The Bible tells us here in Matthew 18 verse number 15, the Bible tells us here in Matthew 18 verse number 15, the Bible tells us here in Matthew 18 verse number 15, the Bible tells us here in Matthew 16 and then here in Matthew 18. And I pray that you would allow us to take these truths to heart, give us faithfulness to the Word of God and the will of God. And I pray today if anyone is tied up in sin, or caught up in sin, that they would find themselves humbled before you, repentant God, longing for righteousness and right standing. You are worthy of our obedience. And I pray that if anyone's lost today, that today would be the day of salvation. Glorify your name today. In Jesus' name we pray this in all God's people said. Amen.
You may be seated this morning. Sin creates messes in our lives. Has anybody ever created a mess? It creates messes. It creates huge monumental problems, not only for us but for the people around us.
It is the most destructive thing that has hit the planet since the planet began. The infection of sin is what causes brokenness in families, breaks marriages, breaks relationships. It's the cause of bitterness, resentment, hatefulness and vengeance in people's hearts. Sin pardons people from getting right with God.
The reason that people do not repent is because they are sinning against God by stiffening their neck and not willing to bend in repentance. Sin causes gossip and slander and cussing and swearing and hate to spew out of people's mouths. Sin causes people to worry and doubt and fret and be filled with anxiety instead of trusting God. Sin is a cursed thing. It robs people of joy. It gives them temporary pleasure but long-term consequences. To sin is to live on credit.
But the payment's coming. Sinning Christians have literally been a barrier for the lost. Sinning Christians have ruined the testimony of the church in so many ways. Not only has sin infected people in the pew but also pastors behind pulpits. Christian can often be a barrier for people to even come to Christ.
People say today outside the church there's just so many hypocrites in the church. Sin is potent. Not only one sin is so potent that just one sin in Genesis 3 caused all of mankind to be cast out of God's presence. It has infected the entire human race. The infection rate of sin is 100%.
The only one who was not affected was the virgin-born Son of God. And the death rate of the infection is 100%. Everybody dies with it. You say well Enoch and Elijah didn't die yet because God took them to heaven but if they continued to live they would have died.
And everyone Jesus raised from the dead died again. Sin is so lethal that everybody dies with it. Think about COVID-19.
If it started in just one small lab in Wuhan, China, it spread throughout the world. It's just showing you the infectious nature of what a virus can become and sin is even worse than that. Not only is it potent and lethal but it's also incurable. We have no way to fix it. On our own we're hopeless. You know stage 4 cancer patients are in a hopeless situation because they have no ability on their own to fix their incurable disease. If we can't fix physical illnesses why would we think we can fix this most potent of all spiritual diseases? We are much worse also than a dying cancer patient because physical death is nothing compared to the spiritual death that sin induces in us. Temporary physical suffering is nothing compared to eternal suffering. And our fallen helpless hopeless condition makes the person of Jesus Christ absolutely priceless. Jesus is the most valuable person in the universe for us. If you were in the middle of the ocean floating on a raft a thousand miles from shore in every direction you have no sail and no wind and you have no way out of it. You can't put a price tag on somebody coming in a helicopter to save you.
They're invaluable to you. If you have a child dying of an incurable disease there is no price tag you could put on a remedy to cure your ailing child. Man was adrift on the ocean of sin left with an incurable disease and Jesus Christ literally gave his life that we might have salvation.
Incredible isn't it? He literally took our infection so that we might take his righteousness. 1 Peter 2 24 says who his own self bear our sin in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness. He took the sin.
He carried that. 1 Peter 3 18 also reminds us of that reality. The text before us here in Matthew 18 brings to light the fact that sin is a battle that all will face. And as Christians if there is one thing that we should love Jesus so much that we would not want to have in our lives it should be sin. We should want to eradicate sin from our life because of what it cost the Lord Jesus Christ. We also should love one another enough to where we would not want each other to walk in sin.
We would not want anyone that we love to fall into this most vicious and evil ruinous thing called sin. Matthew 18 Jesus just gets done discussing how the believer is likened unto little children. Talks about how we entered the kingdom in verse 2 and 3 as a child.
We come with childlike faith, trusting in God, humbling ourselves, finding ourselves totally dependent upon the one who alone can give us new life. And then he talks about in verse 4 that greatness in the kingdom comes to those who humbled themselves like a little child. In verse 5 of Matthew 18 he tells us that we are to minister to one another and as we do that it's like ministering unto Christ himself.
Then in verse number 6 and 7 he gives one of the most severe warnings in all the Bible. He says in verse 6 of Matthew 18 but whoso calls us one of these little ones. Little ones here if you go back and we preached on this a couple weeks is referring to a believer, someone who humbled himself like a child and did what verse 2 and 3 says. This is a young believer.
It could also be a older believer who is referred to as a little child because Jesus even called his own disciples you little ones. So if you cause one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble to get tripped up, scondalazzo is the Greek word you get to cause them to stumble to be trapped with some sin. It would be better for him that a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and drowned in the depths of the sea.
