them to light please forgive me i lied about you this is what i said about you thing about oh oh you know please forgive me walk away that stuff you gotta what jesus said name the thing it's like us when we ask the lord for forgiveness of our sin oh lord forgive me my sin well that's an easy way to say what about lord i've lied to you lord i've done this to you and that to you please forgive me of this and this and this. You see we literally bring our sin out to the Lord and we are we regret what we've done. Same thing with the brother's sister. You say brother you know I said this thing about you this is what I said but please forgive me. that's what the lord means here so jesus used the same word in john 16 8 when he speaks of the holy spirit bringing conviction of sin conviction of sin so jesus is saying go and shine the light of god's word on the situation and allow the holy spirit to convict them of sin look what says in john 16 18 And when he come, he is come, he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. So how should you go to your brother or sister? How should you present yourself? Look what it says in Galatians 6. Ye which are spiritual, restore such as one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. You see, when a brother is taken into fault, when you go and confront your brother, you go with one purpose. Restoration. That's the purpose. The purpose is not to turn you down. The purpose is not to kick you out. That's not the purpose. That's not what God says. We are a family. You don't kick family out the door. right you don't kick family out the door we restore them in the in the love of god but you don't understand what they did to me well that's an unforgiving heart right there okay so why is privacy so important in this in this first step for several reasons first you give the person an opportunity to explain himself Perhaps there was been a misunderstanding. You give the person the benefit of the doubt. You know, okay, you heard some, it came through the grapevine, right in your ear. Somebody said something about you. You're not happy. Automatically our reaction is to say something back because we hurt, we want to defend ourselves. Isn't that right? Isn't that what we do? I'm going to tell you something about that person. It goes on. In the spiritual of what? Maturity in a Christian life, you know what we do? Instead of going to the good, we go to the person, maybe it's a misunderstanding. Hey, I heard this, you said this, and you specify what was said. You give the person the opportunity to talk and the person the opportunity to defend himself. If maybe it was a lie that somebody told you to break a friendship between you and somebody else. That happens, does it happen? How many friendships been broken because of that? Somebody said a lie and it goes away. So you give the opportunity for the person to redeem himself. So that's why staying private. Secondly, if it is a private matter, then it is nobody else's business. So if there's a private thing between you and that person, you don't need to have people involved. is between you and the person. Okay, if you have a problem in the workplace between you and your superior, where you go? Tell the whole crew about it or you go in the office and talk to that person? Usually you go talk to the person, right? Okay, so thirdly, there is no need to spread dirty laundry around. It only hurts the cause of Christ and the witness of the church. So if anyone comes to you complaining how someone else in the church has hurt or offend them, your first question should be, have you talked with them? Jesus said we are responsible for our own person-to-person relationship within the body of Christ. Now, I mean, it was about three or four years ago, here in the church, a lady came to me and said something about another lady. I said, it was my first thing, did you go talk to her about it? Oh, but you don't understand. Listen to me. Did you and talk to her about it? you go talk to her about it make peace with her go in the spirit of meekness and love and clarify you know she came to me the next week and said it's done it's over we it was a misunderstanding you're not blessing it happens okay so thirdly that's what it does so so jesus said if he listens to you he or she whatever the person is you have won your brother over That's a good thing. That should be our purpose. That is the whole purpose of the whole process. It's to gain our brother or sister back, not to kick them out. So that's the first step, okay? Let it be. Take a witness with you. So there's always a chance on which your brother or sister, when confronted, would get mad or angry at you. Then you move to the second step. What's the second step? Look at verse 16. But if he will not hear, then take with thee one or two more than in the mouth of two or three witness every word may be established so why is the witness now because it is not possible there's no possibility of reconciliation with you and the other person by themselves now you take someone with you with the purpose of again restoration and forgiveness okay it's not let me tell i need you so i can support me so i can tell this no that's not what it is so first of all it takes the whole situation to a new level of seriousness it says this is an important matter that needs to be addressed so notice that those who bring with uh bring with you join in the effort of reaching out of the of the of what's going on jesus said if he will not hear thee so it's not like you don't go before before you go to the person by yourself if that person refuses to hear you then you go get the witness then the witness come with you then now okay the thing is let's resolve the problem okay so they are not just bystanders but they join with you in showing the offending brother is fault they also there as witness