Reading Assignment: Matthew 18:12-20

Key Verse: Matthew 18:14

Main idea/Truth: God wants none to perish.

Outline:

1. A shepherd’s heart

2. Winning your brother

3. Disassociation

Prayer Suggestions:

1. Thank Jesus for His shepherding care.

2. Repent from sin.

3. Commit to obeying the word of God.

4. Commit to helping others in God’s church to live obediently to Him.

Transcript

Let's pray and we'll begin our time.

Our Lord, thank You for the joy of fellowship. Thank You for giving us wonderful friends in the faith and that You didn't leave us to our own devices, isolated and alone in our working out our own salvation but that we would have the encouragement of Your people, their comfort and prayers and their fellowship. Thank You for Your holy church. We pray that You would continue to teach us and guide us and even grant to us a greater understanding of what it means to be an integral part of Your church. We seek for Your blessing on this time together. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

The next passage to be read is Matthew 18:12-20, and the main idea here, which is also the main truth here, is this: God wants none to perish. The key verse is found in verse 14 where Jesus says, "it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish.” What this shows us is the heart of God that does not want anyone to perish. In terms of the full text, there are three parts to it. First, Jesus tells us about the heart of a shepherd. Second, He teaches us about how to win a brother. And then thirdly, disassociation of the unrepentant person. We'll go over these together now.

First, a shepherd's heart. Jesus tells a short story of how a shepherd, when he has 100 sheep, he would leave the 99 in search of the one that has gone astray. When he finds that one lost sheep, he rejoices greatly over that one that's been restored, even more than the 99 which had not gone astray. Then Jesus makes the remark in verse 14 that “it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish.” When Jesus says “little ones,” He is indeed talking about children who believe in Him; and Jesus is actually saying that God earnestly wants not a single one of them to ever be lost. That is God's heart. He is the shepherd of Psalm 23. He has a shepherd's heart. He earnestly seeks for the one that has strayed. God yearns for the restoration of the one lost sheep. Well, what does it mean to stray or be lost in this context? It has everything to do with stumbling into sin, as the previous context has shown us and so will the remainder of this passage. A lost sheep is a person who has stopped seeking God's word, who has turned to a life of worldliness and godlessness, away from God’s word and away from His people. And what Jesus shows us is that God earnestly seeks for that person to be restored to Him. That, of course, is also the heart of Jesus. We see this after Jesus rose from the dead. He went seeking after Simon Peter to restore him to ministry. You would recall, before Jesus went to the cross, Peter had denied Him three times. After Jesus rose from the dead, He restored him to ministry and even tells him that one day he will lay down his life for Christ. That's the heart of God, and that's the heart of God that we see in the heart of Jesus, because they are one God.

Now, in terms of the rest of this passage, what stands out here is that the shepherd seeks lost sheep through His people. This is what we find as we move on to the following section on winning your brother. God restores lost people through the community of His people, the church. Winning your brother is the language that comes up starting in verse 15. And in these verses, Jesus shows us the steps of restoring, or winning, a sinning brother. These are people who had confessed Jesus as Lord and at one time started walking with the Lord; then later on, they turned away from Christ and they have indulged in some kind of sin. Jesus teaches us that there are steps by which we are to restore that person to the church community. But the steps begin not with the church at large, but rather what we are to do individually. He first says this, “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.” To win your brother means to win him from the sins that he had been entangled in. That's step number one: private correction. Private, by the way, literally means alone. It means you and him alone. So you don't bring in anybody else. You don't gossip, you don't talk about this person’s sin with anybody else. You just go and talk to that person first. Jesus cautions us about not shaming people in this process, and you'll see this in the second also. And that second step is confirmation. Jesus says, “if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed.” The second step is confirmation by witnesses. The reason for this step is that Jesus accounts for false accusations. Sometimes we may be dead wrong in our assessment of another person's behavior. The other person may not be violating God's word, but violating what is in my opinion a godly lifestyle. But of course, that is not a violation of God's word, and so that isn't really sin. That's just not living up to my own human standard. And so Jesus brings up this very important step to make sure that there is objectivity when sin is confronted. Make sure it is sin that you are dealing with. This means that when we bring correction to someone else, we always speak from the Bible. And in this step, Jesus wants us to make sure the fact is established by two or three witnesses, “so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed.” This is the Old Testament standard for establishing facts in the court of law: two or three witnesses. The point is this, there should be no question that the person is really in a state of disobedience to the Lord, and that this is not just a matter of someone's perception. This also shows us that we are confronting sins that are verifiable acts of sin. We don't start this process based on a hunch. Though there may be times where you can ask someone about a hunch. This also means that this process is not for how to deal with the hidden issues of the heart. You don’t know the hearts of other people, only God knows that. So then, what kind of issues are we talking about? We're talking about overt acts of sin like infidelity, when someone cheats on their spouse, or domestic violence, or deceptiveness in business dealings, or stealing from people, or tax evasion, or perjury. These are things that are confirmable by multiple witnesses and therefore verifiable. Jesus calls us to make sure that we're dealing with things that are factual. But if the person refuses to listen to them, then Jesus says they are to move onto step number three.

