SPEAKER_00: Second Corinthians, chapter two.
SPEAKER_00: As you do, I ask you, which one do you think is harder?
SPEAKER_00: To confront someone or to forgive someone?
SPEAKER_00: Both are necessary, both are commanded of us as Christians, and both of them require a degree of courage.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly, if we are going to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ, then we will need to be able to do both of those things, confront and forgive.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus himself confronted sin without compromise.
SPEAKER_00: We just read it in the Gospel of John.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, without any contradiction, without a hint of hypocrisy at all, he also demonstrated an incredible mercy and compassion in extending forgiveness to all who sought it of him.
SPEAKER_00: And you don't have to look very far in the gospel accounts to see both of these things happening.
SPEAKER_00: You only have to make it to Peter.
SPEAKER_00: When Peter sinfully, foolishly is confronting Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus looks him in the eye and says, get behind me, Satan.
SPEAKER_00: That is direct.
SPEAKER_00: That is as direct as it gets.
SPEAKER_00: I have confronted people in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I have as so far not yet called one Satan.
SPEAKER_00: That's as confrontational as it gets.
SPEAKER_00: Direct, clear, calling a sinful act what it is.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, that very same Peter, who denied him three times before the cockrows, who uttered words through lying lips, upon falling down before Jesus by the water of the sea, was three times reminded of his love and recommissioned back into kingdom service.
SPEAKER_00: Is that not just as direct?
SPEAKER_00: Just as clear.
SPEAKER_00: Calling a sinful man back into fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: And so if we're gonna be like Jesus, and I want to be like Jesus, I think you want to be like Jesus, if we're gonna be like Jesus, then we have to be able to do both.
SPEAKER_00: We have to be able to confront sin and forgive sinners.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus even gives us the process for what that looks like.
SPEAKER_00: We call it church discipline.
SPEAKER_00: And these past few Sundays in the morning, we have, by God's grace, been able to look extensively at the Lord's instruction to his church on how to do church discipline.
SPEAKER_00: I thought it would be a missed opportunity if we didn't kind of round out that teaching.
SPEAKER_00: And if our commission as Christians is to go and make disciples and then to teach them to observe everything that Jesus commanded, well, what do you do when a disciple isn't observing what was commanded?
SPEAKER_00: If that's our job, what do we do when people sin?
SPEAKER_00: And if all of Scripture is inspired by God and it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, well, then it stands to reason that there are going to be some times in your life as a Christian when you're going to have to use Scripture in every one of those ways.
SPEAKER_00: There are going to be times when you are going to be called to reproof or correct.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the trick.
SPEAKER_00: Both confrontation and forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Both reproof and reconciliation, both of them are drawn out of the same well.
SPEAKER_00: They both come from the same source.
SPEAKER_00: And so a church that refuses to discipline, or a Christian that refuses to correct, is simply refusing to love.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we consider the idea of church discipline, there are really three kind of critical crux passages in Scripture that we go to to understand it.
SPEAKER_00: Three key passages that guide us and teach us and constrain us in how to do it well.
SPEAKER_00: The first of which is Matthew 18, verses 15 through 20, which are the Lord's direct instruction.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus teaching us how to do church discipline.
SPEAKER_00: And we've looked at that quite a bit.
SPEAKER_00: But there are two other passages that we need to look at to understand discipline rightly.
SPEAKER_00: And they both come in Paul's letter to the church and Corinth, in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, and in 2 Corinthians chapter 2, which are really in effect just a practical application of what the Lord has taught the church to do in Matthew 18.
SPEAKER_00: You can think of it this way: Matthew 18 are the instructions in 1 Corinthians 5, 2 Corinthians 2 are the practical examination.
SPEAKER_00: And you need all three of these passages working together, or else you're gonna miss the mark in trying to do discipline.
SPEAKER_00: A church that only reads one of them is going to fall off of the balance beam one way or the other.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna look at them briefly here for a second.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew chapter 18, we hear Jesus laying out the steps of church discipline.
SPEAKER_00: And he does so with a particular focus on the effect of discipline and the heart of the individual being disciplined.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew chapter 18, a passage we've looked at so closely as a church together, Jesus says to his disciples, if your brother sins against you, go.
