Church Discipline

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Okay, so to start today, I want to ask a question. I know the answer for some of you, but not everybody. Raise your hand. If you're part of a club or a team, you could do a team, but also a club. Okay. Of any kind. If you think maybe you should. Yeah. Okay, so a lot. What are some of your clubs or teams like. Yes. Front of house team. What team? Front of house team. Yeah, that's a. That's a. I'll count that. Yeah. Choir. I would count that. I'll count it. Yeah. Yes. Track team. I guess I'll count. Student institute as a club. Yeah. Levi. Baseball. Baseball team. Are there any other clubs? There's a lot of teams. I know. Are you in the chess club? That is a club, probably. Does anybody know of a chess club you could enter? Yeah, yeah. Any. Any other clubs? What, Are you a part of that, or is that just one of them? Oh, you are. Nice. Yes. Drama. Nice. Okay, cool. Okay, so there's all sorts, and we can list probably a million of these. But I just want us to think about these clubs, these teams. I think it'll kind of help us understand the topic. So if you maybe really were bad, you failed on the baseball field in track, or if you sang in your choir off key 100% of the time, or even if you misbehaved and did something really bad, maybe you committed a crime or something, what would happen? You probably could be removed. No one has. Well, I mean, maybe some of these clubs might just be like, whoever wants to be a part can be a part of. Maybe the chess club is like that. I don't know. Maybe it's cutthroat. I don't know. But, you know, typically when we're on a team or in a club or something of this sort, there's always a way for removal. Like, there's always something you technically could do that would get you removed. And, you know, people get removed. People get fired all the time in the world. People get canceled for all sorts of things they've done even in the past. Although when I say that word, I want to point out that we'll kind of see that difference between our topic, which is church discipline, and cancel culture. They're quite different. And I hope we'll see that, because church discipline actually offers forgiveness for past wrongs. And there's much more hope in that than when we merely fail and are removed from a sports team or a club or something of the sort. It reminded me of time in college. I was, you know, on the executive council of My fraternity and I had to step in to do some judicial thing. So some. Some guys had broken some rules regarding partying and hazing, and I had to help remove them from membership, which was a really hard thing to do to some friends. But we did this not just to get revenge or to make those guys upset. We did it to protect the group, the brotherhood, to protect its image, and hopefully to help those guys reflect on what they had done so that they can grow up and become functioning adults in the world. I think that's sort of kind of what we see in this topic today. But before we really get into it, let's do our review. So what is theology, Jeremiah? Yeah. The study of God and how to be more like him. That's good. That's good. So what kind of big doctrine have we been studying? Or doctrine, remember, is like a set of teaching? So what big doctrine have we been studying lately? The church. Yeah, doctrine of the church. So we've gone through a lot so far, and now we're talking about the church. What lessons have we covered? We've done two. They've been broken up a little bit by the weekend and spring break. But what two have we done over the last four weeks? That's kind of hard to remember, isn't it? Does anyone remember anything? Yeah, we did talk about church membership. That wasn't the main point of one of them, but that was kind of like an aspect, so that's good memory to remember that. Anyone know? There's one that the first one was the nature and the marks of the church. So that's really just what is a church, what distinctives mark out a church. The next one was the purity and kind of rhymes unity of the church. So what makes a church healthy or pure according to the Bible? And how can a church be unified? So we talked about what a church is, how it should function, and now we're kind of moving to what is called church discipline. I think our pastor Ryan says church accountability is a term he uses here. He means the same thing. So you can think of accountability and discipline kind of as the same thing. Does anybody know what that means? Anybody know what that means? Yeah, That's a good guess. We do count on people to do the right thing. That's not really what this doctrine is, you know, that wouldn't be how we define it, but that's a good answer. Anybody know, like, part of it could be, like, if someone's, like, being simple and, like, sinning, they, like, another member of the church could, like, be like, hey, Bro, that's sick. [00:06:35] Speaker B: Like, they're like, oh, sorry, I didn't realize that. [00:06:37] Speaker A: Yeah, forgive me for that. [00:06:38] Speaker B: And like, holding accountable. [00:06:39] Speaker A: Yeah, that's good. That's good. Most of the time, it looks exactly like what Levi just said. You or someone is sinning. A church member lovingly points it out so that you can turn from your sin and you repent and are forgiven. That's usually. That's probably 99% of the time what it looks like. And so that's really mostly what we should think about. Here's the summary definition I have on the paper. Church discipline is the process of rebuking and. And correcting sinful members