so and not so as a witness of the wrong committed but witness of the person's attitude when the person is confronted This is a step to do so. When you confront somebody with a wrong, you expect a reaction. Either the person say, I'm sorry that I've done this, I'm wrong. Or the person is going to put up a front and give you a fight. Either way. So the people that witness there is to witness how the person is going to react. They already know the situation. They want to see how they react. Look what it says in Deuteronomy chapter 19, verse 15. And Jesus, of course, reinforces this here in Matthew. This was necessary to guard against gossip or rumors. Jesus emphasized the importance of witness to firmly establish the matter at hand, which is primarily the repentance or lack of repentance of the person confronted. So notice how important it is to keep the circle tight here. Only two or three witnesses are required. We shouldn't be legalistic here with this in that no more than three should ever go. But the principle here is that no more should be involved than is absolutely necessary. And when you bring witness, bring with you godly people. People that you can trust, people that you know that what they hear there is going to stay there. Because you know, unfortunately, not every Christian are living in a godly way. And some things they do not need to hear. Because it spreads like fire. And that's not what you want. So let us see, tell the church. Now, if your brother or sister refuse to repent and refuse to listen to the witness, then you need to get leadership involved. if this still won't listen the leadership then you go to the third step what says Lucas has in verse 17 if and if he shall neglect to hear them plural them then it then uh tell them into the church but if they neglect to hear the church and let him be unto thee a heathen a man and a publican so is the steps you and a person alone witness Leadership, the witness right there, of course, if one is witness, the leadership, I got to be involved in this. Then if the person continues not to listen, then you go to the body, to the local church. Now that the whole becomes public, the whole church will know about it. And that person publicly needs to say, I'm sorry, ask forgiveness for that person have done. If that person refused, the Bible is very clear. Treat him like a heathen and a Republican. That's harsh words, but they came from the mouth of Jesus. So the phrase neglect to hear or refuse to hear in this verse is an interesting one. It literally means one who listens to the side. So you just picture the person turning his head, ignoring what is said. Jesus said, if you refuse to listen to them, tell it to the church. It means literally, he's confronting, he or she is confronting, and he's like this. Not listening to anything. Uncaring. At that point, it is a problem. So, now, it is right, it is the right time to go to your passive course and try to settle, you try to settle yourself. First you try to settle yourself, but then you go to the steps that the Bible declares here. And folks, let me tell you this. Why we do this? We do this to restore, not to kick out. follow that it's always for restoration God is not in the business of kicking his children out of his house he's in the business of restoration because why is he why Jesus will put that here because he knows that we are sinners he knows that we have a sin for nature he knows we are capable of doing these things so let it be treat us as non-believers we see this with God Jesus said right here but if he neglect to hear the church Let him be unto thee a heathen and a publican. So you see, the effort is made. Privately witness the church. Three steps to restore that brother or sister. If that brother or sister refuses to ask forgiveness, guess what? Three tries, three strikes you out. let him be unto thee as a heathen and a pagan." So you are confronted the person yourself or you brought two or three witnesses along, you brought your pastor with you and if the person doesn't listen even to the pastor, Jesus said the second part of verse 17, so you treat him like a heathen and a pagan. was someone outside the Christian faith the Bible describes so the text collector represents someone who is outside the fellowship of God right here so Jesus is saying here that when a brother or sister sins and refuses to repent even when you have gone through all these steps you should not longer treat them as a Christian brother but treat him as like an unbeliever he said pastor this is very harsh that's what God says Now does this mean you should be mean to them? No. Of course not. I hope you're not mean to non-christian friends and non-christian workers. I mean don't you have people that are not saved and you talk with them back and forth? Of course you do. You don't treat them like, you know, that's not christian love. the important thing to notice here is that without repentance forgiveness is withheld we sometimes get a fuzzy idea of forgiveness what forgiveness is what we should forgive all I mean we that we should forgive all people in all manners of offenses regardless of the attitude but Jesus forbids the church from forgiving when there are a lack of repentance for their sin they've committed. Now that doesn't mean that you should hold any bitterness in your heart. We should not do that. There is never place for that but there is no repentance. I'm sorry but where there's no repentance there's no public forgiveness as well. all right so let me put the picture here so you can get a better so a person goes through all these steps a person is offered to come in front of the church to ask publicly about their forgiveness and they refuse how can he restore such a person you cannot unless that person has forgiveness and if we just brush it on the wrong guess what we're