Where 2 or 3 are Gathered...to Kick You Out!
Think about the countless times we have heard someone say, or even pray that “where two or three are gathered together, there is God in their midst?” How many of those same encounters has it been said or prayed in the context of healing? Or in some prosperity mindset? Or for the blessing of a church/business meeting (where only two or three actually do show up)?
Let’s look and see what the author meant, and in what context he spoke these words; or better yet, what context Jesus himself spoke these words in Matthew 18:
15 “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. 16 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. 17 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. 18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed[f]in heaven. 19 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. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Christ promises us to be there with us during difficult and necessary confrontation.
This passage is in the context of the process of removing someone from the fellowship of the church! This is about church discipline and the response to sin in the local body. What are the two or three gathered for here? To confront sin!
He doesn’t promise that if you all gather he will definitely heal you of some disease.
He guarantees that when something in the body is not working properly, he will be there in the midst to guide and strengthen you to address it.
How many churches have run away from this confrontation?
How many refuse to address the habitual sins of the body for fear that they may lose some of the tithe money coming in?
Have they not been assured that God is with them when it is time to make these tough calls and confrontations?
In fact, Paul addresses this very disgrace to God’s church in 1 Corinthians 5:
It is actually 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.
2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
3 For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.
4 When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus,
5 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.[a]
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Some churches currently are “tolerating” all kinds of wickedness among their members. This is not loving but quite the opposite. Notice, in verse 5 there, that the reason to put them out is that they might see their situation and rebellion clearly and return and be saved!!
So before we go proclaiming passages out of context, let’s make sure we are rightly dividing the word so as not to make ourselves look foolish or misrepresent the God we are seeking to serve. If the church is not obedient in this, then their “gathering together” may be in vain, for in loving confrontation is where we find Christ in our midst.