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The Discipline of God's Children, Part 2 A

Grace To You / John MacArthur
The Truth Network Radio
January 15, 2025 3:00 am

The Discipline of God's Children, Part 2 A

Grace To You / John MacArthur

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January 15, 2025 3:00 am

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Any sin is a sin that ought to be corrected. If any member of the Christian fellowship sins in violating God's standard in any way, the process immediately goes into action. That's God's desire, and it should be immediate. The issue is holiness. Any sin. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Today John continues looking at an issue that, frankly, has a direct impact on all your relationships with Christians, and as a result, on the purity of the church. Consider this. When you sin, what effect does that have on your church? And when someone in your church sins, what should you do? What's your responsibility before God?

Well, just know that the phrase, it's none of your business, doesn't really apply to life in the church. And when it comes to helping others deal with sin, the only way to know that you're not overstepping or understepping your bounds is to follow God's blueprint. John is looking at that blueprint from Matthew chapter 18 in his series, My Brother's Keeper.

And here's John with today's lesson. Matthew chapter 18. This is a passage that deals with discipline among God's people. Now, when I use the word discipline, I want simply to remind you that discipline is not a negative word, it is a positive word.

It is a word about training. It is a word not unrelated to the word discipling. To discipline is to conform someone to a standard. And when we talk about discipline in the church, we're talking about bringing people into line with God's standard.

That is for the glory of God, the ongoing of His kingdom, and the blessedness of the individual as well. So discipline is a good word. It's a word about training.

And that is its intent as I use it. Now, this passage helps us to understand that there are basically two ways people are trained or two ways people are disciplined. This is definitely true of children. And since this entire chapter deals with the child likeness of the believer, we should draw our analogy from childhood. Remember that in this teaching setting in Matthew 18, Jesus has a child in His arms, an infant.

And with that infant as His living illustration, He talks about His kingdom and His main point is that the people in His kingdom are like children. They enter like children, that's in verses 3 and 4. They are to be protected like children, that's in verses 5 to 9. They are to be cared for like children, that's in verses 10 to 14. And now in 15 to 20, they are to be disciplined like children. And then in verses 21 to 35, He'll remind us that they're to be forgiven like children. We're children. And children need to be disciplined.

It is an essential ministry to be about ministering to the Lord's church on the behalf of its purity and its holiness. Now the whole chapter, as I said, deals with the child likeness of the believer. And you and I both know very well that children must be conformed to obedience by some kind of discipline, some kind of enforced rule, some kind of consequences for their misbehavior. The same is true spiritually. The neglect of dealing with sin, not only allows the person sinning to drift away further and further, but it sets a standard that allows others to walk in the same path of sin feeling no consequence will be forthcoming. But where you act against sin, you not only pull the person sinning back, but you re-establish the right kind of model of virtue. In the Old Testament when God set out to punish the people of Israel for their disobedience to His Word, He said in Deuteronomy 13, 11, And all Israel shall hear and fear and shall do no more such wickedness as this among you. In other words, you punish a few and the others get the message. And so there is then to be discipline.

The church must be pure. Now we started into the text and you can look at it now for a moment. And we said there are several elements of discipline that come out of this text.

First is the place of discipline. And if you'll notice verse 17, it is in the ekklesia, the church. The word is used twice there. The ekklesia does not have a technical meaning here, not the Baptist Church or the Presbyterian Church or any other denomination, not even the post-Pentecost church as we know it, but any assembly of God's redeemed people. In this case, Jesus is speaking to the apostles who are collected around Him, sitting at His feet in a house in Capernaum. And even though the church as we know it today has not been born and will not be till after His resurrection in its official character, what we see here is the assembly of God's redeemed people and in that context, discipline is to occur.

And of course He anticipates the church of which we're a part as well. But wherever God's redeemed people come together, there is to be a dealing with sin. Secondly, we see the purpose of discipline and it's indicated to us at the end of verse 15, thou hast gained thy brother.

The intention of discipline is not to put people out, it's to keep people in. The idea as we saw last time is that when a person goes into sin and disobedience to God, they are lost to the fellowship. They are lost to the intimacy. They are lost to the ministry.

They are lost to the communion of God's people. Thirdly, we noted the person in discipline, the place and the purpose and then the person. Who is the person? Well if you look at verse 15, moreover if your brother shall trespass against you, you go and you tell him his fault between you and him alone, for if he shall hear you, you've gained your brother. Now it's fairly clear who the person is.

It's you and me. It's an individual thing. There are no spiritual SS. There are no CIA members in the church. There's no particular search and seizure committee.

There's no commando units. This is everybody. We are all involved in going out to seek one another, to restore one another, to gain back the sinning brother who's drifted away from the community of God's people. And so you're the person. I'm the person. We're all to be involved in this.