not doing what God says in his word We be unkind and mean to those people? No, absolutely not. We pray for them, we love them in Jesus, but there is something that needs to be resolved. Okay, so we have a person who goes from one church to another church. You know what usually a pastor from another church does? He calls the previous pastor and says, is there anything against this person? Is there any public sin? Because they want to know too. because they can't withhold membership from the person in another church if that person has something done to other people in other churches. This is a common practice of a lot of pastors because it's biblical. So some people would say, how dare you remove someone from membership in the church? What right do you have to do that? Well, we'll look at this in verse 18 to verse 20. We want to get a look at that. But our church as a covenant, which has been in place since this church was born, we commit ourselves to living godly life in fellowship with each other in the church. If a person does not desire to live a godly life in Christ, then why join the church? Joining certainly won't take you to heaven. And if a person no longer desires to live a godly life in Christ, then why remaining in a membership? That's what membership means. Removal from membership and withdrawal from the body is a serious step. Note that it is not non-believers we are withdrawing here, but people who are Christian people that the God says to treat him as heathen and publicans because of the refusal to fellowship. So note that, like I said, so Luker says here, as we read 1 Corinthians 5, chapter 5, verse 9 to 11, Luker says, I wrote unto you in the epistle not to company with fornicators. Look at verse 10. Yet, not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or exhorters, or idolaters, for them must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you, not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, a covetous, or idolater, a railer, a drunkard, or an extortioner, which such one not i'm sorry with such and one no not to eat i mean do not break bread with people like that with people who have hurt the local church with people that refuse to ask forgiveness god says don't even break bread with them i'll say that's hard teaching that's what the bible teaches So why God does tell us to withdraw from fellowship in this manner? Scripture gives us two reasons. It is for the good of the individual and for the good of the church. Why the good of the individual? So the person can see that the person is wrong. Sometimes you just have to make people see that they're wrong. And for the good of the church because the church should be the lighthouse to the world. You know, it's the people that could look at the church should look at the church as God's lighthouse. So there is intention for that. It's not to hurt anybody. It's just, you know, sometimes, you know, we need to see our wrong, right? I have told brothers and sisters before, listen, thank you for pointing my wrong. I needed to hear that. Look what it says in 2 Thessalonians 2 Timothy 3.14, it says, And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. You see, this is exactly backing up what I'm just saying. Yet, count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. You see, even though you don't break bread with that person, don't make that person your enemy. He's still a brother in Christ and you have to pray for him or her and love him in Christ. But there is a difference there. That person still needs to come to the house of God and ask forgiveness. If it comes to be public. All right. So let's go to our second point, binding and losing. We asked the question early, what right does the church have to withhold forgiveness from the one who is unrepentant? That authority has been granted to the church by none other than Jesus Christ himself. We now come to verse 18, which speaks about binding and losing here. Look at verse 18. Verily I say unto you, this verse has been misunderstood and mispreached to many people. Okay, look what it says. Verily I say unto you, whosoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whosoever ye shall lose on earth shall be loose in heaven. If you take this verse out of context, then you're going to teach wrong. But if you keep it in context, it's a progression on what Jesus is talking about. What he's talking about? He's talking about forgiveness in the local church. And he keeps going down. Some people think that's not what it is. So letter A relates to church discipline and forgiveness. This whole idea of binding and losing relates to the church discipline and forgiveness. Binding and losing has to do with the process of forgiving or withholding forgiveness with regards to sin and the process of removing or restoring a brother with regards to church membership. Jesus said something similar to this to his disciples in John chapter 20 verse 23. Look what it says. Whosoever sinned, ye remit, they are remitted unto them. And whosoever sinned, ye retain, they are retained. So don't take the verse out of context here. Don't go and think that this is a hard verse to understand because it is not. The problem here is, in this verse, it's been taken out of context by many, many people. Jesus is saying that God will approve and confirm in heaven godly decisions made by the church. In this case, he was talking to his disciples here. Now, does this mean that the person has lost his salvation? Absolutely not. This verse is not teaching about salvation here. I don't believe it's possible for anyone to lose salvation. God is good, a good shepherd who always finds his wandering sheep. However, the Bible also does not give any assurance of salvation to an unrepentant person. A person must receive Jesus as Savior in order to be saved, but salvation cannot be lost. So