I mean that's a pretty intense warning isn't it? In other words Jesus said it's better for you to die than to cause other people to get caught up in sin. And then he says woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks, because of its offenses. For it's inevitable that they come but woe to the man through whom they come. And he's warning here of the reality that those things come into the world, these stumbling blocks and offenses and these traps and trips to sin. Now if it's that dangerous what happens when those kind of dangerous things enter into the church? How is the church then to respond to sin that Jesus says is so bad that if you were to cause other people to stumble into sin it would be better to die than to allow that to happen. Well that's where it gets into discipline inside the church. And let me say this, the importance of the believer who wonders into sin, they are also of such value to Jesus that in verse 12 through 14 he says he is like a shepherd who would go after those wandering sheep and find them in rejoicing over that wandering sheep that was restored more than 99 that were not needing restored because they were in right relationship with God and they were not wandering away. The Lord sees himself as even a good shepherd who would go after that sheep and that's what the church is to also reflect the heart of God. The church is to be on earth a reflection of the heart, the will of God found in the word of God. We are to put on display what God desires. So verse 15 the Lord transitions to discuss how we as children are again to deal with the offenses against one another. What happens when these sins come about?
Well, trespass, the word can also be translated as sin, it's hamartio, against the, he says go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. But before I get into that text I want to discuss the need for discipline, the need for discipline. Now a natural part of any institution is discipline. Every place that you go in the world involves places that will discipline except for possibly California. But God created three institutions. He created the family, the government and the church and all are designed to be a blessing to man.
And each is an amazing blessing in different ways. But what happens to a family that does not have any discipline in it? What happens when children are never disciplined? What happens if they're never confronted over the wrongdoings? What happens in a society where discipline never takes place? When people are allowed to commit crimes and they're not confronted for those things?
I mean in California you can steal stuff up to under a thousand dollars and you're not going to be charged for that. I mean that's the kind of insanity that lawlessness produces. And so that doesn't help a society, it destroys a society. And so if discipline is necessary and critical in both families as well as governments to operate effectively, is the church any different? Should the standard in a church be less than the world's?
If you're on a ball team, if you're a coach or you have a kid on a team, what happens if there is no discipline on the team? And should the church run less than a ball team? The holy reflection of the Son of God, the Bride of Christ? I think if there's ever a place that should hold a high standard of right living, it should be found in the church. God has given authority to the government to discipline. Just read Romans 13. The Bible gives the family right to discipline their children. Deuteronomy 6, Ephesians 6, Proverbs 22. And the Lord also gives the church a right to discipline.
Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians 5, 2 Corinthians 2, Galatians 6, and the list goes on. Again, what would happen in a church if sin was never confronted or dealt with? If church members were allowed to live in known sin? Does anybody want your class life group teacher to be living in adultery and then teaching you? Does anybody want your kids being taught by someone who's living in open fornication? But if we're not to confront sin and we're not to discipline certain situations, then those things would be allowed to go on in a church.
Do we see the importance of this? Now, I do know that after you have a 15-year celebration and you have a big day, probably the method of church growth is not to teach on church discipline the next Sunday. I've been in the history of the world, too many pastors are like, you know, next week I'm going to preach on church discipline. But I'm going to preach whatever comes next in the text, and this is what comes next.
And I'm more concerned, honestly, just to get this right with God than to be pleasing to you, so you're just going to come along, okay? So this is important. This is central to us.
This is essential. Lighthouse will not continue without effective discipline in the body. It doesn't work. Your home life, would not work without discipline. Your ball team wouldn't work without discipline.
Countries and states and cities don't work without discipline. So let me get into a second thought here is the heart and motive of discipline. In verse 15, he says, if your brother trespasses against you, go and tell them his fault between thee and him alone, if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. Now, why would you go to them alone? The reason you would go to them alone is because you don't want the sin to spread, right? They have sinned against you. They've done something. But the thing you don't do, you cannot do, is gossip.
You don't go to social media and say, did you hear what so-and-so, or you do with some passive-aggressive statement on there that everybody knows who you're talking about. The immaturity of that, that is sinful to do. I don't know of anybody doing that, but I just know people do that. That's a very sinful thing to do. And so if they sin against you, the Bible says you're to go to them, and you're to do it alone.
Now, what is your goal? Verse 15 says if he hears you, then you've gained your brother. The goal is a restoration. It is a reconciliation. That means if they have offended you, you are ready and willing to forgive them. You have in your heart the willingness and readiness to forgive the offense. Listen to Jesus in Luke 17, verse 3. He says, take heed to yourself. If thy brother trespass, again, the word means sin, it may be an easier understanding for us, if he sins against you, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. That's why the vast majority of the rest of this chapter deals with forgiveness, from verse 21 down to verse 35, because when somebody offends us, it's hard to forgive. Right?
Isn't it? So that's what we'll also look at in the coming weeks. But now let me give you some motives for discipline. First of all, we're motivated because we love the person. Church discipline is not about a bunch of self-righteous people pointing out sins of others and looking down their nose. Rather, it's somebody who's grieved in their heart for somebody like a family member would be grieved, and so long that they would come out of the sin which would destroy them. Church discipline is an act of love. It's seeking to restore one of the church family members. Jesus said in Revelation 3 19, he says, as many as I love, I rebuke.
Secondly, we're motivated by the restoring of the erring brother and sister. Galatians 6 1 says, brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual restore such a one, and he says, and you do it in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you also get tempted. So it says, if you see somebody go into some sin, it says you that are spiritual, go and deal with that.