SPEAKER_00: Tell him his fault.
SPEAKER_00: Between you and him alone.
SPEAKER_00: If he listens to you, you've gained your brother.
SPEAKER_00: But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.
SPEAKER_00: And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven, for where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.
SPEAKER_00: Now we've looked at this passage with Jesse on Sunday mornings.
SPEAKER_00: I won't belabor it too much, but we will draw out the idea here that what's happening in Matthew 18 is Jesus is laying out the steps of discipline.
SPEAKER_00: And in so doing, he's really drawing the attention on discipline to the effect it has on the individual heart of the person receiving church discipline.
SPEAKER_00: If somebody sins, Jesus says, Well, go to them privately, man to man.
SPEAKER_00: Look them in the eye over a Starbucks coffee and tell them what they've done.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Let them know, friend, I love you.
SPEAKER_00: But that was disobeying God.
SPEAKER_00: And if they listen, praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You gain your brother.
SPEAKER_00: That's wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: But if not, if they won't listen, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Well then go back with a couple other friends.
SPEAKER_00: Try again.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this time they'll listen to the collective wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: And if not, you'll have people who are there to say, hey, we are trying to help this person follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And if they still won't listen, then you bring it to the church and you allow the whole weight of the church's witness to help them see the seriousness of their sin, to see the magnitude of what it means to disobey their Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And if he still won't listen even to that, well then you treat him like someone who doesn't listen to the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: If he still won't listen to the entire church coming alongside and saying, friend, you need to follow Jesus here.
SPEAKER_00: Well then you treat him, Jesus says, like a Gentile and like a tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: And so the point here in Matthew 18, the point here is that discipline is a gift that the person receiving it has in order to help them follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of the idea in the Matthew 18 section.
SPEAKER_00: It's really zeroing in on a bullseye on what it's supposed to do in that person's heart and how you do it as a church, step by step.
SPEAKER_00: Now you flip over to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: The next passage of the three.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll see kind of the other aspect of church discipline come into effect.
SPEAKER_00: This is Paul applying it.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul writes, It's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that's not tolerated even among pagans.
SPEAKER_00: For a man has his father's wife, and you are arrogant.
SPEAKER_00: Ought you not rather to mourn?
SPEAKER_00: Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
SPEAKER_00: For though I am absent in body, I am present in spirit, and is as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.
SPEAKER_00: So when you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Your boasting is not good.
SPEAKER_00: Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
SPEAKER_00: Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened.
SPEAKER_00: For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.
SPEAKER_00: Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
SPEAKER_00: I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, since then you'd have to go out of the world.
SPEAKER_00: But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother, if he's guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one.
SPEAKER_00: For what have I to do with judging outsiders?
SPEAKER_00: Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?
SPEAKER_00: God judges those outside.
SPEAKER_00: Purge the evil person from among you.
SPEAKER_00: Really, all Paul is doing here is putting into action what Jesus had told them to do in Matthew 18.
SPEAKER_00: So again, we're seeing the process for church discipline being laid out.
SPEAKER_00: But this time, the emphasis that Paul leans into, the bullseye of this target, is more about the effect discipline has on the church corporate.
SPEAKER_00: Because there is both an individual aspect to church discipline, it does something in the heart of the person being disciplined, but it also does something in the heart of the church corporately.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says there's an undeniable act of disobedience going on in the church.
SPEAKER_00: And not only does everybody know about it, nobody's doing anything about it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of being tolerated.
SPEAKER_00: You guys are just okay with this happening.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, you have got to discipline this person, both for their good and for your good.
SPEAKER_00: So the next time you gather as a church, just as if I was there with you, you've got to publicly disfellowship him.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, you've got to deliver him over to Satan.
SPEAKER_00: You got to put them outside of the fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: They can't be a part of the corporate life of the church now.
SPEAKER_00: This person is kept away from the fellowship of the saints.
SPEAKER_00: And they are going to experience pain, he says.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a bug of the system, that's a feature of the system.
SPEAKER_00: You deliver them over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be painful to be disciplined.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what kind of pain is a person going to experience?
SPEAKER_00: It's been disciplined out of the church.