for the purpose of restoring them. So church discipline is the process of rebuking and correcting. So pointing out wrong and correcting it. Rebuking and correcting sinful members for the purpose. So the reason to do it is to restore them. And that's important to remember. Sometimes we can lose our way if we think our purpose is to get vengeance or just to punish, but it is in fact to restore people. That's the aim. So our major affirmations, then we'll start there. The first one of those is that church discipline protects the church's purity. So we talked about the church's purity. We want the church to be pure according to the Bible, which means we want our churches to look as much like what the Bible pictures the church as possible. So we want it to be pure. So go to Ephesians 5. We'll look there to learn a little bit. Ephesians 5. And would somebody read verses 25, 27, 25, 27. Okay, thank you. [00:08:32] Speaker B: Ephesians 5, 25, 27. [00:08:34] Speaker A: Yes. [00:08:35] Speaker B: Husbands, love your wives. Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her, the washing of water by the Word, that He might present her to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without limit. [00:08:54] Speaker A: Thank you. So this is a verse. We typically think about husbands and wives, but Paul talks about the church here. So what did Jesus intend to do through his death according to these verses? So Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, for what? What did he intend to do? To make her whole, to make her holy? Yeah, he might sanctify her. We've talked about sanctification. It means to become holy, having cleansed her. So cleansed from sin to be making holy. That's right. So what should that mean for the Church. What should that mean for the Church? If Christ died to present His Church pure and holy, what does that mean for people in the Church now? Yeah, we don't want sin that's not being repented of to just go rampant. I think what this should have us do is we see that Christ died. He gave Himself so that he could present the Church to Himself in splendor, beauty, you know, without spot or wrinkle. She can be holy without blemish. That's what Christ intends through his death. And so as people who follow him and love him, it just means that we should want also to present the Church pure and spotless. So we want to not sin ourselves and help each other not sin, because we desperately need need each other in that regard. Now go to 1 John 2. Guys there. 1 John 2 Look at v. 3. Follow along with me. And by this we know that we have come to know him. If we keep His Commandments. Whoever says I know him talking about Christ, but does not keep his commandments is a liar. And the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps His Word in Him. Truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in Him. Whoever says he abides in him, ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. How does this apply to the Church? How does this apply to the Church? Do you think. [00:11:49] Speaker C: The Church should strive to live by his commandments? [00:11:52] Speaker A: Yeah, we want to know the Bible, strive to obey his commandments. The point is that the Church must be pure. Christ died to make us pure and he does accomplish that. But while on earth awaiting his return, we want to pursue that purity with his help. Okay, so Church discipline protects the Church's unity. The second affirmation, Church discipline, anticipates the future judgment. So church discipline is how the Church uses what the Bible calls the keys of the kingdom. So they're like keys, some authority over the kingdom of heaven. So I'll just read this verse for you. You can write it if you want to know where it is. It's Matthew 16:19. Jesus says to Peter, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So what are these keys doing? Well, they're binding and loosing. It's kind of maybe a little odd language. Basically what's being said here is that what the Church decides on earth is intended to reflect what is true in heaven. So if we bind someone, so if we discipline Someone, ideally, this is what's being done in heaven. And if we release someone from that discipline, we loose them well, then this should also be reflected in heaven. This is kind of talking about removing someone from membership, reflecting whether that person actually belongs in the kingdom of heaven, or welcoming people into membership, reflecting that they belong in the kingdom of heaven. So the church, with this authority that Christ gives to his church, is trying to reflect what is true in heaven. In other words, we want our church members to be those people and only those people who will be in heaven. Church membership is not just for anybody who wants to join a club. It's for those who believe in Christ and live for him and are truly counted among his people. So we want who our members actually are to reflect that. Does that make sense? So that same language we see in another passage, just two chapters over in Matthew 18. So go to Matthew 18, this will be helpful for you. See, I'm sure you've read this before, but this is kind of the main passage that people think about when they're talking about church discipline and church accountability. They look at Matthew 18, 15, 20. So Matthew 18, 15 20, and I'll read these. Matthew 18, 15, 20. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you. That every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you, as a Gentile and a tax collector or an outsider, a non believer. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. There's that phrase again and again I say to you, if two or three of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. Okay, so how does this apply to the topic of church discipline? In what way? Or how do we know that it's related? Yes, yeah, I see what you're saying. We're taking this matter of discipline to the church. But how do we know it's related to the topic? I think it's because, well, one of the. The use of binding and loosing that's kind of making us think of the authority that the church has with these kingdom keys that we've mentioned. And what he's showing them is that this authority that he gives to the church applies to who we say. You're a member and you're not a member. That's us. That's how the church uses that authority that Jesus gave us. That's how it's connected. And so what it's showing us is that the point of church discipline is to reflect the same judgment that Christ will make on each person. So ideally, in a perfect world, every true believer would be a member of a church, and no false believers would be members of a church. That would be ideal. Of course, the world is not ideal, and we make mistakes. But that is our goal. We're striving to reflect the judgment that Christ will make, not so that we can personally judge, but so that we can make it clear to people that it appears as though Christ is going to judge you. And we don't want that. We want you to turn from your sin. Or we can say to people, you can be confident because you have faith and you live that out. And so you can live with assurance and confidence because we want that for people. So that's why we're trying to reflect Christ's judgment. That's what church discipline does. Okay, so third affirmation, church discipline is a process of rebuke and correction. So in that same passage, we see the process. What's the process of this rebuking and correction look like? According to Matthew 18, What happens first? Yeah, what's the process? Or what happens first? But you could do the whole process if you want. Yeah, that's right. So what could happen if you tell someone, hey, I, you know, I think you're sinning in this way, they could not listen. If they listen. Well, if they listen and turn from their sin, what do you do? Yeah, you can be happy. He says, you've gained your brother. Your brother has come back, turned from his sin. He's chosen Christ so you can be happy. Okay, but if he does not listen, what happens next? [00:18:54] Speaker C: Lincoln, you take him to your witnesses. [00:18:57] Speaker A: Yeah, witnesses. You know, this might be people that were there or just people that might know the person. Well, maybe pastors typically would be involved in that, especially if it was more serious. And if he listens, what if he turns from his sin? Good, but if he doesn't, what happens next? [00:19:16] Speaker C: Take it to the church. [00:19:18] Speaker A: Yeah, you take it to the church. What does that mean, to take it to the church? Anyone can answer that. Yeah, you make it public. You tell everyone about it so that it's More of a desperate, please turn from your sin. It's a more serious measure because it requires that, you know, there are some passages that make the process shorter. Sometimes one step or two step, maybe not this three, you know, 1 Corinthians 5, 17 is one of those passages. We'll look at that in a second. But this is kind of the typical way it would happen. Like Levi said earlier, you point out a sin, someone turns from it. That's usually what happens. But sometimes it kind of escalates and someone is choosing their sin over Christ, knowingly choosing their sin over Christ. And that's when we go through these steps. Alright, the fourth affirmation is that church discipline aims at restoration, restoring restoration. So from that passage, we saw the idea of restoration as gaining your brother. He's coming to normal church life. But let's go to 1 Corinthians 5. Now see another good example of this. First Corinthians 5. We're just going to look right at the beginning of that chapter. So it's been a while since we went over 1 Corinthians. Some of you guys are not even in youth group yet. But Paul is talking to a church in this letter. He's correcting them with the wisdom of Christ. And he says, in 1 Corinthians 5, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans. For a man has his father's wife and you are arrogant, ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit. And if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled. So when the church come together in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. That's a heavy text. There's a lot there. So let me just ask a couple questions so we see what he says. It's maybe a quicker process. He says, just let him be removed. Like he's married, he's with his father's wife. Remove him. That is grotesque. That is a horrendous thing. But if church discipline. I just want to ask you guys, if church discipline is aimed at restoring restoration, then why does Paul tell them to deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh? Does anybody know this? Doesn't Sound like restoring, right? Yeah, Lincoln. [00:22:31] Speaker C: Because it was like, if he doesn't listen to anything, then he's like. I wouldn't say it like this, but like that. He's got that. He doesn't want to listen to Christ. So just leave him. [00:22:48] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, that's at least part of it. He doesn't want to listen to Jesus or the Bible. Okay, but how is that restoring? You know, not just leaving him. How is it