Confront that, but you do it in a meek spirit. You do it in a humble spirit. You do it in a way that that isn't judgmental, that's not condemning, but is a spirit of restoring them. Thirdly, you're motivated by obedience to the Word of God. Jesus tells us to do this, therefore we need to do this. Fourthly, we're motivated by a desire for the purity of the church in the honor of Christ. Sin is so detrimental, not only to the individual, but the church at whole. Sin is infectious.
It spreads. 1 Corinthians 5 says, a little leaven leavens a whole lump, and he's talking about sin that got into the church at Corinth, and he says, if you don't deal with it, it'll spread to the whole body. You know why church splits happen? You want me to tell you why church splits happen? I've never been in a church where a church split happened. The line of churches that I come from, that's not happened. Our sending church, our grandmother church, our great-grandmother church, and you can just go down the line, our sister churches that we've launched, we haven't seen any of them split. When I came to Zinnia, they asked me the question, which church did you split off of?
We're like, no, we're not splitting. We're actually starting a church the biblical way. Church splits are not a biblical way to start churches. I know that can happen when it, but I can tell you it's because sin got in the church. Usually, there's something that doesn't get confronted, a sin or a false teaching, something spreading, and most of the time, the leadership are like, I don't want to deal with that. Because I can tell you, parents, if you're a parent with children, it's not fun dealing with the sins that can happen.
And if you're a friend, how do you feel when your friend gets caught up in sin? You're like, ah! Right? Y'all awake this morning?
Y'all with me? It ain't easy. Preaching's the fun part of serving God.
This is the easiest thing I do. It's dealing with problems and working through marriages and working through the different struggles people have and confronting things at times when that needs to be dealt with. Those are not easy, but I can tell you the reason that we've seen such unity at Lighthouse is because we deal with that stuff.
And it's such a blessing. In homes that confront the sinful attitudes of different kids in their house, it allows unity to abound in that home. Classrooms where a teacher has love but also has strict discipline and says, you know what? There's certain attitudes and words and behaviors that are not allowed in this classroom that allows harmony to happen in the room, right? And don't we want that in the house of the living God?
And so, just know this is an act of incredible love that desires unity in the body, but also sin left unchecked will just cause an infection. What happens when you have a kid on a ball team that has a terrible attitude that cusses a coach and the coaches kind of lets it go? Guess what happens to the rest of the players?
Stirs them up, doesn't it? Bengals did that, right? For years, they had some guys that came on board. They're like, oh, that's a great athlete. Yeah, he just got out of prison, right? Probably, you know, they got all the prison inmates coming in and they're like the best.
Now, they played on the prison field. They probably would have whipped up on the other teams, but you can't hit a guy in the back, you know, with your helmet like that, you know, but you have to have good behavior. You have to have order. You have to have structure and discipline. And then, fifth reason is to restrain other believers from sinning. One thing that when you discipline someone in your home or at school or in society, it restrains sin. But sin that's left unchecked just encourages other people like, well, if they're allowed to do it, what's a big deal if I did it?
Right? First Timothy 5, 19 says this, against an elder, that's talking about a pastor like somebody in my role, receive not an accusation but before two or three witnesses. Don't bring just a casual accusation against one of the elders or pastors of a church. Make sure there's two or three witnesses. This is commonly reported.
It's very known that this man has been involved in this or this leader. Them that sin, it says, rebuke before all that others may fear. If I fell into sin, it would need to be brought before the church and declared to the church that I've sinned and that it would cause other people to be like, man, I don't want to fall into sin. I mean, it would be an intimidating thing and I would be removed from the pastorate. You wouldn't want a pastor in the office that I'm in that is in sin. And we see that unfortunately happen around the country where pastors can fall into sin. And I can tell you no one's above it, are they? No one's above it. Secondly, or third thought today, I want to answer two objections to confronting sin because there's, you know, we have on average 20 first-time visitors every week.
So there's probably some people like, man, this is the service to come to. All right. So let me give you two objections to confronting sin. Maybe this is coming to your mind or heart.
Maybe somebody who will watch this. First of all, Pastor Josh, confronting sin is judgmental and it's unloving. Second, confronting sin is unbiblical because it violates Matthew 7-1, which says judge not. You're teaching anti-biblical stuff.
So let me let me answer both of these. First of all, I can't believe you would confront someone about their sin. That is so judgmental.
That is so unloving. Who do you think you are? Well, first of all, consider the question or the statement, I should say, that's being asked. What is a person doing when they call you, you're being judgmental? What are they doing to you? They're judging you.
It's an illogical platform. Secondly, since sin is the most ruinous thing in a person's life, since it is the most destructive thing, it will destroy their life and it could ultimately have eternal consequences. Should you not seek to mitigate that from a person's life?
Should you let it go unchecked? Is that really loving? Let me put it this way. Say you have a friend, a close friend that you greatly love and that person fell into drugs. And this is a story that many of us probably have dealt with at some point. And they begin to struggle with drugs for years. Your heart breaks for them. You do everything you can to help them. But finally they get sober and cleaned up and you rejoice with them.