SPEAKER_00: Well, they're going to experience things like isolation.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to experience things like loneliness.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to feel a disruption in their normal rhythms and routines.
SPEAKER_00: They used to wake up on Sunday morning and brew a pot of coffee, turn on a little river turnpike.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I can't go right.
SPEAKER_00: I can't go to a manual this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And that blinker slightly going to the left is going to remind them of what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to feel a loss of assurance when the Christians that they have associated with for all these years are saying, Friend, I don't think you're following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I at least can't stand beside you and say you're a follower of Jesus anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And then in addition to that, they're going to experience all the pain which comes as the natural consequence of them continuing to live in their unrepentant sin.
SPEAKER_00: All the things that Dan talked about this morning, the unfulfilling, gnawing hunger of the expensive junk food of sin.
SPEAKER_00: It is always costly.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul says you let them experience that pain in the hope that it will produce and lead them to salvation, which isn't individual motivation.
SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, Paul says, even if that's not what happens, you've still got to do it for your own sake as a church.
SPEAKER_00: The health of the congregation is on the line if you don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul is flabbergasted by these Corinthians who refuse to practice church discipline.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You guys are boasting about this?
SPEAKER_00: You're boasting about it?
SPEAKER_00: About tolerating unrepentant sin in the congregation?
SPEAKER_00: Here, there is a kind of wickedness that even pagans would turn their face at, and they're patting themselves on the back and giving themselves high fives and attaboys.
SPEAKER_00: For what?
SPEAKER_00: What do you think that actually sounded like?
SPEAKER_00: They're boasting about their toleration of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Probably sounded like, man, we're so gentle.
SPEAKER_00: We are so compassionate.
SPEAKER_00: We're so patient and tolerant.
SPEAKER_00: They think that what they're doing is loving.
SPEAKER_00: But actually they're being foolish, and what they're actually doing is unloving.
SPEAKER_00: And it's dangerous, Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: The hair grove hawks, and so we do homeschool science.
SPEAKER_00: Our daughters do homeschool science, and uh well, the fun thing about homeschool is that everything gets to be science.
SPEAKER_00: And so our youngest daughter, this Friday, Friday, Saturday, Saturday, someday this weekend, our youngest daughter prepared our homemade pizza dough with my wife.
SPEAKER_00: And so she's making the pizza dough, and as you know, you're making your pizza dough, you sprinkle in a little bit of yeast, right?
SPEAKER_00: Sprinkle a little bit of yeast.
SPEAKER_00: You can't even see it.
SPEAKER_00: It's tiny, right?
SPEAKER_00: Just, I mean, it's barely even there.
SPEAKER_00: And then you put in some sugar and you put in some flour and you build a little environment conducive to growth, and then this little sprinkled yeast that you couldn't even pick out with the naked eye just sits there in a dark place, untouched, and it causes the whole loaf to grow and expand.
SPEAKER_00: It changes the entire character of the entire loaf.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the case of yeast, for the better, but what's Paul's point here?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you understand?
SPEAKER_00: When you don't do something about that sin, when you just sprinkle in a little bit of sin, and you give it an environment that's conducive to its growth, which, for the record, all of our sinful hearts are conducive to the growth of sin.
SPEAKER_00: But you give it an environment like that and you leave it untouched, you just kind of cover it up and let it proof, you will change the entire character of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And make no mistake about it, sin is always eager to grow.
SPEAKER_00: Sin never remains static.
SPEAKER_00: It's always growing, it is always spreading.
SPEAKER_00: You can see it in your own heart, you can see it in your own life.
SPEAKER_00: A little bit of coveting slowly turns into discontentment, and then discontentment ripens into bitterness.
SPEAKER_00: Sin never remains static.
SPEAKER_00: Lustful glances become lustful gazes, become lustful actions.
SPEAKER_00: Sin, like the Roman Empire of old, is always seeking to expand its borders.
SPEAKER_00: It's never satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: And that is why you put it to death as soon as you find it.
SPEAKER_00: Every gardener will tell you, when you let a thing grow roots, it becomes twice as hard to kill later.
SPEAKER_00: So you put sin to death.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul is writing to these Corinthians who are just content to let it grow.
