(upbeat music) - Rebecca emails in to ask a question about church discipline. She writes, "In regards to Matthew 18, 15 to 20, "I'm wondering what I as a Christian am responsible "to do biblically when a fellow believer "is living in sexual sin and chooses to continue "after they have been confronted in a loving way." Pastor John, what would you say?

- The practical answer here really does depend on whether Rebecca and the person she's concerned about maybe a friend who's sleeping with a boyfriend, I don't know what her situation is, but let's just say something like that, whether those two people are in a biblically faithful church that is a church that considers the Bible as their standard of faith and practice.

And if they are, the answer is, or should be, yes, excommunication can and maybe should happen. And of course she's referring to Matthew 18. And it might be helpful just to walk through the steps so that everybody has in view, 'cause they're short and they're clear. Here's what happens in real relationships in a church from time to time.

Step one, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. So step one, you find someone in sin and you go to them. You don't wanna make a public issue out of it.

You're not eager to drag everybody's private sins into the public. You know you've got your own issues. You're taking the log out of your own eye before you take the speck out of anybody else's. But once you've done all that appropriate self-assessment and humbled yourself before God and declared your own dependence on grace alone, then you do go.

This is what love does. It goes, and in her case, maybe a girlfriend sleeping with a boyfriend, and she goes, she said, "This is not biblical. "It's not right. "It doesn't please the Lord." And she pleads with her. And she may or may not win her over. In the next step, verse 16 of Matthew 18 says, "But if he does not listen, "take one or two along with you "that every charge may be established "by the evidence of two or three witnesses." So you can see there's no rush to judgment here.

There's no rush to get this in front of the church here. We're bending over backwards here to keep it small, keep it private, not do any more public hurt than is necessary. So you take a friend or two who probably knows her, who loves her, and you go to her together.

Now, she may not let you do this, but you try. And you say together, "We love you. "We care for you. "Can we pray with you? "We want you out of this ongoing sin "because it's gonna damage you. "It's gonna damage him. "It's gonna damage your witness. "It's gonna damage, ultimately, the church, "and it's gonna dishonor Christ." And you try to persuade.

And the third step is, "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church." Now, this is the point at which the gathered church in some kind of appropriate meeting hears the news and acts on it. And the first action is for the church to say, "We want you to return," because this is not excommunication yet.

It's the whole church praying and aching and longing. And the last step is, "If he refuses to listen even to the church, "let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector." And what that means is that the church then takes some kind of step to cut that person off, like from the communion table and from normal, ongoing relationships that you would ordinarily have with a believer in doing things together.

As those who share the same commitment to Jesus, you cut them off. And that means not that you've damned them, but that you've put them in a position where you are longing and praying for their repentance. I've seen it happen, and it's intended to happen in the Bible, that this kind of excommunication is doubly redemptive.

It's redemptive for the church so that the truth of the gospel and its power not be lost by pretending people are believers when they don't bear any fruit. And it's redemptive for the person who's being excommunicated, because we see in 1 Corinthians 5 and 1 Thessalonians that the aim of this ostracism is redemptive.

That is, we want them to be brought to repentance and restored to the church. And to that end, we do talk to them. We do reach out like we would to any unbeliever in love, and we would happily lay down our lives that they would repent. There's nothing ugly or hostile in this.

This is all designed to do everything the church can do to keep itself true and authentic and holy and pure, and to love other people back to the Savior. So my answer to her is, yes, there is excommunication, and Matthew 18 is there to be followed in those kinds of steps.

- Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. For more on church discipline, its purpose, and its practice, see the excellent resources produced by our friends at Nine Marks, especially the two books by Jonathan Lehman titled "The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love," and his other book simply titled "Church Discipline." And you can visit us online at desiringgod.org to find thousands of free books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper.

I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.