when we are told to treat the unrepentant person as a non-believer is not merely symbolic here. We must face the responsibility that the person may not be, we must face the possibility that the person might not be saved at all. Okay, I can, I don't know, I mean, listen, I listen to your testimony and I say, okay, that's a Christian person is saved. But God knows who's saved and who's not. It's not for me to judge you save those not but sometimes some it happens in churches on some actions people claim to be believers and they cause all kinds of chaos in the church and you're going to find out they've never been saved in the first place. That happens too. So let it be this direct to the church not individuals. So Matthew 18 right here verse 18 says really I say unto you you uh we saw the ye that's a plural word right here shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and we saw ye plural right here shall lose on earth shall be losing heaven so god is not talking in the singular right here he's using the plural words right here so another important thing is to note about verse 18 is that this verse is directed to the church not to individuals there are one you and two ye in verse 18 and there are all plural words to whom is the power given not to Peter as the pope like some claim not to the pastor as individual but is given to the church you follow that when it takes to when the sin goes to the church publicly folks is not the pastor anymore is the church corporately You follow that now? It surpasses the pastor, it surpasses the witness, it surpasses the individual. Now it is the church. So that's why we say the person got to come and confront the body, the church and ask the body forgiveness. Because it surpassed the authority of the pastor and now it's the local church, the body of believers. They're the ones you have to say we forgive you. You follow, you understand what I'm saying here? Okay. Okay, so. All right, so look what it says in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 4. It says, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye, get it together, plural, get it together, and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such and one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Again, if you look at these verses right here, he's talking about those who cause that thing, the disarray in the church, that the body together is the one who make the decision now, not the pastor anymore. Listen, we together as a body of Christ, we have a tremendous authority that the Lord gives us. It surpasses the authority of the leadership. It goes to the body of Christ. Let me remind you again that the church problems and church disagreement should never be put on social media. Never! Because what it does, we go there and we go in disarray and never give the person to privately defend himself. And we humiliate the whole association. If I go and trash somebody on social media, I'm going to trash not just that person, it's a whole slew of other people that goes along with it. And listen, that's not their business, for us to do that. so follow the bible process number two bind and lose my by the way i'm not preaching this message just because uh you might be thinking of somebody in the church no no no no no it's just a little in my heart and i'm teaching it to you all right uh don't you know i know sometimes i might okay pastor who's in trouble and i'm not i'm not no no no no no not with anybody here okay don't get that way because these types of messages sometimes causes us to think that way okay but it's not what it is i'm just preaching the message okay i literally in my heart and i'm preaching it to you so okay so uh number three agreeing in prayer so jesus gives the church the right to accept and remove people from the membership but this right must be tempered with prayer the church seeking god's will together in prayer in and is in the present and and i'm sorry in the presence of jesus in jesus name just pray look at verse 19 again i'm saying to you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask it shall be done for them of my father which is in heaven for with two or three i'll get it together in my name that there i am i'm sorry there am i in their midst in the midst of them so again I know some people take these verses out of context, but if we look at a context of the passage, Jesus is continuing with the same topic, which is forgiveness in the local church. So he said, you know what, we get it together. When we get it together, what do we do? We pray. You know, may we not take prayer for granted because the house of God is a house of prayer. You know, and those things need to, we need to be prayerful about these things. Listen, we are to love one another. We are to pray for one another. I mean brother Tom can witness this on Wednesday nights. Brother Tom what I do I mention everyone inside the church by name and not because I want to be prideful no and arrogant it's because I love them in Jesus Christ and I want the Lord to just be a blessing to them and guide them in a ways as we live go to this world and I hope you pray for me as well. The house of God is a house of prayer so agreeing in prayer. We see it is a general principle praying together in Jesus name. You see the general principle has to do with praying together in Jesus name. In verse 19 seems at first glance to be an automatic gimme here but it's not just find one person to agree with you about anything and God has to do it. No, but those who love and worship God know that prayer is much more wonderful and meaningful than that. Prayer is Is is a giant thing that we have that we can go to the lord and pray about brothers and sisters We know brothers and sisters wrong You know we need to do Pray for them the lord touched their heart so they know they admit they're