SPEAKER_00: And he reminds them of the Lord's instructions.
SPEAKER_00: I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty.
SPEAKER_00: And then he lists a handful of sins: idolatry, covetousness, swindlers.
SPEAKER_00: These little sprinkled-in sins, if you don't do anything about them, and you leave them in an environment where they can grow, that's what they're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: And they'll spread across the whole church.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, purge the evil person from among you.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that sounds harsh.
SPEAKER_00: I can hear it.
SPEAKER_00: But it only sounds harsh because Paul is writing with the kind of urgency that realizes the danger of leaving unchecked, unrepentant sin to thrive inside of the congregation.
SPEAKER_00: And so church discipline is therefore both a very serious and sombre responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Now that doesn't mean you're supposed to be harsh when you do it.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the exact opposite is true.
SPEAKER_00: When Paul is writing to the Galatians in chapter 6, he says, if someone is caught in sin, then those of you who are spiritually mature go to them with gentleness and introspection.
SPEAKER_00: So church discipline is not intended to be a Gestapo like um harassment.
SPEAKER_00: It's gentle, it's compassionate, it's loving, but it is confrontation.
SPEAKER_00: And in the verses leading up to the passage we will be looking at tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Paul reveals what the heart of a person who is trying to be both gentle and firm, trying to be both loving and correcting looks like.
SPEAKER_00: So even though sometimes confrontive words are necessary as a Christian, they must come through affection.
SPEAKER_00: They must boil up out of anguished hearts and tear-filled eyes and soft.
SPEAKER_00: And frankly, I fear that most of us are not tender enough to discipline well.
SPEAKER_00: Nonetheless, we must discipline.
SPEAKER_00: And we must do so out of love.
SPEAKER_00: Love for the sinner and love for the saints.
SPEAKER_00: And we discipline with a heavy dose of humility.
SPEAKER_00: And we also discipline with unrestrained hope that the Holy Spirit is going to do his work.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, we believe the gospel works.
SPEAKER_00: So we discipline because we're commanded to, but we also discipline because we're confident the Lord uses it for his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: But then that leads to a very natural question.
SPEAKER_00: So what do you do when discipline works?
SPEAKER_00: And that's why you need the third key passage, 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 5 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to read them together now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to start reading at the beginning of chapter 2 to run into it, but we're going to spend our time in verses 5 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians, I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you.
SPEAKER_00: For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I pained?
SPEAKER_00: And I wrote as I did, so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: For I felt sure of all of you that my joy would be the joy of you all.
SPEAKER_00: For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain, but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely, to all of you.
SPEAKER_00: For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough.
SPEAKER_00: So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.
SPEAKER_00: For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I've forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we're not ignorant of his designs.
SPEAKER_00: What do you do when discipline works?
SPEAKER_00: Now, there may be some outstanding theologians and homiliticians in the room who would quibble with that choice of title.
SPEAKER_00: I understand.
SPEAKER_00: They would tell me that, Alex, discipline works even if the person doesn't repent.
SPEAKER_00: That it's still a success when the church is obedient to the command of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: To that, I say, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I agree completely.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not changing my title.
SPEAKER_00: What do you do when discipline works?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what do you do?
SPEAKER_00: When you bring a person through the discipline process and it prompts repentance.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 2, this is why you need all three of the passages.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 2 fills out our understanding of church discipline in a glorious way because it shows us that church discipline gives us the opportunity to glorify Christ by showing his forgiveness at work in us.
SPEAKER_00: When we receive repentant sinners back, we bring glory to Christ through his gospel.
SPEAKER_00: So we have a church discipline policy here at Emanuel Bible Church that was chiseled into stone way back in the ancient year of 1998.
SPEAKER_00: So I assume that back then the elders in between going to the movie theater to watch Titanic would like fire up their brand newly released IMAX and typed up a church discipline policy.
SPEAKER_00: And that policy, as we have it here at the Mania Bible Church, has four steps in it.
SPEAKER_00: There are four steps as we lay it out, the church discipline policy, and those steps correspond to what you read in Matthew chapter 18.
SPEAKER_00: Step one, you go to a person in private, you talk to them in private, you try to talk to them about their sin and hope that they receive that and repent.
