Mat 18; 15-20 “Now if your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that on the testimony of two or three witnesses every matter may be confirmed. 17 And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, he is to be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. 19 “Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. 20 For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”
Last week, we had APT (Advanced Pastoral Training) conducted by Pastor Bala. One thing he kept repeatedly emphasizing is the importance of context. In any Bible verse, context is the king. God inspired not only individual verses of the Bible, but even the context. Each verse, each passage in the Bible has a context. All false teaching and wrong understanding of the Bible comes when we preach anything out of context. We completely misunderstand what the passage says if we miss context. The two verses, 19 and 20, we are going to see today—“Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst”—are verses ripped out of context, the most misused verses in the NT. Today you will know the context of this verse.
As a good student who learned from APT, I want to practice what I learned and take a few minutes and give you the context of where we are in Matthew 18. There are two contexts we will have to keep in mind: wider/broader and immediate context. There is the wider context of Matthew 18 in 28 chapters of Matthew, and there is the immediate context of Verses 15-20 in Chapter 18. It is like zoom out and zoom in. Zoom out for the big picture of Matthew and zoom in for Verses 18-20.
Wider Context of Matthew
First, the broader context of this chapter. Let me give you a jet tour of the entire first 18 chapters of Matthew in two-three minutes.
Matthew is proving Jesus Christ is the King of the Jews, the promised Messiah. He did that in 11 chapters:
- Chapter 1: Through his genealogy. He is Son of Abraham and Son of David.
- Chapter 2: His birth and circumstances of his birth.
- Chapter 3: The Forerunner (John the Baptist), his baptism, and the divine announcement from heaven: “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
- Chapter 4: His victory over Satan in his temptations.
- Chapter 5-7: By his word/preaching ministry—the great Sermon on the Mount.
- Chapter 8-9: His works ministry—nine miracles that prove his authority over all diseases, authority over creation by rebuking the sea, authority over demons by casting them out, authority over death by rising from the dead, and authority over even sin by forgiving sins.
- Chapter 10: As king he prepares and sends his ambassadors to heal and preach.
- Chapter 11: Warning those who stumble at this king and those who don’t repent—their judgment will be worse.
- After 11 chapters proving his titles, sadly, in Chapter 12, the Jewish leaders’ rejection reaches a climax by saying he does all this by the devil.
- Chapter 13: Israel has rejected its king. Then, as judgment to the Jews to hide the truth and reveal truth to his disciples, he speaks in eight parables the secrets of the kingdom.
- Chapter 14-15: Jesus withdraws to the Gentile region and focuses on training his disciples.
- Chapter 16: We see Peter’s confession and Jesus’ revelation of his death and resurrection. He moves towards Jerusalem. Now the final six months are with the disciples, for advanced discipleship training.
- Chapter 17: We see the Transfiguration as a means to prepare and encourage Jesus to do his great work in Jerusalem.
- Now, we come to Chapter 18, when the disciples are being prepared.
Do you see the full picture? He proves Messiah in 11 chapters without doubt, he is rejected in Chapter 12, and Chapter 13 onwards he is preparing his disciples to build the church as he is moving towards the cross. Chapter 13 onwards, we see Christ revealing to the disciples he is going to die, and training them for ministry. That is the overview context of Matthew—we are getting closer to the cross.
Immediate Context of Matthew 18:15-20
Now, the immediate context of Verses 15-20 in this chapter: as he trains them, the whole thing started with the argument over who among them is greatest. The Lord taught them the important lesson of humility (Verses 1-6). They have to become like children. Anyone who causes these little children to stumble—woe to them, it is better such a one immediately die by a millstone in the neck and drop in the sea. He even tells us if our hand, leg, or eye causes us to sin, let us immediately cut it; it is better to live a handicapped life than to live a life causing stumbling to his children. The passage reveals the Father’s great concern for his children that no one should cause stumbling to his children. He cares for his sheep; when one sheep goes astray, he goes after even one lost sheep, leaving ninety-nine.
In this immediate context, he brings up the topic of church discipline. He wants the church to deal with sin strictly. Why? One, because God doesn’t want his children to stumble by sin in the church, and secondly, when one of these little ones goes astray like a sheep, we need to seek them with a shepherd’s heart to gain them back. So that is the immediate context. Verses 15-20 talk about CD. We started seeing this in four headings: Need, Goal, Process, Authority.
