Gospel of Matthew in chapter 18. Chapter 18. I will point out that if you were here last year when I taught the conference we hosted on marriage, you're going to hear some of the same material today because There'll be some differences here, but I'm of the belief that the text means what it says and says what it means, and if you teach it twice, you ought to have the same point, because the text is what drives the presentation of the Word of God. And so, we'll cover some familiar territory perhaps for some of you, but that was obviously taught in the context of marriage, and today what we're going to be looking at is really conflict and dealing with conflict and sin between brothers and sisters in Christ. How do you do that? How do we go about it? What does God say about dealing with conflict as individuals and dealing with conflict as a church, dealing with sin when it comes in to the fellowship of the saints? As we look at this text, I want to remember the greater context. Because the first word of verse 15, where we're going to start, is the word moreover. And that word is connecting us to the previous section. And if you remember last week, the previous section we concluded with the parable of the lost sheep. And what did we say about that parable? We said that it is right for us to lovingly pursue a brother or sister in Christ who has strayed from the faith. Again, Jesus' discussion of these little ones that He's been having the entirety of chapter 18 is referring to Christians, believers, those that walk in the faith. And this section is no different. And so as we look at this, we've got to remember the greater context, the context of Jesus teaching to his people about how they are to behave in when they're dealing with sin, sin that arises from out in the world, sin that arises from within them, and now sin that comes from somewhere else, a brother or sister in Christ. And so I wanna look at this text. Beginning in verse 15. There the Bible says this, Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses in the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them." Jesus teaching his disciples here He begins, as I said before, connecting this to the greater kind of conversation that's been going on throughout the entirety of chapter 18. I think particularly the last section about the parable of the lost sheep. And he tells us here how we deal with conflict. He says, sin and conflict. He says, if your brother sins against you, Right? So if somebody sins against you, somebody sins against me, this is how Jesus is telling us to deal with it. Now, there are other places where the Bible talks about if you know that you've sinned or if you know that your brother or sister has something against you, how you're supposed to deal with that. But here, it's the one that puts you in the position of being the one who has been sinned against. This entire section's about that. And I think it's so important that we say on the front end that there's so much, I think, kind of general thought process, general beliefs out there, or at least general practices, that we think if somebody has sinned against me, If they're in the wrong, I'm just gonna sit and wait. If they're the one that's done something, then by all means, they need to figure that out and they need to come to me and deal with this thing, if it's going to be dealt with. Well, I'm here to tell you the Bible does in fact say that that's true, that if I realize I've sinned against somebody, that I'm supposed to try to go and deal with it, but the reverse is also true. The Bible is going to tell us here that if we are sinned against, it is our responsibility to deal with a brother or sister in Christ, to go to them to seek reconciliation. That's what it says. If your brother sins against you, go. Go to them. Deal with it. You cannot refuse to deal with sin. We can't just let it go if it's going to continue to be an issue that crops up over and over again. Now, I do believe the Bible teaches us that it's possible to allow certain things, small things, things that aren't a consistent pattern of sin that continue to happen over and over again, we can kind of allow those things to be dealt with under love. I think Peter talks to us about that in 1 Peter 4, verse 8. I'll turn there, actually. He says in 4, verse 8, He says, and above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins. I think there is a time when something's happened and you can look at that and you can objectively say before God that I love this person and I am going to not, I'm just going to allow that to go under love, it was unintentional, whatever the case may be. I think there is a time and a place for that. But it cannot be that we just act as if nothing's wrong because we don't want to deal with a situation. If someone is continuing to sin, if someone is sinning against you, you can't just act like, well, I'm just going to let that go, I'm going to let that go, I'm going to let that go. Because eventually, it's going to produce anger, bitterness, disunity. It's going to begin to invade other areas of our life. It's going to begin to invade the life of the church, and on and on it will go. A lot of people talk about this section of Scripture as