A Disciplined Church

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Matthew 18:15-20

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Every now and then I sit in the back of the church and it's a blessing not only do
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I get to hear Connell sing I get to see everyone else. Well, you can hear Connell sing from up here
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But I get to see everybody singing and worshiping very very very encouraging
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All right, I've switched over now Listen, we talk about this all the time but it really is must be more than a catchphrase for our church and that is
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Christ is Worthy of a healthy church and we want to see
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Christ continue to build a healthy church I'm gonna say some things this morning that I want to make clear
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It is not my desire to disparage Another church. It's not my desire to to pick out point fingers or anything like that I want to just continually be pointing our fingers at ourselves
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Drawing our eyes to the scriptures and say we're going to do everything that we can do as a church
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To be the type of church that brings Christ the greatest honor and glory
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And that's what we want to do. I Want you to turn in your Bible. This is gonna sound surprising to you
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I want you to turn in your Bible to Matthew. There are other books in the Bible besides Ephesians I want you to turn your
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Bibles to the book of Matthew chapter 18 we've been talking about in Ephesians the the shield of faith and As we have this shield of faith
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The reason that we have a shield of faith the reason that God has supplied The church has equipped the church has given the church
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Sufficient armor with something like a shield of faith is because we have a great enemy And that enemy of course is ultimately the evil one.
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That's what Paul is reminding us in Ephesians. It's not our ultimate You have to remember and I know that we get really really fired up in a political season
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You have to remember this morning that our greatest enemy is Ultimately not politicians as easy as they are to pick on and I'm willing to pick on them.
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You know that But our greatest enemy is the evil one and the spiritual forces of darkness
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That we wrestle against in the heavenly places And so the
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Bible teaches us Paul teaches us God teaches us in his word that he's given us a shield of faith to withstand and quench the fiery darts of the evil one
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With that in mind as you turn to Matthew 18 What I want to talk about this morning is a disciplined church a disciplined church this morning from our text
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We'll Approach verses that for some of you perhaps hopefully not for most of you
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But maybe for some of you you didn't even really know that they were in the Bible or if you did you don't really understand their purpose and and how it is that they are to Really be
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Administrated and and walk through in the local church But I submit to you this morning that what we're going to talk about is so important to the nature of the church
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It's so important in in in protecting the church from from spiritual warfare It's so important that many people in the history of the church and and I agree with them
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Have said that that a church that just refuses this is Is Ultimately not a church at all
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It may be called a number of things But in the Lord's eyes, it cannot be called a local church
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So I seek to preach to you this morning from Matthew 18 15 through 20 and I just want to preach to you about a disciplined church
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Would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's Word? If your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault
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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
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Established by the evidence of two or three witnesses if he refuses to listen to them
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Tell it to the church and if he refuses to listen even to the church Let him be to you as a
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Gentile and a tax collector Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven
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Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed on heaven And I say to you if two of you agree on earth about anything
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They ask it will be done for them by my Father in heaven for where two or three are gathered in my name
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There I am among them. Let's pray father. I thank you for your word. Would you bless it?
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Would you bless the preaching of your word? Would you bless our church? I'll help us to always strive and believe in the worthiness of Christ That we would strive to be the church that would bring him the most glory and seek to be healthy protect us from the enemy
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Let us know what it is to walk with our brothers and sisters in real time to love them
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To bear one another's burdens to confront one another with repentance to help one another in our struggles
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We pray that Christ would be honored we pray it all in Jesus name. Amen. You can be seated Listen Saints if you think it's a little unusual that we broke rank from Ephesians to the book of Matthew There's one person in this church you can blame and that's
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Monty why? and that's because during his prayer for the offering he prayed about the sermon being changed and This morning.
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I'll tell you the story real quick. I shared with some brothers So each and by the way, you'd be invited to this
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This is not it like an exclusive like secret club or whatever But every morning at 845 or every
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Sunday morning Sorry at 845 we gather with a group of men and we pray we just pray for our church We we pray for God to be honored.
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We pray for the music. We pray for the offering We pray for the scripture reading the confession of catechism.
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We just we pray for it all We want God to be honored. And so I shared with some of those brothers. Hey, I've been wrestling and I Think I might preach something different this morning, which is really different for me to do like this is my page of notes
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Okay, so usually I get up here with a you know a binder and all that but it's a little bit different this morning
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I'm kind of wrestling with this and so Alex asked me because he's in charge of our of our putting sermons online and all that so Alex asked me
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I think during handshaking time, are you gonna change this the Sermon and I was like well,
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I haven't decided yet. I'm praying like during a service I'm asking my wife. I'm like, you know, what do you think?