We have seen Need—Christ commands, the church needs, [it] cannot survive, progress. Any revival or God’s blessing comes when the church realizes its sin and confess[es] and repents.
This is an important command—the neglect of which has resulted in more harm and loss to the church. In modern times, the failure on the part of the church to do as its Lord here clearly commands it to do has resulted in more wreckage within the church—more broken Christian homes and destroyed Christian marriages; more congregational fights and church splits; more false doctrines and dangerously deluding theologies slipping into the church; more public shame from fallen church leaders and pastors; more financial scandals with church funds; disorderliness/moral compromises of its individual members; sin becoming a habit in its congregation; more hypocritical worldliness on the part of the church; and more embarrassment to the cause of Christ and destruction of the church’s witness to the world. So the church greatly needs discipline.
We have seen Goal—The whole goal of this process is not legal lawyer rules, process and procedures to punish people [or] insult people, but the goal is to gain a sinning brother, find a lost sheep. God as a shepherd wants the whole church to have such a heart, just like a shepherd watches the sheep, he expects us to be in a framework where [we] can have some oversight of how each brother is doing; not live [with the thought] “what is in it for me; it is his personal problem.” When that brother goes astray, we need to seek them. Another goal of CD is [to] maintain the purity of the church.
We have seen Process—The process of four steps when we see a brother sinning continually, in spite of formative discipline, continual patterns in life, openly disobedient to God’s word, [and harming] the church and testimony of [the] gospel. We saw the steps in detail. Step 1: Go and tell him privately. If he responds, that’s the end of the process. Step 2: If he doesn’t, if [you are] met with a hard heart refusing to accept, offended by the interference in personal matters, take two or three as witness according to Deuteronomy. Step 3: If he doesn’t respond, then tell it to the church. Step 4: He doesn’t listen to the church, [which results in] removing him from the church. Seems very difficult, not easy. We can all be nice, good members.
When we see these steps, we feel inadequate to do this, right? “Who am I to do this? I to go to somebody else and confront them with their sin?” I mean, this is a private world and everybody is sort of living private lives. You just can’t go blasting into someone’s life and say, “You are sinning.” There is a woman near my house, everyone is scared to talk to her. Someone says something to her, she will say “you abuse, harassing [me],” and file a police complaint. I mean, what right do we have? I’m not an apostle. I’m not perfect. And then people want to misinterpret Matthew 7: “Judge not lest ye be judged.” How can you judge others? What right do we have to do that? Then if they don’t listen, how can we possibly publicize people’s sin to the whole church and send everybody out after that? And how can we put people out of the church publicly? I mean, doesn’t this seem like we’re going way beyond the bounds that would be permissible to us who are ourselves weak and failing sinners? Are we perfect? Will people not think we have lost our mind?
The Authority of the Church (Verses 18-20)
On what authority can we do this? By what power do we do this? By what right do we do this? And that we find in Verses 18-20, and this is the absolute climax of this text. It’s hard to do this. It’s a difficult work to do, but it must be done. And beloved, it must be done if ever the church is to know real revival and real renewal, Jesus’ presence to grow, and the HS to pour his spirit and use us mightily in our community for the gospel. We must do this though it’s difficult. But what is our authority?
The amazing authority is given with amazing authority. See how he gives it. The passage is very serious. Anytime the Son of God speaks, what He says is of the greatest possible importance. But whenever He prefaces what He says with the phrase “Assuredly, I say to you…” He is particularly underscoring the seriousness/solemnity of what He is about to say. And here, in this passage, He uses that very phrase—not just once but twice! In Verse 18, He says (literally), “Amen (or ‘Truly’), I say to you…” And then, in the very next verse, He says, “Again, I say to you…” I know of no other passage in which Jesus repeats that phrase, twice in a row, as He does here. Jesus, the divine Head of the church, is letting His church know that what He is saying in this passage is very, very serious.
Secondly, the Lord gives more authority in this passage to His people, in the obedience of a specific command, than in any other passage of Scripture I know of. He says, in regard to the keeping of this command, that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” He also says that if two or three agree concerning what they ask in this regard, “it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.” He concludes by affirming, in this context, that “where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” In giving this specific instruction to His church, He also gives the church the highest possible authority in the keeping of it.
Jesus describes that authority in three ways. For our remembrance, I want to call this as in three headings:
- Authority of Binding and Loosing.
- Authority of Receiving Answers to Prayers.