being the guidebook for church discipline. And it is that in many ways. But it's not just that. This is the Word of God telling us how we are to love one another even through conflict. Even through sinning against each other, this is how we can deal with things according to God's Word in a way that is right and true and loving. As the people of God, there are two ways we can get out of whack when it comes to dealing with issues of sin, particularly in the church. We can be too lax, where we don't deal with anything. And what happens when we refuse to deal with anything is that we end up with a bunch of people walking circles around each other, stepping on eggshells around each other, and never dealing with the thing. And I've been in that situation, and it's a terrible place. When we've refused to deal with sin because we're afraid that somebody might get their feelings hurt, somebody might leave, not want to be in fellowship with me personally anymore, they might not want to be a part of the church anymore, they might not want to be whatever. We can't be too lax. We've got to deal with issues of sin. But we also can't be too severe. We can't call a, you know, we don't need to go after somebody in church discipline, you know, because they chewed their gum wrong or too loud behind you during the service. Right? And I know that sounds silly, but some of the things that even myself, that I've thought, well, we might need to deal with that, or some of the things that have been dealt with by individuals in churches when they probably should have just said, that one goes under grace and love. They've pursued something that was trivial. It was more of a matter of preference and opinion than it was a matter of biblical truth. And so we can't fall into either ditch. We don't need to be too lax, we don't need to be too severe. Particularly if there is a distinct and an unchanging, unrepentant, sinful pattern, we have got to deal with it. We've got to deal with it in our own personal relationships, we've got to deal with it in our own families, we've got to deal with it in churches. Unresolved conflict, unresolved sin, will begin to spread. People will pick sides, people will just get into all manner of, there'll be different things that can crop up when we just, I will just let that, the fellowship's being, when it is something that's, biblical truth is at stake. The fellowship, if we're not careful, undermined. Unity can be compromised if we're not careful. So Jesus is going to tell us how we go about this. And when we begin to have this conversation, people get uneasy. And I'm here to tell you, this is direct. instruction from Jesus, okay? This isn't some ambiguous passage of scripture where there's 15 different, you know, understandings, you know, well, I think that, you know, 27 angels can stand on the head of a pen and the other guy thinks that five can, right? It's not that kind of doctrinal issue here. This is clear. Jesus tells us how to deal with this. First of all, what does he say? If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. He says to begin with, if somebody sinned against you, you recognize it for what it is, you go to them alone. Friends, I've said this before and I'll say it again and I'll say it till I'm blue in the face. This principle that Jesus gives us, I think would handle a vast majority of the situations of sin and conflict that we have in our lives if we would practice this as given to us by the Lord and Savior. What do I mean by that? I mean, when he says, go to the other person in the beginning, if we did that, we didn't involve anybody in the beginning. We kept it between us and the other person. If we would do that, I truly believe that in our personal relationships, our families and our churches, we would see far less conflict. Why? if, you know, if I upset Brother McElroy here, and he comes to me, and he says, hey, if I've legitimately sinned against him, and he says, hey, this is what's happened, I don't know if you know you did that or not, but I think it's a problem, and here's what the Bible says about it. And I listen to him, and I look, and I say, well, I think you were right, and I'm gonna ask you to forgive me. I'm going to ask God to forgive me. What does the Bible say? If that's the pattern of events, He says, if He hears you, you have gained your brother. That's the end of the situation. It's under the blood, it's under reconciliation between brothers in Christ. And we can move forward with a truly blank slate. Repentance has been offered, forgiveness has been offered, and we walk away from that. In my mind, our heart's full of joy because of the grace shown between brothers and sisters in Christ and the grace of God giving forgiveness. But, Brother Mike sins against me. I'm not saying he would, I'm just saying if he did. I get angry about it and I call 15 people to get their opinion on the matter. And then the majority opinion says, you ought to just tell him to go fly a kite. You know, you ought to do that kind of thing back to him. And all of that. Well, here's the problem with that. Number one, I've involved people that didn't need to be involved. I'm going against this clear command of Scripture. But the other problem is