THE PERSON AND TEACHINGS OF JESUS
TEACHINGS ON HUMILITY The Value God Places Upon His Sons and Daughters
The coming of Jesus has totally upset the value system of the world. Whereas the world declares that the rich are blessed, Jesus announces: "Blessed are the poor." Whereas the world exalts those who are merry, Jesus blesses those who mourn. Whereas the strong dominate the world of mankind, Jesus tells us that the meek will be the ones who will actually dominate/inherit the earth.
This is seen especially clearly in the qualification Jesus lays down for those who want to enter the kingdom of heaven. Education, status, and wealth don't qualify us for heaven. What qualifies us is a particular attitude, that of a humble child: "Unless you are converted and become like children, you will never, NO NEVER, enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18:3).
The problem of being a child is that a child can be so vulnerable. They along with women are some of the most vulnerable creatures on this planet. Certain men are aware of this. You don't see them abusing other men. Rather you see them preying upon children or upon women. Jesus cautions us sternly not to take advantage of His followers who are vulnerable because they are like children.
Why the warning? Because when I take advantage of or cause one of Jesus' followers to stumble, I am at odds with God. As this section will show, God places great value upon these children, these followers of Jesus. If I place the same value upon them that God places upon them, then I am going to treat them a certain way, not only when they are doing well, but also when they are not doing well.
THE SHEPHERD AND THE STRAYING SHEEP (18:11-14)
Jesus uses the parable of the shepherd and the straying sheep to illustrate how valuable you and I are to God. In the parable the shepherd has 100 sheep. One of the sheep has gone astray. Now the parable doesn't say that the sheep got lost by accident. The words imply that the sheep deliberately went off on his own way. Now he probably got caught into circumstances he didn't foresee and did not actually want to experience (fell off the cliff, dangling from a branch overlooking a deep ravine, etc.); however, the reason he fell into these dire circumstances is that he went off deliberately on his own WITHOUT THE SHEPHERD.
How does the shepherd respond? "I can't leave the other 99 to go search for the one because 99 are more valuable than 1" (the majority is always more valuable than the one). "That sheep had it coming to him." "He needs to learn that you don't leave the flock." "At least I didn't lose the 99. What is one sheep?" (Do those attitudes sound familiar?)
Those are not the attitudes the shepherd adopts. Rather He risks losing the 99 by leaving them on the mountain and going to search for the straying sheep. (Some try to dilute the element of risk to the 99 by saying that the shepherd would have definitely entrusted them to the care of another shepherd. Whereas that may be true, the parable does NOT say that. Moreover, this takes away from the force of this parable. The 99 ARE important but the fact that the one sheep is a STRAYING sheep makes him more important to the shepherd.)
Now I pray for the men in our men's groups; however, I feel especially tender towards the children and spouses of the men. Why? Because at this stage in the game most of us men should make it. There is no real excuse for us if we don't make it! HOWEVER, the women and children are very vulnerable and need special protection. Yes, we men do need protection; however, the women and children need it far more. I pray that the husbands and fathers of these women and children mature to such a degree that THEY can take care of them.
In many cases the shepherd finds the straying sheep. (In some cases though the sheep refuses to return with the shepherd and thereby experiences a terrible fate out in the wild.) What is the response of the shepherd? Does he scold the sheep? Does he fatten him up for the next feast, probably the one in honor of the sheep who went astray? Does he lecture him in front of the rest of the flock in order to serve notice that this type of behavior will not be tolerated? No, rather he rejoices over the sheep. How much? More than he rejoices over the 99 which have not gone astray. It's not that he does not value the other sheep. It's just that this straying sheep has been in mortal danger and now is no longer in mortal danger. The shepherd's great love for the sheep causes him to rejoice over finding him.
In verse 14 Jesus definitely identifies the shepherd as God and the straying sheep as one of the straying disciples of Jesus. Unfortunately Jesus' disciples do stray from time to time. The world is such that it is inevitable that Jesus' followers stumble over stumbling blocks. In this case moreover the emphasis is on willful disobedience, rebellion. The disciple like the sheep strays willfully. What is God's response? Does He condemn the disciple? Does He hope that he falls into great sorrow in order to bring the disciple to His senses? No, rather He pursues the disciple. Yes, in that pursuit God may use pain to bring the disciple to his senses, but that pain is a blessing because it DOES bring him to his senses. (In fact C. S. Lewis calls pain God's megaphone to awaken a deaf world from its state of rebellion.) We think that pain can be the worst thing that can happen to a person. It is not. Living continually in a state of rebellion is the worst thing that can happen to a person.
