2-25-07
The Bride of Christ (contd)
Church Discipline Q&A
What is a Church? Part 5

Abuses
As I said before, this is probably one of the least obeyed commands in the whole Bible. Abuses and failures are most the rule than the exception in every single step in most churches. The most disobeyed step is step one. People see unrepentant sin and they don’t have the backbone to confront it. They just let it slide. They don’t love the person enough, and they don’t love the bride of Christ enough to care about a blemish or impurity. (Even though Jesus shed His blood for the purity of the Church.)
Frequently people use the “log in my own eye” excuse. “I can’t confront him about the speck in his eye – I have got a log in my own eye.” What did Jesus say to do in that case? Just not confront the person? No – He said first remove the log from your eye and then remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Mt.7:5)
And you should understand – the log and the speck are not talking about sin in general. They are talking about unrepentant sin. If you have unrepentant sin, then you are in no position to rebuke someone else for their unrepentant sin. First repent, then go confront the other person. It is not saying you have to have total victory over every sin in your life. It is only saying you should repent and then call them to repent.
This is part of being on your guard and being alert and vigilant: 

Lk.17:3 Be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him

That is mostly what vigilance is – confronting sin before it has a chance to take hold in the church. So let’s not be a bunch of cowards who don’t have the courage to obey Christ’s command to confront sin. 

Which sins should you confront? Which sins are matters of church discipline? Any unrepentant sin. It does not matter how major or minor it seems. The only thing that matters is if the person recognizes it as evil and is willing and eager to give it up or if he wants to hold on to it and is not willing to give it up.
Another way people frequently disobey Jesus’ words in Mt.18 is at step 2. They know through their gossip that other people agree that this person is in sin so they figure, “Two or three people have confronted this person, so that is step 2.”
It is not enough to just have 2 or 3 individuals confront him. They need to confront him together as a group. There is something very powerful about being confronted by a group of people who all love you.
Very often people want to skip step 2. After confronting the person, if he doesn’t repent they want to go immediately to the church. Instead of bringing 2 or 3 witnesses in a private session with the person, they start gossiping to everyone about it. And they do it in the name of giving a prayer request. Keep this rule of thumb in mind – if there is something that is serious enough for you to bring up as a prayer request then it is serious enough to confront with church discipline.
The next area where churches fail is in step 3. They don’t want to make it public because they are afraid of a lawsuit, and the last thing they are willing to do is suffer at the hands of the government just so they can obey Jesus. So they invent ways around this. They rationalize their disobedience with human wisdom. They say, “Making it public will only drive the person farther way. We don’t want to alienate him. We want to win him through love.” (As if it were possible to love someone by treating them the opposite of the way God said to treat them.).
Some churches decide they don’t have the responsibility to obey this unless the person is an official member of the church. That way people can sin with impunity and remain in the church as long as they aren’t members. Show me that in the Bible! Does God only care about the purity of certain Christians who have signed the membership papers? 
Another area where churches disobey is with step 4. They don’t put the person out of the church. The Corinthians didn’t put the guy out of their church because they prided themselves on their tolerance. There are a lot of churches like that today. They boast about the fact that practicing homosexuals and other unrepentant sinners feel comfortable in their churches.

2 Cor.2:2 And you are inflated with pride, instead of filled with grief grief so that he who has committed this act might be removed from among you.

Our culture thinks tolerance is the greatest virtue, but it is not. Patience is a great virtue, and forgiveness is a great virtue, but tolerance is a terrible sin. If any unrepentant sinner feels comfortable in your church, you know you have an unfaithful church.
Churches often come up with ways to dance around Jesus’ words. They say things like, “We are to treat him like a tax-collector, and we welcome tax collectors in this church, so the guy is still welcome.” But 1 Cor.5 is clear – with such a person do not even eat – put him out of the church.
Step 4 is where most people choke. It seems unthinkable in our day and age to announce someone’s sin publicly and to shun that person just because of a lifestyle choice. And so most church just simply don’t do it. I think Jesus’ command in Mt.18, even though it is one of the clearest, easiest to understand things He ever said, is probably about the most disobeyed, ignored and abused commands He ever gave. Very few churches carry out church discipline, and the ones that do generally find some way around step 4. People are reluctant, because they have sin in their own lives. They think, “Who am I to point the finger at someone else? I am a sinner myself.” The answer to that question, “Who am I?” is this – who you are is not the issue. The issue is who Jesus Christ is. Jesus knew we would choke on step 4, so He gave us vv.18-20.

18 I assure you: Whatever you bind on earth is already bound1 in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is already loosed2 in heaven.  19 Again, I assure you: If two of you on earth agree about any matter that you1 pray for, it will be done for you2 by My Father in heaven.  20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there among them." 

Those verses are not talking about prayer in general. They are not talking about how to comfort yourself when only 2 people show up for a Bible study (“Well, at least Jesus is here”). They are talking about the authority of Christ behind church discipline. The 2 or 3 is talking about the witnesses. What He is saying is that if you follow exactly the procedure that He described, then when you put that person out of the Church you are doing so on the authority of God Himself.
Another area where churches disobey is step 6. They do church discipline, the person repents, but they never fully forgive him. Evidently that was the problem in Corinth, which is why Paul had to say what he said in 2 Cor.2. They were wanting to continue to punish the person.
When someone sins in an especially egregious or scandalous way, human wisdom tells us that we need to punish the person somehow. And so people use church discipline as an excuse to harbor anger and resentment, or to distance themselves from the person even after he repents. And they figure, “We can’t just completely forgive the person and act as though nothing happened. He’ll never learn his lesson.” If you confront them with the passages in Scripture about forgiveness they will say, “Of course we fully forgive the person. But even where there is forgiveness, sin has consequences.”
Is that true? Are there consequences to sin even when the sin has been forgiven? Yes. However, it is never the church’s responsibility to assign those consequences. Assigning the consequences of repentant sin is always God’s job. It is never the church’s role to punish repentant sin – ever. Nowhere in Scripture is the church ever instructed to punish a repentant sinner in any way. That is not our role. Our role is to forgive and encourage and comfort and affirm our love.
How it must grieve the Lord to have given such clear instructions and to have them so blatantly disregarded by His own Church. Let’s be a faithful wife, Agape. Let’s be vigilant and pure before Him so that we are a joy to Him and not a grief.