Church Discipline and Forgiveness

Show Notes

2 Corinthians 2:5–11 (Listen)

Forgive the Sinner

5 Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure—not to put it too severely—to all of you. 6 For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, 7 so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. 9 For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. 10 Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, 11 so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.

(ESV)

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Jeffrey Heine: 00:00

I invite you to turn to second Corinthians chapter 5 or chapter 2 beginning in verse 5. We started a series about a month ago in which we'll be working through the book of second Corinthians together. Chapter 2 verse 5. Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely to all of you. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough.

Jeffrey Heine: 00:40

So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. For this is why I wrote that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs.

Jeffrey Heine: 01:17

Pray with me. Lord, we do ask that you would honor the reading of your word. Even now, it would begin breaking through the walls we have put up around our hearts, breaking down our defenses. Lord, I pray that as we hear this word, we would be shaped to look more like you Jesus. I ask that in this moment, my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.

Jeffrey Heine: 01:48

But, lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Last week, if you remember, we looked at the context of this second letter to the Corinthians, it gets a little confusing because this second letter is actually the 4th letter. Paul refers to 2 other letters that we don't actually have.

Jeffrey Heine: 02:16

And the reason that Paul wrote so many letters to this church is for 1, he did have a great bond with them, but 2, they were always needing attention. They were they were like that wayward child. And so so Paul had to keep writing because they had so many problems. He he spent a a year and a half there establishing the church. And then after he left, soon after he left, they began departing from his teaching.

Jeffrey Heine: 02:44

These these false shepherds came in. These these false prophets, if you will, began leading people astray, poisoning their minds against Paul. Paul heard about this, and so, so he abandoned his current plans and he rushed back to Corinth to see if he could correct the problem. And and he met quite a battle when he was there. Things were far worse than he thought, and there was a huge confrontation.

Jeffrey Heine: 03:11

And Paul actually had to retreat. He had to leave and he he left in shame the very church that he had founded and invested so much in. But as he was leaving, he said, I'm gonna come back to you in a short while. Essentially, he was he said, I wanted to let things cool down a bit and then I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna see if we could sort things out. And so Paul left, But while he was away, he he he thought, you know what?

Jeffrey Heine: 03:42

If I come back, I'm just gonna blast them. He thought, I'm gonna write a letter instead. And so he wrote them what's referred to in 2nd Corinthians as this painful letter. They received this painful letter, and they responded well to it. They repented.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:01

A large majority of the people repented. And and Titus sends back word to Paul about how many of the people have repented of this. Not everybody, but but many have. And then Paul wrote this letter, 2nd Corinthians, to them. That's that's the context.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:21

There still was a minority there that was resistant to Paul. And there still was some people who really, really despised Paul, and it's likely that it was one of these people to whom this text is about. The church, when they repented, they responded against one of these people who was likely slandering Paul and they put him under church discipline in order that this person would repent and eventually be restored to the church. And at work, the person repented. And now Paul is writing this and and is saying, as for that person who you have punished, it's time to bring them back.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:57

It's time to forgive them. So that's what this text is about. We we get to talk about church discipline tonight. Aren't you really glad that you came? But before we jump into the text, maybe we should take a quick look just to look at what church discipline is or excommunication is.

Jeffrey Heine: 05:16

I mean, these these terms sound pretty horrendous to us. What do we mean by that? Jesus himself, he kinda describes this in Matthew chapter 18. I'll read you these words. Says if your brother sins against you, go ahead and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

Jeffrey Heine: 05:36

If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take 1 or 2 others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of 2 or 3 witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses even to listen to the church, let him be to you as a gentile and a tax collector. So Jesus says if a person sins against you, the first thing you're to do is go to that person.

Jeffrey Heine: 06:07

You don't go to other people and talk about the problem. You don't talk behind their back. If you're talking to somebody, who is not part of the solution and is not part of the problem, then that's just gossip. He is saying, you go to that person and see if they'll repent. And if they won't repent, then then you bring a couple of witnesses.

Jeffrey Heine: 06:29

And if they still won't repent, then you bring it before the church. And if they still won't repent, then you treat them like a tax collector or a gentile, or you treat them like an outsider, and you remove them from your fellowship. There's another passage that deals with church discipline or excommunication. It's actually Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. Could possibly be talking about the same man that we find here in second Corinthians.