wrong Again is restoration not being judgmental you follow that Listen, do people hurt you every day? All the time. Isn't that true? You get out of bed in the morning, you go mind your own business before you know it, oh, you all hurt. What do you do? What do you do? We pray. I hope you do. Okay. I had somebody in there text me Friday. I had no idea who that person is. And I didn't respond. They didn't text me again. The second text was not nice. It was like, I mean, come on, all kinds of stuff. So I decided to text them last night. I'm sorry. I was frustrated. I called six pastors and nobody answered me. so i got any frustrations on you see sometimes just takes a little conversation to understand something here you see sometimes it takes you know sometimes you don't understand but listen the spirit of forgiveness prayer is a very important thing the general principle we pray for one another even those who hurt us okay John chapter 16 verse, we're almost done. Chapter 16 verse 23 says, And that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Highborn, have ye asked nothing in my name. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. Oh pastor, I think I offended this person. Go talk to them. Oh, you don't understand. Go talk to them. Here comes the person. Hey, pastor, I'm so glad that you told me to go talk to that person. Sometimes it's just misunderstandings. But it needs to be resolved. Otherwise, our minds keep wondering and putting all kinds of things here, unhealthy things. And before the things about this small becomes this big. It shouldn't be that way. So what we do, we pray. Listen. if you don't remember everybody's names write it in a piece of paper somewhere or your notes on your phone and get their names and you know every day take time and pray for two or three of them and the next day pray for more two or three of them pray for them so why the lord give you a spirit of prayer to pray because your brother says they need your prayers Letter B, we see a specific application, whose process of the church discipline. Now, we take the general statement Jesus makes about prayer and we apply them to the church removal of a member. All church discipline must be done in an attitude, listen to this, of humility and prayer, under Christ's authority and seeking His will in the matter, not our will, God's will. Then, and only then will God bind in heaven what is bound on earth and loose in heaven what is bound loose on earth. That's the way this verse should be interpreted. Okay. We ought to do what we can based on what Jesus said in his word. And guess what? And if it goes to, it gets resolved good. But if we come to the point on which we have to withdraw somebody from membership, it's got to be biblically. Not just, oh, I think. No, no, no. You think is out of the question here. Or my thinking. So I conclude with this. Let me close with five words of specific application this morning. Okay? First one is love. Love your brother and sister in Christ. Love them enough to care about their sin. All right. Pastor, I talked to them. They don't want to hear. All right. You love them. You love your brother enough. When we go confront someone, we don't go as judges. If we go as judges, we are already wrong. We go in a spirit of humility and kindness and love. We try to restore our brother for something they did wrong. And we, the thing is give them the opportunity to ask God to forgive them. And for them to ask forgiveness, we go in that spirit, that attitude. Number two, desire purity in the church. Remember, we are the bride of Christ. He is coming back for us. He gave himself to purify us. That's one of the reasons we practice discipline in the church. I mean, let me put it this way. No pastor wants to tell somebody to leave. No pastor. No, we don't want to do that. That's the least thing anyone wants to do. Number three, follow God's instructions. Do not spread rumors, slander, or gossip. Go to the person first and then take the other step as needed. But do this with the gentle spirit, with the spirit of love and humility. Because I'll tell you something, be careful that we don't destroy people with our words and our statements written somewhere. Because we can destroy not only people, but people's lives. We don't want to do that. Never assume. Go privately, don't take those steps. God put it there for a purpose because we don't want to destroy people's lives. And I'll tell you what, when somebody, something is invented and put it up in that person, go tell the rest of the world that is not so. Okay. Following instructions. I'll give you an example. This is private, but I'm going to share with you. We have missionaries that we support. One missionary contacted us that they don't receive their mission giving since July. And we explore it and it has been, we always send the support to them. We contacted the bank. We got a picture of the checks, the back and the front of the checks. There's a stamp of the local church that is stamped there on their checks. Contacting the church, we noticed that the church never received the checks. Someone cashed the checks with the church stamp. How you contact that church? With the spirit of meekness and prayer. Pastor, this is the information we have. I think you have a thief among you. Please explore that. When you approach that way, the pastor goes, thank you for informing me, letting me know. We will look into this because this is not the character of our church. Spirit of meekness and prayer. If I put it this way, pass them out of the way, what you guys doing, misusing them? Guess what happened there? Chaos. So we follow God's instructions. Do not spread rumors. Do not slander. Don't gossip. Don't go to social media so that you can get support and feel good about yourself. but do in the spirit of gentleness and humility. Number