Disciplining God's Children
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2014 · 2 March 2014
Let me read to you our text for this evening from Matthew 18:15-17, “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. 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.’ 17 And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.”
This passage deals with the discipline of a sinning Christian. So this is a very important text from our Lord. It demands our response. We have been redeemed to holiness; we have been saved unto sanctification. Purity of life is the goal which God has established to bring us to Himself. You cannot read the Scripture, Old or New Testament, without being convinced that God seeks the holiness of His people.
1 Peter 1:16 sums it up wonderfully when it says "Be holy for I am holy." And if it says so in the word of God it must be lived out. And if God is so greatly concerned about the holiness of His people and the holiness of His church for the sake of His holy reputation, then I and every other believer must be equally concerned about that as His representative. And no church can preach a message it doesn't live out before God and before the world.
Many churches would speak very clearly that certain things are wrong and sinful and call people to the right lifestyle, but never really enforce that message. And so while there was no tolerance in the pulpit, there was a great tolerance in the life of the people. And what happened through the years is that preaching got separated from daily living and preaching became this exercise where you try to convince people about living godly, but in reality, you are not following up about it. And when preaching is unrelated to daily life, it has no meaning.
In fact, the disciplining of sinning members in a church body is almost unheard of in our society as well as the rest of the world. An evangelist once said, "I know of not one single church in the whole world that is involved in disciplining sinning members, not one." And then John McArthur said to him, "Well, we are committed to that." And he said to him, "If you do that, you will empty the place. They would mention that often misinterpreted Matthew 7:1 passage, "Judge not lest you be judged.”
And everybody is a law to himself and we're all independent and we don't want to get involved in each other's problems and that seemed to be a cultural reality that had worked its way into the church to the loss of the church's purity. So how do you get the people of God to be holy? We can't just preach it and then be indifferent to what people are doing in response to that. There has to be more than just saying it. There has to be a way to pressure people to conform to holiness in a wholesome kind of Godly pressure.
Let us look for a moment at Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira his wife sold a possession and had vowed to the Lord to give it all but they kept part of it. This sin here has nothing to do with giving, the sin here has to do with lying to God. So Peter says to them, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land?" Once you made the promise you conceived evil in your heart to defraud God and you didn't lie to men, you lied to God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down and died. God killed him on the spot and his wife three hours later and great fear came on all them that heard these things.
This is still God’s church, right? He is still the head of His church. He has not changed His attitude toward sin and He has not changed the desire to see the church pure. But He has taken the authority and He has put it in the hands of the Godly men who lead the church. And in essence He has said, you represent me in that church and you be to that church what I would be to that church. And so we must confront sin.
Now let us look at the context of Matthew 18 again. Let me just briefly remind you of its essence, it is on the childlikeness of the believer. God sees the believer as a child. In fact, when the Lord is teaching this He has in His arms a child. And He sees us like those children; we are spiritually what kids are physically; immature, weak, dependent and so forth and so on.
And as we began Matthew 18 already, we have seen that first of all in verse 3-4 that you enter the Kingdom like a little child. In verses 5-9, we go through life protected like a little child. In verses 10-14 you must be cared for like a little child, and now in verses 15-20 you must be disciplined like a little child. So here we learn that that is exactly what has to happen in the family of God.
This is made clear in Proverbs 3:11-12 where it says, “My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor detest His correction; 12 For whom the LORD loves He corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights.” Here is the same analogy as a Father must discipline to correct a child so the Lord must discipline to correct His children. We are like children and we need to be taught to obey and the way we learn is to find out the consequences of disobedience.
Without consequences there will be no change. Now follow this concept through Proverbs 10:13 where it says, “Wisdom is found on the lips of him who has understanding, but a rod is for the back of him who is devoid of understanding.” A child needs to be corrected. How are you going to correct him? Here you find the need for a rod. In other words, there needs to be consequential pain for his misbehavior. Proverbs 13:24 says, “He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.”
Hebrews 12:6 says it again, "For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son He receives." And then gives us the reason why in Hebrews 12:10, "But He chastens us for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness." In other words, God disciplines us to conform us to Himself by external or internal consequences. Sometimes the pain of guilt or the pain that comes from outside, forces us into obedience so that we conform to the standard of His holiness.
So we are like children who hear preaching against sin and teaching against sin and who then are expected to conform to the pattern of holiness. Children don't do that automatically. And like children, who have a tendency to be disobedient in life, we also have a bent to disobedience in spiritual life. So we have the tendency to drift towards evil unless we are pressured into obedience. And that is why there must be enforcement.
So why are the evangelical churches in the world so unholy? The issue may be that we have not preached the right message always and we have not been obedient in its implementation in the lives of people. And so we have said in effect that as long as the sermon is right and as long as it is orthodox we really don't care what you do. And you cannot say that to children. I would hate to have to spend a day with your children if you have never disciplined them.
So we are called in this passage to implement discipline in the church to deal with sin in order that the church might follow the pattern of holiness. Now let's study several elements of discipline tonight. First of all, look at the place for discipline, in verse 17 twice he mentions the church. Listen carefully; this is the third time this word is used in Matthew, the first one being in Matthew 16. It does not refer to the church born at Pentecost. It was a word simply meaning the collection of God's people.
Some commentators have felt that it refers to the Jewish synagogue, but that is not correct. Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus gives rules for conduct in a Jewish synagogue. He is not interested in revising the synagogues. He is interested in establishing His own redeemed people and His own redeemed church. And furthermore, verses 18-20 are not related to a synagogue, because in no synagogue they are gathered in Jesus’ name and there He is in the midst of them.