Each month you write them a letter congratulating them on another month being clean and sober. You see their lives being put back together and your old friend is back. They're not the man or the woman they used to be. Then one day you reach out to them and try to get a hold of them. They're not answering the phone.
You call again and again. This is just not the behavior that their new person is like and this is showing old style of patterns and ways. And so you get concerned to the point where you drive to their house. When you get to their house you can see that they're nervous. They're anxious and they confess to you that they were getting ready to leave and go get some drugs because there's just a lot of stress on their plate and they're just they just need to go get high one time to cut the edge off.
Let me ask you a question. What would you do? What would you do? You would plead with them. You would tell them you can't do that. You would you would beg them. You would say listen I'll stay with you all day. You would pray with them. You would do whatever you could to stop them. Now say a neighbor was outside and said who do you think you are to tell them how they should and should not live? What kind of judgmental person are you? Why don't you let them live their life and stop trying to control them? What would you say that neighbor?
You need to go mind your own business. Right? You say well, you know, but that's talking about drugs. Do you think sin is less deadly than drug?
Physically it may not be at that very moment as damaging as a putting fentanyl in your vein but spiritually it could ruin them for eternity. One bite of fruit was so destructive and one bite of fruit looked pretty innocent, right? And it destroyed mankind.
One bite of fruit didn't look like a big deal. Listen, sin is more deadly than heroin. It's more deadly than meth. It destroys, it ruins, it tears apart.
The consequences of sin far outweigh the consequences of any chemical. It isn't judgmental that causes a believer to confront another believer. It's love for them. You're compelled. You care for them so much. You're not looking down your nose at them.
You're reaching and pulling them out. That's the heart that has to be in a church. That's the heart of a family, isn't it?
I mean when you love someone you can't stand the thought of them being pulled away into some ruinous sin that would destroy their life. That's why verse 12 through 14, Jesus says what he says. Verse 12, how thank you that if a man have a hundred sheep and one of them be gone astray, does he not leave the ninety and nine and goes into the mountains, seeketh that which is gone astray?
He's so burdened. The wondering sheep must be restored. But today we live in a rebellious society to where they see discipline as an infringement on their rights. We hear it all the time, don't we? Kids get in trouble in school. I mean rightfully in trouble. And their parent and the kid are like, it's not my fault. They play the victim. Your kid is not the victim. He's the criminal. Right? Well, he has a teacher treating him bad.
That's probably good. What if it's unfair? Life is unfair. They'll probably have a boss that treats them fairly, probably a neighbor sometime, probably something else. I'm not saying that you should always allow injustice if it's that terrible, but I can tell you most of the time if a kid gets in trouble at school, I would say 99% of the time the teacher is probably right. Do you think the kids actually going to be like, you know what? I was mouthing back mom.
Let me tell you exactly how intense my attitude was. People in society often cannot accept punishment. We have a day, if you're down at the jail, everybody's innocent.
That right, Amy? Everybody's innocent. I didn't do it. It ain't my fault. It ain't my fault. It's what psychology teaches us now, right? You're born innocent. You got problems in your life. I took psychology.
I know what it teaches. You have like a society of super egos trying to push you down. It's not your fault. It's your society. It's your culture. It's something.
It's a police officer. Now listen, injustices can happen. Sometimes innocent people can be found guilty. I understand that is a reality, but most of the time, most of the time they're guilty.
That same attitude, this victim mentality can creep into a church and when people say, I have a right to do this. Have you confessed him as Lord? Have you have you repented and truly trusted Jesus as your Lord and Savior? If you're truly saved, how do you call him Lord Lord, but you're not willing to do what he says? I'm not talking about somebody who struggles with sin. I'm talking about somebody who's living in known sin and like I'm living here in this sin and nobody's gonna tell me I'm not allowed to do this. All of us struggle with sin every day of our life. It's one thing to struggle with sin.
It's another thing to not struggle with sin and just enjoy it and live it up, baby. One evidence is a believer. The other evidence is ultimately the person may not be saved and they need to be confronted to the point to see if they are saved or not.
Now, let me go to a second objection. Confronting sin is unbiblical because Matthew 7-1 says, judge not. Turn with me to Matthew 7-1. This is an important passage of Scripture. You know, years ago, John 3-16 was the most quoted verse in our country.
But, oh, John 3-16 was replaced and in its place became Matthew 7-1. Because Christians are just so judgmental. Let me ask you a question, you who grew up 30 to 40 years ago in churches. Do you think preaching today in our culture is as hot and heavy as it was 30 to 40, 50 years ago? Are you kidding me?
It's no way, right? We all know that. It's not that church is more judgmental. Today, churches are scared to death to even talk about it. It's not that church is more judgmental. Today, churches are scared to death to even talk about sin.
They don't even call it sin. They're like, you made mistakes. But you know what? Everybody makes mistakes. You know what you need to do with your mistakes? You just need to realize they're mistakes and just take it to God. And they just really make you feel like, well, listen, a mistake is when you put milk in the cabinet. Right?
Or the cereal in the refrigerator. That's a mistake. Violating a holy God's law is not a mistake. That is a sin. Difference, right?
We need to call it what it is. So here in Matthew 7-1, and the reason people have held on to Matthew 7-1 is because we don't want accountability in our culture for sin. Men love darkness rather than light because our deeds can be evil at times. So Matthew 7-1, I think, is the most misunderstood passage perhaps in the world. I even hear Christians say this.
