The Childlikeness of Believers: Confronting Sin B

If you in the church are not willing to confront someone's sin, then you don't see them as having any value. Christ sees them as having value and He gives us the responsibility like any parent to go after our wandering children, desiring to restore them because they have value. You've heard the verse that says, where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. And odds are you've heard that verse misapplied more than just about any other passage in the Bible.

So what is this verse really talking about, and how do you apply it? Find out today on Grace to You as John MacArthur continues his series titled Mishandled. Now, before we get to the message, John, it's Memorial Day in the United States, and right now millions of Americans are breaking from their normal work schedules. And of course, people's schedules have been less than normal for more than a year now, but still, it's nice to have a break. So when you get a little downtime on a day like today, what do you do to recharge? Usually whatever Patricia, my wife, wants me to do, and it usually involves kids and grandkids and maybe even great grandkids now that we have some of those. But my life doesn't necessarily recognize holidays as you would well expect.

I've noticed that. Yeah, every Sunday I'm preaching or I'm working on something, writing something or finishing a project. So holidays kind of go by like any other day. Everybody else maybe views it as a different day, but for me, everything is driven in the direction of the preparation and the preaching and the writing and whatever it is I have to do. But when I do pull back, family becomes my priority, and I love that. I sometimes feel like I get bits and pieces of time with family. Now Patricia and I are home a lot together because the kids are all gone, so we get time, but the rest of the family are busy, and once in a while it's good to have a day when we plan something that we do for the full day. I have to say, though, that the blessing in my life is that my kids and my grandkids are a part of my life and a part of the Church. So they're not those special days very often when we can have a whole day together, but we're interacting with each other Sunday after Sunday after Sunday and in the life of the Church, which is a tremendous blessing. And with the new grandchildren and great-grandchildren coming along, we're praying for the Lord's grace to be abundant in their lives and praying that he will save this new generation of little ones as well. But the Lord has blessed our family, and we're deeply grateful for that, and we don't take credit. People say to me, Well, your kids are all in Christ.

How did that happen? I said, I put them in a good church. David And it's fitting that you focused so much on the importance of the local church because today's lesson talks a lot about how to build a strong congregation. So let's get to the message.

Here's John. Matthew 18, beginning at verse 15, And if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. 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 gatherer. Truly I say to you, whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in the midst. The only part of that Scripture I ever heard quoted was the part about two or three being gathered together in My name and there am I in the midst. And that was almost like a popular axiom to remind folks that when only a couple of people showed up for prayer meeting, God showed up too. That was the universal exegesis of that verse. You see, the illusion is that you and I can grow the church, that we have the power to grow the church by our church, by our cleverness, by our ingenuity, by our style, by our winsomeness, by our words.

But this is the plan, a simple one. Verse 15, if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private. Anybody have a hard time understanding that? If your brother sins, implied your sister as well. People say, what sin?

To what degree? Well the whole point here is it doesn't tell us what sin and it doesn't tell us to what degree because any sin to any degree is a defilement. If your brother sins, go and reprove him in private. So you go in private and then verse 15, if he listens to you, which would mean I understand that, I regret that, I want to turn from that, that's what you're looking for. I love this, you have won or gained your brother. Do you know that inside the very church you can lose people?

That's implied here, isn't it? You can't win him back if you haven't lost him. You can't gain him if he wasn't a loss. This word, by the way, won or gained is a commercial word. It's a word taken out of the marketplace and it tells us right at the very beginning what the purpose of this confrontation is. It is to win the brother, to gain the brother. Some people have the idea that church discipline is to throw people out of the church.

It is not. It is to keep people in the church pure. In fact, this verb won or gained is a word used to refer to accumulating wealth. Use it in this context and it has the idea of a sinning brother being a loss to the fellowship. When restored, being a gain, it is like wealth regained. When somebody sins, and the kind of sins we're talking about obviously here are not those that we do and for which we repent and we move on, but those sins that we do not abandon, from which we do not turn and for which we do not repent.

When someone follows in that kind of pattern of sin, we have lost that person as a brother through that sin. So we go to recover him because he has value. Why does he have value? Because the Spirit of God dwells in him, because he is gifted by the Holy Spirit to have ministry in the church to all the rest of us, because he is an instrument by which God can do his work in the church and through the church in the world.