- Authority of Christ’s Presence.
1. Authority of Binding and Loosing
“Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (v. 18).
You remember Jesus used the same phrase in Chapter 16. He told Peter—who stood as a representative of the church—that “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19). The church has been entrusted with “keys“; and with “keys” comes authority.
When we obey his commands and act in the process of CD, the amazing, infinite, holy God acts with us. It is beyond conception that I could be acting in concert with the almighty God. But that’s what it’s saying. Look at Verse 18. “Truly I say to you“—it’s a good thing He put the word “truly” there because it’s so hard to believe, truly—”whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven. Whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”
What is binding and loosing? These are Jewish rabbinical terms, very familiar to the Jewish audience in those times. Disciples clearly know what he is talking about. They simply refer to the rabbis either binding someone’s sins on them or loosing their sins from them. And it basically is the idea that you’re either saying to someone, “Your sins are bound you,” or “Your sins are loosed from you.” In other words, you’re still under the bondage of sin or you’re free from sin.
And the verse says that “whatever you bind on earth“—in other words, when on earth you say to someone, “You are still bound with sin“—when you say that on earth, it’ll already have been bound in heaven. Now on earth when you say to someone, “Your sins are loosed“—in other words, freed, you’re freed from them—heaven will already have done that, as well. That’s a perfect passive form, which means it’s already been done with continuing results.
The simple point is Heaven ratifies what is done on earth when the church follows this process of discipline. That’s exactly what it means. Now that’s authority. Listen. If you’re a sinning person in the church and somebody goes to you and you don’t repent, and two or three go to you and you don’t repent, and the whole church is pursuing you and you don’t repent. The Church decides to remove you from the church membership because of your stubborn continuing in sin and unrepentance in spite of all these steps. They believe your sins are not forgiven, that you are not a saved person. The Church says your sins are bound on you, and we can say that because we’ve gone through the process to determine that based upon the revelation of the Word of God. And when we say that, we are simply saying what the Father has already said in heaven.
OR when we see a brother repents in any of those three steps, then we say we believe God has forgiven all your sins and that is why you could repent and we accept him into fellowship. Heaven acknowledges that. In other words, the church is acting on behalf of the will of God. The Father in heaven is acting with us. What a tremendous thought.
We are merely doing on earth what has already been done in heaven. So the authority then is that we are acting on behalf of the Father in heaven, who’s already done what is right to do in your case.
This is the authority he gives to his church. Just after He arose from the dead and appeared to His disciples, He breathed on them and told them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:22-23).
What authority! It is delegated authority. In the Jewish mind, there is no greater authority. You remember when Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Your sins are forgiven.” They grumbled, “he is blaspheming, only God has authority to forgive.” He delegates that prerogative to his church that obeys in the process of CD.
The Lord Jesus Christ—the Judge of all the earth—has given the church this process to follow in determining the sins of those who are in its midst. And if we determine by this process, one is not forgiven, what we “bind” will have been bound in heaven; and if we say he repents, he is a truly forgiven sinner, what we “loose” will have been loosed in heaven. The church is ratifying what is already true in heaven by its decisive action in disciplinary issues. Heaven is not subject to earth, but the church, if it abides by God’s will, follows this process and can be confident that it will render those judgments that have already been made in heaven. It is fulfilling the decree of God by these steps.
The church binds him whom it excommunicates—not that it casts him into everlasting ruin and despair, but because it condemns his life and morals, and already warns him of his condemnation unless he should repent. It looses him when it receives him into communion, for it makes him a sharer of the unity which is in Christ Jesus. Of course, the great desire is not to bind, of course, but to loose those that have been caught in sin to be sharers once again in all the fellowship of the church. What authority!
We pray daily, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done“—where? “on earth as it is in heaven.” And that is what a church does when following CD. We do the will of God as it is done in heaven, and it does so with the authority of heaven of binding and loosing. When we faithfully follow this, we bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. That’s our authority.
When we follow Church Discipline (CD), men may accuse us as cruel, legalistic, [or] forcing [compliance]. “What does he know about our situation? He doesn’t have love, care,” they may accuse, or even sometimes leave us. But when men do not stand with us, here Heaven stands with us, and the Father in heaven stands with us. Men may not endorse what we do, but Heaven itself will endorse the action of the church on earth, because the church’s action will have been the decree that heaven had already made.