Jeffrey Heine: 07:00

We're not sure. And he says this in chapter 5. It's reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans. For a man has his father's wife and you are arrogant. Oh, you should not rather to mourn.

Jeffrey Heine: 07:20

Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in the body, I am present in the spirit. And as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you're assembled together in the name of the Lord and my spirit is present With the power of our lord Jesus, you are to to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the lord. So here in this context, you have a man man who is living a openly sinful lifestyle.

Jeffrey Heine: 07:56

He's sleeping with his mother-in-law and he's not ashamed about it. Everybody knows about it and he refuses to repent even when being confronted with this. So Paul says, it's time for the church to take official action. Remove this man. And he says the goal of this is that the person's soul might be saved.

Jeffrey Heine: 08:16

The the goal of church discipline is always restoration. It's always repentance and restoration. It's what I would call a severe mercy, and that's how you should think of church discipline. It is a mercy for the leadership of the church to step into somebody's life and to say, you can't keep living that way. We care too much about you to let you continue in sin.

Jeffrey Heine: 08:43

That's not compatible with the Christian lifestyle. We want you to change. And so stepping in and making people aware of that and the severity of their actions is a mercy and it's a grace. Not a fun one. It's a severe one.

Jeffrey Heine: 08:58

But it is a mercy. Church discipline is not, you know, the pastor saying, you know what? I really have issues with that problem with that person there. And so, it's either my way or the highway. Get out of here.

Jeffrey Heine: 09:16

That's that's just an abuse of power. That's that's not what church discipline is. I know some of y'all have come from churches like that. I will never say, you know, hey. If you disagree with my message here, that's fine.

Jeffrey Heine: 09:31

You're gonna find some elders at your door later this week, some really big, large elders, and, we'll see if you still disagree. You know? That that's not gonna happen. What Paul here is talking about what Jesus is talking about is somebody who is living an open lifestyle of sin and refuses to repent, refuses, then the church has to get involved and exercise discipline. So so with that in mind, let's look at this case here in second Corinthians in particular.

Jeffrey Heine: 10:05

In verse 5, now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely to all of you. Okay. Paul has been hurt somebody by somebody, deeply hurt by somebody. Likely, there was a man who tried to, tried to put down Paul, tried to put down his work, tried to lead people, away from Paul's message of the gospel. And so that really hurt Paul to be slandered in such a way.

Jeffrey Heine: 10:42

And Paul is saying, yes. He did hurt me, but, you know, I don't wanna exaggerate this, but he actually hurt y'all too. Because when he was putting down my message, it means he was putting down the gospel, and that hurts you. It's it's not just me who was hurt, but all of you suffered as well in this. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough.

Jeffrey Heine: 11:15

So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I wanna slow down and and just really listen to this verse. The word that's used there for punishment, it's the only time that word is used in the bible. It's it's it's a common word though for that time, but it was used in a legal official sense. So you would never use this word here for punish for, for instance, a parent punishing a child.

Jeffrey Heine: 11:57

This was for the courts doing a legal punishment. So it's an official penalty executed out by an official group. And now the only way that you can hand out an official punishment is if the church itself is an official organization in which you could either have a member or not a member so you could remove one from membership. This this this was an official act here. This could not happen with just an informal gathering of Christians.

Jeffrey Heine: 12:38

And I feel like I I need to address this some because I I know that for many of us in here, at least some of us in here that, are really puzzled about church membership. Maybe you grew up where that wasn't important, or maybe even church membership rubs you the wrong way. But it's something that's clearly taught in the new testament, and it's something that should be embraced. The church is this. The church is a people called by god to be in covenant relationship with one another or they covenant together to live life together and to seek the Lord together.

Jeffrey Heine: 13:17

Alright? That's what a church is. It's people who are covenanting together to live life together and to seek the Lord together. The one only sorry. The the church is not the church is not an event.

Jeffrey Heine: 13:34

It's not a building. It's not a worship service. It's primarily it's it's a it's a group of people. That's what the church is. We live in a generation though that has somewhat of a problem with that.

