You're listening to audio from Ascend Church. For more information about Ascend or to access more gospel-centered tools to grow as a disciple of Christ, visit ascendkc.org. Well, let's grab our Bibles and let's turn to Matthew 18. If you don't have a Bible, I'm going to invite our ushers forward. They're going to pass those out. Please let them know you would like one. This is our gift to you. If you do not own a Bible, we want you to be able to follow along with the preaching of God's Word so that you can affirm that this is not just the words of a preacher, that this is the very Word of God. And in fact, Acts 17, Paul commends the Bereans for actually looking at Scripture to make sure that what he was preaching is accurate. And so you have a twofold purpose in having a Bible in your hands this morning. One is to learn what God's Word has to say. And the second one is to authenticate whether or not what I'm preaching agrees with God's Word. And so let's do those two purposes this morning as we dive into God's Word. Matthew 18 is in the Gospel of Matthew. It's the first gospel in the New Testament. So as you're reading, or as you're flipping through this Bible, as you move from the Old Testament to what our English versions will likely have as a title page, saying this is the New Testament, Matthew is the book that immediately follows. And you can move forward to Matthew chapter 18. And some of you who grew up in the church are familiar with the Bible, know that when I say Matthew 18, there's typically a process that that chapter refers to. Now the first experience I can remember of this process was back when I was in high school. I had a classmate of mine who was discovered to have violated the rules and it was a significant violation and I remember that there was an evening service where she was brought up to the stage. A microphone was placed before her and she read the recollection of all of the details of the sin that she had performed and in tears She said to the congregation, I am sorry for this. Will you forgive me? And the congregation responded with a hearty Amen. And that was the expression of forgiveness from the church. And unfortunately, though, as the weeks and months progressed, that young lady was kind of known as that girl in our circles, both in the school and in the church. And it was kind of an odd situation for me as a teenager to look at and say, what is this? What's going on? And maybe some of you have been part of churches where a process like that has been followed. Or maybe you're sitting here and you're saying, what in the world is he talking about? Well, this morning is an opportunity for us to answer some of the questions surrounding the process of church discipline. We want to answer the question, what is it? We want to answer the question, is it something that we should be doing? Is it something that we're required to do? And we also want to answer the question, how does this fit into the series that we are going through, which is, who are we as a church? And so Matthew 18 is gonna be an opportunity for us this morning to learn. I hope that you have your notes out. I hope that you have your pencils ready or your pens. I hope that you will take notes because this is going to be an opportunity to provide for us a reference manual as we continue on as a church. And if and when we have the responsibility to follow this process, I want us to have these notes to be able to make sure that we're following what God's word says. So take a look at your notes and you'll see the big idea. And that is that the local church is called to actively pursue purity. That's the point of this text. It's the point of this topic for us as a church. When we think of who are we as a New Testament church, we are a church that is to be pure, and this is the process that God provides for us. So as we are called to actively pursue purity, this involves us engaging with grace and truth, both of those words are crucially important, to actively engage in one another's lives. So this is a process that Christ put forth for his disciples. There are four points to this this morning, inviting us as a church to be on the same page with scripture when it comes to the pursuing of purity. Number one, let's make sure we establish the point. Let's establish the point of this text because it's been very misunderstood throughout the ages. In fact, let me go ahead and read the entire passage and then we'll pick it apart. Matthew 18, beginning in verse 15. It says, 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, so that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, then tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say this to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose 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 I am among them. So a passage that for some of us might be familiar, for others this might be the first time that you have heard this. This is the process known as church discipline, but in order for us to be able to understand it, let's pick it apart. Look at verse 15, it says, if your brother sins against you. So this phrase, before we get to the rest of it, is the point of the text. If your brother sins against you. And even the way I emphasize those words are highlighting the point of the passage. Now, there's an untranslated conjunction in this English Standard Version. And why that's important, the New King James translates it moreover. Why that's important is because it's bringing forward the context that Jesus has just been talking about. And if you looked at the verses just before then, Jesus has just talked about the 99 sheep and the one who has gone astray. And I gotta be honest with you, that passage is something I've struggled with for years. Because I'm thinking, okay, why