What are we doing here? We have assembled as the people of God to worship God. We desire that God be glorified, and we set out to glorify Him each Lord’s Day morning using a set of liturgical tools: a call to worship, confession of sin, consecration of ourselves as His servants, communion with Him and one another, and a final commission to go and obey. The verses and songs and particular themes vary week to week, but the constant aim is to honor God as our God, to exalt the Lord as our Lord.

God made men to worship Him. More than homo sapiens—thinking man, we are homo adorans—worshipping man. We think, we communicate, we adore. We sing, “You and I are made to worship, you and I are called to love, you and I are forgiven and free.” It is possible to sing that all alone in the shower, but something special, something especially reflective of our Triune God, happens when we gather and sing together.

Our ultimate aim in meeting is to please God as we praise Him, but things happen to us when we do that. One thing that happens to us is that we are humbled. As our understanding of His infinite greatness grows, we realize how far short of His glory we fall. As we understand more about His beautiful holiness, we recognize the offense of our transgressions. As we behold His bottomless love for us—the helpless and unrighteous and rebellious—we know that we don’t love Him or our neighbors or our enemies or one another just as Jesus loved us. Humility washes us and turns us to depend on Him.

A second thing that happens to us is that we are reshaped. Seeing Him as He is humbles us, but it also renews our understanding of who we are. He made us to worship Him. He made us to reflect Him. Sin messed that up. But His Son and Spirit and Word remind and renew and remake us. We are His creations, and we are His new creations.

Not everyone holds his shape very long. We cannot hold our charge. As we mature, our capacity to hold charge and the length of time we can hold it should grow. Yet we are prone to wander and forget who we are before God in Christ, to doubt His promises, to misplace our hope, and to forget our purpose. We need to worship because God commands and deserves it. We also need to worship because it is our gravity and compass and breath. Worship both identifies us (what God do we revere?) and forms our identity (what God do we reflect?).

This is one of the reasons that our worship is for believers. Unbelievers are welcome to be among us, but they must believe in order to behold and become (2 Corinthians 3:18; 4:6). Unbelief is blind to glory (2 Corinthians 3:14-16; 4:3-4), oblivious to real purpose.

A church consists of believers in Jesus and His gospel. A church in worship identifies its God and is reminded of its identity in doing so. Think about the reminders of identity in our service. We are creatures, made by God. We are believers, saved by faith through God’s grace. We are disciples, taught by God’s Word. We are sons and brothers, adopted into God’s family and fellowshipping with God. We are witnesses, sent by God to represent Him.

Additionally, we are His sheep. We are members of His body. We are living stones that He is building into a holy temple. We are Christians. We are citizens of heaven. So we are not spending our time right now trying to get you into citizenship, we are affirming what sorts of privileges and duties you have as a citizen of His kingdom. Worship reminds us that we have been delivered from the domain of darkness and solitude into the domain of light and demands of family life.

Worship belongs to the members of the church. Worship and membership cannot be safely separated. Worship is for members and members worship. Members cannot be identified who refuse to worship. Worship cannot be identified apart from certain members.

I say all of this because people who are serious about worship can get fixated on form, emphatic about externals, and worship liturgy as the end. Those persons become well-ordered but increasingly dead. Also, persons who are serious about membership can get fixated on fences, painstaking about process, and worship the list as the end. Those persons become well-distinguished but increasingly alone.

We want liturgy that helps to keep us alive. We want membership that helps us to keep connected. Is it so impossible? Must we become the Society of the Staid and Stuck-Up?

Not if we worship well, where “well” means “appropriate to the situation,” and if our members know who we are and what we’re to do. We need to know our identity and our work.

One of the few passages in the Gospels that explicitly refers to the church is found in Matthew 18. It is included in the paragraph usually raised in regards to church discipline. There are important things about corporate life in verses 15-20, but first we should observe the paragraph in context. One of my favorite study questions is to ask, What is the point of the paragraph? I also like to ask, How does that relate to the point of the previous paragraph and the following paragraph? Let’s look before and after and see if and how that affects church discipline.