SPEAKER_00: Step two, you go to them in a small group, you bring a couple of people, you talk to them again, and you hope that they will receive that and repent.
SPEAKER_00: Step three, if they still won't listen, you bring them to the church elders.
SPEAKER_00: And then the church elders, as the leadership of the church, will reason with this person and call this person to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: And if they won't listen to the church elders at a median Bible church, step four is that we would read this person's name before the congregation so that the whole church would be able to treat that person like a Gentile and like a tax collector, putting the weight of the entire church's witness on them.
SPEAKER_00: Now you might think that the fourth step of our policy, being the fourth step out of four steps, is the final step.
SPEAKER_00: But if you were to think that, you would be mistaken.
SPEAKER_00: Because the fourth step of discipline, the disfellowship portion of discipline, is only the penultimate step of discipline.
SPEAKER_00: The ultimate step of discipline, the final step of discipline, the step that we hope all discipline arrives at is repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: But you can't number that step because it can happen at any point in the process.
SPEAKER_00: It could happen after your Starbucks conversation or after your small group conversation.
SPEAKER_00: It could happen when they come to speak to the elders.
SPEAKER_00: It could happen after their name is read.
SPEAKER_00: It could happen 20 years after their name is read.
SPEAKER_00: So you can't number that step, but that's where we hope it goes.
SPEAKER_00: Discipline is not about being in or out.
SPEAKER_00: It's always about looking up and finding forgiveness in Christ and then following Him together.
SPEAKER_00: And the particular question that this passage is dealing with is what does reconciliation like?
SPEAKER_00: What does forgiveness look like when repentance comes after step four?
SPEAKER_00: When you've read a person's name, when the whole congregation knows about their sin now.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what does forgiveness look like in that moment?
SPEAKER_00: And as we work through the passage, I want to do so by looking at three questions that this passage answers.
SPEAKER_00: Three questions that Paul brings to our attention through this passage.
SPEAKER_00: The first question is very simple.
SPEAKER_00: Why is discipline needed?
SPEAKER_00: Now I've already kind of beaten that horse to death.
SPEAKER_00: But I do want to pause and see the language that Paul uses in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 here.
SPEAKER_00: And the simple answer that Paul uses is that sin causes pain.
SPEAKER_00: That's why.
SPEAKER_00: Sin causes pain.
SPEAKER_00: And this is one of those moments in the epistles in the New Testament where you don't get the full context.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like we're listening to half of a phone call.
SPEAKER_00: We're getting Paul's side, but the Corinthians are all just.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's like, well, I'm saying if anyone's caused pain.
SPEAKER_00: So we're only getting half of the story.
SPEAKER_00: The Corinthians knew exactly which situation he was talking about.
SPEAKER_00: They knew the full detail.
SPEAKER_00: We're kind of having to piece it together.
SPEAKER_00: So I've done some investigative work, and this is what I can tell you definitively.
SPEAKER_00: Someone there had done something.
SPEAKER_00: Which in some way caused pain.
SPEAKER_00: Here you go.
SPEAKER_00: And it was pain that obviously affected Paul personally, some kind of pain towards Paul.
SPEAKER_00: But to another degree, Paul says, this is pain that affected the entire church.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know exactly what.
SPEAKER_00: Commentators love to speculate about it, though.
SPEAKER_00: They like to write paragraphs on what happened.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is someone who had been slandering Paul.
SPEAKER_00: We know in 1 Corinthians there are people who are offering direct verbal assaults on Paul and slandering his character.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's one of these guys.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was somebody who had questioned Paul's authority as an apostle.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe somebody had put a whoopee cushion under a seat of communion.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what they did.
SPEAKER_00: What I do know is that what they did was serious, what they did was sustained, and what they did caused great sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, it's probably better that we don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Because the principle of reconciliation remains true no matter what the sin was.
SPEAKER_00: And if we knew exactly what it was, we would probably be tempted to pigeonhole this into that particular case.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we can forgive that sin, but these other sins, they're a whole degree beyond that.
SPEAKER_00: So it's probably better that we don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But we know it was serious.