And I've thought about this so often in these recent days, how marvelous it would be if all of the assembly of God's people were totally committed to the recovery of every sinning brother and sister. Well that takes me to a fourth point. Now we'll get into our study for today, the provocation in discipline. What sets it off? How do you know when to do this?

How do you know when to approach someone? Verse 15, moreover, it starts with the word moreover, basically means now. In other words, having said all that we've just said about the care and protection of God's people, having established all of that, that they're like children and they have to be protected and they have to be cared for and sometimes they have to be sought after when they go away, as verses 12 to 14 point out, the good shepherd seeking the lost sheep, having said all of that, now specifically what do we do if thy brother shall sin against thee?

Now what are we going to do? Now notice what it says. Here's the provocation. If thy brother shall sin. Hamartano, the basic New Testament word for sin means to miss the mark. God sets the mark, men miss it. It is to violate His law. It is the word hamartano from which we get our theological word hamartiology which is the study of sin. And so what do we do if thy brother sins against thee? That's the issue.

Now we ask the question because it's so very important. It says here, if thy brother shall sin, go and tell him. The question is what constitutes a sin that needs discipline?

What's the answer? What sins need to be corrected? Which ones? All of them. That's why the text is general.

All of them. You know, there aren't good sins and bad sins. And there's not a sort of a scale in the middle with poles on each end. Sin is sin and it is the antithesis of the utter holiness of God. And the sin, any sin puts a stain on the fellowship.

It marrs the communion. And so any sin is a sin that ought to be corrected. If any member of the Christian fellowship sins in violating God's standard in any way, the process immediately goes into action. That's God's desire.

And it should be immediate. The issue is holiness, any sin. Now look further at this text. You'll notice it says if thy brother shall sin against thee.

Now this is an interesting little thing, this against thee. Some manuscripts have it and some don't. And so I spent some time this week because it seemed that nobody could agree on whether it was in or out and I read as much as I could on the subject of whether this belongs in the text or out of the text and my conclusion is that nobody knows. Some ancient manuscripts, trustworthy as they are, have it. Other ancient manuscripts, equally trustworthy, do not have it. And so we cannot tell in terms of looking at what's called lower criticism, analyzing texts, whether it belongs in or it belongs out.

You say, well what do you think we ought to do? Leave it in. I mean, if there's any question at all, leave it in. And I really don't think there's any question at all in spite of what the manuscripts say. If you'll notice verse 21, I think it might help you to clear up the issue. Peter here responds to what Jesus says and he says, Lord, how often shall my brother sin...what?...against me and I shall forgive him.

And by the fact then, there's no...by the way, no manuscript problems on that one. And so by the fact that Peter picks up the against me, I'm assuming that that's what he picked up from Jesus. The comparative passage in Luke 17 and verse 3 where Luke records our Lord teaching on the same subject says, take heed to yourselves if thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him.

And if you repent, forgive him. So in Luke's word there to us quoting Jesus, it is against thee. So I like to think that it belongs in the text. Now some people immediately say if it's there, it's a problem because what it means then is that the only person responsible to go out and seek this person is the one against whom he sinned. Do you see that? In other words, that's the debate. If you say if your brother sins against you go, then I'm only responsible for somebody if they've sinned against me.

You want to know something? That's right. That is exactly right. If they don't sin against you, you're not responsible. Let me tell you what that means. There are two ways you can be sinned against, direct and indirect.

Let's talk about the direct way. The direct way that you might be sinned against would be if somebody punched you in the nose because they were mad at you, somebody stole from you, somebody deceived you, somebody lied to you, somebody abused you, someone slandered you, someone committed a crime of immorality against you, taking your purity. These are sins directly against you. And the text says if such a person sins a sin against you, go and tell him.

Why? In order to gain your brother. It isn't that you go and say, you dirty, I want to tell you what you did to me and man, I'm going to work the rest of my life to make sure you don't survive.

That's not it. This is a marvelous thought. When you get sinned against, deceived against, lied against, slandered, abused, whatever the sin is, and this is a brother, we're talking about in the family now, folks, a Christian does this, you go and tell him the sin and get him to confess and repent that you may gain him back as a brother or gain them back as a sister in Jesus Christ. In other words, you are showing the most magnanimous heart attitude that says you have sinned against me, but that is not the issue.

The issue is I've lost you as my brother and I've lost you as my sister and my heart longs to restore you to that. I mean, that'll blow the mind of somebody who's waiting for your retaliation, who's waiting for your bitterness. But our tendency is somebody does something we don't like. Somebody touches us in our life some way and wounds us or sins against us or commits an act of disobedience to God which affects us directly and we put them on our grudge list, don't we? And we let bitterness cultivate in our hearts and resentment and anger. And Jesus said, if you get sinned against, go and gain your brother back with an attitude of forgiveness. And if you compare Luke's passage, he says that. Go to him, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.