It's just always like, I'm like, can we just have like a 10-minute conversation real quick because I need to walk you through this? But even Christians today say this, you know, we're not supposed to judge anyone. That is a utterly erroneous statement. That is a false statement. That's not true.
You heard it at lighthouse from Pastor Josh. You are to judge people. I know that sounds I'm going to take you through the Bible in just a moment, but you need to know this. The statement that you're not supposed to judge people is not true. If that's true, you could not parent your children. Because the moment your kid did something wrong, if you said that's wrong, you judge them.
Dad, I feel so judged right now. Right? It'd be like if you're a boss and you have a worker that's lied and stole some stuff. Well, I can't confront them because if I did, I'd be judging their actions as being wrong. Right?
You couldn't do anything. I hear Bill O'Reilly the other day talking about that. Like, you're not supposed to judge. I'm like, I'd love to have a conversation with him for about 15 minutes and clear his head up on that. The level of ignorance when people say you're not supposed to judge people. What Jesus is talking about here, because if you're not allowed to judge anybody, then that means you can't make any type of judgments on anything.
So what is he talking about here? Well, first of all, look at verse number one, and then we'll read a couple of the verses. He says, judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge you shall be judged, and with what measure you meet it shall be measured to you again. After he goes through this, he says this in verse six, give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast you pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you.
That's a pretty intense statement. Hogs and dogs. We're referring to people that were like outwardly expressively opposing the truth, like arrogant atheistic type of mindsets that were aggressive against the truth of God's word. How would you know who the hogs and dogs were if you didn't use discernment to judge that? He says in verse 15, notice what he says, beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they're ravening wolves.
How do you know who false prophets are without making a judgment on their teaching? And then in verse 16, he says you'll know them by their fruits. Verse 20, he says the same thing, and he's literally saying you'll know whether a person's saved by the fruit of their life.
It shows it. How do you know who people are if they're lost or saved without judging their fruits? Jesus here is clearly giving permission to discern between what is right and wrong. John 7 24, listen to what he says. He said judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment. He's literally telling people to judge people but do it with a right judgment.
God named a whole book of the Bible the book of judges. In Luke 17 3, take heed to yourself. If your brother trespasses or sins against you, rebuke him. To rebuke him means you're judging what he did was wrong.
Is this clear enough? 1 Thessalonians 5 14, now we exhort you brethren, warn them that are unruly. Well, how do you warn them without judging what they're doing is unruly?
It just goes on and on. I don't want to belabor the point. What you need to understand is this. The people in Jesus' day were judging people not because they wanted to restore them, not out of love, but he was surrounded by self righteous Pharisees who thought they could be good enough to get to heaven and that permeated the culture and it created a self-righteous system of religiosity that was extremely condemning, extremely harsh, and extremely critical. And he says in verse 1 he's telling them this is the wrong type of judgment.
You are to judge, but this is not the way you're supposed to do it. That's why he says what he does in verse 3 through 5. Notice what he says in verse 3. By the way, the word judge here is the Greek word kino, which is it's referring to that harsh type of judgment and it's in the present imperative which means in the Greek it was an action they were already doing. They were constantly doing this to each other.
And you see it and you just read the Bible. It's like, man, they're just harsh, man, on each other all the time. You know, they find a woman in adultery. They're like, let's kill her!
You know, knock her down, you know, they just, they just, just no, no mercy. But, but this, you know this is what Jesus is talking about, the wrong type of judgment, because look what he says in verse number 3. He says, and why beholdest thou the mote, the word there is more clearly understood as the word speck, like a small piece of soul dust. Now, if you get a piece of soul dust in your eye, you'll feel it. But he says, but they, they only have a speck in their eye. He says, but consider not the beam, the word beam there is talking about like a beam of a house, like a rafter beam.
And you got this, and this is hyperbole, right? But it's, it's this thing hanging out of your eyeball. Like, do you see that?
See what they did? And Jesus is like, don't you even see yourself? So he says, uh, he says, how can you say to your brother, let me pull out that motor, that speck out of your eye, and there's a beam hanging out of your own eye. He says, you're a hypocrite. Now, look what he says in verse 5.
First cast out the beam out of thine own eye, but make sure you don't talk about their speck because that would be judging them. Is that what he says? He says, once you've judged yourself, then you can make right judgments on others. Does that make sense?
Does that make sense? Once you've examined your own heart, then you can do that for other people. Not to push them down to bring them up. If somebody has a speck in their eye, it is very detrimental to the rest of their life, isn't it?
Even a small speck. And you'll help them get that out, and let me turn your head, and you're dripping it, and trying to get that out of their eye. And, and, and it's a spiritual idea there that that's what we are to do. He's teaching that before judgment is made upon the faults of others, we have to first examine our own hearts.
This is important for every one of us for us to hear. Are you harder on the sins of others than you are on your own? Raise your hand if you're guilty of that.
Truthful confession. Okay, some of us are being truthful. Others are probably not, and then others are just better than the rest of us.