would a shepherd leave the 99? The 99 are important, nobody denies that. Why would he leave those 99 to go after one and leave the 99 exposed? Jesus doesn't say anything about, Who is going to stay and watch them? Are they on their own? Is there a hedge? And so I'm working through all of this. And then I'm thinking, okay, what did that one do? I mean, is this one person sheep that's la-la-la-la-la, I'm astray, I'm astray. I mean, what's going on here? And here's the point that I think Jesus is making in that analogy. I think that he's not wanting us to dig into all the agricultural details. I think what he's wanting us to understand is verse 12. At the end of verse 12 it says, the shepherd will go and search the one who has, look what it says, went astray. That's the point of Jesus' analogy, is that there will be people in the membership, there will be people in the flock who go astray. They willfully go astray, and there is a process to handle that. And so Jesus isn't wanting us to get hung up on all the details of shepherding and shepherding. Is it 99 in one, so only the group can be 100? That's not the point. The point is, is that in a group that is identifiable under one heading, there will be people who go astray and there's a process to follow. So Jesus says here, if your brother, identifying that person as a member of the group, sins against you. Now we need to understand the main point of this process is the word sins. Would you underline that? This is very important. And the Greek word that is translated sins most typically refers to a sin or a something, a thought or a speech or an activity that is not in agreement with God's commands. That is very important for us to understand because listen, I want to actually pause here and take a little rest stop. Okay. We're on the, we're on the highway. We're going at 65 miles an hour because that's the speed limit. And we're going to go ahead and get off on a rest stop because there's something important that I need to establish here before we move on with this context. And that is the understanding that there are different levels of conviction. This would be one of those sections in the message that I would encourage you to take copious notes. That means take very specific notes. There are different levels of conviction that we as human beings can have. I want to give them to you. The first one is preference. Preference. Now we are going to experience preference in this new building. There will be people who walk into the new building and will look down and say, wait a minute, hold on. There's concrete here. Should be carpet. Should be wine red carpet. Should be plush carpet, whatever. Others will say, wait a minute, you didn't stain this concrete? You see where I'm going with this? This is preference. You can have an opinion about it. You can even have a conviction about it. But at the end of the day, this area of conviction we hold loosely. We let it go through our fingers like sand. Somebody else has a different preference. That's okay. We don't get up in arms. We don't address it in each other's lives. The second category of opinion or conviction is one called personal conviction. Personal conviction is something that we can hold on to and be very serious about it. It's something that often is informed either by life experience or perhaps biblical principle. But at the end of the day, personal conviction is not a command from scripture that applies to all people everywhere. Or all Christians everywhere. That is an important distinction. The third level of conviction is where we can go to chapter and verse and interpret it correctly. That's important. Interpret it correctly, not take a passage and say, I think it means this, therefore it does mean this. We have to be able to understand this passage correctly. If that passage is for all people everywhere or all Christians everywhere, that is a biblical conviction. And listen, that is something we all need to hold to. Now the danger ground is in that second layer of conviction. That is dangerous ground, beloved, because we get passionate about our personal convictions, don't we? Personal convictions such as alcohol. Now let me just pause on that one. I'm saying not drunkenness because God's word is very specific when it comes to drunkenness. You can go to Ephesians 5 and you can see, be not drunk with wine. Anybody struggle with that interpretation? There's God's word says no on drunkenness, but when it comes to the topic of alcohol, this one is one that we, man, we can get passionate about, but God's word does not forbid it. Now some people might come from a background, such as I do, where I had family members years and generations past that were alcoholics, and I saw the impact of that. I played baseball, I had teammates that were alcoholics, and so that experience informs my personal conviction. But at the end of the day, it is personal conviction. You wanna know another one? Schooling. Homeschool versus public school versus Christian school. Listen, we can have personal convictions about that, but you cannot go to chapter and verse and say, this is the command for all people everywhere, all Christians everywhere. You can't do it, I've tried, it's not there. Beloved, listen, in this second category, another one I could come up with is women working outside of the home. I think you get the point. Listen, beloved, let's not be people who move that second category of personal conviction into biblical conviction where we're holding everybody else to our convictions. Let's not do that as a church. And you might be sitting there saying, I would never do that, Pastor. Listen, you might, if I go out into this area of the pool, some people talk about these things under the breath. Some people are passive aggressive about