Marvelous. How many people can you think of in your mind that you've got a grudge against that you just won't speak to, you have nothing to do with? Every time they come up in a conversation, your mouth curls a funny way. You have an anger toward them, bitterness, because they've done something to you. Listen, Ephesians 4 32, forgive one another as God, for Christ's sake, forgave you.

Who do you think you are to hold a grudge when God's forgiven you so much? So you go and you confront and seek to gain your brother. But what if it's indirect? And this is very important. Not all sins against me are directly against me. They could be indirectly against me.

Now listen carefully, this is a very important point. Any sin in the assembly of God's people is against any of God's people because it stains all of us. You see, when anyone sins, they're lost to our fellowship and it touches all of us. When anyone is living a disobedient life, they bring reproach on Christ and we are Christ's and we bear His reproach so that indirectly all that sin is against us.

If I know about it, it's against me because I'm willing to stand for the holiness of God's name and zeal for His glory. To look at it the other way would be if, for example, we are only then to react to sins directly against us, then does that mean we have no responsibility when someone lies to an unsafe person outside the church or goes to a harlot or slanders somebody else or abuses somebody else? In other words, if you narrow this thing that we are only supposed to respond to those who sin directly to us, then people could be sinning on the outside with people in the world who aren't a part of the assembly and have absolutely nobody to go to them.

See, that doesn't make sense. The point is that any sin is a sin that stains the fellowship, whether it's direct or indirect. And it's summed up in the words of the Apostle Paul, he said it twice, once in 1 Corinthians 5 and once in Galatians 5, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

You can't isolate sin. It leavens and leaven is the illustration in the Bible always of influence, of influence. That's why they had to take unleavened bread out of Egypt. Don't take the little starter that came from the last dough that you baked in Egypt. Don't take any remnant of Egypt out to penetrate your new life.

No influence. You cut the cord. You cross the sea.

That's over. You don't bring a soured starter for your new bread. You have unleavened bread with nothing of the past in it. And so leaven is influence and a little sin will influence everybody. And any sin anywhere will touch you. So if you know about it, that should provoke the process. Now that brings us to point five, the process in discipline.

What do you do? You know what's to happen in God's redeemed assembly? You know you're the person. You know the purpose is to gain your brother back.

You know any sin qualifies. Now what do you do? How do you go about it? Four steps. Four steps.

Very clearly delineated and outlined. Step one, verse 15, go and tell Him His sin between Thee and Him alone. That's simple enough, isn't it? Go and tell Him His sin. Go present imperative. Get in motion. Get going. Pursue. The idea of the present imperative is the idea of you continue to go. Pursue this thing.

Don't be distracted. Pursue. And then it says, tell Him. And that is an aorist imperative which has the idea of make your point, be convincing, get the point across.

The verb elenko means to expose to the light. In other words, hang in there until he really sees it. You don't just go and say, hey, you know, I haven't seen you at church and I was just wondering, are you drifting around? No, just go and confront and make it clear and open up the sin and help Him to see that sin. Expose it.

That's the idea of that aorist imperative there. Show it to Him so there's no escaping it. Take the time and the effort that is needed. It's a difficult task. It's a delicate task. It's difficult with the people you know because they know you. And when you go and start talking about their sin, they may have something to say to you. It's difficult with the people you don't know because you're going to say, who am I to do that?

I don't know. We tend to be fearful over the people we know. We tend to be indifferent over the people we don't know. But it's a responsibility that Jesus has given us.

You know what happens? When you do this, there's a marvelous union of two souls knit together if you go in the right attitude. And what is the right attitude? Here's the right attitude. Galatians 6, 1.

We keep coming back to that. If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual...here it comes...restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted. The first thing is meekness.

You go in humility realizing that it could be you, that you could have been tempted. You go in meekness and then it says you go bearing his burden and fulfilling the law of Christ. And what is the law of Christ? It's the royal law, the law of liberty, the law of love.

It's the law of love. So you go with love and you go with a sense of wanting to help him carry the burden and you go in meekness. That's the attitude. You don't go pontificating. You don't go in a pious way. You don't go in a self-righteous way. You don't go for self-satisfaction.

You don't go for spite or vengeance. You go out of loving, humble care to bring him back, to restore him. Now would you notice that it says you go alone, just the two of you, alone between you and him alone, face to face. All this to gain a brother lost.

You go alone. You know what our tendency is? Soon as you hear about somebody's sin, tell everybody. Did you hear about it?

Oh, it's so sad. We're praying for brother so-and-so. And the word starts spreading around. No, if you know about a sin, you go one to one. Doesn't ever need to get beyond that.

You go. If, on the other hand, you just start talking about it, you will create a situation which may make it impossible to ever have a meaningful relationship with that person, even if they do come back. I'll promise you, if you go to that person without saying anything to anybody else and you go one-on-one and you confront that sin in love and humility and that person repents, you will have a bond of intimacy that nothing will ever be able to break if you've really restored your brother.