Step three: the church is to be informed of what has been going on, the whole church. This, of course, is now getting very serious. It's been elevated to a higher level. But the point of all of this is because God really wants the lost sheep to be restored. And so the person is to now be confronted by the whole church. This comes up in verse 17 where Jesus says, “if he refuses to listen to them (that is, the two or three witnesses), tell it to the church.” And then comes step number four, where Jesus says, “let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” In the Jewish context, to treat a person like a Gentile on a tax collector means disassociation.

This is step number four, disassociation. It's not just that the person is disallowed to join the congregational assembly, or worship service, or community group meetings. This is actually far more than these. This is social disconnection. We are even told in 1 Corinthians 5 that when a person has been thus removed from the church, the members are not even to eat with such a person. This is very severe, but again the heart behind all this is that the sinning person would wake up from their spiritual slumber and realize their desperate need to get right with God. Jesus is saying that if they don't heed the message of the one person, and if they refuse to heed the message of two or three, and if they even refuse the message of the entire church, then the message has to grow even louder still through the collective action of the entire congregation to socially disconnect from that person. Again, the purpose of all of this is so that the person would come to his senses and come to repentance.

With regard to that last step of disassociation, Jesus elaborates a bit more. He teaches us that heaven confirms what we do on earth if we faithfully follow Jesus's way. He says this, “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.” This sounds a lot like what we read before in Chapter 16. It was what Jesus said to Simon Peter. There, Jesus gave Simon Peter the authority to include or exclude people from the church of God, but that was given to Peter as the first of many believers. In Matthew Chapter 18, Jesus says these same words to the entire church, because this is now the responsibility of the church to include or exclude people based on whether they are truly walking with the Lord or not. The key truth here is that when we practice these steps of discipline as Jesus teaches us, then we can be assured that what we do on earth has already been done in heaven. Jesus is saying that if you follow His way, what you do on earth is simply the reflection of that which has already been determined in heaven. But again, the heart behind all of this is so that a sinning person would come to true repentance. Then Jesus adds more words to give weight to the church's action. He says, “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.” People often use this verse to promote praying together. Praying together is a great idea. But God answers you even when you pray alone. Jesus's point here comes in the context about church discipline, that when a congregation (even if it's such a small congregation that there's only two of them), if they really do follow the words of Christ and they concur together, then that which they do on earth in terms of church discipline is indeed that which has taken place in heaven. Jesus also says, “where two or three have gathered together My name, I am there in their midst.” He means that His authority is with them, so that the church of God really has the authority to bind or loosen a person from their community. Again, the purpose of all this is to turn the heart of the sinning person back toward the Lord, that they would come to true repentance, that they would no longer be spiritually lost. God wants none to perish.

So, what can we pray about with regard to all of this? First, we can thank the Lord for His shepherding care, that He guards His people from sin which destroys their souls. A person who goes on living in the lifestyle of sin, they are not saved. When God saves someone, He not only forgives them, but He purifies their lives. This is the greatness of salvation Jesus gives to His people. So we should thank the Lord that He cares for His sheep and that He seeks for each one to be restored to a right and healthy relationship with Him. Second, we can also pray a prayer of repentance ourselves. If there is any known sin in our own lives, this is the time to confess and make it right with the Lord and pursue a life of obedience to Him. Jesus speaks these words for our good as well. And thirdly, we should express our commitment to live in obedience to the Lord. And when it comes to confronting others, we should commit to being a faithful member of God's church, where we carry out what Jesus told us, because Jesus ordained this means of restoring lost sheep back to Himself. We can also express to the Lord that we are committed to helping others, that we will not be standoffish or indifferent to others’ spiritual condition. There are lots of things to consider and pray to the Lord about from this passage.

Let's pray and we'll wrap it up for today. Lord, thank You that You care for our souls, and that You deal with us according to the truth that sin destroys the human soul. Therefore, You call Your church to deal not lightly with sin but with all seriousness. And I pray that in our hearts, we will be committed to, first of all, living a life of true repentance and obedience to You; then secondly, that we would be wholeheartedly committed to encourage, exhort, and even at times, rebuke a fellow brother or sister in Christ, so that none would be lost. God, we know many times we need someone to correct us, and we pray that we would not be so bashful or overly concerned about our own comfort and reputation that we refuse to confront someone else. Help us to be a faithful friend and a faithful brother to those whom you have placed among us. Thank You for Your holy word. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Well, that's it for today. Lord bless you all and see you Friday.