We do this with his authority in his church for gaining the lost brother and maintaining the purity of his church. He is acting with us when we do this. Isn’t that a marvelous thing? I mean, you become the ambassador of heaven on earth.
No one, then, should ever despise or turn their nose up at the careful, prayerfully determined decision of the Body of Christ in this matter. Jesus has given great authority in the church; and heaven itself stands behind the decision. This authority belongs to the true church that follows CD in every age. Okay, that was the first authority of binding and loosing.
2. Authority of Answered Prayer
Jesus also expresses the authority of the church in this matter by describing the power that is behind it. He says, “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” (v. 19).
We come to one of the top two misused verses. Many people take this verse too far: “Brothers, this is a blank check for prayer and agree with two, and then it will be done.” It’s been utterly misused. They assume that anytime two or more Christians come together to ask for something, God is bound to do it. We know that that’s not the case because the Bible tells us that it took only one man—Elijah—to pray and to move God to bring about a great drought on the land; and then again to pray and to bring the rain back. The Bible tells us that the “effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man”—just one—“avails much” (James 5:16-17).
I believe that the Lord means for us to understand this in the context of the process just spoken of. When two brothers or sisters in Christ come together in concern over a sinning believer who has wandered away; and when they ask for God’s strength, wisdom, [and] boldness, and when they pray for wisdom in dealing with it, and for the protection of the church family, and for God’s will and God’s gracious work in the life of the wandering one—he is sinning and terribly affecting the church—God the Father in heaven hears them and grants them what they ask. The Father has a heart for the church, and for that wandering one too; and we would then be asking something that He is already eager to do. The context is CD. This is prayer when doing that discipline.
It is the authority of receiving answered prayer when we exercise these steps of CD. We are to appreciate the contrast. Two seems such a small and insignificant group, but by faith in Christ they have the power of heaven at their disposal. What two are these? Well, that’s the lowest number of people who can confirm a person in a sin. When one has gone, he doesn’t listen, and then two has gone, they confirm he is in sin and unrepentant. They agree.
The word agree there is worth noting: sumphōneō, from which we get the word “symphony.” It means “to produce a sound together.” When all of the church is looking at the person’s life, and how he responds to CD, we all agree this man not to repent shows that his sins are never forgiven, and he is still bound to sin. Or, when we see him repenting, we see he is truly forgiven.
They agree and seek God’s will on it, they pray for wisdom how to deal with him, and pray to deal with the situation. When you confirm praying, God is acting in heaven in accord with that. He starts with the lowest possible number. How much more when the whole church prays!
The two are not any [random] two. The two here are the two witnesses in a case of church discipline, a sinning person, and they really want God’s will done, and they really want what’s right. But if they agree over this issue, and they follow the biblical pattern, they can be confident that in their seeking for God’s will they will receive it and God will do what’s right.
Many a time, it is confusing how to deal with a certain brother in a certain situation. I often hear other most matured pastors say the greatest difficult thing is CD—“what to do when?” The great church father Augustine himself confessed in one of his letters that he had difficulty knowing in some cases whether to follow Matthew 18:15 or 1 Timothy 5:20, where we read “Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning.” So here is the promise of God’s guidance to prayer on what to do and lead us to do the right thing. That’s great authority. We’re ambassadors of heaven on earth.
And that’s a very important confidence we need, because when you move into discipline, you can second guess yourself and say, “Boy, I hope I’m doing what’s right. Boy, I just worry, maybe I’m doing the wrong things. Maybe I’m judging.” And I’ve had that feeling. “Maybe I’m just being too harsh. Maybe I’m not being sensitive. Maybe this isn’t right, but I just don’t see the repentance there…” But if it’s been confirmed and we all are in symphony, and we’re all reading the same signs the same way, and we’re asking for God’s wisdom, we can know the Father is acting in accord with us. Isn’t that a marvelous confidence? So we don’t fear to do that because we’re carrying out the will of the Father that His people be holy.
So, the authority of binding and loosing and the authority of receiving answered prayer.
3. Authority of Christ’s Presence
And finally, Jesus expresses the great authority of the church in this CD process by describing His own personal support and involvement. He says, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (v. 20).
And here’s another verse that gets terribly misapplied. “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Now you’ve probably heard that regular verse of someone’s prayer—that is how they start. We say the church must be constituted by at least ten [people]. They take this and say “If we can just get two or three people together, Christ will be there. That is a church.”