In is His redeemed people He wants to see holy and pure people without blemish. And so discipline happens in the fellowship of the redeemed. Along that line in 1 Corinthians 6:1 Paul indicts the Corinthians about the sin of suing each other. He says, "Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?” In other words, what are you doing taking your grievances and your problems before the unbelievers? That is the court of unregenerate men and not of saints.
In other words, the church for believers is the highest court and so all church discipline should occur within the fellowship of believing people. It may be in your family, that's a unit of God's redeemed people that constitutes His church. It may be in your Bible study or your fellowship group. But it should be among God's redeemed people and there is no higher court than that. And the spiritual leadership of that assembly should get involved.
Let us look at the purpose of discipline. Verse 15 says, “If he hears you, you have gained your brother.” The purpose of discipline is restoration back to holiness. God has always been concerned with restoration. Proverbs 11:30, “And he who wins souls is wise.” In Galatians 6:1, Paul says, “if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.” In James 5:19-20, “Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, 20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death.”
Now this is always the goal of discipline, it is not to throw people out. It is not to be self-righteous against their unrighteousness. It is not to exercise authority in power in some unbiblical manner. The purpose of discipline is to bring them back. Now notice in verse 15, the word “gained”. It's a word from the commercial world used for example to talk about accumulating wealth. Gain in the sense of treasure or goods or commodities.
So God sees a sinning brother then as a loss of something valuable and this in fact is the heart of God that He cannot let one soul go because each is to Him a treasure. And the church has to have that same sense as well that we can't allow someone to just float away and say well, I don't know where they are, but I just really don't want to get involved. I think they fell into sin. There's a treasure that's gone from us. And when restored we regain that wealth.
Let me give you a third principle, the person who has to restore is you! Let us look at verse 15 again, “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.” So who is God talking to (through Matthew)? You. You say me? I just can't do that. I'm not the type of person that confronts people, I am too loving. God says, this is all about each one of you, not about the pastor only, not about some church committee. Discipline is for everybody in the church including those who lead in the church (Deacon and Core group).
And if you do not care, then you are not concerned with the things that God is concerned about. If you allow yourself false pity, indifference, self-righteousness, contempt for someone, disdain for them because maybe their sin was against you and you are glad they’re gone or pride or being a coward or busyness or whatever it is that prevents you from being faithful in the work of Christ to confront your sinning brother, you have failed. If I ignore the restoration of a wandering sheep, I have become a wanderer too, by my disobedience.
Look at the main verb in verse 15, "Go and tell him." Go and tell him what? Just go and tell him he is in sin. Look at verse 16, “But if he will not hear, take with you...” If he still doesn't want to hear you, verse 17, you tell again it to the whole church. God says go and tell him. If he doesn't hear it, take some people and tell him again. If he doesn't hear it, tell it to the whole church and have the whole church go and tell him.
We need a whole bunch of people who are out there enforcing holiness. We need to be ministers of holiness who become awesome weapons in the hand of God. And this doesn't mean that you do it with spiritual pride, no, it means you do it with a heart of concern and compassion and love. And that is up to you, you have to be willing.
You know, if you see a parent who never disciplines a child you see a parent who doesn't love that child. You hate your child if you don't discipline your child and conform your child. The same thing is true in the spiritual dimension. God is saying don't you hate your neighbor in your heart by never rebuking him of his sin and confronting him with his evil. Why? If you love him, you would want to restrain him from the consequence of sin and you would want to restore him to the place of blessedness, right?
Willingness to confront sin is born out of zeal for God. In John 2:13, Jesus came to the Passover in Jerusalem and found in the temple the people selling oxen, sheep and doves, and the money changers who were cheating the people. And it says in verse 15, "He drove them out with the sheep and the oxen, poured out all the money all over the place and flipped over the tables.” And said in verse 16, “Make not my Father's house a house of merchandise." Jesus has such a tremendous desire for the holiness of the house of God, how about you?
David says in Psalm 69:9, "Because zeal for Your house has eaten me up, and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.” In other words, God when you are dishonored, I have such a zeal in my heart, such a longing for your glory, that when you are dishonored, I feel the pain. Now the willingness to confront sin is born out of the zeal for God's name and God's reputation and God's glory.
Jesus says I can't let you make His house a den of thieves, I can't tolerate sin in His house, I must drive it out. The temple is not His house any more. You in the church now are the house of God, right? The assembly of the believers is the holy habitation in which God dwells. And we should have the heart of Christ who can no more tolerate unholiness in this His church than He could tolerate it in His Father's temple in Jerusalem. We can't have willingness to confront sin unless it is born out of zeal for God.
Where did zeal for God come from? In order to be engaged as a minister of holiness for the sake of the purity of the church there must be personal purity. Three things are necessary, willingness, zeal for God and personal purity. You are not going to be filled with zeal for God's house, you are not going to be consumed with the desire for the holiness of His name unless you are walking in that holiness.
Look with me at Matthew 7. Although this passage comes in a different context initially, it is the principle that bears repeating in our text. Matthew 7:3-5 says, “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
So what is God saying here? Before we can go to confront anybody else about their sin, take care first of your own sin. When a church moves out to enforce holiness and enforce purity, when a church moves out to confront sin, by the very virtue of that direction, it will be in the process of self-purification. And the end result will be there will be less discipline necessary though the church is more committed to doing it. Do you understand that?
Because when you begin to move in that direction, the demand that it makes on you is to purify yourself. This is a difficult ministry, but it all is not easy. We hear a lot about teaching and preaching, training, serving, singing in the choir, helping here and there, leading this and leading that, but where are the ministers of holiness? Our Lord calls for them in His church. Next week, we will find out how they go about their work. Let us pray.