Read Matthew 18:8-20
Look at Jesus’ language in verses 8 and 9. These aren’t easy words. But I do want to emphasize that Jesus is not talking about actually doing these things to yourself. This is being stated as a powerful figure of speech, not an actual command to self-mutilation. There have been people that have taken these particular statements literally, but they aren’t meant to be. I think one of the strongest pieces of evidence of that being the case, is that there is no records in the bible throughout all of the early church times of this happening. Again, Jesus is using a powerful figure of speech. He literally did the same thing in the passage last week when He said it would be BETTER to have the stone around your neck and be drowned in the sea than to be part of the problem causing people to sin.
The whole point being to think about how bad and how serious that thing is and then realize that He sees this other thing as worse than that. It’s not that we’re going to put stones on people’s neck and throw them overboard, it’s man … that’s terrible … and God says that this other thing is worse than that?
That should make me pay pretty close attention to what He is saying.
That’s the same thing that is going on this morning. These figures of speech give a little context to the problem. They help us kind of grasp the seriousness of the issue. Today Jesus says it would be better to cut off your hand or your foot or gouge out your eye then for you to be thrown into hell. If those are the things messing us up it would be better to be maimed and doing the right thing, than to be whole and on our way to hell. This way of talking, leading hopefully to us understanding, is supposed to be making us see how serious this is … and start dealing with it, without needing to cut off limbs and gouge out eyes.
Sin is terrible. Every bit of it is rebellion against God. It’s that prideful opposition against Him that we talked about last week. And we won’t win that one.
The Bible is so clear that sin will be punished. Romans 6:23 says:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Isaiah 59:2 says:
But your iniquities (sins) have separated you from your God;
And your sins have hidden His face from you,
So that He will not hear.
Our sin separates can keep us separated from Him, now and for all eternity.
Read Galatians 5:19-21
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Through these passages, we see sin result in death, physically and spiritually, we see eternal separation from God’s presence, and a denial of entry into His Kingdom. That’s all bad … really bad … and with there being a path away from all of these terrible outcomes in Jesus, why would we want to keep heading towards that disaster of a finish line. That’s why Jesus is talking like this in today’s passage, it not to do these things, it’s just to drill into our understanding that we need to be taking serious measures in the fight against sin.
The problem is that we are more naturally inclined to avoid sin just so far as it is visible and problematic. Maybe just so far that other people aren’t seeing what’s going on. But Jesus is telling us to make serious changes in the fight against sin. And please realize that God isn’t just like looking to punish sinners, I mean He absolutely will and that’s why we need to talk about these things, but God’s desire is to save His people and we see that in the next verses in Matthew 18. Let’s read verses 10-14 again.
Read Matthew 18:10-14
Before we even connect the dots to this next part, I want to deal with the part of verse 10 that talks about angels. I don’t want to go too far down this road right now, but this is the verse where people generally get the idea of “Guardian angels” or angels specifically assigned to each individual. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that. The way that this is worded in the original language leans more towards angels plural being there for all of the little ones, plural. It’s just angels in general being there for God’s people and that is supported throughout a lot more of scripture. But there is nowhere else at all really that we can find any support for the individual guardian angel idea so it’s probably safer to fall on the side of God having His angels support all of His people in more of a general sense. And I’ll just leave it at that and we can get back to connecting these dots.
Like I said a minute ago, God isn’t just looking to punish sinners, but God desires to save and we can see that in these verses.
Jesus again references the “little ones” like He did last week. He very well might still have the kid standing there with them from last that He was using as an example of humility. We’ve seen Him use this phrase towards children and He is likely including newer or weaker believers in Jesus in this phrase here as well. Being newer and weaker is absolutely OK, we are where we are, and we start where we start, until we grow in Him. But we all start somewhere. We start as these little ones.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of times that church culture struggles with helping the newer and weaker in the faith. Sometimes church can be like this group of people that have been together for decades, they’re comfortable with who they know already, maybe they’ve learned a bit of knowledge about these things already and maybe they struggle with someone new, maybe they just don’t know what to do with someone that’s not like them. Maybe someone that is still rough around the edges, maybe they still have a mouth on them, maybe they are still struggling with the fight against the sin that Jesus saved just them out of, maybe they don’t really know well what’s right and wrong in God’s eyes yet. And sometimes church culture can get judgmental and problematic towards these people, but Jesus says, don’t despise one of these little ones. Maybe they are weaker in a way, maybe they are young, maybe they just don’t know yet, but don’t despise them. That’s not our place.
Real strength and maturity doesn’t look down on people, real strength looks to use that strength to lift others up with them.
Jesus says in verse 11 that He (the Son of Man) has come to save that which was lost. He came for these people. And if He came for them, what business do we have despising them?
There may be a temptation to despise the little, to despise the weak, to despise the one not like us, to despise the one that may be going astray. But is that what the Lord does in this analogy?
ABSOLUTELY NOT. So, what does He do?
He goes and seeks out the one that is going astray. Even though the 99 are still there, He breaks away in this moment of need and pursues the individual. In this we see an incredible truth.
