(Matthew 18: 16-21)

Introduction.

Let’s pick up where we left off last time and let me re-read the text.

16 But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ 17 And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. 18 “Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you lose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19 “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”

Peter got the point as far as it goes to forgiving the other person. But suppose he says, what is step two, which takes us back to verse 16 where Jesus said, that if they don’t hear what you are saying then take with you one or two more as witnesses and discuss it again. If you do the first thing there are no guarantees it doesn’t mean that the person will receive you, that implies that they do not repent they do not agree with you and they don’t change their position. They don’t apologize and they just stick to their story, and in my experience what they do at this point is say is not my fault and they might try and blame somebody, maybe even you. That technique started with Adam, when he said it’s the woman you gave me, it not my fault, in fact it your fault God for sending me this woman. That’s the number one psychological problem of the human race,  blame shifting, and we’re all guilty of it. I know how to do it sadly and would still be inclined to do it if I didn’t closely monitor myself. But let me say, blame shifting is about the worst thing you could do in terms of human relationships. Some people won’t hear you no matter what you say to them, no matter how many times you say it, they’re not going to hear you. In fairness it may be because when the grew up they were constantly criticized by a parent and have development a defensive attitude in order so they can feel safe and can survive in the world.

. 16 But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’

(Matthew 18: 16)

Step 2.

If they don’t listen to you first time Jesus says, at that point is you take somebody else with you. Jesus here is no doubt alluding to a verse in Deuteronomy chapter 19 where Moses laid down the stipulation that in order to prove a case you needed to have two or three witnesses. Now we’re assuming at this point that somebody has sinned against You and you have proof and they’re refusing to acknowledge the proof. So, what we are doing is taking somebody else to demonstrate that you have followed procedure and to verify exactly what’s going on so that this is no longer a, he said, she said, situation it’s not, my word against yours.

I think we have a modern technique that’s used in addiction situations where a family do what is called an intervention that when somebody has a problem that is affecting others you take the other with you and try and tell the person how their actions have affected everybody. It interesting to me that this technique was developed by Alcoholics Anonymous, a who of course were entirely born out of a Christian response to the problems alcohol was creating in society. This bringing together witnesses was usually applied to people who have an addiction, and they aren’t willing to acknowledge it, perhaps that's the idea here. 

You're going to take several people and perhaps the two of you can convince this person that there is a problem that needs to be dealt with. But suppose that doesn’t work what do you do then well that takes us to step 3.

Step 3.

Step 1 was go on your own. step 2 was to take somebody with you and now we're down to step 3.

 And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church.

This is not about people standing up in front of a church on a Sunday morning and saying someone has sinned against me, that would just lead to chaos. Look at how we are shown the church community dealt with a problem in Acts chapter 15. They had a problem and they sent it to the church at Jerusalem to solve it. That chapter in its entirety suggest to me that you begin to discuss the problem more widely by bringing it to the leaders of the church. This is one of the passages that’s written directly to teach on  church discipline, and it also talks about in Galatians Ch 6 that if someone falls we should try and spiritual restore them.

I’m going to suggest that the church is involved only when the first two steps have been exhausted. But at this point it is taken to the elders that you take the problem to the elders and let them solve it, if at all possible, behind the scenes without it getting too complicated. In other words,  let spiritually minded leaders deal with the problem. There are plenty of spiritually minded people that you could find to sit down and say here’s the situation give me some advice. In this case I think it would be imperative that you start with the spiritual leaders of the church. But if they don’t want to do that here’s the alternative, if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. And if they won’t do that let them be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.

This is usually interpreted to mean that what you do is you excommunicate the person but that’s not even close to what I think what this passage is teaching. Does one excommunicate the heathen and the tax collectors, Matthew was a tax collector, no, rather I think this is a Jewish expression and it simply meant that what you did is you didn’t eat with them. That’s what you did with a non-believer, from the Jewish religious leaders’ point of view in the 1st century you didn’t sit down and eat with them. That it seems to me is in line with something that it said in another passage dealing with church discipline, so turn with me to, First Thessalonians chapter 3 and there’s some words verse 14.

“Make special note of anyone who does not obey our instruction in this letter. Do not associate with them, in order that they may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard them as an enemy but warn them as you would a fellow believer.

(2 Thessalonians 3: 14)

You see you are marking him out by not associating with him which would include not eating with him but you’re not counting him as an enemy you’re not excommunicating him totally you’re just putting some social pressure on him and you’re admonishing him as a brother. This is a critical verse in this discussion.

Many godly Bible teachers that I respect who have suggested that what this really amounts to is not allowing them to have the Lord’s table in the assembly, not that you exclude them from the fellowship, or excommunicate them from the assembly, but that you simply refuse to allow them to partake of the Lord’s table which is the idea of not eating with them. You’re not treating them as an enemy but admonishing them as a brother or sister. In first Corinthians 6 Paul specifically says do not go to court over a dispute with a brother, so the point of this is you take it to the church and deal with it there.