There was a judgment rate right there. So it is a natural tendency to defend not the person who offends you, but to defend who? Ourself. That just lets us know where we kind of come from. Our presuppositions are wired that way. So, so we, we are to first examine our own heart. So if somebody offends you, you need to first check your own heart and see what you've done to create that opportunity for them to get offended, or to offend you. So, and again, when people say God says do not judge, God says do not judge. Ask them, you know, what does Matthew 7 verse 6 mean then in verse 15 and verse 20? Why did Jesus say judge righteous judgments? Why did he say if thy brother trespass against thee rebuke him? How can you rebuke somebody without judging them? Why did Jesus say in Matthew 18 15? I tell you your faults between the person and go to them in Matthew 18 15.
Why does he say that? So what he's talking about again in Matthew 7 1 is critical, harsh, unloving, judgmental, look down your nose on people type of judgment. Don't do that, but do right judgment. Judge people the right way.
And I think that that's good for every person in the world to understand, to, to deal with people that way. Now, so discipline is necessary. The heart of discipline is humility and love seeking to restore others, to keep the church pure, to exalt Christ and his words, to have a good testimony in the world. It is not to be in, not to be done in judgmental attitudes, but rather to be done in love, to confront the open sin, and it is not a violation of Matthew 7 1. It's not a, it's not a judgmental thing to confront people.
It's a loving thing. Now, let me give you an outline of what discipline looks like according to Christ, the steps for a church to take. And there are four of them laid out here in verse 15 through 18. First, one-on-one reconciliation is to be sought. In verse 15 he says, Moreover if thy brother, the word is Adelphos, in the Greek it just refers to a fellow believer.
It could be a man or a woman, a male or female. If your brother shall trespass against thee, the word trespass there is the verb form of Hamartia, which means to miss the mark. It's the word for sin translated as sin most of the time. Wherever if thy brother shall trespass against thee, that's why in verse 21, then Peter came and said, Lord, how often shall my brother Hamartia against me? He's asking him a question based on what Jesus is talking about. So, so this, so if somebody sins against you, it says, the first thing you're to do, it says, go and tell him has fought between thee and him alone.
And if he hears you, then you've gained your brother. And so Jesus had just back in verse 7 said that offenses will come, but he said they're so serious he says it would be better to die than allow that fence to come. So it's like you're grieved by the offense not because of what it's done to you, but because what it does against God. So what should you do if someone sins against you? It's important to understand just because you have been offended doesn't mean they've sinned against you.
This is the first thing. Just because you're offended doesn't mean they've committed a sin. A husband forgetting an anniversary, it's not that I've done this, is not a sin. It's not a sin if a husband or a wife forgets an anniversary. It's not a sin if your wife were to burn the biscuits.
If she burns the gravy, that's it's unreconcilable. You know sometimes people can get offended, but they've not been sinned against. I was in a church where a man got offended because he was supposed to pick out the ushers on one of the services.
Somebody else picked the ushers out. He got so upset he left the service that day. Nobody sinned against him.
He's got sin in his own heart, right? We had Chelicatli, we started the church there. We had a dinner early on and and everybody brought food in and somebody had made some macaroni and cheese. It just didn't look good. And nobody ate it.
Nobody ate it. The family got so offended. So offended. You know, there's 150 people there that night going through, you know, it was probably just a couple.
I mean, most of it didn't get touched. They were so offended, couldn't. I don't know if today they've ever gotten over that. They left the church. Nobody's sinned against them, you know. Fine, I don't want to sin against them. It's not a sin.
It's not a sin. Chelicatli, I remember we had we had so many people come into one of the services and our building was out of space. This stuff's happened here in the past before we went to two services and now it's filling up.
I mean, this is 830 service. Good crowd. And there was a back row right back where the entrance was and we reserved that for we wanted to reserve that for guests because people come in and we had nowhere to put them. I mean, the place was packed.
And we had about 400 people there. And so I asked this row of precious ladies. And they were older ladies and I was just young guys, you know, in my early 20s. And I figured, you know, they're sweet and older and godly. And I said, I said, sweet ladies. And they always got there early and took that back row and I said, would you mind like sitting, you know, over here?
We're going to reserve this for like when people come in late, sometimes guests and everybody's up singing, they can't see places sit. And I thought, and they're like, oh, okay. And I think like nine out of the ten of them were totally fine with that. They were like spiritually mature.
They went on. But one of them, I got a call on Monday night and she said, I've been going to church for 50 years and I can't believe you would tell me I can't sit in that chair and you would tell me to move. And she lit into me and all I could think of is this is the craziest thing I've ever heard.
I don't go, I mean, when you're in ministry, like you just don't even, it's like I would, I would sit on the floor for the guests coming in. I can't, I was thinking, not that I'm like some super spiritual, but I could not literally understand what she was talking about. So I rebuked her on the spot. I was like, your heart is wrong. I said, this is sinful. Your attitude, I just... My brother was a pastor. He didn't tell me how to handle it, but I did.
I was younger back then. And I said, I love you, but I'm telling you this is wrong. And I talked to her and so we hung up and I thought, I didn't know what to think. She wrote me a letter the next week apologizing for that, even gave me a $50 gift card. I thought, I'll light her up again if that's necessary. Come on back.