Listen, if you’ve just got one true believer person, is Christ not with him? If Christ is only there when two or three gather, what happens when one believer prays?
That isn’t what that’s talking about. What are the two or three in this context? Two or three what? Two or three witnesses in the discipline. The particular context in which He promises His presence “in the midst” is when two or three gather together in the pursuit of a wandering Christian. He promises special manifested presence. How much injustice we do to these verses ripping them out of context.
Two or three witnesses, when you gather in my name, what does that mean? It implies a term for the church, “to do My works, for my purposes, to do my will.” And when you gather together in My name to reflect My character and My will, there am I in the midst of that.
With his special manifested presence. The glorious expression in the OT, “Jehovah in the midst of you,” is associated with the impartation of strength, direction, protection, consolation, to help, comfort, boldness, and to bless. Also implies his manifested presence will grow as we exercise more.
See what assurance and comfort Christ gives. This is a very difficult task. “How can we do it, Lord? Some people may leave us, think we are harsh, not loving, accuse us.” Christ says “don’t worry about anything, I am with you when you gather in my name and do CD.” Christ has assured us of His presence in such times. Isn’t that a great confidence? And we can draw great comfort from this. The process Jesus is calling us to follow is a hard one. It is filled with pitfalls and dangers; and our own spirits are anguished in the doing of it. But He is there with us in it. He will help us, guiding us in making the right decisions, leading us to make sure that we are of the right attitude of heart, and directing us to have His own goal in the matter—that is, the winning of that wandering brother or sister.
Is there anything more sobering on one hand, and more exhilarating on the other, than to know that Christ is among us? It is a time of grief and difficulty when the body must gather to apply discipline to one they love. Christ knows this, so He has assured us that the Father hears our pleas and He is present as the church carries out the will of heaven in regard to the church’s erring members.
Not only is what we bind and loose ratified; Heaven acknowledges that. The Father answers our prayer, and Christ, Son of God, is in our midst in his manifested presence. Full support and authority of Heaven, God, Father, [and] Son is with us when we do the CD. We are fulfilling the will of God and the work of the Son in the cleansing and the purifying of His own church. We all have to be a part of that. This is the great authority the Lord promises to his church.
So we have seen need, goal, process, and finally to encourage us to implement, Christ gives the authority of binding and loosing, receiving answered prayer, [and] his special presence.
Final Call to Action
So what are the lessons?
Can I say, I kind of felt, “we will be a cursed church if we don’t implement church discipline.” Oh, strong! Yes, but think:
If Christ commands this, we greatly need this, clearly outlines the process so simply, and also goes on and says “I am giving my authority by binding and loosing, answering your prayers when you do this, and don’t worry about anything, I am with you, [with] my special presence [and] support.” He threatens that he will leave if we don’t implement this. Will we not be cursed if we don’t implement this? How can we be careless and disobedient? What if the church won’t practice? A church without discipline can hardly be counted as a church. It will be weak, and die. “When discipline leaves the church, Christ goes with it.” When a church regularly exercises CD, it experiences more and more the measure of Christ’s manifested/felt presence.
Hendrickson says “lack of discipline is a curse of any church.” There must be rules regarding faith and conduct. Gross, continued violation of rules without repentance should not be tolerated.
What authority he promises and in what solemn words! This has to talk to each of your conscience. Each of us must examine in what ways am I a stumbling block in the church: discipline, order, purity. We all need to take a determination that we will not be a cause for any disorder in church, but be an example and also not tolerate sin and disorderliness in church.
As a Pastor, I want to take this matter of discipline very seriously. Christ emboldens and strengths us. Because generally, I am a lenient and nice guy, but I fear my Lord’s words and I want to change according to his words, and you will see me becoming strict about church discipline. When we see continuing sin and disobedience, we have to act. We should be a people of order and discipline.
Generally, when someone lives in private sin, it is not immediately visible. You know how it gets visible outside: You regularly miss church meetings, avoid prayer meetings, live carelessly about spiritual things. Those are some signs.
Can I talk of simple ways we are disorderly as a church? Will this lesson bring basic discipline in our church lives? Let me announce before in advance: Discipline is coming in GRBC! Let me ask you, do we want everyone to say “GRBC is a disciplined Church?” Do we want more of Christ’s presence, answers to prayers?