these things. Some people will talk to somebody else who is in agreement and they know other people are in earshot, but I'm not talking to them directly. Listen, beloved, let's not be a people who take our personal convictions and elevate them to biblical convictions if the Bible does not prescribe that, okay? So what this is saying now as we come back to, we're back on the highway, as we come back to Matthew 18, when it says, if a brother sins, this is not level one or two of conviction. This is level three where it is clearly a biblical principle. Can we agree on that? So it says, if your brother sins. Now, there's a phrase here that says against you. against you is most likely not in the original text. So we have errors in the Bible. No, we do not. If you haven't been with us at Ascend, let me just explain to you how we got this Bible. We got this Bible through ancient manuscripts. And none of those ancient manuscripts that we have available to us in the modern era were the original manuscripts that the authors of the New Testament wrote. Can we all understand that? It's just the way that it works. And yet, what we've been able to do with a massive amount of manuscripts is look at how old they are, who wrote them, where did they come from, what community wrote them. Look at the consistency. And we can know that in this book that we hold in our hands, it is the Word of God. So it does not discount our authority in this book. But there are times that because it is an ancient book, there might be some phrases, there might be some verses, there might be some words that there's a little bit of question on whether or not they actually were part of the original. And in this particular case, there's pretty good evidence that against you was not in the original. So why is it in the English Standard Version? Because whoever added it years later was wanting to prove the point that Jesus is trying to drive home. Because the disciples might have been listening to this and said, okay, wait a minute, is there any sin? Is it any sin that can apply to this process? Turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter five, would you please? Remember that every passage of scripture is not an isolated silo. Every passage of Scripture is a piece or a scene in a bigger story. And so when we are looking at a passage of Scripture, if there is a question about it, we must interpret the scene in light of the whole story. And so the rest of the story is contributed to in 1 Corinthians 5. Listen to what Paul says to the church of Corinth. He says, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, among the church, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among the pagans. It says a man has his father's wife. Now, that is horrific to us today. It was horrific to Paul. It was actually horrific to the Corinthians. The people who lived in Corinth was an extremely immoral society. This is horrible. And what Paul is saying in this brief verse is that there are sins that are public, that are serious, and that are unrepentant, and they need to be addressed. So would you write that down, please? The sins that Jesus is referring to back in Matthew 18 are sins that are public, that are serious, and that are unrepentant. We'll see that, actually, in 1 Corinthians 5 Six, if we were to look at this even closer, it says, do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? And he's saying this sin is serious enough that it's impacting the entire church. So when we go back to Matthew 18, we understand that when Jesus says, if your brother sins, that he is essentially talking about sins that are public, serious, and unrepentant. That's why I believe that later generations of scribes who copied this verse added the phrase against you to attempt to recognize that there are sins, more than just general sins, that need to be addressed by the church. Now, let me pause here and make sure that we understand. Every sin should be addressed by someone. I'm letting the silence get pregnant, because this is important. Every sin should be addressed by someone. Most of the sins should be addressed by us personally. God's Word is preached. We study God's Word. God's Word comes to bear on us. Through small group, we realize, oop, I'm violating God's standard. We should repent and confess it. But there will be times when either because we have blind spots or because we just choose not to address it that someone else will need to speak into our lives. That's the area that Jesus is pressing in on. So we must establish, and I hope that I have the point, and that is that this process that is unfolding in Jesus' commands and instruction in Matthew 18 are sins, violations of God's commands, that are public, serious, and unrepentant. So we've established that. Let's move on to number two. Let's own the process. We need to own this process. Now, before we dive into the process, let me make two clarifications. Number one, this process is not a formula that is supposed to be only followed to the T or else it's not valid. This is not a formula that it has to be followed exactly according to this process to a T or else it's invalid. There are other passages like 1 Corinthians 5 that say, look, sometimes you just need to jump to the end. Sometimes you need to jump to the two or three witnesses. Sometimes your private matter might be one and two people. It's not the details of this that only this is church discipline. It's a principle. It's an outline. It's a foundation. But the second clarification is that let's not let public, serious, and unrepentant develop paralysis by analysis. Okay? Let's not sit here and say, okay, well, it's serious and it's unrepentant, but is it public? Hmm. Well, I guess I'm not going to address that. Let's understand that when we have brothers and sisters in our lives and there is sin that we see in their lives, we should be praying for them. We probably should be confronting them, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we need to follow this process. So let's not let those three terms limit us or keep us from speaking to one another's lives. Okay, now that I've established that, let's dive into the text. There's a command in verse 15. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault. Those are imperatives in the original language. We are supposed to go and tell him his fault. Those words are important. The word go means as you are going. It implies that we're already active in one another's lives. This isn't a start from a stopping position. This means is that we are actively discipling one another's lives. Hopefully you get that point. So we are to go, we are to be actively engaged in one another's lives, already doing what we should be doing. And then it says, tell him his fault. Now, that is an attempt in the English to explain the nuances of the original language. What it means is to expose an issue for the purpose of correction. To expose an issue for the purpose of correction. That informs us what this process is supposed to be. This is not bringing something to somebody's life to be able to make them feel bad. Or to make them understand that they are less holy than you. or I'm fed up with it, I'm gonna drop the spiritual grenade. This is a process that is informed by the objective, and the objective is restoration, correction, the person we are speaking to, their benefit. Go and tell the person their fault. I think it's interesting here that the verbs are singular. We have, as followers of Christ, the individual responsibility to carry this out. This is not, at this point, defaulting to the elders. This is not, at this time, something that we're saying, let's run it up the flagpole to the small group leader. If we're aware of it, and these people are in our lives, it's our responsibility. Go and tell this person. Now what is the goal? Verse 15 tells us the goal. If he listens to you. The word listens in the original language is akuo. Now why do I give you that? Have you ever heard of acoustics? In fact, people were talking about acoustics last night in our building. Don't worry, there's more to be done. The word akuo in the original means to listen for the purpose of action. That's so important. I'm not just aware that there's sound going on. I'm listening intently to the sound that is taking place for the purpose of responding appropriately. And so this is saying if that is the heart of the person that we are speaking to, if their heart is to listen and then respond appropriately, you've gained your brother. The word gain means you realize the return on investment. I love that. You have received your return on investment. Listen, investments are sacrifice, aren't they? There's risk, there's reward. This process is sacrifice. It can be awkward. It can move us out of our comfort zone. But the return on investment is that we can gain our brother, meaning we can actually authenticate once again that this person is a follower of Christ. You have gained your brother. That is the goal. The disciples might have been sitting there thinking, okay, now, Jesus, this is not a good process. I mean, can we talk about this before you initiate it? Because are you saying, Jesus, that anybody can bring an accusation against me, and if I don't agree with it, then they can just kick me out of the group? I mean, we've seen that in churches where leadership has all of a sudden not liked a pastor, and they've come up with something, and, well, we don't like the shoes that he wears. Therefore, sin! Let's get him out! The disciples might have been asking this question, and Jesus, the great I Am, understands that there's more to be said. And so look what he says at verse 16. He does not listen. If he does not akuo, he's aware that there's sound, but it sounds like the peanut teacher. It says, take one or two others along with you so that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. Most likely, Jesus is referring to Deuteronomy 19.15. Again, the verb is take, it's singular. This is the individual who has identified and recognized the sin. They are responsible to bring one or two other witnesses. Again, don't get hung up in, oh, it can only be one or two. Remember the point of what Jesus is saying here. He's saying every charge is going to be established by multiple witnesses. Now, those words are important. When it says every charge is to be established, the word established means validated. And the phrase every charge is referring to the process up to this point. That's important as well. And so the reason you bring other witnesses has a two-fold purpose, and I love this. The first one is, is that they're observing the communication to see whether or not there is sin. That's the first part. But the second one is to be able to evaluate the person bringing the accusation to see whether or not they're right. And see, what we see in this is a gracious provision for all of the people involved because there's accountability in their safety. They are not just looking for the sin and the response of the accused. They're also looking at the accusation, the way it's being presented, to see whether or not there is truly sin going on. There's accountability. There's protection. And then verse 17 says, if he, this is the person at the beginning who has been identified as committing sin, refuses to listen to them. Now what's interesting is the original language has a different word here than Akuo. The word refuse to listen is an intentional rejection of instruction. This is what I believe Stephen was referring to in Acts 7.51 when he said, you all are