four, keep your heart soft towards the Lord and towards that person. If someone approaches you by your sin, repent, listen, reconcile, ask God to forgive you and the person to forgive you. If it's the other way around, go with that spirit of forgiveness. God seeks people who are willing to do that. So we should seek to restore the wandering believer who has sinned against us or against the local church. We're not in a place of being judges and put people down. You follow that? Jesus gave us this specific way to follow the steps and we should do that. If someone sinned against you, we have to restore always in the spirit of meekness and understanding. Listen, we have no business of being judges over others. No business. Spirit of meekness, because the church is here to show love, mercy and grace to people, to be the light of the world. People need to see that. But sometimes we need to expose the sin when it comes to the public place like that, so the person understands I've done wrong. You know, it takes humility to come in front of the local church and ask forgiveness. It does. It does. It's not an easy thing to do, but that's what God tells us to do. And you know what? And we should never, when a person comes, I don't know if I'm on camera, when a person comes here and asks the local church for forgiveness, we should not be looking like this. You deserve it. No! we embrace and we hug and we say welcome back brother sister we love you we've been praying for you so that person be encouraged and understand that everything was done in the spirit of humility and kindness and love because that's how God does to us when a sinner comes to him God doesn't say to him get away from me you know because he embraces that that person and said I love you when that thief on the cross said remember me when you get into die And Jesus said, today you will be with me in paradise. That's the spirit of the local church. That's the way the local church should be. We're not to have a hold a grudge against anybody or be judges over people, but always have that spirit of meekness and forgiveness to those who unfortunately fall in those situations. Because let me tell you this way, can be somebody today, can be you tomorrow. We're all sinners here. God loves each one of us, but we got to follow the menu, which is God's Word. I tell you folks, I hope I see you next week because this is not an easy message to preach. And believe me, I was telling your brother this morning, I said, well, this is not going to be an easy one to preach. It's not an easy one to preach. You kind of look at us, but Lord, it's here. Lord laid in my heart to do it. There it is. I preach the message to you this morning. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, so much for this passage of scripture. Thank you, Lord, that you laid the guideline on which we ought to treat each other in a local church. Lord, that we don't just make our own ideas and own philosophies as we go along, but you lay it down so we can follow. Thank you, Lord, for putting that down so we have a guideline on which we should treat each other. in a local church, in Jesus' name I pray, amen. If you could stand please. Turn to page 336, amazing grace. 336. It is amazing grace, isn't it? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. I was blind, but now I see. You know folks I tell you this way it is easier to tell people the wrong things than it is than it is to ask forgiveness. You know we sometimes we have a mouth we go and just boom boom but when we understand we were wrong it's hard to go back and say well you forgive me for what I have said. It's not an easy thing to do because this is this pride gets in the way. We think by doing that we become this small. That's not true. Actually, we show respect and reverence for other people. Listen, we are to respect others. If we want God's forgiveness, should we not forgive our brother? Actually even God says before you come to the altar and bring your gift, go see your brother and make peace with them. Then come to the altar and make peace and come give your gift. God says I don't want you to come to me with a heart full of hate and gossip and slander. Go make peace with your brother. We should do that. Always, always in the spirit of restoration, always spirit of meekness, always with prayer. Don't go and confront anyone with our prayer first. Because otherwise we're going to just give them our own ideas. That's not our place to be. Restoration means we go in God's name and we use the Bible to do that. Let's sing our second verse as our last verse. Was grace that taught my heart to fear And grace my fears relieved How precious did that grace appear The hour I first believed Amen I'll tell you folks I'll be honest with you. My whole body is sweating here because I'm very tense This is not a message that I want to preach to you And I didn't want to offend anyone believe me, but the Lord have me preach this message to you this morning This is not an easy topic to preach about Especially we are humans and we have all a very opinionated people. All right, but that's what God says. All right Don't don't be upset with me That's very heavily father. Thank you Lord For this morning Lord, you put a lesson in my message in my heart is as you know Lord very hard to to preach it Yeah, a lot of doubts about it, but thank you Lord. You gave me the strength to go through it And I pray for my brothers and sisters. May we, in this local church, have a spirit of meekness, a spirit of forgiveness towards one another. May we always be willing to say, I'm sorry, I was wrong. Please forgive me. May we have that spirit in your home, Lord, in the places we go. May we have that spirit in us, always willing to ask forgiveness, always willing to forgive others. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.