I believe this authority is great encouragement for us to do CD. God promises to act in heaven for us, promises to answer our prayers, and Christ reveals his presence. It also implies that when you are a church exercising discipline, you will have more and more of my manifested presence through the Word, Spirit, and ordinances. If so, how much we should all strive for church discipline!
“How many… please lift your hands. GRBC has to be a disciplined church. Are you committed for this?”
1. Discipline in Church Gathering
Discipline in church gathering. Christ says, “where two or three [are] gathered,” he doesn’t say, “I will be there,” He says, “I am there.” He is already there in our midst before anyone. Where is he? “In the midst,” not up in the corner, but here “in the midst of them is the Lord.” He is the center to which all saints gather. He is the heart in the midst of the body giving life to all the members. The Lord Jesus Christ does not come into the assembly of His people to bless the minister only. No, you are all equally near in proportion to the grace of nearness you have received. Now, dear friends, if Christ Himself is in the midst of His people, He will bring us peace, just as He did when He dropped into the assembly of the eleven, the doors being shut. He stood and said, “Peace be unto you!” His presence is their strength and their assurance of victory. Does not this make our meetings delightful—Christ in the midst of us? Does not this make our meetings important?
Oh, how blessed is his presence—convincing you of sin, humbling you, and bowing you down, then cheering you, comforting you, enlightening you, guiding you, relieving you, sustaining you, sanctifying you. Oh, what light He brings! What life He brings! What love He brings! What joy He brings! When the Spirit of God is in the midst of God’s people, what merry days they have! What days of heaven upon earth!
How important is the church meeting for you?
He will make His power known, and the glory of His grace shall go forth out of those little companies even to the ends of the earth. In coming ages, through the church, he will reveal his glory to all ages. Does not this make our meetings influential? The gatherings of God’s people are centers of influence.
Is that not the basic discipline of membership to attend all meetings? What kind of members are we without attending such a meeting? Do you realize what sin it is when he is there come to bless, and you give lame excuses and not come? How one ought to strain a point to be there!
You talk about so important truths. No church other than this will give you these truths. These come with a lot of sacrifice. I was telling last week I slept only five or six hours every day. Will God not ask you an account of how you are using it?
Discipline of Attending Meetings
Discipline of attending meetings. Why do we have people missing meetings? Once in a while is okay, but regularly missing meetings, should we keep quiet and not exercise any church discipline for this, so others also follow the same pattern? Hebrews 10:25-26 says: “Let us not neglect meeting together, as some have made a habit, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains.”
Some of you, if you don’t come, you inform me. But others are bold: come when you want, go when you want. How will Christ see this church? I understand last year was COVID; we in fact encouraged people not to come. But now it is coming down; all activities are beginning. Some who are not well, don’t come. For some, they go to work, other places, everywhere, but COVID is the excuse for not coming to church. This should stop. Please guard the discipline of the church. Don’t be a stumbling block. If you are not coming, inform me or someone who can inform me—Francis or Vinod.
First discipline: Church attendance will be monitored. More than two weeks of absence, you will have someone visiting your home.
Discipline of Timing
Next, the discipline of timing. I sleep at 2:00 a.m. Sunday night and wake up 5:30 a.m., after all week’s day work. Some of them come from far, 35 km. Imagine what time they should leave. They are all on time. People who are surrounding the church come at 9:50, 10:00. We start the worship. We announce that the 9:45 service starts. Last week Francis mentioned, in a false church, people stand in a queue for the next service. Here, the service starts. In the beginning, some people are there. Then after the first prayer, suddenly the church is filled with people, as if as a result of prayer, God brought you directly from home. Why regularly late? Once in a while is okay, but regularly… how can we deal this? Should we close the gate/church after 9:50? I plead with you to maintain discipline. Every one of you, it is your responsibility, not just the Pastor, to make it a place of discipline. Maybe I will have someone note the person coming late and what time. If you are coming late continuously for more than three weeks, someone will talk to you. If this doesn’t change, we will lock the gate at 9:50.
Discipline of Weekly Meetings
Then, weekly calls and meetings. My heart is so thrilled to see and for everyone who took the effort to have participated, not been just Sunday Christians. But young people have so much grown by going through the Catechism. We celebrated that last time. Men have studied the 1689 Confession—what a blessing. Women’s fellowship, going through characters, how much they enjoy. Some people see all this happening and cannot attend weekly once, sitting or even sleeping, switch on your mobile and just participate in that call. It is a mystery to me. Now on, people who don’t attend such calls and just be Sunday Christians cannot be taken into membership. Already members, I want to know from each of you why you cannot attend those calls, so we can figure out what to do. If you are not part of all this, just coming on Sunday, we want to find out why. This is discipline of this church, and you are required to participate in this and not be just a Sunday Christian.