stiff-necked generation. You know what stiff neck means? It's when you're trying to pull the dog this way and they are going this way. It is stiffening your neck, you're not able to be moved. Beloved, let's not ever be in our lives a stiff-necked people. When God's word comes to bear on us and it is affirmed by others in our lives, let's not just hold the ground and be stiff-necked, let's be moved by the Holy Spirit and by God's word, amen? If he refuses to listen to them, now that's the individuals that have been brought into this process, now they have a responsibility. It says then, tell it to the church. Now, let me just pause right here. There are different ways that the Bible uses that term, church. And I'm going to give you three and invite dialogue if you see it differently, but this is where I land on this. When the Bible talks about church, there are three ways that the Bible refers to this. The first way that the Bible refers to church is, number one, believers of all time. From Adam to the believers just before the second coming, the Bible does speak to all of those believers as the church. You can write down Ephesians 5 in verse 25. But then there's a subset of that big church that the Bible also refers to. And this is a phrase I'd like you to write down, the apostolic church. The Apostolic Church is every believer from John 20, 22, when the disciples received the Holy Spirit, to right before the second coming. That is the Apostolic Church. You can write down a passage, 1 Timothy 3, verse 15. This is the church at large from John 20, 22. Tell when Jesus returns again to set up the new Jerusalem. All believers in that section are referred to as the apostolic church, but we see those references throughout the New Testament. And then there's a third way that the Bible uses this term church, and that is the local church, what we are here. That is what Jesus is referring to in Matthew 18, 17. the local church comprised of elders, deacons, leaders, under a constant and consistent doctrine. That is what Jesus is referring to here in Matthew 18, 17. And so he says, if he refuses to listen even to this group of people who are all agreeing that this is what scripture says, then they are to tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church. Now the phrase even to the church is an attempt to convey what the original language is saying. The word order is this, and if the church he does not listen to. That's horrible English, but it emphasizes something. It emphasizes the church. And what Jesus is saying is that this is the highest level of flame that can be turned up into a person's life. And the church should be a high enough flame that should move a person from stiff-necked to movable. But he says there may be a situation where they don't even listen to the church. Beloved, this is the process. This is the process that Jesus is unpacking, and this is where it fits into who we are as a church. We have a responsibility as a local church to follow this process to purify his bride. This is the process. We need to own this process. The purpose of it is number three. Let's remember the purpose. Let's remember the purpose. You see the next phrase in verse 17 says, if they don't respond to these steps, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Now, at this point, we could isolate this statement in Jesus' day and come to conclusions that the rest of the New Testament does not want us to conclude. Here's what I mean by this. In Jesus' day, if you think about how the Jews would have responded to Gentiles, they would have avoided them, wouldn't they have? If you think about how Jews in Jesus' day would have responded to tax collectors, they would have ridiculed them and avoided them. Isn't it interesting to think about who the author of the Gospel of Matthew is? Himself a tax collector. See, I don't believe that's what Jesus is saying, because as you look at the rest of the New Testament, remember, we don't look at passages isolated outside of the context of the rest of Scripture. And when we look at the rest of Scripture, let me give you some instruction for how we can understand this passage. First of all, write down 1 Corinthians 5, verses 9 through 10. 1 Corinthians 5, 9 through 10 says, we do not avoid people who have been church disciplined. It says in 1 Corinthians 5, 9 through 10, I'm not saying you shouldn't associate with them or else we wouldn't be able to associate with anybody. So the first thing is we don't avoid them. We don't isolate them. But number two is important as well. Write down 2 Corinthians 6, verses 14 through 20. Remember that passage that we studied a couple weeks ago? In fact, I think it was last week. Hopefully it's fresh on our minds. We have to be careful about the relationships that we have. If there's somebody that has been church disciplined, we need to be careful about the type of relationship we have with them. And the type of relationship that we have with them is the third principle I want you to write down. And that's 2 Corinthians 5.20. When it comes to individuals who are not followers of Christ, our objective in our relationships with them is to plead with them to be reconciled with God. After all, we are ambassadors. That is why we are here. Do you wonder why God has given you additional breath to be here today? It's because you are an ambassador and he has a role for you to play. And the role we have to play in this world in which God has placed us is to plead with others to be reconciled to God. Whether brothers and sisters in Christ or unbelievers. And so these three principles guide our understanding of what Jesus is saying when he says, let them be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector. We aren't to isolate them or avoid them. We are to be careful