this. Now, even if we reconcile, Even if repentance is offered, forgiveness is granted, even if that happens, now what do we have? We got a whole other group of people out here that have an opinion that might want to continually bring this issue back up. This is why this is such great and clear and powerful instruction from the Lord Jesus Christ. The key to dealing with sin and conflict is to keep the circle as small as is appropriate. Hey, there are times, there are situations of egregious sin. There's times when the police need to get involved, and if there's a crime committed, we get the police involved immediately. Okay? I'm not saying that. I'm not saying if somebody's committing a crime that we need to, well, we got to deal with this in a church context. We got to deal with it in a church context. We got to deal with it in a personal context, but we got to also deal with the laws of the land as well, rightly. But we keep the circle as small as is appropriate. And he says, if they hear you, you've gained your brother. One of the things that you, need to know that I need to know that we've got to remember when we begin to deal with sin, we begin to deal with doing the things that Jesus is about. The point of doing the things that Jesus is instructing us about here is that we might see true reconciliation take place, true restoration take place. That's the point. Again, that's the parable of the lost sheep, that we go after them, and if we find them and they return to the fold, then we celebrate that they've returned to the fold. We're excited about it. We're not begrudging about it. Every step that Jesus lays out for us here, at every point, the end goal is the same. that someone might turn in repentance and be restored in relationship, number one, to God and be restored in relationship to whoever it is they've had this situation with, be restored in relationship potentially to the fellowship of the church. It's all about reconciliation. That's the point. That's the aim. Never punishment. We're not trying to punish people. Okay? It's never trying to humiliate people. That is never our goal. And if it is, then we've stepped into sin and we've got something to repent for. It's all about seeking to point people to the wonderful forgiveness that can constantly be found in Christ. But what if they refuse? What if they don't hear us? What if someone sins against you, sins against me, we go to them in loving, in a loving way, we go to them, we lay it out before them, you're crazy, no way, no how, get out of here, get out of my face, and they send us away. How then do we behave? Well, Jesus gives us further instruction in verse 16. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. If they refuse, the circle is widened a little bit. Not all the way, but just a little bit. Then we are to get someone someone else, one or two other people to go with us. We're not trying to win this person to our cause. We try to lay this out, whatever it is that's going on in the clearest way possible to them. We go, we bring these people and yourself to this person again. Why? In the hopes, number one, in the hopes that if they see not just you, But someone else that has heard all of this, they have a chance to tell what they think about the situation. And this person says, I truly believe you need to repent. There needs to be restoration here. That maybe they'll see the wisdom, not just in the person they've got a conflict with, but in those that are hopefully impartial, wanting to just assess the truth of a situation. Now that's a clear thing there that that's the reason that we bring them. And for the sake of a witness, right? We need to make sure that we're establishing the reality of the situation with not just us, but with other people, right? He quotes here in this by the mouth of two or three witnesses, this idea of needing multiple witnesses. in order for there to be certainty about an offense. This is spread throughout the Bible. I won't read them, but I'll give you a few references. Deuteronomy 17.6, Deuteronomy 19.15, 2 Corinthians 13.1, 1 Timothy 5.19. All of those passages point us to this truth that if there's a situation, if there's a sin, if there's a conflict and we need to make sure that we're not bringing an accusation that isn't backed up. Because here's what we've got to understand. I may sin in a certain way against someone. And they come to me and I refuse. And then it goes on and it goes on. As we get down this process, the sin that's being dealt with truly is not the original infraction. That has to be dealt with. But the sin that's ultimately being dealt with is a refusal. to repent. Unrepentance is what's going to escalate this situation. That's the sin that rolls this on down the road. And so we've got to establish, no, this person is refusing to repent. Because what happens if I come to the even larger group and I say, well, I did this, and they refused to repent, and then they say, no, they didn't. They never came to me. Well, if one or two others have gone with you, we can establish the reality of the refusal to repent. The other thing about this that we don't talk about as much, the other reason that we bring in one or two people, is so if I'm being