restoring? Do you have a clarification? [00:23:03] Speaker C: Yeah, restoring is like the type of restoring would be like letting him know of his wrongs. And if he goes. [00:23:16] Speaker A: Yeah, hopefully he'll return to the Lord. Right. So what would be the purpose of excommunication? That's what we're talking about, removing excommunication. You have communion and then you don't. Excommunicized. Excommunicated. What's the purpose of that? What's the purpose of kicking someone out of the Church for not repenting of a sin? [00:23:42] Speaker C: To keep the Church holy. [00:23:44] Speaker A: Yeah, that is part of it. To keep the Church holy. What else, though? [00:23:47] Speaker C: Yeah, to keep it healthy. [00:23:49] Speaker A: To keep it healthy. Yes. What else? What else? What about. For that person, maybe as a last [00:23:56] Speaker C: resort to show them their sins. That way they would turn from it and come back to their peace. [00:24:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it's the last resort. It's the like. Well, I was gonna. I wanna say it's like a Hail Mary. It's maybe a little too Roman Catholic for my taste in this context. You know, it's like the last shot. And it's the point. Yes. Is to keep the Church holy, like you guys said. But also, we don't want to just forget it's to restore this man. Like, we want that person to come back. There's not ill will and hatred towards someone who is choosing their sin. If anything, there's pity and sadness. And that's why he says, kind of strangely, deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. So the purpose is for restoration to Christ to be saved. So removing him from the protective environment of the Church, which I do think the Lord does, protect his Church in a special way. It will subject someone to an onslaught of satanic temptations and torment. And the reason we would send someone into the world unprotected by the Church is so that he'll see his sin more clearly. Like the Prodigal Son. He'll be brought low and he can see what is actually wrong and turn from it. And Then welcomed back in unquestioned, just with rejoicing. That's the point. So that's how church discipline aims at restoration. Sometimes people criticize this practice because it's mean and judgmental, but that's why we need to remember all the more that we want people to stay and to come back. That's the point. And if we remember that, then we're going to be more likely to be loving to people instead of angry at them, because it is easy to become angry in these situations. Okay, so here's the final major affirmation. Church discipline is done within the confines of Scripture. So we want to follow what the Bible says. We can't make up our own rules. So, you know, would we remove someone for church membership because they have a short temper on the basketball court? Would we? No, I don't think so. Would we remove someone because they are prideful? I don't think so. It's kind of hard for us to know that that's kind of more of an inward sin. So that being said, we have to have some criteria by which to decide. When do we practice this? Now, you can have a conversation with someone if they're being angry on a basketball court, if they're being prideful. But it's just harder for us to judge whether or not someone has turned from that sin in their heart. And so that's just out of an abundance of caution. So there's actually an orange book on the shelf out there by the door in our little youth ministry library thing. It's called Church Discipline. And Jonathan Lehman wrote this book and he says, and I think hopefully that we should only make public and call to repentance sin. That is three things. I don't know if I have blanks for these, but you should write these sins that are outward, serious and unrepentant. So outward or public, serious, unrepentant. So not being repented of, if there's repentance, that's a different thing. So as for outward, he says churches should not throw the red flag of ejection every time they suspect greed or pride in someone's heart. Now we just said this. It's because we can't really, like with our human eyes and minds, we can't really judge if someone's actually being greedy in their heart. We just can't do that. So it's not outward enough. It needs to be something objective that we can observe, that we can point to with evidence. Evidence of two or three witnesses even. Now, again, if we see greediness it's not that we can't have that first level of communication with somebody, but we wouldn't make it public and judge them as not being repentant because again, it's just difficult for us to know. So it needs to be outward in some way observable. Second, it needs to be serious. So with seriousness, there's no black and white line. So I think these are helpful. But it takes wisdom on the part of the church and the elders to kind of decide where they fall. But there's. So there's no black and white line, but we can pursue every single sin or we cannot pursue every single sin, but we should use wisdom, right? For more serious sins. And when I say serious, I mean serious in nature or in consequence. So maybe if you steal, I don't know, a pen, that's actually, I wouldn't even call it stealing. But if you did something like that little. That's maybe less serious than, I don't. Domestic abuse. I mean, really, there are like much more serious sins. And we kind of know that sometimes we get tripped up thinking, oh, all sin is the same to God, but in the world that's just not true. There are sins that are more serious, there are crimes, and there are sins that are not crimes. So we want to pursue the ones that are more serious in nature. So some examples in the Bible, people who spread heresy is serious. 