Matthew 18:15-20 - Where Would We Be If... - September 20, 2020

Do you know anyone who has a tendency to ask a lot of “what if” questions? You know the kind of question: “What if I had chosen a different career path? What if we had chosen to purchase a different house? What if I had married someone else?” While we may consider “what if” questions to be the product of day-dreamers or people who have too much time on their hands, when God is in the picture, it can bring things into perspective: “Where would I have been if God hadn’t led me, against my will, down this path? Where would I be if God hadn’t brought this person into my life?” The text before us brings several “if” questions to mind.

First: where would we be if we didn’t hold each other accountable? In a world where the only universally recognized and condemned sin is intolerance, where would we be if we tolerated each other’s sins? Where would we be if we didn’t truly believe that unrepented and unforgiven sin in this life really damns a person for all of eternity (James 5:19-20)? Where would we be if Jesus had left us without any instructions as to what to do when a fellow believer falls into sin? Thankfully, Jesus hasn’t left us without instructions. He issues a clear command: if your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have regained your brother. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along with you. But imagine he hadn’t given that command – or more to the point, imagine if Christians disregarded and ignored it: where would we be then?

I’ll tell you where we’d be: we’d be lost in our sins and racing toward hell. That’s because the culture around us doesn’t believe that God, the Creator and Judge, has revealed a clear, absolute and unchanging standard of right and wrong which he expects all people live up to. In our society you can find someone, some movement, some Facebook group which excuses or even advocates for breaking every one of the Ten Commandments. You can find those who approve of every sin – idolatry, adultery, anarchy, despising the means of grace – and even those who support truly disgusting and destructive sins like abortion and transgenderism and the destruction of property justified as “reparations.” Neither the unbelieving world at large – nor your unbelieving friends – are going to warn you that sin leads to hell, so if your fellow believers don’t or won’t do it, no one will, and hell is where we would all be now and forever.

Where would we be if we didn’t hold each other accountable and where would we be if the church didn’t excommunicate open and impenitent sinners? Excommunication is what Jesus is describing when he says: if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And, if he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as an unbeliever or a tax collector. It may come as a shock to some that faithful churches still believe and practice excommunication; that it’s not just a relic from some “less enlightened” period in church history. And yet, many Christians are hesitant – and even ashamed to practice excommunication. Why? Because when the church practices what Christ commands her to do in these verses, all hell breaks loose. And I mean that literally. All hell breaks loose because hell knows that excommunication is the most powerful tool the church possesses to rescue a person from eternal death.

We all need to repent of turning a blind eye to the sins of fellow believers we know personally – especially in our own families. But the church at large also needs to repent – to repent of failing to love her members enough to discipline them – up to and including excommunication. Because we all know that the failure to discipline always has terrible results. We’ve all known parents who have let their kids run wild – and we’ve seen the broken hearts and lives that result. We’ve all seen on TV what happens when local and state officials allow lawlessness to go unchecked and unpunished – and the smoking, burned-out, looted results. And, we’ve seen the results of churches that fail to exercise discipline: young people who never return to church after confirmation; rampant divorce and sexual immorality; division and false teaching, etc. Even though we confess that the church is to “[exclude] from the congregation those who are plainly impenitent that they may repent” [1] - the devil has been successful in convincing many that excommunication is unloving and intolerant and hypocritical. Why do you think the devil would try to convince Christians that Christ’s command is unloving? Because he doesn’t want anyone to be saved!

The failure of the church to excommunicate impenitent sinners as Christ commanded is a sin. A sin which has far-reaching implications. Not only does it harden the impenitent sinner in his sin – convincing him that it’s no big deal; not only does it lead other Christians to believe that their own pet sins are excusable; but when the church with her pastor refuses to use the binding key, it throws the entire administration of the Keys into question. In other words, if a pastor and the congregation refuse to exercise the binding key by excommunicating a manifest and impenitent sinner – can you trust it when he uses the loosing key, announcing the forgiveness of sins to penitent sinners? He’d only be doing half his job. Would you want a doctor, a lawyer, a car mechanic to do only half their jobs? How satisfied would you be if your cardiologist sent you home after completing only half of your surgery? And yet, the church (and many of her pastors) have been guilty of this systemic sin for years. This is a sin for which we all need to repent.

So, where would we be if we didn’t hold each other accountable? Where would we be if the church didn’t excommunicate the impenitent? To put it bluntly, we’d be in the hell that much of the visible church finds itself in today – where sin is excused and tolerated and – as a direct result – many can’t understand why Jesus had to suffer and die on a cross.