petty, vindictive, hateful, and all I'm trying to do as my motivation, and maybe there's not even truly anything that needs to be dealt with by repentance and forgiveness, those one or two people should be willing to tell me that, say, hey, I want you to go over here, we gotta go over here and deal with this person. Well, they say, well, what's going on? And you tell them. And they say, no. Matter of fact, I think you're probably the one that needs to go repent. That's the reason we involve other people. So that we've got to be just as willing to receive correction as we are to try to carry correction to someone else. If our heart is right in this process, we've got to be willing to hear that and receive it. Jesus tells them, take these two or three others with you, But in verse 17 he says, if he refuses to hear them, then tell it to the church. Further refusal. If someone who is walking in sin is confronted by the one they've sinned against, and they refuse to deal with the situation, one or two others are brought along, And a side note about that, I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but if you're going to choose one or two others to help you deal with this kind of situation, make sure you choose the right kind of people, not the kind of people that just like to be involved in a fight, those kind of people that just like to be involved in drama and who are going to make things bigger and worse than they have to be. Have wisdom in choosing who that would be. But if you bring them and they refuse to hear that, church, If they refuse to hear the loving counsel of one, they refuse to hear the loving counsel of a few, he says, you widen it out and you take it to the church. This is where most people begin to get their mind on, oh, that's what they, when somebody says something about church discipline, this is the piece that they think about. You're bringing it to the church. Well, I'm gonna tell you that all of this at some level is a process of church discipline, and if you're practicing these things rightly, almost never do we get to this place. It happens, sadly, but almost never. If we're dealing with these things, we're going to one another, we're offering repentance, we're offering forgiveness, even if it has to be escalated and we have to bring in a mediator, other people to come alongside of us, if we do the first couple of steps properly, We're gonna very rarely get to this place, but it does happen. If they don't hear the counsel of others, we bring it to the church. And the truth of the situation is presented to the church for their consideration. This is what's going on. This is what's been done. This is why we've brought this to the body. And I know as we think about this in a modern context, you say, well, man, you just don't hear about that kind of stuff a lot. I remember my grandma talking about that, talking about people getting churched. Right? I remember hearing about that from days gone by. I'm here to tell you that this practice, if it is truly done in the spirit of love and fellowship and correction and reconciliation, can cause more. It is one of the most beautiful and powerful things a church can do. But few things can cause more destruction than when this process is undertaken with wrong motivations. And so we've got to be careful, prayerful, willing to go slowly. I have erred greatly in dealing with things at the improper speed in this type of situation in my own life, in my own ministry. We've got to be very careful. But understand, some people will say, well, why are we involving the body? What business is it of theirs? Well, number one, Jesus tells us to do it. But I believe the Apostle Paul gives us a really good picture of this in 1 Corinthians, of why it's appropriate for the church to deal with these kinds of things. In 1 Corinthians 6, in verse 2, the Bible says, Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life. The Apostle Paul is talking to the Corinthians about those that would go to court with one another and wouldn't deal with a situation between believers. perhaps needing the help of the church, and he's telling them, do you not understand that we as believers are going to sit with the Lord in a real way? We're going to be there in judgment over the wicked at the end of days. Paul brings that to light. I believe what's being taught there as well as here, led by the Spirit of the Lord, guided by the Word of the Lord, are uniquely qualified to deal with the matters of sin and unrepentance. We're given that mandate. Yeah, there's other things that sometimes need to happen in some of these situations. Some of them can be really terrible. But we as a church are given this mandate to deal with these things. Why? Number one, because it's how we hold each other accountable in a loving way. It's how I grow as a Christian. It's how you grow as a Christian. I'm never going to grow if somebody doesn't have the guts to come to me and say, in love and according to the Word of God, this is where you sin, this is what I see, and I think you've got to deal with this. So that I might be confronted with it, repent if necessary, and move forward in forgiveness and grace, having learned more about the Lord and His truth. It's to guard the