That's the inherent idea here. This one sinning person is so valuable that you go and endeavor to get him back. And if he won't come back, take two or three and try to get him back. And if he still won't come, tell the whole church to go after him because he has that much value. That much value, this is spiritual wealth regained. It was G. Campbell Morgan many years ago who wrote this, it is the great tragedy of a man lost which colors all this instruction and the purpose that is to be in our hearts when we deal with a sinning brother is that of gaining him. The word gain, Morgan says, suggests not merely the effect on the one lost, but the value it creates for those who seek him. When presently we have done with the shadows and the mists of the little while, we will understand in the light of the undying ages that if we have gained one man, we shall be richer than if we piled up all the wealth of the world. What a blessed thing, he writes, to gain a man, to possess him for the church, for the fellowship of friends, for the enterprise of the gospel, for the program of high heaven. If you in the church are not willing to confront someone's sin, then you don't see them as having any value. Christ sees them as having value. He paid the infinite price for them, did he not? And he gives us the responsibility like any parent to go after our wandering children.

We have grown children at this time, but when we were raising our little four children, discipline was a regular routine in our family and it was driven totally by love...totally by our all-consuming love for them. The fear was they would be lost to us and to the Kingdom. And so whatever discipline was necessary to make them feel the pain of their own sinfulness, we inflicted it upon them. And every time they drift into sin, they were disciplined for the purpose of restoration because they're so priceless. You feel that way about your children and our Lord is saying, that's how you should feel about the children of God. Look at Galatians chapter 6 and just the opening couple of verses. Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass...here again the general character of this instruction is notable...any trespass, any sin, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself lest you too be tempted. Look, we all understand what it is to be tempted and to sin.

This is not hard for us to grasp. Understanding human frailty, understanding the power of temptation, understanding the residing flesh, we go after these people desiring to restore them because they have value. The word restore, katartidzo means to repair.

It actually is a medical term used of resetting fractures or mending bones, putting dislocated limbs back in place. The idea then of this dealing with sin is certainly not put people out, it's to restore them because they have so much value. And you do it in a spirit of gentleness, never should this be harsh. Always it should be bathed in compassion, tenderness, sympathy, patience, mercy because you understand fallenness.

It's our universal experience. Our model for this, go back to Matthew 18, our model for this is actually God. And He set that model in the prior verses. Go back from verse 15, just a few verses, to verse 12.

What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, doesn't he leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying? If it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray.

And who is that talking about? Verse 14, thus it is not the will of your father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish. We're following the pattern of God which is the pattern of restoration. He goes after His sinning children to bring them back. And He uses us in the church as a means to do that. This is why it is so important.

This is God's work and that is why the next principle in verse 16 is given because this needs to be a relentless process given the value of the person. If he doesn't listen to you, take one or two more with you that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. This takes us back, doesn't it, to the Old Testament, to the book of Deuteronomy where God established the pattern that accusations needed to be proven and attested by two or three witnesses. Verification of any fact called for two or three confirming witnesses. So, if the person doesn't respond to you, you get a couple of friends and you go back and confront again and make sure that all the data is correct and that you call that person back to repentance and restoration, you do it collectively with the hope that he will listen, or she will listen and you will gain your brother, gain your sister. It's always that that is the point.

You go to that extreme. What if they don't listen then? Well, verse 17 says, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

Are you kidding? No, tell the whole church. Tell the whole church some such person is following in a pattern of sin, I've gone to him, gone to him with two or three, won't repent, won't hear, shun him? No, tell the whole church, gang up on him, or her.

Why? Why you go to this extreme? First of all, who wants to confront an individual about their sin?

This is required. This is the noble thing. If you care about the person, if you can be indifferent to someone's sin, then you don't care. If you really care, you can't be indifferent to their sin. I promise you, I have never been indifferent to the sins of the people I love.

I want to do everything I can to restore them in every way I can. If I'm indifferent toward somebody's sin, it's somebody who is outside my own affection. And in the church, we're called to love one another without any restraint or boundary. And so, we tell the whole church.

That's not hard to understand either, is it? The church is the collection of people who are saved, who are redeemed. You tell them about this person, about their sin, not necessarily lurid details, but you say, go after that person.

That's how valuable that person is. And then, verse 17, if they don't listen to the church, that's all you can do. Let them be to you as a Gentile, outcast and a tax gatherer, the most despised and despicable in Jewish society, those Jews who had sold their souls to Rome to buy a tax franchise to extort money out of their own people for a pagan idolatrous nation, traitors. Treat them like total outcasts, total unbelievers, if they won't come back.

What does that mean? That means you don't accept them into the fellowship because sin will leaven the church. The church has to protect its holiness. And in an effort to protect its holiness, it calls the professing Christian sinner back from sin. If that sinner doesn't respond, then two or three, and if that doesn't get the response, then you tell the church and the whole church goes and if that doesn't bring them back, then put them out. Back to 1 Corinthians 5, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. You can't allow sinful influence to just settle comfortably in the church. But most internal discipline in the church never gets to the Lord's table, it's going on on a one-on-one basis and restoration is going on all the time...all the time, in your family, among your friends. Now you say, John, this is a hard thing to do.