SPEAKER_00: It was something that love simply couldn't just paper over, it couldn't cover over, and it hurts.
SPEAKER_00: Sin always hurts.
SPEAKER_00: Sin damages everything that it touches.
SPEAKER_00: It brings pain into relationships, it brings pain into fellowship, it turns warm friendships cold, it inflames unrighteous passions, it sows divisions and disunity and disagreements.
SPEAKER_00: The bottom line is very simple: sin hurts.
SPEAKER_00: It hurts individuals, it hurts congregations, and it hurts the church's public witness.
SPEAKER_00: Sin always causes pain.
SPEAKER_00: So discipline is necessary.
SPEAKER_00: Question number two.
SPEAKER_00: What does discipline hope for?
SPEAKER_00: And the simple answer again is just repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Read again what Paul says in verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: For such a one, the punishment by the majority is enough.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot going on in that verse.
SPEAKER_00: But there are three words in that verse that we can kind of hone in on that will fill in the blanks and help us see that this was a case of church discipline that was egregious and public but led to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: The first word you see there is what the ESV says, punishment, epitomia.
SPEAKER_00: It's some kind of public penalty.
SPEAKER_00: It's some kind of formal rebuke.
SPEAKER_00: It's a formal action that a body has taken.
SPEAKER_00: This is how we know that this discipline that's going on here is one that had to go public.
SPEAKER_00: This was an action by the church, this punishment that they have engaged in.
SPEAKER_00: So it must mean something like the admonition he had given to them in 1 Corinthians to publicly disfellowship someone, which is strongly indicated by the exhortation in verse 8 to reaffirm your love.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's probably because they had publicly had to remove their recognition of brotherly love upon him.
SPEAKER_00: So the first word punishment lets you know that this was a public discipline action.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, it says it was a punishment by the majority, pleonon.
SPEAKER_00: So this lets us know this was something that the whole congregation weighed in on.
SPEAKER_00: The whole congregation was part of this.
SPEAKER_00: It was a public act of discipline.
SPEAKER_00: This wasn't step one, not step two, not step three.
SPEAKER_00: This was step four.
SPEAKER_00: They read his name before communion.
SPEAKER_00: Every member of the church was made aware of the sin, and every member of the church now was participating in the work of disfellowshipping the unrepentant sinner.
SPEAKER_00: But then the third word enough.
SPEAKER_00: The punishment by the majority was enough.
SPEAKER_00: Hicanos.
SPEAKER_00: It was sufficient, it accomplished its purpose.
SPEAKER_00: It did what it was hoped to do.
SPEAKER_00: It led him to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever this sinner was.
SPEAKER_00: Now, verse 7 lets you know it was still painful to him.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You should turn to forgive him and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: This discipline did hurt.
SPEAKER_00: That's what discipline does.
SPEAKER_00: I have three daughters that will confirm it.
SPEAKER_00: But it was a good pain that produced good response.
SPEAKER_00: It led to godly sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a godly sorrow that led to repentance by the work of God.
SPEAKER_00: So praise God, it worked.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: What now?
SPEAKER_00: What do you do with repentance when you find it?
SPEAKER_00: And Paul gives them three instructions.
SPEAKER_00: These are the three things you do.
SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's a small font.
SPEAKER_00: These are the three things you do when discipline works.
SPEAKER_00: You forgive him.
SPEAKER_00: You comfort him and you reaffirm your love for him.
SPEAKER_00: You forgive him.
SPEAKER_00: It's no longer counted against them.
SPEAKER_00: You comfort them.
SPEAKER_00: You come alongside them and you wrap your arms around him.
SPEAKER_00: And then you reaffirm your love.
SPEAKER_00: Just as public was your discipline, is your reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness is a non-negotiable part of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: So much so that Jesus tells us in Matthew 6 that if we will not forgive others, their trespasses against us, neither will our Father in heaven forgive us our trespasses against him.
SPEAKER_00: It's non-negotiable.
SPEAKER_00: So much so that immediately after Jesus' teaching on discipline in Matthew 18, as we've seen on Sunday mornings, he goes into the parable of the unforgiving servant.