Before going on to the next section, see what v. 14 states about God:
So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven
that one of these little ones perish.
The sad truth is that many people in fact do perish; HOWEVER, if they do, it is against the express will of God (see 1 Tim. 2:4 where Paul is specifically referring even to non-Christians). Ezekiel informs us that God does not take delight in the death of the wicked. He is the Father of Christians who also has a fatherly heart towards even the non-Christian. The only reason that people perish is that they choose to perish. God honors our freedom so much that He even allows us to perish if that is what we choose.
SEARCHING FOR THE STRAYING CHRISTIAN (18:15-20)
Most of the time whenever God does something, He does it through people, particularly one of His own people; therefore, when the previous parable speaks about God searching for the straying sheep, it means that God uses another Christian to search for the straying Christian. God uses you and me to restore fallen Christians to Himself. Now what does that actually look like when it says that God searches for the fallen believer? This passage describes how God uses you and me to restore the straying, fallen Christian.
The First Stage (18:15)
When a fellow Christian has strayed from the flock, from God, you are to approach this Christian one on one. Unfortunately, many times whenever a Christian veers from the straight and narrow, he is the last person we approach. We may approach our friends and express to them how sad we are at that person's behavior. We may even lift up their name in small group prayer meetings. That has to stop. Rather we are to go directly to the person who has the problem and confront them in a loving way about their sin. Why? In order to preserve their dignity and to make it as easy as possible for them to return to the flock. When you start embarrassing that person by making their offense public, you risk losing that person forever. When it is all said and done, you just might lose that person forever even if you handle the situation properly; however, your mishandling the situation had better not be the reason you do lose him permanently.
Why should I care about that person's dignity? Because whether I feel it or not, that Christian just happens to be my brother. As such I am to treat him the way a brother SHOULD treat his brother, not the way brothers NORMALLY treat their brothers, but the way they SHOULD treat their brother.
Do not regard him as an enemy
but admonish him as a brother (2 Thess. 3:15).
They should treat them with love and dignity in order to restore them. The goal of all these procedures is to restore the brother to righteousness and the life of the flock. It is NOT to humiliate them.
The Second Stage (18:16)
If your Christian brother does not respond positively at first, it is still not the time to trash him or to share your concern about him with others. Rather you are to approach your brother a second time; this time though you don't go alone. Instead you take 1 or 2 more with you "so that by the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses every fact may be confirmed."
Why take one or 2 more with you to confront this Christian? Taking an extra person with you probably has the added impact of impressing upon the straying believer the seriousness of the issue confronting him. Hopefully, it will make him pause and consider the gravity of the situation and repent.
The phrase "2 or 3 witnesses" may be interpreted one of 2 ways. First, it may mean that they go with you so that they can "witness" your encounter with the straying believer. If the encounter does not go well, they can then attest to the fact that you did everything the way it should have been done.
Second, it may mean that the 2 you take with you are actual witnesses of the sin the straying believer committed. Now a witness is NOT somebody I told about your sin. That person is actually a gossip, not a witness. A witness, on the other hand, is somebody who actually saw or heard the sin being committed. This interpretation seems to be better (1) because it is the sense of the verse that Jesus quotes (Deut. 19:15) and (2) because your word alone is not enough to bring any kind of proceedings against another person. We are all in deep trouble if we trust the word of just one person, no matter how reliable that person actually is. When it becomes my word against your word, then we are all sunk.
"But," you might say, "why would that person lie?" The person who makes that remark is so naive. It is incredible the reasons people will lie. Revenge, pure spite, hate, being spurned. I saw a woman once accuse a minister of so many terrible things. Of course, she had no evidence; however, she did get a following because they claimed that a person would never lie about such a thing. Well, we as believers are commanded by the NT not to operate this way. It takes nothing less than the testimony of 2 or 3 witnesses before we can condemn a person, especially a minister (here and 1 Tim. 5:19).