1 Timothy 1, 3, 4. Another example in the Bible comes from Romans 16, which is provoking division. So, so that's observable because you'd see divisions forming in the church. We could add to this list adultery, divorce, sexual crimes, any felonies in general, and much more these serious and outward sins. And then third is unrepentant sins. So again, Jonathan Leman, he says the person involved, so the sinner has been confronted with God's command in Scripture. So anytime we're bringing up a sin to someone, we should show them the scripture that forbids it. But he or she refuses to let go of the sin from all appearance. The person prizes the sin more than Jesus, so you have no need to worry about being surprised. Banished. Sometimes people think that this doctrine is just going to. Someone could get mad at you and you could just be surprised. Banished. If you repent of your sin, if you turn from it and you choose Jesus, you'll be restored. It ends right. Doesn't mean restoration is always easy, especially if it's a serious and outward sin. You might have to make amends in certain difficult ways, but you can be restored if you Turn from your sin, there's no surprise, surprise, you're gone. That doesn't happen. Alright, real quick, let's do a couple of errors or any questions on any of those before I move on. Good. Okay, a couple major errors to avoid. We must not neglect or refuse to engage in church discipline. So this is especially true for those of you that would be considered members of the church. Frequently when people are confronted with church discipline for these big serious and outward sins, people respond by just leaving the church. But I just want to say that does not do anything that doesn't save you. You know, God forbid. But students, if you're ever called to repent in that way, then just turn from your sin. Just give it up. You know, if you're threatened with being removed from the church, just give up your sin. Don't run away because you can't really run from your sin. You can't run from God. He still sees it. So don't think that you can just make yourself feel better somewhere else. You're just fooling yourself. If you're ever called to turn from your sin, just do it. Just do it. Second Arab we must not discipline members in a way that violates biblical instruction. So we want to do it lovingly. We don't want to try to surprise banish people. I'm sure that has happened in church history. We don't want to be judging things that are not observable and just assuming the worst of people and removing them from the church. So we want to follow the instructions in the Bible. Any questions on those? All right. How can we live this out enacting the doctrine? Big point number three. Well, we can advance the purity of the church and protect it from the spread of sin through church discipline. So, you know, I think Lincoln and Kellen mentioned that earlier. We can help the church be holy and pure. We can help it to grow in those ways by practicing this. Even if it's not just removing, but not just saying, oh man, that person, they're doing this sin, but I'm going to gossip about it and do another sin instead of telling them about it. That doesn't help us grow in holiness. That makes it worse. It's better to lovingly point it out to someone, or if you really aren't close with that person, finding someone who is and asking them to help you lovingly tell that person to turn from their sin. Second way we can apply this is to protect the honor of Christ and proper respect for the church through church discipline. So any time you may or may not know this, but anytime, especially a pastor sins or commits a crime, it's all over the news. It's worldwide news. And even if someone commits a crime, I've seen this before, people, someone could have been a member, like at a church 10 years ago and left and he commits a crime and they'll like, mention that he was a member of that church. It happens all the time. I read a lot of the news because the world is watching. And so we want to protect the honor of the church by pointing out sin so it doesn't grow and fester into worse and worse sins. You might be pointing out a small sin, but if you don't point it out, it can get worse and worse in that person's life until they do something truly horrific. All right, third point and final. Be members. If you believe in Christ, trust in him, Pursue membership and baptism. And if you are that, whether you are now or you join a church later, praise God. Either way, listen when people rebuke and correct you. Pursue people that are straying from the faith. Don't just let them go and even vote at members meetings, like, go to those. Be engaged. Because when a decision like this happens, that's where it takes place. We don't do it on a Sunday morning. No, it happens at a members meeting when only members are there. So if you ever are a member of the church and you can vote, then you should go and use the keys of the kingdom to honor Christ. Any questions? Any final questions? No? Well, if you have more, you can always approach me later. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the word. God, we ask that you would help us to see how we can faithfully apply this to our lives. Lord, help each of us to turn from sin. God, we pray that you would give bold and loving friends around us that would be willing to point out our sins so we can honor you. We pray this all in Christ's name, Amen.