18 “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.

(Matthew 18: 18-19)

I think these relate to the church and that’s why we need to consider them the first. Binding and losing, as I explained when this when we looked at this in Matthew 16 was used of the Jewish teachers to mean that the teachers of the law could bind and loose that meant they would permit somethings and prohibit other things. Binding and losing is the church deciding what should be right and what should be wrong. What should be prohibited and what should be permitted, now the fact that this was already done in heaven indicates that what the church is doing is abiding by the word of God so they’re going to permit or forbid something depending on what the scripture says. What Jesus is saying is the church ought to do this and you’ve got heaven behind when you do it according to the scriptural precepts.

This verse gets quoted all the time for people trying to get an answer to prayer they say two of us are agreed and therefore it will be done but this is not talking about prayer in general where arbitrarily two people decide something and say God is bound to do it. That’s rip this verse from its context the context is what discipline of the church should be used and the context is what the church decided based on the scripture what should be permitted and what should be prohibited it is in that context that if two people or three or agreed then it will be done. Concluding by saying, “where two or three are gathered together in my name there I will be in the midst”.  

So, the Lord is promising if you do what I’m telling you to do based on the scripture I will bless it you will have heaven behind you. Alright that takes us down to the end of the passage and I’d like to wrap it up. I think one way to summarize this passage is really simple.  If somebody thins against you, you’re to do three things. One, go alone and speak with them. Two, take somebody with you and speak to them again.  Three,  take it to the church and discuss it there, but only after exhausting the first two.

Summary.

I want to conclude by making a couple of observations about that.

Firstly, offenses between people are going to have. It’s going to happen. Being a Christian does not inoculate you against somebody sinning against you that is a fact. Recognizing that Christians are not perfect we’re just striving to be like Christ, and we make mistakes just like everybody else. One of the truths I get out of this passage is it’s going to happen.

Another thing I see here is Jesus tells us what to do but it’s not guaranteed, you can’t guarantee that this is going to work, he doesn’t say it’s going to work which is why he says  at the end of step one if it hasn’t worked try step two. And if that doesn’t work, go to step three and he doesn’t even say that will work. We  just need to recognize the fact that sometimes this does not work.

As a younger Christian I always thought these teaching would work, but I’ve since learned many people won’t budge. Some people just get hard hearted, and they won’t budge. Even Paul and Barnabas had a conflict they separated, and we never hear from Barnabas again and they were two of the most spiritual in the early church, it just happens alright, and this is the godly way to address it and if you have tried that then you have done all you could to try and bring peace and reconciliation. I want to say a personal word what’s going on in this passage and what’s really trying to tell us. I have wrestled with this passage because when looking at it in detail I kept scratching my head saying why did he bring that up here and now, and how does that fit in a chapter on relationships.I guess you could just superficially say that advise about how when a relationship breaks down, go deal with it. 

I have another observation to make, and I think this is the single most important thing I’m going to say on this what’s going on here. I think to fully understand this that you got to understand what I said in the previous episode, back in verse 12, Jesus said.

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.

Jesus ends the prior passage by saying, what you got to think about other people and try and restore them when they fall away. Because the son of man came to seek and to save that which is lost. He says, if somebody goes astray go after them and then he said if somebody sins against you what you should do hear, and please hear me you go after them with the same attitude because that’s what Jesus would do and came to do. Going after them is nothing to do with proving that you are right it’s to get them restored. This is really ultimately about the other person.

Think about this for just a minute, this is very important, if this was you and I went to the person, and they wouldn’t hear you and then even if I took somebody else and they couldn’t listen to you what would be the biblical thing be to do?

It’s all about the other person, I’m not about  trying to get vindicated pr proved write, it’s about restoring the relationship with a brother or sister and I’m trying to get them restored to the Lord. It’s about the other person and that is the key to relationships, when you think about yourself that’s when we get into conflict and when you think about the other person that’s when we get into resolution. 

I submit to you our problem is we walking around thinking about ourselves and not about the other person. I have concluded this is an extension of the conclusion of the previous paragraph. The difference between spiritual and unspiritual community is not whether conflict exists but it is rather in the attitude toward it when it happens and our approach to handling it. When conflict is seen as an opportunity to draw more fully on our spiritual resources, we have the makings of a spiritual community. In other words, it is how we handle the conflict that determines the level of our spiritual maturity we achieve, both individually and collectively. If you want to deal with this in a Christ like manner you help the other person, be restored to where they ought to be spiritually and in how graciously and gently you approach that determines your level and is an indication of your level of spiritual maturity.