Which brings us to our last hypothetical: where would we be if the forgiveness spoken on earth wasn’t valid in heaven? Here’s a news flash (and I’m only half-kidding): Jesus lived his perfect life right here on this earth. He had to if he was going to be our substitute. He had to live under the same conditions and the same commandments God expected us to live under if it was really going to be in our place. He had to face the same temptations you do (Hebrews 4:15). He had to endure sickness, suffering and frustration just like you do (Hebrews 5:7) – and he had to do it all without ever sinning once.

And after Jesus lived a perfect life on this earth, he died, on this earth. He had to. There is no suffering or sadness or bleeding or dying in heaven (Revelation 21:4). But this is precisely what our sins deserve. When we think about all the people we’ve hurt, the lies we’ve told, the shameful, unspeakable things we’ve done, we know we should suffer for them – and we know that we couldn’t pay for them in 10,000 years. Because God is the one we’ve sinned against (Psalm 51:4). God is the one we’ve offended. God is the one we owe. And who but God can satisfy God? That’s why the Son of God had to suffer, had to endure hell, had to die in our flesh and blood. Jesus had to endure the wrath of God we deserved and he had to do it on earth.

And yet, while Jesus’ perfect life and innocent death took place on earth, atonement – that is, the actual payment for the sin of the world – took place in heaven. Hebrews 9 tells us that [Jesus] entered once into the Most Holy Place and obtained eternal redemption, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood (Hebrews 9:12). Jesus took his perfect life and his sacrificial death on earth into heaven and handed it over to God the Father as the payment for our sins. And his resurrection proves that God has accepted that payment – not only for our sins, but for the sins of the world (Romans 4:25; 1 John 2:2). But that begs the question: how does the forgiveness Jesus won for us in heaven come to us here, on earth? This is where the means of grace come in. What Jesus did for us in heaven is applied to us on earth by means of earthly things: water and words, bread and wine. And Jesus speaks specifically about the words by which the forgiveness of heaven is applied here on earth in our text: whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

We just studied these words two weeks ago, so we won’t review them in detail again. But I will ask the question: do you know why accepting these words as true – that when sins are forgiven here on earth they are also forgiven in heaven – is so difficult for so many? It’s really simple. It’s because they don’t believe the rest of Jesus’ words: Amen I tell you again: If two of you on earth agree to ask for anything, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. In fact where two or three have gathered together in my name, there I am among them. Many don’t believe that Jesus is really present in the Church on earth. They think Jesus is in heaven – far away from earth. They think that the best we can get is the Spirit – and that leads to doubt and uncertainty over where and when and how the Spirit is working. What if this were true? Where would we be if Jesus weren’t really present here among us with his powerful word of forgiveness? I’ll tell you one thing: I wouldn’t waste my time being here.

But he is here. He’s right here among us – what, 90 or so – who have gathered in his name. You’ve known this your whole Christian life – even if you haven’t always recognized it. You’ve heard the name of the Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – invoked at the beginning of every worship service. You’ve heard that it is by Christ’s present and powerful authority that a sinful man stands before you and announces that your sins have been forgiven. You stand for the Gospel because you recognize these as the words and actions of your living and present Lord. You’ve had a shiver run down your spine whenever an infant was baptized in that font – not because it was so cute, but because you know that Jesus was bringing the saving power of heaven to bear on a lost sinner on earth. You’ve regularly approached the Lord’s Supper here with more preparation and forethought than any other meal you’ve ever eaten because you recognize that Jesus’ true body and blood – which he gave and poured out for you on Calvary 2000 years ago – is present here and now for you to eat and to drink.

And the fact that Jesus is really, truly present among us who are gathered in his name has a real and true impact on how we think of and treat each other – and how we think of and treat sin. Because Jesus doesn’t see our sin as “none of his business” neither will we. Because Jesus doesn’t regard it as impolite or meddling or mean to point out and rebuke sin, neither will we. Because Jesus regards no sin and no sinner to be too black, too filthy, too irredeemable to be forgiven – neither will we. Above all, since Jesus loved us enough to provide us – both as individuals and as a church – with this clear and firm and evangelical manner of dealing with sin – we will use it! We will hold each other personally accountable. We will publicly excommunicate the impenitent as the final, powerful act of love. We will regard the forgiveness spoken in private and in public in Jesus’ name as valid as if he had dealt with us himself.

Where would we be if Jesus hadn’t given us these words? Thank God we don’t have to wonder. Jesus has given us the obligation and the framework, the motivation and the authority to be his instruments in dealing with sin and saving souls from hell. All that’s left for us to do is use them. May God instill in us the love and the courage to do so. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

[1] SC The Public Use of the Keys