Here's round two for you, baby. I wasn't quite finished. No, but that, it wasn't a gift card that blessed my heart. It was honestly, I didn't need anything. I was so thankful that her heart was right with God. And I can tell you, there's times we can get offended and that's why we first have to check our hearts and say, did they sin against me or am I just being overly sensitive? Right?
It could just be me. Maybe it's just, early in the church here, there was a guy who brought corn. I don't know if he stayed up all night working this corn.
He made it as good as he could. And we had a big dinner and everybody's bringing their corn in. They bring them in all the dishes just like we had last Sunday. Man, that food was good. And so, right, and he had been nourishing this corn like a child and we had just big things of corn, you know, and there's hundreds of people coming through.
And the lady took his corn and dumped it in with the other corn and like mixed it. Oh, yeah, that was. You have just taken the elites and put it with the pagans, right? I mean, this guy was so upset.
He was done with Lighthouse after that, like he's done. But I can tell you, it's heartbreaking when you see that stuff, but what I'm trying to say is a lot of times in our life, offenses are not because of somebody sinning against us. It's just because we have some sensitivity that's really sinful, right?
You all know what I'm talking about? So we have to first examine our hearts and say, did they really sin or is this just me? Did they violate the Word of God?
Are they violating God's truth? So examine our self, first of all, pray. And then examine your heart. Is there anything that I did to sin against them? Maybe they said something that was sinful or did something against you that was sinful. Did you provoke that? Was there something you said or did?
Also, I've learned through the years that offenses are often misunderstandings due to a lack of clear communication. Me and a guy years ago, it was about six years ago, we were on the phone and we were misunderstanding each other and he was getting irritated with me and I was getting irritated with him because I'm like, why is he so sensitive? Does he make any sense? And he was upset with me and I was like, well, just get over it. Like, what are you talking about? And I was like, is this what you're talking about?
He's like, no. He said, I thought you meant. I was like, nah, it's not what I meant, and I'm not going to go into all the details, but it was just total miscommunication. We both started cracking up laughing on the phone. We're like, this is hilarious.
I thought you were like, nah, it's not what I was talking about. And so a lot of times it's just people can get offended because it's just total miscommunication. That happens to spouses, families, it happens in churches. The Bible warns against a quick and hasty judgment.
Proverbs 18, 13 says, he that answers a matter before he hears it, it's folly and shame to him. Always remember there's more to the story than probably what you perceived. Get their side. Sometimes people are going through some stuff and maybe causing them to be heated up in life.
If something sounds off, it probably isn't the full story. Don't jump to conclusions quickly against people. One way to avoid this is by going to the person who offended you and wronged you and asked them about it. Don't come to a judgment.
Rather go not with condemning responses to them, but go to them with questions saying, listen, I'm not sure what you meant by this, but I just wanted to get some clarification. What did you mean by that? I would assume that this is not what you were meaning, but could you clarify that for me?
Because I don't want to come to any wrong conclusion. So you go to them. You do it in love. And a key to this is you do it alone so it doesn't spread. Secondly, you take one or two witnesses. It says, but if you will not hear thee, then take one or two more in the mouth of two or three witnesses.
Every word may be established. Galatians 6, 1 says take somebody that's spiritual with you. And the word restore in Galatians 6, 1 is like restoring a bone out of place and you do it in a spirit of meekness.
You go to them. You do it in a humble way. If they won't listen to that situation where you've gone with a brother or sister in Christ, let's sit down and talk about this because you want to get clarity and sometimes those other people could say, hey, you know, they did do this wrong, but also there are some things you did and they're able to restore and reconcile and be another voice of reason. The third step, it says in verse 17, Matthew 18 says, and if he will neglect to hear them, tell it to the church.
The third step is to take it to the church. This is a rare event, but it means it's a serious sin. And this you see in the Bible, there were things brought before the church such as open sexual sin in the church. 1 Corinthians 5, a man was sleeping with his stepmom and the church was not confronting it but allowing it to go on and Paul rebukes it publicly. Open false teaching going on in Titus 1, verse 10 and 11.
There were unruly false teachers and they needed to be confronted. We've done this at our church. We had a guy one time spreading false teaching, sending it to everybody in the church. We had to stand up on a Sunday morning and say, this individual is sending this false teaching around the church. We do not approve of that. And if we don't confront that publicly because it became public, people could think the church is promoting that false teaching and it creates big problems.
It's a loving thing to do that. Someone causing division with heretical teachings in the church, Titus 3, 10 says, a man that is a heretic in the first and second admonition, reject them. When somebody is promoting heresy and division, they need to be confronted. And after the small group goes through that, if they reject that and they continue to promote that, then it needs to be dealt with in a public way. Elders and pastors who fall into open, known sin, 1 Timothy 5 says they are to be confronted.
A persistent, unrepentant sin in the life of a believer, according to Matthew 18, Galatians 6, 1 is to be dealt with that way. At this third step, it is no longer closed to just two or three people. It now involves the entire church body. And the church as a whole, as a loving family, seeks to restore the person. They're now partaking in helping restore the person back into a right relationship.
And then the step 4 is a removal or restoration. Verse 17, he says this, but if he neglects to hear the church, if he rejects everyone who seeks to counsel him, if he rejects the individual, he rejects the small counsel of spiritual leaders, if he rejects the churches seeking to bring them back, then it says then you need to view them as a, he talks about here as a heathen man or a publican. Another way you could say that is you need to view them as being lost. They're an evangelistic opportunity at that point. If somebody continues in sin, it evidences that they're not a true believer.