Yes, but it's not a hard instruction to understand. Maybe it would help you to remember the Apostle Paul who confronted none other than Peter. In fact, the Apostle Paul confronted Peter to the face, Galatians 2.11, when Peter, Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned.

Whoa! Can you imagine taking on Peter? Now Paul is a pretty strong guy but I'm certain he's no stronger than Peter. I don't imagine that Peter was an easy guy to convince of his own sin. You say, this might be the end of a relationship and, you know, I've had that experience, I have had that many times, I regret to say, prominent ministers, pastors that you would know if I gave their names that I hopefully lovingly graciously confronted about some serious error and the result of that confrontation was the end of any relationship permanently.

That's perhaps the price you might pay. You could ask yourself whether Paul confronting Peter was worth it if it wouldn't have been better for them to have a cooperating relationship. But Paul did what was right for the sake of the honor of the Lord of the church and he confronted Peter to the face because he was to be condemned. Did that end their relationship? And Peter 3 verse 14, hear the writing of Peter, "'Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless...I love this verse...and regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation just also as our beloved brother Paul wrote to you.'"

No. Paul was Peter's beloved brother because all that Paul ever had in mind in confronting Peter was restoration. Well in closing, if this seems difficult, let me give you some encouraging biblical truth. Verse 18, "'Truly I say to you, whatever you shall bind on earth, literally shall have been bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.'" That particular statement appears a number of times in the New Testament. One is back in Matthew 16 and verse 19, another in John chapter 20.

It's a very simple idea. In fact, it may well have been sort of an axiomatic statement used by the rabbis, for all we know. It simply means that when you bind something on earth, it is bound in heaven, or has already been bound in heaven and when you loose something on earth, it has already been loosed in heaven. Binding and loosing, the rabbis said, had to do with sin. If someone repented, their sin was loosed. If someone would not repent, they're bound in their sin.

It's that simple. So when we confront a sinner and a sinner will not repent and we say you're bound in your sin, heaven has already made that judgment. Or when we confront a sinner and the sinner repents and we say you're loose from your sin because we have biblical revelation that says if you repent, you will be loosed from your sin, then when we say you're loosed from your sin, we're only saying on earth what heaven has already said. Bottom line principle is this, when we deal with sin and confront sin and call people to repentance and hold them responsible for their impenitence and rejoice with them in their repentance, we are simply doing on earth what is done in heaven. We can pray Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Here's a way we can implement it. Heaven has already rendered the verdict that someone's bound in sin, that someone's loosed from sin. We're just reflecting heaven when we do the same. Then in verse 19, and I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything, there we're back to the Deuteronomy principle of two or three witnesses, that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. That means to say when two or three come together and affirm someone's repentance and heaven is in agreement, we can ask the Lord to cleanse them and restore them and He will. If they will not repent, of course, and heaven is in agreement, we can ask the Lord to chasten and discipline and He will. In other words, we're doing heaven's work. We're doing the Father's work. And then Jesus Himself has the final word in verse 20 where two or three have gathered together, not for a prayer meeting, folks, how many does it take for God to show up at a prayer meeting? How about one? Lo, I'm with you always.

Doesn't take two or three. It doesn't have anything to do with a prayer meeting. It has to do with a discipline situation where two or three have gathered together which means this process is in motion, there I am in their midst. Never is the church more in tune with heaven, more in tune with the Father, and more in tune with Christ Himself than when it's dealing with sin. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. John is the chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary in Southern California. Today he showed how you and your church can faithfully fight sin as John continued a study that is clarifying some very familiar Bible passages that are often misunderstood.

John calls this series mishandled. Now if you want a tool that can help you handle God's word accurately and understand what it means page after page, here's a reminder that the MacArthur Study Bible is designed to do just that. To order a copy, get in touch today. Call toll-free 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. The MacArthur Study Bible has 25,000 footnotes that explain the original language, history, and the cultural background of Scripture, making virtually every passage of the Bible clear. The Study Bible is available in English Standard, New King James, and New American Standard versions, and it also comes in many non-English translations.

Again, to place your order, call toll-free 800-55-GRACE or shop online at gty.org. Now a great complement to the MacArthur Study Bible is our Study Bible app. It's a free app that gives you the full text of Scripture along with instant access to thousands of online resources, all of them related to whatever passage you're studying. And then with an in-app purchase, very affordable, you can also download the notes from the MacArthur Study Bible. The app, again it's simply called the Study Bible, is free to download from gty.org. That's our website. One more time, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for starting your week with Grace to You and be here tomorrow when John continues his study Mishandled with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.