doctrinal purity and the unity of the church. Again, if we refuse to deal with these things, the church begins to break up into factious groups that walk in circles around one another because, well, so-and-so doesn't like so-and-so, and you know what happened between these folks, and man, we just can't do this, and we can't do that, and those folks, don't put them in the same room together. And that's no way to live as the body of Christ. We've got to be willing to do the hard things so that the great blessing of following the Lord as one local body is very difficult for a church and for a people divided to do anything worthwhile. You can look out in our world today, our nation today, and understand that, can't you? Why can't we get anything done? Because we won't deal with anything. We just stand around and fuss. There's no attempt at reconciliation. There's no attempt at understanding the people of God. There is simply talk with what's ours, the people of God, that we would refuse. It's difficult. It's worth it. Why is it worth it? Because God would have His people be united Have these people have one heart, one mind, one mission. And the mission can be poisoned if we're not willing to do the difficult thing. So this case, this situation, this finds the matter to be an unrepentant's place before the church. If the person won't come and hear the church, maybe there's a letter sent, perhaps that small group goes back and says, hey, the church has heard this matter, and they have said, you truly need to repent. You've got to deal with this. You've got to consider this, and maybe the Spirit of God uses that to draw them to reconciliation. But if they refuse even that, then we arrive at the final step, the most difficult of steps, where the Bible tells us, if you refuse to even hear the church, let them be to you like a heathen. If you refuse to hear the counsel of one person, if a man, a few, and then the counsel of the church, all prayerfully guided by the Spirit, the Word of God, with a motivation toward reconciliation, if they refuse to hear that, we're to treat them like a heathen and a tax collector. Well, what does that mean? Well, in church kind of history and language, the word that has traditionally been used to describe that is the word excommunication. It's that someone is formally set outside of the body. It's when the church says, you have failed to hear the counsel of the church according to God's word, you've refused to repent, And because of that, you've shown yourself to be outside of the body. And so we are officially recognizing your practice in that we're setting you officially outside of the body. But hear me when I say that even if it comes to that step, Even if it comes to officially having to tell someone, you have been officially removed from the role of the church, the membership of the church, whatever, however you want to phrase that. They've been officially set outside the body. Even that step is done with the hope that by removing the covering protection of the church, and make no mistake, friends, there is a protection that comes underneath the covering of the body of Christ. Even that step is done with the hopes that it will have the proper impact, and that that person will see their fault, repent, and be restored to fellowship with God and with the church. If at any point here we lose our center of a heart of reconciliation. If we lose that as our focus, we are going to be in very big trouble. Because even when we come to that, our prayer is that they will at some point come back and recognize publicly, I have sinned, and I am repenting, and I am asking to please be received back into fellowship of this body of believers. I've seen it happen. It's a beautiful thing. when reconciliation takes place at whatever step, prayerfully in these early steps, but at whatever step if reconciliation comes, then praise God. We must comment on what does it mean personally that we treat someone as a heathen and a tax collector. That's kind of strange language for us. Does it mean that we treat them terribly? We talk about them, gossip about them, no. It means that at that point, we look at them as someone who needs to be the object of evangelism rather than being someone who's in fellowship with the body. That their fruit at that point is showing that they are acting as if they don't know Christ at all. We have to judge that fruit that's been recognized that way by the church. And so we look at them as someone who needs to truly repent and place their faith in the gospel. We don't treat them in wicked ways and sin on our own rights. I'll say this again. We do this from a heart of love. And I can tell you from experience, it is a terrible and difficult thing to undertake, but it is something that is necessary to protect the church, to protect the name of Christ, and it is necessary to bring about repentance and restoration for the sinner sometimes. Friends, This is a heavy matter. And so when we begin to have this kind of discussion, when we get to a place in the text and we gotta deal with it, we gotta present it, we gotta teach it, how do we even begin to undertake something like this? Well, we can undertake it because of what verse 18 through 20 says. Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them." How can we handle such weighty matters? Because Christ promises to be with His people. Particularly in this context of dealing with a situation of sin. his church to promise us to be with us. He has given us authority to do this according to his church to undertake these matters. That's what he's saying. The church has authority to deal with these matters as long as we do it within the bounds of what he has given us in his word. Let me just say a couple more things and I'm going to quit. This is why having a church membership made up of only believers is important. Right? This is why we believe in, as Baptists, in regenerate church membership. Only the saved should be members of the church. Why? Because when we undertake something as weighty as this, we need to be dealing with Christians. Because if it's non-Christians that try to undertake this matter, Christians are going to have a difficult enough time. Non-Christians are definitely going to end up doing terrible harm. I guess we still call it that. Church hopping's a bad thing. Because in the modern day, if you try to do this in love to somebody most of the time, what they end up doing is saying, well, I'm just gonna go to church over there. In a perfect world, that church would get in contact with the original church and say, well, what's going on here? And you say, well, they're in a situation of church discipline and we're trying to deal with it in the best way we can. And they've just kind of separated themselves and gone over there. And that church would say, well, we're not receiving anybody into membership that's under church discipline. They need to deal with whatever the issue is. But we don't live in a perfect world. if churches would, we would be able to handle conflict and sin in a far greater way instead of just spreading our sins and conflict to other churches, which is what happens a lot of the times. The final question I want to answer is this. I've taught on this more times than I can count in the last dozen years of my life. And I've been asked this so many times. The question is this, is this loving? Aren't we just supposed to love each other? This doesn't sound very loving to me. I think sometimes we get the idea that anything that is difficult cannot equal love. And that's just the farthest thing from the truth. You know how I know that? Because Christ went to the cross as an act of love and it was the most difficult thing that anyone has ever undertaken. It was the most terrible thing that anyone has ever undertaken. And yet, through the horrificness of the cross, restoration, reconciliation with God was made possible. The cross is really the model here that we are willing to get in the mud and the muck of this that nobody wants to deal with. in order that we might undertake what Paul calls the ministry of reconciliation, that we might be a lean, mean, fit, fighting force for Jesus as a church. A true loving church cares about accountability. because Christ uses us to expand His kingdom, not just to add more people, but to truly expand His kingdom, to see people that are truly in fellowship with Him come into the body, be held accountable. Friends, I know this isn't so that we might move forward in faith. Friends, I know this isn't what you'd call a shouting sermon, but it's one that if we take to heart, truly take it to heart, we have a willingness to operate under this mandate of Christ with love, with prayer, with right intention, according to His Word. that I truly believe that we, over the long term, will see a far healthier church, and a far healthier church will see far more things, far more people coming to know Jesus, far more missionaries going out, far more churches being supported, churches being planted. We will see greater things for Christ if we will operate with a heart full of love, understanding that if we do this and we do it without a broken heart, if we go all the way to the end of this process and our heart's not broken by it, then we're not doing it right. It'll break our heart if we have to walk all the way through this process, but we do it because we're commanded of Christ, and we want to see people reconciled to Him. We want to see people reconciled to the church, just as we want to see someone reconciled to Jesus through repentance and faith in the cross. So if you've got situations of sin, someone sinning against you in your life, you've got reconciliation that needs to be worked out, here's your model. I encourage you to undertake it prayerfully for the glory of God that you might be able to see God do amazing things as you obey His Word. Let's pray. Lord, I thank You for the day. I thank You for Your Word. I pray You'd use it. I pray it would strengthen us. I pray, Lord, that we'd be willing to obey even when it's difficult. God, I ask that you would bless our church and our fellowship, help us to be faithful, help us to love one another well, help us to embrace accountability and not run from it. Lord, we know you're not calling us to nitpick one another, but you are calling us to love one another enough to tell each other the truth, and I pray we would do it. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.