That God’s relationship isn’t just with the Church or all of His people collectively. God’s relationship and care is extended at the individual level. He loves you enough to seek you out and bring you back in your time of need. Maybe you’re hurt, maybe you’re wandering, maybe you’re just lost, but there is a God who is personal, caring, loving, and powerful enough to overcome the situation and bring His child home and celebrate their return.
That’s His heart in these situations. And that heart is the backdrop that we need to best understand the last part of our passage for today.
Read Matthew 18:15-20
This passage talks about what is generally called “Church Discipline”. Listen, we started off today talking about the seriousness of sin and how much of a problem that it is in light of Who God is. We moved from that into seeing God’s heart to bring back the individual that has gone astray, the person that has left His path and backtracked onto the path of sin. God obviously knows that that is no place for His people to be and so His heart is to bring us back from that path leading to all sorts of problems and back onto His path and walking in His grace.
As God’s people within the church, we’re not walking solo, we’ve got brothers and sisters all around us. And the heart that we should have for each other is the heart that God has for His people. That we don’t ever want to see one of us getting off God’s path and turning back to a life of sin because we know that that won’t lead anywhere good. And so, because we hopefully love each other, then when we see one of us messing up, that love, and this truth should compel us to come alongside our brother or sister to help them turn back in the right direction. We’re not looking to judge, we’re looking to act in love, because the problems that sin will bring are so much worse than having the hard conversations to deal with it.
And now this passage isn’t saying that we activate this for every little instance of messing up. Scripture says in 1 Peter 4:8:
And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.”
We should love each other enough that we can get past the little mistakes we make with each other times. Not everything needs to escalate. I should love you enough that maybe that response that was given, or that thing that was said, or maybe I felt left out of that thing, or whatever it was, my love should be enough to look past most of those things and move forward.
But what this passage speaks to is someone that is caught up in sin, that sin has become a very present part of their living. It’s evident and it’s a problem. All sin is a problem, but this has escalated, it’s something severe, or has become a habit, and now it needs to be specifically dealt with.
And at that point, the individual aware of the sin should approach the other individual from a place of love and care to seek change and see that brother or sister returned to right living before God. But if that person doesn’t want to do anything about it, then a small group of two or three that again actually love and care for this individual approach them in the same way. If at that point there is still no desire to fix things, then it is escalated to the whole church level, it’s brought to church leadership, and again the individual is approached in love and care to deal with the issue. And if there is still no change of heart or repentance from this sin, then we are actually called to cut the person off from fellowship.
But not because we want to punish them, not because we are judge and jury, but only because we want to make the situation serious enough, so that the person must really consider their response.
Are they really willing to pursue this sin over keeping the fellowship with their church family?
The final points from Jesus in these last few verses highlight some of the things that they would be missing in this fellowship. Verses 18 and 19 speak of prayer, but not just the prayer of the individual, Jesus speaks of the power and importance of praying together. The wording here has the idea of essentially a symphony of prayer going up. Our prayer together is like the power of a bunch instruments playing the same song together in an orchestra, if you are just a cymbal, or just had a flute, or just had a triangle, it pales in comparison to the whole symphony of instruments in action. That symphony happens within the fellowship of the church.
And then Jesus also speaks of His own presence, there is absolutely the truth that God is ever present with all of us, everywhere, but He is also very specific about His presence being in the midst of His gathered people even down to two or three. Which is great, because we aren’t large here, but we only need two to three to meet this mark.
But this symphony of prayer, this specific presence of Christ, these things happen within the fellowship of God’s people. And this person that is walking down this path of sin has to be faced with losing these things.
The purpose of this passage isn’t judgement or harshness for the sake of being harsh. We saw the severity of sin, we saw God’s heart to rescue the individual that goes astray, and then we see God entrusting us with the responsibility to share His heart of restoration. To join with Him in pursuit of the one that goes astray in sin. Not because we are better than them, not because we are judgmental, not because we want to hurt them, but only because we know that sin will lead people to terrible places and God’s heart should be our heart as well to love and care and pursue the wayward person to see them brought back onto the right path.
It’s only God’s love and His example that should compel us and guide us to act on these things for the sake of the brother or sister that has been caught up in sin. I really hope for myself that if you ever catch me slipping that you would love me enough to bring it to my attention and help me get right before the Lord. Because I don’t ever want to get lost and hurt or hurt others on the path of sin and I absolutely don’t at all want that for any of us. I want us to close by reading a passage in Romans 6 together. Let’s go there.
Read Romans 6:1-14
We have to watch out for each other in love, because sin is a problem. And as God’s people, we are no longer slaves to sin, it doesn’t rule over us, you can choose to play around with it, but absolutely shouldn’t. Christ died to deal with that sin, and we don’t go back to it just because He is gracious. God will pursue His wayward children; He will even use us as part of this loving process to bring someone back. But as we sit here today, we need be resolved in what Romans 6:11 says:
Likewise, you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We can’t be about that any longer, because we got to be all about Him.