It's a marvelous thing. That's how the intimacy in the body is protected. That's how the secrecy in the body is protected. God doesn't say, shouted from the housetops, He says, you just go and let it be between the two of you and you know human nature well enough to know that we're all sinners and you have built in that one-to-one relationship a deep bond of commitment to one another. That's the way to go, one-to-one, alone. Now that might not always be possible. It might be somebody else listening when you do it, but still it should be one-to-one. And it says in verse 15, "'If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.'"

And that's what you're after. Don't tell everybody else about it. Go to the person. When is the last time? Ask yourself. The last time you went to someone you knew was sinning one-to-one.

Never said a word to anybody about it when you found out about it. You just went. Oh, what an important thing this is. You know, stuff floats around and all these opinions drift all over about what's going on with somebody's life and long before that could have been stopped.

One-to-one. What if he refuses to hear? Well, we'll get to that in a minute. Your responsibility is to go. Is there any illustration in the New Testament of this?

Yes, there is. Galatians chapter 2. Galatians 2. Peter sinned. He sinned in cutting himself off from the assembly of God's people to identify with some legalizers when he was in Antioch. In Galatians 2, 11, Peter was come to Antioch. Paul says, "'I withstood him to the face.'" Because he was to be blamed. Did Peter respond? Yes, he did.

He responded so much to that. In 2 Peter, listen to what he says. 2 Peter 3.15, "'Even as our beloved brother Paul.'"

What do you think he meant by that? Well, for one thing, he meant that Paul was his beloved brother. How did they get such a love bond? Probably because Paul was willing to confront him with his sin, cared enough, loved him enough, and that was born between those two men a wonderful bond of intimacy.

You confront a person on a one-to-one and your hearts will knit together. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. John's current study here on Grace To You is titled, My Brother's Keeper. John, you've made it clear in this study that if someone sins against you, you need to go to him and confront the sin and seek reconciliation. One question I'm sure our listeners are asking is, what if that person doesn't know the Lord and doesn't care about Scripture and knows nothing about Matthew 18 and frankly has no interest in making things right?

What do you do then? Well, if the person doesn't know the Lord and doesn't care about Scripture and knows nothing about Matthew 18, I would say you have to back up from Matthew 18 to John 3 16. You've got to go to the Gospel. And I understand there are lots of churches with lots of people in them, people who aren't converted. They don't know the Lord and this will show up in their sinful conduct.

So there are some situations where you're saying, we're disciplining somebody at the church only to find out that this person isn't even a believer. And so you back up to the glory of the Gospel. And what is the message of the Gospel? The message of the Gospel, summing it up in one word, is forgiveness. Forgiveness.

That is the good news to sinners, that God, because of the sacrifice of Christ, will forgive those who repent and put their trust in him. So the foundation for salvation, the foundation for grace operating in the church, is the promise of divine forgiveness to those who repent and believe, and to Christians who confess their sins as well. And that leads me to mention a book called The Freedom and Power of Forgiveness.

Through the years, this book has really opened up windows of blessing to all who have read it. It tackles the issue of God's forgiveness for us, as well as our forgiveness of others. It looks at the basis of all forgiveness, how forgiveness lovingly covers, even removes, sin as far as the East is from the West. It deals with what to do when you know a Christian who's in sin, which has been the focus of our series, and many more aspects. It answers the question, should the forgiveness we extend to others be without conditions?

And if not, what are those conditions? It includes a section on Christ's atonement, addressing often debated questions about whom Christ died for. The title of the book, again, The Freedom and Power of Forgiveness. Soft cover book, 250 pages available from Grace To You. And if you're listening and you've never known the forgiveness of God, get this book and it'll explain its availability to you if you'll put your trust in Christ.

That's right, friend. The Freedom and Power of Forgiveness not only will help you better understand God's forgiveness for you, it will help you become a forgiving person as well. Order your copy today. The Freedom and Power of Forgiveness is $13 and shipping is free. To order, call 800-55-GRACE or visit our website, gty.org.

The title, again, The Freedom and Power of Forgiveness. Get a copy when you call 800-55-GRACE or when you visit gty.org. There are also a number of sermons on forgiveness available in MP3 and transcript format free of charge at our website.

Just search for them. Again, it's gty.org. Our sermon archive there has 3600 messages from John's nearly 56 years of pulpit ministry. And you'll also find daily devotionals, the Grace to You television program and much more, all of it free at gty.org. And to keep up to date with what's ahead on our radio and television broadcasts, follow us on X, Facebook and Instagram and check out our YouTube channel as well. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Be sure to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378 or you can watch anytime at gty.org. And be back tomorrow as John continues his study, My Brother's Keeper, with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-15 06:22:52 / 2025-01-15 06:33:35 / 11

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