SPEAKER_00: If you cannot extend forgiveness to others, then you do not understand forgiveness in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: The command to church discipline compels us to say that love cannot ignore that which is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: But it also compels us to remember that love keeps no record of wrongs.
SPEAKER_00: And this isn't an inconsistency, it's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Our Savior promises us that when we repent and we come to him and we we drink without money, when we bring our thirst, that he casts our sin as far away as the East is from the West.
SPEAKER_00: He will remember them no more.
SPEAKER_00: And we who have been forgiven much also forgive much.
SPEAKER_00: Martin Lloyd Jones, reflecting on this idea of forgiveness, remarks: Whenever I see myself before God and realize something of what my blessed Lord has done for me at Calvary, I am ready to forgive anybody anything.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot withhold it.
SPEAKER_00: I do not even want to withhold it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the effect that forgiveness has on us.
SPEAKER_00: John MacArthur remarks that believers are never more like God than when they show forgiving mercy to a repentant sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness is the father of the prodigal son.
SPEAKER_00: Just give me my money.
SPEAKER_00: He squanders it.
SPEAKER_00: He experiences the pain, the sorrow of being removed from his family.
SPEAKER_00: And in brokenness, he comes back.
SPEAKER_00: But where do you find the father in that story?
SPEAKER_00: Waiting at the edge of the field, scanning the horizon, looking for the first glimmer of his son's return.
SPEAKER_00: And when he does, he rushes out to him, throws his arms around him.
SPEAKER_00: Before the son can even get his prepared speech out, the father's already wrapping cloaks on him and firing up the barbecue.
SPEAKER_00: That's forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Christians should be like.
SPEAKER_00: That's what our Savior is like.
SPEAKER_00: So first you forgive him, secondly, you comfort him.
SPEAKER_00: Discipline brought pain and sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: So not only do we wipe the slate clean in forgiveness, we wrap our arms around them.
SPEAKER_00: We encourage them.
SPEAKER_00: We lift them up and we help them walk in gentle assistance.
SPEAKER_00: Just like that son.
SPEAKER_00: The father lifting him off the ground and bringing him back inside the house.
SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, we reaffirm our love for them.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a profound word to reaffirm.
SPEAKER_00: It's the word for publicly ratifying a covenant.
SPEAKER_00: So, in light of the context, what Paul is saying here is you welcome them back into covenant fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: You don't just crack open the back door and you relegate them to second-class sainthood.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: You can sit in the balcony for six months.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't do it again, back row.
SPEAKER_00: Best I can offer.
SPEAKER_00: No, you kill the fatted calf.
SPEAKER_00: You break out the good china.
SPEAKER_00: Your brother is home.
SPEAKER_00: And doesn't that remind you of the brother?
SPEAKER_00: Who saw the repentance and saw in his heart only bitterness and anger.
SPEAKER_00: Refused to reconcile.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness is hard.
SPEAKER_00: Spurgeon remarks, faults are always thick where love runs thin.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness is hard.
SPEAKER_00: But it's drawn from love.
SPEAKER_00: So we pray to God and ask him to give us love.
SPEAKER_00: A church that refuses to discipline refuses to love.
SPEAKER_00: But a church that refuses to forgive doesn't even know how to love.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's all kinds of questions that you have to answer.
SPEAKER_00: When is the appropriate time to restore a person to fellowship?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the simple answer to that question is when their repentance can be recognized as repentance.
SPEAKER_00: When the church is able to look at them and say once again, this person is a follower of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that's very clear.
SPEAKER_00: A husband who has abandoned his family comes home.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's very clear.
SPEAKER_00: A person who's defrauded his employer brings all the money back and confesses.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes repentance is clear.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's more complex than that.
SPEAKER_00: And so, as a practical measure, as a church, we we trust our elders to work through those questions and to discern to the best of their human ability, yielding to the work of the Spirit in their lives, to extend forgiveness when we see repentance.
SPEAKER_00: But our aim and our ambition and our goal should be to be as quick with reconciliation as the father was to his son.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, one final question.
SPEAKER_00: Why is discipline necessary?
SPEAKER_00: What does discipline hope for?
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, what does discipline reveal?
SPEAKER_00: The third question.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what he says here in verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: For this is why I wrote that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive.