That's what that's talking about. According to Jesus, unrepentant sin reveals a lost condition. You mean they can lose their salvation? I don't believe you can lose your salvation.
I believe it reveals they never were in the family. Church discipline puts unbelievers out of the church. And it doesn't mean that you, we don't kick people out of the church, but what it means is you view them as a lost individual. They're no longer going to be serving in the ministries. They're no longer going to be serving in things if they're caught up in false teaching, if they're caught up in some open, known sin.
We're going to deal with that. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9 and 10, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? He says don't you know that unrighteous people will not enter the kingdom of God? They're not going to heaven.
And then look what he lists. Be not deceived. Don't be deceived. I know America's culture will say they will, and their Christian culture will say, but don't be deceived, neither fornicators. That's sexual, immoral people, people who have sex with people they're not married to, nor idolaters, people who put things in front of God in their life, nor adulterers, those who have sex with people that are married, nor effeminate. The word means homosexuality.
It's translated like that in most translations. Nor abusers of themselves with mankind. That's sodomy.
That even goes further. Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, those are verbally abusive people, nor extortioners, those are swindlers and fraudsters, shall inherit the kingdom of God. They're not going to heaven. And all of those are continual sins that they will not repent of.
They just live that way. He says be not deceived. People who live in these lifestyles aren't going to heaven. So the church acts on the behalf of God to go to them, to seek to restore them, to bring them to repentance so they can be in heaven one day. In a church that's silent toward those things, evidence is they don't really love the people because they're more concerned about being comfortable by not confronting things, even if it would cost the person their eternity. But if you love people enough, you'll go to them.
You'll care enough to be like, man, my heart is broken for you. I couldn't imagine what would happen to you if you continued down this road, and I love you too much not to come to you. So if you want to know what Lighthouse is about, we're about a church that loves people enough to tell them the consequence of sin. It's the most deadly thing. It costs Jesus Christ his life, and we are not okay with people living in open and known sin. It can cause ruin to a church, ruin to the name of Christ, and ruin to the person's soul.
There's a lot of things I could talk about. Our time is really pressed. People say, well, won't discipline keep people from coming to church? Well, sure, if you're building a church with unbelievers. Christ builds the true church. It's his church. I'm not here to build Josh's church. This isn't Josh's church. This isn't your church. This is Christ's church, right? He wrote the book, right?
I mean, we're not making this stuff up. You know the first act of church discipline is in Acts 5. Remember what Jesus did? A couple of people lied in the church, and guess what happened to them? God killed them. The first act of church discipline, God literally takes their life for lying.
Aren't you thankful he doesn't kill everybody for lying? What do you think that did to the church? You think it killed it? You know what the Bible says in Acts 5 and 11? And great fear came upon all the church and as many as heard these things. And then in verse 14, and believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.
Just exploded. Now, let me finish up these last couple of verses. These are so important. Look at verse 18. Verily I say unto you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. That binding and loosing is something we looked at back in Matthew 16. And it literally means this, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall have already been loosed in heaven. What it's saying is, heaven is an agreement with you when you are in the authority of God's word provoking church discipline, applying that, heaven is in agreement with that. You have the authority of heaven on this. God's stamp of approval's on this. The Lord's with you in this.
Heaven is in agreement here. Christ continues with this assurance and he says in verse 19, again I say unto you, and this is probably some of the most, two most misinterpreted verses in the Bible. People think verse 19 and 20 have to do with small group prayer meetings.
It's not what it's about. Verse 19, and again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they ask, it shall be done for them of my Father, which is in heaven, where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst. People are like, well we have a small service, where two or three are gathered, God's in the midst. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about dealing with sin, confronting sin, dealing with church discipline, and he says when that happens, he says I am in the midst of that. When even two or three of you, the two or three who went and dealt with that individual that was in sin, I'm in the midst of that discipline situation. That's what he's talking about. And the prayer there is talking about where you would bring it to God in prayer, you would seek his counsel, his guidance. So what do we see here? We see that when you apply church discipline, the second time the church is even talked about in the gospels, he's talking about discipline, the priority of that, and you see the importance of it in Acts chapter five. He deals with it right away. And heaven is in agreement with that, and he says heaven's stamp of approval is on that process.
So I can tell you if you want a God blessed church, it's not just building a crowd, but it's building a biblical congregation, this has to be imposed. This is love, isn't it? Who loves you enough right now that if you were to fall into sin and they found out about it that they would come to you and say, man, there's no way you can continue into that?
Do you have anybody that loves you enough to do that? That's a wonderful grace. Now, you are not to be a detective.
Right? The Bible says when it's commonly reported among people. That's what First Corinthians five, the standard was.
It was just common. They dealt with it in bringing them to repentance. You know the people you love in life are those who love you enough to encourage you in the ways of the Lord. Sin unchecked will cause a church to crumble, it will cause a Christian to crumble, it will cause a home to crumble. Is your life clean before God?
So much more could be said on that. That's why the Lord's table, it says examine yourself, right? Before you would partake. And so let us examine ourself to make sure we're clean before God. Let's all stand this morning.