Jeffrey Heine: 13:48

We we have this consumer mentality when we think of church. We even you know, church shopping is a common word. I mean, at least it is here in the south. We we shop for churches. We we go from 1 church to the next and we see what they have to offer.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:02

And so when it comes to a church, we see what it has to offer instead of what we can give. And so I I know people who go to 1 church for preaching, another church for worship. They go to another church for the potluck dinner or maybe the, primavera or Starbucks coffee. And it's it's very similar to how one would go to the summit and shop. And you, you want a little bit here and you want a little bit here and you want a little bit here.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:26

And you think of churches, all churches, just these things you can go to and you can get things from. Not, not a people called by God to live in a covenant relationship with one another all for His glory. I've talked with several people over the years who, borderline confessed, except I don't I don't think it was really a confession. But but have said, you know, honestly, missing church really isn't a big deal for me Because, you know, I can always listen to a podcast or I can always just, you know, praise God in my car. And and I can understand if that is your view of church.

Jeffrey Heine: 15:08

Yes. Missing church is not a big deal, but that's not the biblical view of church. If this is your attitude towards church, know that you were embracing a concept that was completely foreign to Paul. He would not have a category in his brain to file. That is what we think of as a local church.

Jeffrey Heine: 15:39

And you are missing out on one of the greatest privileges and joys we have in life, which is to be in covenant community with one another as we follow the Lord together. Paul sees church as a group of people committed to love and serve one another for the sake of Jesus. And our lives in this local community are to be so intertwined, so interwoven that Paul describes us as one body. We we are a body. And when one person hurts, the other person hurts.

Jeffrey Heine: 16:11

When one person rejoices, the other person rejoices. We are so woven together. You know, one of the ways that you can see just how much church membership is valued by Paul and by the new testament church is because being denied it or being removed from it is the worst of all possible punishments. Look at the language Paul uses to describe what is happening to this man who is standing under the church's punishment. Look at verse 7.

Jeffrey Heine: 16:55

He says, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. This man under the church's discipline is is in danger of drowning in sorrow. Be being denied the privileges of being part of a local church is about to kill this man. He can't stand it any longer. He's drowning in sorrow.

Jeffrey Heine: 17:24

And this tells us that being part of a church or serving in a church is to be so life giving, so joyful that to be cut off from that is like drowning. Let me ask you a question. Do you have any idea what he is talking about at all? Is this is this resonating with you in any way? I was thinking of it this way.

Jeffrey Heine: 17:57

Let me ask you this. How exactly could the local church punish you? I know it's a strange question to think about that, but how exactly could the local church punish you? There's a lot of ways to punish people. Okay?

Jeffrey Heine: 18:15

I mean, I'm a dad. I'm an expert at it. But all of those things are denied for me to do to you. Okay? There there's no corporal punishment.

Jeffrey Heine: 18:28

You know, I can't give you a fine or something. You know? You you missed our church service on Sunday. You owe us $2,000. I, you know, you can't I can't send elders to your door with clubs.

Jeffrey Heine: 18:37

I I I can't do any punishments like that. The only tool that the church has for its disposal, for punishment, is to withdraw something, is to take something away from you. That's the only thing the church can do is to withhold something from you. So what would that look like for you? It's gonna be some hard questions, but I feel I need to be direct.

Jeffrey Heine: 19:05

Would it look something like would this would this be a punishment to you if the church said, from now on, you can't attend every worship service? Maybe just come to half. Or I'm sorry, but you you really can't commit to coming and gathering with a group of believers in their homes each week. I'm sorry, but we're gonna deny you the opportunity of serving in our children's ministry. I'm sorry, but we're no longer gonna take your tithes and offerings.

Jeffrey Heine: 19:38

You you can't give us to us. What exactly could the church withhold from you to where you would drown in sorrow? The reality is this. For a lot of you, it'd be like, throw me in the briar patch. Alright.

Jeffrey Heine: 20:03

The, the sad reality is that many, many Christians today, because they have so devalued church membership, so many of them live in a voluntary state of excommunication. You realize that? We live with a self imposed church discipline. And the sad thing is, we we don't even know we're drowning in sorrow. It's just commonplace.