in the relationships that we have with them, and the relationships should have as their primary objective to plead with them to be reconciled to God. This is the purpose of this process, and this is the purpose of this phrase. Number four, let's submit to the prescription. Let's submit to the prescription. Look at what it says in verse 18. The word truly is a Greek term, amen. So we know Jesus was Baptist. Amen. What does it mean, truly? Truly means what I'm about to say is not expected. So I want you to listen up. I want you to listen up. Who is Jesus now referring to? Listen to this. Truly, I say to you, it's a plural. I mean, he's now saying this is not the process specifically that I'm talking about. Now I'm addressing the disciples who are listening. Look back at verse one of chapter 18 and you'll see that's the context. Jesus says, truly I say to you, the disciples, this will be important here in just a minute. He says, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Does anybody remember those phrases? That's from back in Matthew 16. That was the message two weeks ago. Jesus asks the disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And then he says, who do you, disciples, say the Son of Man is? And then remember, Peter said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said, blessed are you, Peter, because upon this confession and upon you as the initial spokesperson, I'm gonna build my church. and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And I'm giving you the keys of the kingdom. What are the keys for? To loose on earth what has been loosed in heaven, to bind on earth what has been bound in heaven, meaning that the local church and the leadership contained in it are to be carrying out scripture, and where they are in agreement with scripture, they are in agreement with God's will. And so what he's saying is, disciples, remember that phrase? This is where it actually plays out. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Verse 19, 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. Now listen, this is where people will say, whoo, glory, give me the Tesla. Do you agree because of two or more agree? Jesus, pow. That's not what this means. There's a context in this passage. Remember, context is king, or if you want to be a woman, queen. The point is, context is important when we study scripture. It is of primary importance. Jesus isn't just jumping out to some new teaching here. He's saying that where two or more in this process come together and say, look, everything has been affirmed in scripture. And who is he speaking to? He's speaking to the disciples, the leadership of the local church. What he's saying is the leadership of the local church has authority based on the word of God to pronounce whether or not somebody's profession agrees with scripture. And he says when you come together and this process has been followed and you've evaluated scripture and you say yes, this matches up, God affirms it. That's verse 19. And then verse 20. Boy, has this been misunderstood. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. I've even heard a song. Where two or three are gathered among them is church. That's not what this is saying. It's saying, again, when we consider this process, when two or three are gathered in agreement with my will, that's what that phrase means, in my name. When we say in Jesus' name at the end of a prayer, it is saying we believe that what we have just prayed is in agreement with your will. So he's saying when you come together, and I could argue this as well just because of the phrase, that this means in a local church formal setting, that when the leadership and the church come together in the name of Christ and say that we have followed your process, everything matches up with scripture, Jesus says, there I am among you, meaning that his teaching is upheld. That's what we want to be as a church, don't we? A church where God's teaching is upheld. Let me read you a sentence that I believe this passage is affirming, that when the church accurately teaches and applies God's word, it affirms what God authoritatively declares. When the church accurately teaches and applies God's word, it affirms what God authoritatively declares. That's what binding and loosing, that's what that phrase means. And so what we see God has graciously given to the body of believers is a local authority, the leadership of the church, a process, the one anothering of discipleship, and an accountability along the way to protect the person being accused as well, to make sure that God's word is being upheld. Jonathan Lehman provides a great illustration that I think we can all wrap our minds around. He says this, this passage is that we as a church and the leadership are like a babysitter given authority by parents. The babysitter may get it wrong. She or he may get the bedtime wrong. That has happened. But that does not mean that the child can legitimately ignore all other instruction, end quote. That's the point. The point is that the church and the leadership are like a babysitter who has been given authority from the parent, Jesus Christ, to carry out that authority. And listen, the leadership will get things wrong. We've even gotten things wrong, hopefully not biblically, but in the design of our church. The leadership of the church is not infallible. And all the elders said, Amen. But just because we get things wrong doesn't mean the authority is gone. The authority has been given by Christ to the leadership of the church. A process has been prescribed and God's word becomes the doctrine, the constitution, the bylaws. Beloved, we as a local church are to pursue purity. And in God's providence, we are going to have an opportunity for that this morning through the Lord's table.