The Undisciplined Church

God has always called his people to holiness. God has always called his people to holiness. This isn’t anything new. Be ye holy, for I am holy. He says it over and over. Read the book of Leviticus, it’s everywhere. Deuteronomy 6, a good illustration of this, verses 17-18. Listen to what the Scripture says. You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies and his statutes which he’s commanded you. You shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land in which the Lord swore to give your fathers.

God wants to bless you, and he will if you obey him. Chapter 7 of Deuteronomy, verse 6. You are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. You are a holy people. Peter says the same thing, 1 Peter 2. You are a holy people, a chosen nation. You are called out of darkness into his marvellous light. You are a holy people. God has always called his people to holiness, always called Israel to holiness.

Secondly, God disciplines his people. He himself does it. You are well aware of Hebrews chapter 12. It’s a very familiar passage. Hebrews 12.5 says, My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you’re approved by him. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives. The Lord will do discipline himself. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as sons, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline? And if you’re without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you’re illegitimate children and have no and not sons.

I mean, if you’re God’s child, God’s son, he’ll discipline you. Why? Verse 10. He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his, here’s the key word, holiness, that we may share his holiness. God has always called his people to holiness, and God individually disciplines his children to that end. Third point. He’s called his church to discipline as well. This matter of holiness not only is God’s individual activity between himself and a believer, but it becomes a collective responsibility of the church. And Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5, literally, he was outraged that the Corinthians didn’t discipline sinning members.

Outraged. He told the Thessalonians, as I pointed out earlier in 2 Thessalonians, that they had to discipline sin. He says, look, if you find somebody who’s leading an unruly life, not according to the word which you’ve received from us, keep aloof from him. Down later in the same chapter, he says, take note of that person who doesn’t obey the word, don’t associate with him, put him out. The pattern for that is also repeated in Titus 3, when you find a factious man, confront him once or twice, and then put him out, reject him.

Can I remind you just briefly, because it must be a part of this message, turn to Matthew 18, and we’ll just very briefly comment on the pattern, the flow of this, which I’ve referred to a couple of times earlier. In Matthew 18, 15, Jesus gives the instruction as to how you do this. Verse 15, if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private. If he listens to you, you’ve won your brother. Church discipline starts in the pew. It’s not something for pastors only to do, it’s for us to be concerned about, teach about, it’s for you to do.

If you know somebody who’s in sin, go and reprove that person privately. Don’t talk about their sin to somebody else. Talk about it to them. If you know someone in sin, go to that individual, reprove that individual, call them to repent of that sin. That’s your responsibility. Galatians 6 puts it this way, if someone’s overtaken in a fault, you that are spiritual restore such a one in love, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Go in meekness, realising you too could be tempted and fall into sin. Go lovingly, but go confrontively and confront your brother in sin.

The church has to do this. We cannot create anonymity in a church. We cannot create isolation in the church. All the church growth stuff today says people don’t want to be identified, they don’t want their life exposed, they want to come in anonymously and go out anonymously, they don’t want anybody poking around their life. Just the opposite of what scripture says. Lovingly, carefully, as we come into the church, we expose ourselves to one another. That doesn’t drive God’s people away. That draws God’s people who love righteousness and hate sin and want help.

So, you go to the individual, if you know someone has sinned, you go to them. It’s your responsibility before God if you really care, if you really love that person. If they repent, it’s over. If they don’t, verse 16 says, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. There’s that Deuteronomy 1915 passage again, which Paul quoted in 2 Corinthians 13. You just take two or three, go back, and you confront the sin again. And now you’ve got two or three who know about the sin, know the reality of the sin, and can verify whether there’s repentance or not.

If the person doesn’t repent, verse 17 couldn’t be clearer. Tell the church. Tell the whole church. Couldn’t be clearer. It’s not a mystery about how to interpret that. It’s just as simple as it can be. And after the church caused that person to repentance, if they still don’t repent, put them out. Treat them like a Gentile. That’s somebody outside the covenant. Treat them like a tax gatherer. That’s the most despicable people in the society, were those Jews who had become traitors to their own people and sold themselves to Rome to buy a tax franchise to extort from their people.

Put them out. Paul had to do that occasionally himself. He did it. That’s the church’s responsibility. Even when someone’s an elder, they should be confronted. The reason you do the public confrontation, according to 1 Timothy 5, is because, verse 20 says, those who continue in sin rebuke in the presence of all so that the rest also may be fearful of sinning. We want to make people afraid to sin because there are public consequences. It’s not, there’s not a mystery about this. This is very clear. Now finally, Scripture reveals three areas of sin calling for discipline.

People always ask me, what do you think? Well, the first thing is doctrinal error. Unsound teaching. 1 Timothy 1, 18-20, Paul threw Hymenaeus and Alexander out of the church because they were shipwrecking the faith. Paul confronted error in Galatia because people were believing another gospel. The first thing is doctrinal error calls for discipline. If you know somebody in error, you know somebody teaching falsely, falsely representing Scripture, misrepresenting the truth. That must be dealt with. Secondly, issues of unity. Issues of unity. If you find a factious person, you must deal with Titus 3.

Thirdly, issues of purity. 1 Corinthians 5 at all. Issues of sin and purity. You deal with doctrinal issues, issues of unity, and issues of purity. All of those threaten the church, and when this discipline is absent from the church, so is Christ, because unholiness in a church will cause the Lord of the church to abandon that church. An undisciplined church is as unruly as an undisciplined child and a shame and sorrow to the Lord of the church. I want Christ to be honoured in his church, don’t you? And therefore, we have to be concerned about repentance and discipline in the church so that the church will be holy and a proper manifestation of the holiness of the Lord of the church who lives in through his church.

Thank you for joining us in this exploration on the undisciplined church. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].