Jeffrey Heine: 20:28

It's just where we are. We call it just living life. The greatest joys that Lauren and I have come to experience over the years, especially even in starting this community, is just living life with people, praying alongside with people, being called out of my when I sinned by people. God has used that to draw me closer to him than I ever would have done outside of being a member. And I'm not saying be a member of our our church.

Jeffrey Heine: 21:02

I'm saying, but be a member of a local body and give yourself to it. One of the most common phrases in the new testament is the phrase one another. These two words, you're gonna find over and over and over throughout the bible. And so let me just go through a few. This few is gonna be a lot, but it's still just a few when you look at the grand scope of them.

Jeffrey Heine: 21:29

John 15 12 says, love one another as I have loved you. Romans 12 10, outdo one another in showing honor. Romans 12 16, live in harmony with one another. Romans 14/13, do not pass judgment on one another. Romans 15:7, 16, greet one another with a holy kiss.

Jeffrey Heine: 22:00

1st Corinthians 11, wait or serve one another. 1st Corinthians 12 25, care for one another. 2nd Corinthians 13:11, comfort one another and agree with one another. Galatians 527, do not provoke one another. Do not envy one another.

Jeffrey Heine: 22:19

Ephesians 42, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. Ephesians 432, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as Christ forgave you. Ephesians 5:19, address one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Ephesians 521, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Galatians 3, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom.

Jeffrey Heine: 22:51

First Thessalonians 5:11, encourage one another and build one another up. First Thessalonians 5:15, seek to do good to one another. Hebrews 3 13, exhort one another every day. Hebrews 10 24, stir one another up to love and good works. James 411, speak do not speak evil against one another.

Jeffrey Heine: 23:14

James 59, do not grumble against one another. James 5 16, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. Hopefully, you get the point. I'll stop. Okay?

Jeffrey Heine: 23:26

There's a lot of one anothers. And now the only way to live that out, and for all of these things to happen is for you to commit your life, yourself to a local body of believers. That's the only way you can live out all these one another's. It can't happen outside of that. You're you're not told to just, you know, encourage or to comfort or to submit in a vacuum.

Jeffrey Heine: 23:56

Submit to what? Submit to who? Do I do I submit to somebody, you know, in another state, in in another local church? No. You you submit to your local body, your your brothers and sisters here, out of reverence for Christ.

Jeffrey Heine: 24:09

You encourage one another here. These things only happen through covenancing with a defined group of people to live life with them, all for the glory of Jesus. That's what it means to be a church member. Going to a church service will not cut it. As a matter of fact, I mean, even when, you know, Jesus said that let let a person after they've been removed from your midst, be treated like a tax collector or a Gentile.

Jeffrey Heine: 24:43

How did Jesus treat tax collectors and Gentiles? He pursued them. They were still allowed to listen to his teaching. The early church allowed non Christians to still come and be part of a service. Being a church member is more than that.

Jeffrey Heine: 24:59

I'd like you to think of church membership like, like a marriage. I marry people all the time and, the vows are the highlight of the service when they covenant with one another. You're not going to find any scripture anywhere that says you're supposed to make a covenant with one another to get married. You're not going to find any legal document that talks about that. So why do we exchange vows when we get married?

Jeffrey Heine: 25:37

I mean, can't you just decide, let's just be around one another and just kind of love one another? And you can say, yes, that that you can do that to some extent, but but you kind of you lose the depth of marriage. Because by the very nature of marriage itself, and you see all that it represents and all that it strives and hopes to be, the very nature of it implies making a covenant with one another. And I would say the local church is no different. That when you look at the nature of the Christian relationships that we are called to have, how we're supposed to have all of these one another's, I would say that implies entering into a covenant relationship with one another.

Jeffrey Heine: 26:29

And to ever be removed from that would cause excessive sorrow. Now real quick, I I want us to move on to what Paul actually says about forgiveness here. Not just membership and discipline. By the way, if y'all ever have questions about that, please just come and ask me. There's a lot to unpack here.

Jeffrey Heine: 26:57

Paul now commands the Corinthians to forgive the person who has sinned against him. Apparently, there's some people in the church who are really struggling with forgiving this guy. Now they're all with Paul, and they're like, man, I can't believe this guy did this to you. I'm not gonna forgive him. And so they're they're having a hard time with this, and forgiveness is hard.