Immediately preceding verse 15 is the parable of the lost sheep.

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. (Matthew 18:10–14)

The little ones began the chapter. They are identified as those who, like children, are humble members of Christ’s kingdom. Jesus tells His disciples not to despise the less esteemed, because if they are His, He will stop at nothing to go get them. That’s the point: the Father wills the Son to pursue His own and the kingdom rejoices when one who goes astray is brought back.

How about the paragraph following verse 20? This paragraph reveals Peter response and question about how many times forgiveness is necessary. Jesus answers and then tells the parable of the unforgiving servant.

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. (Matthew 18:21–22; see also verses 23-35)

What is the point? Those who have been forgiven so much must be ready to forgive so little by comparison. Stated conversely, it is inconsistent to be forgiven by God and fail to forgive others.

So, God loves to get His own (10-14) and God expects His own to forgive others (21-35). In between is the paragraph about dealing with someone who has sinned against you.

“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. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matthew 18:15–20)

Consider three things about these connected paragraphs.

The Goal of the Church

The goal is to gain your brother, to find the lost, and to forgive. The purpose is more than, though not less than, the purity of the church. Purity is important as 1 Corinthians 5 explains; a little leaven leavens the whole lump. But even there, the goal is the sinner’s deliverance.

When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are 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. (1 Corinthians 5:4–5, emphasis added)

The assumption in Matthew 18 is that there are sinners and that we’ve got a process to go get the sinner. The expectation is that we will forgive the sinner who repents.

The Inclination of the Church

Our tendency, our dispositional motivation, ought always to bend us toward the goal. As a shepherd cares for his flock, so he sacrifices to search for the lost. Our attitude should be one of earnest desire, of love and personal affection for one another. We should also have an attitude of humility and mercy and grace, since we ourselves needed great forgiveness from God. Jesus’ answer of seventy times seven, along with His parable, intends to stress the expectation of forgiveness.

The Authority of the Church

Our objective is to deal with sin in such a way that relationship is maintained, even strengthened. The feeling is that we should want the relationship and even that we should want it so much that we’re eager to forgive. But there will be times when sinners won’t repent quickly. There may be times when sinners won’t repent at all. Then the church has authority, not just the leaders of the church, to affirm or not to affirm those who are citizens in this kingdom of forgiven.

In our series on membership last year I said these two things. First, the purpose of membership is to recognize and affirm heavenly citizenship. Second, recognizing and affirming a believer’s status is body work. In other words, the church affirms her members.

Where two or three are gathered in my name refers to a corporate context (as “when you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus” in 1 Corinthians 5:4). When a man who professes faith, who claims to be a “brother,” but who adamantly refuses to live according to Christ’s rule, including responding to those he’s sinned against, that one cannot be affirmed as a citizen of that kingdom. The discipline is a lesson (just as a disciple is a “learner”) that obedience is necessary.

As you’d think, this is sad and yet necessary, but it is for the purpose of restoring the brother as well as the purity of the body. The church must maintain the standard while being generous in forgiveness. Jesus repeated the same work to His disciples after the resurrection.

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. (John 20:23)

The goal, the inclination, and the authority flow from who God is. Our worship praises His goal to save, His inclination to save, and also His authority to judge. We are reshaped into the image of the God we adore.

Conclusion

Discipline must be done by a forgiving church, and we won’t be a forgiving people unless we regularly worship a forgiving God. Likewise, a church that doesn’t discipline cannot claim to understand forgiveness, because forgiveness belongs to our God. We won’t take sin seriously unless we regularly worship a God who does. For that matter, real forgiveness assumes that real sin was committed.

Our meeting and worshiping together glorifies God and reminds us of our identity.

We are the saints,
We are the children,
We’ve been redeemed,
We’ve been forgiven,
We are the sons and daughters of our God.

We worship as the forgiven, and we have work to do as the forgiven, seeing sin dealt with and eager to extend mercy and grace. The church in the world makes a statement about our position before God and our life among brothers.