SPEAKER_00: This is why I wrote, so that I would find out what's really going on in you.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes several letters back and forth to the Corinthians, one of whom is referred to only as his severe letter.
SPEAKER_00: And when he writes this letter, it remained to be seen what the Corinthians were going to do about the sin that was in their midst.
SPEAKER_00: They've already demonstrated their disobedience once in tolerating egregious sin in 1 Corinthians chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: So he teaches them and he exhorts them and he commands them to practice discipline, but would they?
SPEAKER_00: Will the Corinthians really obey?
SPEAKER_00: And here's what you learn: discipline reveals what a church truly values.
SPEAKER_00: It is uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: It's painful.
SPEAKER_00: It runs the risk of being misinterpreted.
SPEAKER_00: It looks to many people to be petty and vindictive, especially in the world.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I can only think of one good reason why a church would practice discipline.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Lord commands it.
SPEAKER_00: And if discipline is hard, how much harder is forgiveness?
SPEAKER_00: It requires you to lay aside your claims to vengeance and justice and vindication.
SPEAKER_00: It requires you to not spike the football.
SPEAKER_00: To open your arms to those who have already wounded you and sunk their arrows deep inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: To embrace and esteem and enjoy the person who brought you so much pain.
SPEAKER_00: It looks naive and foolish to the world.
SPEAKER_00: Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, thrice, seven times?
SPEAKER_00: Seven times seventy?
SPEAKER_00: It looks foolish to the world.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I can only think of one good reason why a church would practice forgiveness and restoration.
SPEAKER_00: Because our Lord commands it.
SPEAKER_00: But forgiveness is powerful.
SPEAKER_00: It breaks the bitter chains of pride.
SPEAKER_00: It rebuilds the broken ruins of trust.
SPEAKER_00: It ignites hearts that have grown cold and it extinguishes the flames of anger.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness flows like healing waters and offers the refreshment of rekindled brotherly love.
SPEAKER_00: It is quite simply a divine work being worked out in everyday Christians, allowing their own forgiveness to produce forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Be kind, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul concludes with a fascinating observation in verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I want y'all to know, this is the Alex Haregrove authorized version.
SPEAKER_00: I want y'all to know.
SPEAKER_00: I forgive him too.
SPEAKER_00: And it's important that you know that I forgive him.
SPEAKER_00: So that Satan doesn't try to use that as a weapon against us.
SPEAKER_00: Satan hates faithful churches.
SPEAKER_00: Hates them.
SPEAKER_00: And he wants to destroy them any way that he can.
SPEAKER_00: And if he can do it by sowing unaddressed, unrepentant, malignant sin that will spread like gangrene, well, he'll do that.
SPEAKER_00: But I think he is just as content to see bitter, unforgiving, hard-hearted churches too.
SPEAKER_00: Because both of them are failing to reflect the glory of Christ into the world.
SPEAKER_00: Neither one of them is preaching the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe they're doing it with their lips, but they're not doing it with their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Discipline is hard.
SPEAKER_00: Confrontation is hard.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness is hard.
SPEAKER_00: But all things are possible through Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that God grants us the boldness to fight for holiness and the courage to embrace forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Almighty God.
SPEAKER_00: We magnify your name because we reflect on the depth of your forgiveness and love.
SPEAKER_00: The bottomless well of mercy that never runs dry.
SPEAKER_00: A sea without bottom or shore.
SPEAKER_00: God, we hate sin.
SPEAKER_00: We hate it in our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: We hate it in the lives of those we love.
SPEAKER_00: We hate it in our church and we hate it in the world.
SPEAKER_00: God, make us bold in confronting it.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that you would cause each and every one of us by your spirit to see our sin as it truly is.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that you would help us as a church to have enough love and tenderness and gentleness to come alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ and help them follow you when they're running astray.
SPEAKER_00: I pray, God, that you would bring repentance to those who have wandered away from you.
SPEAKER_00: I pray, God, that you would bring incredible stories of reconciliation and restoration and reaffirmation of love.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that in all things we bring you glory.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the name of your son that we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church.
SPEAKER_01: If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_01: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_01: I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_01: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_01: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.