Jeffrey Heine: 27:17

CS Lewis, he wrote in his reflections, of the Psalms, forgiveness is a beautiful thing until one is called to practice it. We love the idea of forgiveness, but when you're actually called to practice it, it is hard. I once had a person who was just a thorn in my side for a couple of years while I was doing ministry at UCF. He would regularly make accusations against me, and it just it just reached this awful point. And finally, thankfully, the church leadership got involved and called us before the elders because me talking with this person wasn't doing anything.

Jeffrey Heine: 28:07

And, and they brought clarity to the situation. They they set a course of action for him. And I remember though, like, even coming out of that meeting, forgiveness was still so hard for me. Hard for me. It's even harder for your wife.

Jeffrey Heine: 28:25

If your wife has to watch her husband get slandered, you know, it's really hard for her to forgive. So we we were both walking through this. But this is what forgiveness is. For forgiveness is every time I want to lash out, every time I just wanted to give it to him and I stop and I don't do it, and it hurts, that's forgiveness. Because what I'm doing is that person justly deserves my wrath, and instead I've turned it back on me.

Jeffrey Heine: 28:58

I absorbed the wrath that was due him. That's what forgiveness is. That's why it's painful. That's why it hurts. It's also why it's one of the most clear things we could do that reflects the gospel, because that is exactly what Jesus has done for us.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:16

That we were his enemies. We have rebelled against him. We cannot imagine the hurt that we have inflicted on him. And we are due all this wrath, and Jesus instead takes it, and he turns it on himself, and he forgives. And now that we are a forgiven people, we become forgiving people.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:38

We demonstrate the gospel. In verse 10, Paul says that he forgave this person in the presence of Christ. Literally, that says before the face of Christ. I love that. And what he's saying is here is when I am in Jesus's presence and I look at Jesus and I look at him, I get the strength to forgive this guy.

Jeffrey Heine: 30:04

Basically, he sees his own need for forgiveness in the presence of Jesus, and now Jesus has paid it all. And now he can offer that to this man. He can forgive, and they should too. So forgive this man and now restore that relationship. So the church community is to be a forgiving community.

Jeffrey Heine: 30:27

Paul says that he forgave this person. So for 1, he says he he forgave for their sake, for the church's sake, meaning that a feud between us affects all of us. Don't ever think your personal sin between just you and somebody else doesn't affect the body. It affects everybody. So he forgave this person for their sakes and the presence of Christ.

Jeffrey Heine: 30:47

And he did this so that they would not be outwitted by Satan or ignorant of his schemes. I like that. Satan is scheming against the church. And this is how he schemes. He just kind of whispers in your ear, hold a grudge.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:16

Don't forgive. He schemes by saying but his scheme is to try to break up all of the one another's that we have covenanted to do with one another. He wants to break those up. He doesn't want you to forgive one another. Instead, he wants you to to let the other person suffer.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:32

He wants you to give them the cold shoulder, defriend them on Facebook or whatever it is, you know, just to stick it to them. And for those of you who who do that here, you shouldn't sing Jesus paid at all. Because what you're saying is, well, he might've paid for my sins, but he didn't pay for that person's. It's now my turn to let them suffer punitive judgment. And so I will judge them by maybe, you know, not inviting them to something by giving them the cold shoulder, by, ignoring them.

Jeffrey Heine: 32:07

And what you're doing is you're exercising a punishment that is not yours to exercise. Jesus paid it all. Your sins, their sins. And he paid it all, or he gave his body and paying it all to create this body. He gave his body to create a body, not that we would live in isolation of one another.

Jeffrey Heine: 32:32

He didn't give his life so that you can just sit in a car and turn up praise music. He gave you his body to put you as part of a body of believers. His body here. That you would covenant with one another, that you would forgive one another, that you would love and serve one another all for the glory of Jesus. Pray with me.

Jeffrey Heine: 32:55

Lord, I realized that this is a heavy message. I don't like giving heavy messages, but I do wanna be faithful to your word. And so, lord, whatever is of me, let it fall down, blow away. But whatever is of you, don't let us get away. Work it into our heart.

Jeffrey Heine: 33:19

Show us what you have called us to. We pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.