(Now this second interpretation can but does not necessarily include the first interpretation. In other words, the 2 who go with you may have actually witnessed the believer straying and may then witness the way you dealt with that straying believer.)
Hopefully, the straying Christian is convicted of his sin, repents, and returns to the flock.
The Third Stage (18:17a)
What happens whenever the errant Christian refuses to repent even after being confronted by 2-3 brothers in Christ? You are to present this situation to the church. (At the point you are definitely going to be glad that you took some extra witnesses with you when you confronted him the second time.)
Such action may seem rather harsh. Actually it is totally unacceptable by today's standards. Today's world doesn't think though that anybody is going to hell. The world just simply thinks that God would not do such a thing. Jesus though does believe in the reality of hell, and He knows that it is better for a person to feel a little discomfiture here on earth for a little while than for an eternity in hell. If I truly care for a person, then I will risk his getting mad at me if it just might mean he will live in God's presence eternally.
The Fourth Stage (18:17b-20)
The fourth and final stage of dealing with an errant Christian is excommunication from the church. Doesn't the step of excommunication seem a little harsh? Whereas to modern sensibilities this might seem a little harsh, we first need to acknowledge that nearly every other step has been taken to restore the brother before the church excommunicated the errant brother. Excommunication was neither the first, second, or third step taken; it was the FOURTH step taken by the church.
Second, at this point the primary concern is the church itself. Paul informs us that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough (1 Cor. 5:3-5). If the church allows this errant Christian to remain in fellowship with the church, other Christians in the church might be negatively affected by that person's example and likewise fall away. The sentence of excommunication though may shock them back to reality and help keep them from straying.
What does Jesus mean by excommunication? Whereas by excommunication the Roman Catholic Church means that that person is damned and sent to hell, that does not seem to be the meaning here. In this case excommunication means we are to treat them like a Gentile, tax-collector. We would no longer treat them as part of the church family. Does that mean he can't come to church? I doubt it. It does seem to mean though that the church does not treat him as one of its own.
Excommunication though may actually be rougher than what is described above. In 1 Cor. 5 a member of the Corinthian church is having sexual relations with his mother, most likely his step-mother. (In either case this constitutes incest since this woman has had sexual relations with the man's father.) Since the church refuses to deal with the situation (thinking its tolerance is enlightenment), Paul calls into session a heavenly court in which he actually condemns the man to die physically so that he might not perish spiritually. That action is probably in spirit with what Jesus is talking about here.
The Serious Nature of Church Discipline (18:18-20)
When it is all said and done, just how serious is church discipline? Isn't it nothing more than a bunch of hypocrites sitting around and judging others? It's definitely not that simple. Jesus says:
"Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven,
And whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven" (18:18).
First, Jesus introduces this statement with the clause "Truly I say to you" (in the Gospel of John we see the formula, "Truly, truly I say to you"). Whenever Jesus introduces a statement with this clause, He wants us to take what follows with the utmost seriousness. Jesus is serious all the time by what He says; however, this clause means we should pay especially close attention to what He says here.
The second reason we are to take church discipline seriously is that when it is all said and done, church discipline is not to be based upon the opinions and judgments of mere mortals. Jesus does NOT say: "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." Rather He says: "Whatever you bind on earth shall HAVE BEEN bound in heaven." In other words, we are carrying out the decision that heaven itself already rendered on that person (the phrase to bind and to loose refers to making decisions regarding certain issues). We've sought God's face in this matter and believe that we are simply delivering the decision God has already passed in this matter. The decision to excommunicate or withhold fellowship was primarily God's all along; we just simply delivered the decision.
(Verse 19 basically reiterates what Jesus says in v. 18.)
How can we make such a claim to deliver the decision God has already rendered? Doesn't that sound so arrogant? We are not left to our own devices to discover God's will in each and every situation. Jesus says:
"For where 2 or 3 have gathered together in My name,
there I am in their midst" (18:20).
When at least 2 or 3 Christians meet together because of their relationship with Christ, Christ promises to be with them. They are not alone. Christ is with them, actually guiding them through the process. To reject the decision of the church may be nothing less than rejecting the decision of the Lord.