Discipline of Prayer Meetings
Then Friday meetings. A strange phenomenon: people who are very far, 30 km, are regularly attending; people close by are not. God has given a truth-preaching church, and you are struggling with several problems. If you cannot come and attend a prayer meeting even monthly once, I am amazed. You never come. “Okay, I regularly have work, I come home late.” Do you always work? Not one week a month you can come? Some directly come to the meeting from work. Some ask permission on Fridays: “Can I go one hour late? I have to attend.” Learn from the Muslims. One man in a global meeting, 5,000 people. He has to speak last. He comes in urgent and says, “I have to go to prayer at 5, so I want to speak and go.” Everyone was amazed. He may even lose the job. He did that. See them, they close the shops. I have been talking about the so important prayer meeting. Our Sunday depends on how important we give to the prayer meeting. What should we do? As Pastor, it is a burden for me. I do this ministry with a lot of burden. Can you all think of how you can reduce this burden on Friday so we are a disciplined church? If you are a member, you should attend prayer meeting, or you will be subject to discipline. I want again to know why each of you cannot attend the prayer meeting on Friday.
Discipline of Personal Devotions
Then private disciplines of reading. We found a way with a calendar and a partner. Then this month end, I want to see everyone’s calendar. If you have not started, please talk to me now. I will be very sad and disappointed to hear that you have not started. Then prayer discipline. I am teaching Prayer Worship (PW), planning to gift a diary from April onwards. You should maintain a prayer diary and write your prayers. No point in teaching PW for months if no one practices that.
Should I go on with other membership responsibilities of tithing?
Some of you are a wonder to me. You say you have that problem and this problem, and keep sinning against God in church responsibilities and disorderliness. How do you expect God to hear and bless?
See, he promises to hear prayer in the context of church discipline. When we are to be disciplined in the church and live a holy life, and two agree and pray, then he hears and answers. Are you not increasing and making your problems worse by continuing to live disorderly? How will Christ be with you when you don’t respect church discipline? What a horrible witness to give to the world on the gospel! How God’s name is dishonored because of you!
You may call me, “Pastor is harsh, cruel in being so strict.” That is fine. This passage is very comforting because to keep Christ’s church, if I implement discipline, God acknowledges it in heaven, he answers prayers, and Christ stands with the church.
The Root Cause of Disorder
Some people have no discipline in life. They don’t respect the church, desire to worship according to his word, worship anywhere they want. All atrocities in the name of worship, marriage not proper, don’t respect the ordinance of work and work hard, redeem time, and earn and prosper. These are divine institutions: work, Sabbath, church, marriage. Some of you are like this. You know what is the problem? Will you believe if I tell you this is because you don’t know and believe our 1689 Confession of Faith (COF)? Let me explain how. This may seem like an indirect application. The root cause for all sins in life and disorderliness is spiritual or theological.
In our Men’s meeting, we went through our confession, 1689 COF, each paragraph, sometimes each word, for over three and a half years. As a fruit of that, I am creating a broad outline of the 1689 Confession’s 32 chapters and then a chapter-wise outline. You will see I am adding them chapter by chapter in our website. If you want updates, you have to go and update your email address on the home page.
Broad Outline of 32 Chapters:
- Chapters 1-8: Foundation for Christian Thought (you only start thinking properly when you know these eight chapters).
- Of the Holy Scriptures
- Of God and the Holy Trinity
- Of God’s Decree
- Of Creation
- Of Divine Providence
- Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the punishment thereof
- Of God’s Covenant
- Of Christ the Mediator
- Chapters 9-20: Right Christian Experience (only when you have the right theological foundation in Chapters 1-8, you will have the right Christian experience).
- Of Effectual Calling
- Of Justification
- Of Adoption
- Of Sanctification
- Of Saving Faith
- Of Repentance unto Life and Salvation
- Of Good Works
- Of the Perseverance of the Saints
- Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation
- Of the Law of God
- Of the Gospel and the Extent of Grace thereof
- Chapters 21-30: Proper Christian Life Honoring Divine Institutions (only when you have the right theology and right Christian experience, you will be able to live a proper Christian life honoring God’s divine institutions).
- Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience
- Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day
- Of Lawful Oaths and Vows
- Of the Civil Magistrate
- Of Marriage
- Of the Church
- Of the Communion of Saints
- Of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
- Of Baptism
- Of the Lord’s Supper
- Chapters 31-32: Future State (and you will be delivered from the coming judgment and live in glory in the coming world).
- Of the State of Man after Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead
- Of the Last Judgement
Beautiful, logically arranged chapters. That is the summary of 1689. If you want to see it in the reverse way: Why is Christianity a whole mess now? Why are some of you like other false Christians? People don’t respect the church, marriage, Sabbath, the regulative principles of worship—in the name of worship, all kinds of blasphemy—because they don’t have a proper foundation in the first eight chapters—what is the Bible, who is God, the fall of man, the need of a Mediator (Chapters 1-8). And because of no proper theological foundation, they don’t have a proper Christian salvation experience of effectual call, regeneration, justification, sanctification. That is why there is no regard to divine institutions.
Do you see that? Based on this, I can tell you all disorderliness, sins, and failures in your life is because you don’t know 1689! Theology determines our biology. Meaning, the lack of proper theological foundation is the cause for disorderliness in your life.
A curse on our country: Just the first chapter, knowledge. All kinds of false teaching and preaching.
In fact, the root problem for all the mess today is because we don’t understand the first chapter, ‘Of the Holy Scriptures.’ Why do people listen to anything in the name of preaching? Because fundamentally they don’t believe in the first paragraph of Chapter 1 of the COF: that God only speaks to us only through the Bible and doesn’t speak to us through anyone and anything else for salvation; that revelation is given in written form to us. The authority of the Scriptures, sufficiency, infallibility, certainty, and completeness. Without this foundation, they listen to every liar who says “God spoke to me,” every nonsense. Take these two verses, how much out of context preaching there is!
So they listen as long as the preacher speaks anything that makes us feel good in the name of the Bible. They listen to all kind of speaking in the name of preaching, not realizing that man’s testimony, stories, cannot save or sanctify. We in the Reformed church should be careful and not listen to anything that is not coming from the Bible. We are not interested in what man wants to say, his story, his devotions, oratories, or testimonies. We want to hear the testimony of God. People lack so much of discernment, not realizing even men like Bakht Singh, Zac Poonen are not biblical models. That is why not only preachers need to be properly trained to preach the Bible, but even people need to understand what is accurate biblical preaching and listen only to those.
As church members, it is a great ministry we can do to implement correct discipline when we see a brother acting in sin.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him. And the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community.”
“In confession, the light of the gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin is brought into the light. The unexpressed is openly spoken and acknowledged. All that is secret and hidden is made manifest. It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted, but God breaks gates of brass and bars of iron.” (Psalm 107:16).
Listen to this. “Since the confession of sin is made [in] the presence of a Christian brother, the last stronghold of self-justification is abandoned. The sinner surrenders. He gives up all his evil. He gives his heart to God. He finds the forgiveness of all his sin and the fellowship of Jesus Christ and his brother. The expressed acknowledged sin has lost all its power. It has been revealed and judged as sin. It can no longer tear the fellowship asunder.”
“Now the fellowship bears the sin of the brother. He is no longer alone with his evil, for he has cast off his sin in confession and it [is] handed it over to God. It has been taken away from him. Now he stands in the fellowship of sinners who live by the grace of God and the cross of Jesus Christ. The sin concealed separated him from the fellowship, made all his apparent fellowship a sham. The sin confessed has helped him to find true fellowship with the brethren in Jesus Christ.”
What a ministry, the ministry of restoring the sinning brother. It is the key to the purity of the church. It is the key to the revival of the church, the renewal of the church, and the reaching of the world through a renewed church. We must take these words of our Lord seriously and obey.
Finally, this passage on CD is another lesson that God takes sin seriously. See so seriously he tells us to act and he puts his own glorious authority behind that discipline. This Bible takes sin seriously. It is sin that made God send his Son to die on such a cruel cross. Shame, ignominy, [and] suffering of Golgotha, the shout of dereliction, it was sin that caused this. It is sin that caused the place called hell to be made, with the devil and its angels. It is sin, unforgiven, unrepentant, uncleansed, that will take you to that place unless you repent and flee to Christ.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 