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I'm praying and we sing that last song Single sing of my
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Redeemer and I'm just like Lord, I don't know Would you just help me and sure enough when we take offering
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Monty prays like the sermon had already been changed And so I decided okay, that's enough.
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I'm gonna be praying. I'm gonna be preaching the different sermons so thank you money for that and This is where we're at this morning
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But I think that you'll find this morning that this is an important subject for churches today
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I do have three points and they are by God's grace alliterated So the first is this the rarity of church discipline?
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So let me read this again number one the rarity of church discipline if your brother sins against you
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Go and tell him his fault between you and him alone He listens to you you have gained your brother
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But if he does not listen take one or two others along with you that every charge may be
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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
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Let him beat you as a Gentile and a tax collector in other words
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Let him be to you as an un believer Now I would be interested maybe we should do this, but we're not actually going to do it
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So don't raise your hand But I would be interested to know Within our body how many people have been in a church that has had to deal with or has walked through Church discipline this first point.
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I'm talking about the rarity of church Discipline and I'm afraid today in many churches that this has become
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Obsolete we don't want to do actually I can prove it to you in the Southern Baptist Convention and this is this this
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This trajectory has only been worse and worse and worse, but in the Southern Baptist Convention the ratio used to be
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Two thirds to one third in other words Two thirds of the people on a churches on any given churches church roll.
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We're not there on a Sunday morning You understand so let's do the math real quick two -thirds is a hard percentage
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But let's say you've got a hundred people on your church roll on average One third of them would show up.
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That is thirty three point three So I don't know who the point three guy is, but you can pray for him, but thirty three point three people
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Average showing up on a Sunday morning if you have a hundred people on your church roll now
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That's across the SPC. That's uh, you know, it just it gets worse If you have a church with a thousand people in a row, you understand that holds true
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But that was a number of years ago. It's worse now now. It's now it's more like a fourth
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People on your church roll will show up on any given Sunday now
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I understand this is not talking about there's their situations that we miss church Understand yeah, there's sickness or your your kids are sick or or you've taken a family vacation and you're you're down the road
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Okay, we that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about just just on average though only 25 % of a church is showing up on Sunday morning
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I just say to you this morning to speak to the rarity of church discipline in our day
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So let me give you three points Under this heading of the rarity of church discipline the first is the missing of the message
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Number one the missing of the message. I think that churches today get church discipline wrong
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Ultimately because they don't understand the fullness of the gospel They don't understand the definition of Christianity and they don't understand
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What is meant by discipline? Okay. So first they don't understand.
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This is sub points within sub points. We're in The matrix or whatever. What is the gospel?
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The gospel is this Jesus Christ came to redeem a people from their sins.
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We don't even have to remove We don't ourselves from the book of Matthew to get that turn over if you will all the way to the first chapter of Matthew The gospel writer of Matthew is telling us very early on what it is that Jesus came to do
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Matthew Chapter 1 and verse 21. We see this at Christmas, but we need to be reminded of it even today
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Matthew 1 21 the angel says this to Joseph she that is Mary Will bear a son and you shall call his name
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Jesus for he will save his people from their sins
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Here is the gospel friends and I'm going to press it I think to its natural outcome first of all
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The gospel is the good news that God has determined to not leave us in our sins
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We were made in the image of God. We were Made to create it to enjoy
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God and glorify him forever and yet we have gone astray We have fallen in Adam our first representative if you think that that's unfair
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We do this stuff all the time. For example, if you watch a football game and You see one person go crazy and get a personal foul who's punished
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Not just them the entire team. We understand the comp the the the idea of representation
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Adam is the representative of humanity and we fallen in Adam But what's worse is or as equally as bad is that we choose to go astray in and of ourselves
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We have rebelled against God and we've gone our own way There is no fear of God Romans 3 18 says there is no fear of God before their eyes
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That is an indictment upon American culture today the biggest indictment
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There is no fear of God. Why does Joe Biden do the things that he does?
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There's no fear of God before his eyes. Why are there parades like there are there is no fear of God before their eyes
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Why are people shouting their abortions or living to with one another outside of marriage?
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Why are these things happening in our world today? There is no fear of God before their eyes
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But God Two of the greatest words in Scripture in his love and his mercy and his grace in his kindness
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Sent forth his only begotten Son Jesus Christ who is truly God and truly man born of the
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Virgin Mary He came to set right what went wrong in Adam Adam disobeyed in the garden
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Jesus obeyed in a fallen world Jesus fulfilled all righteousness
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He kept the law down to the least jot and tittle and that didn't just keep it but kept it with the proper
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Motivations full love of God in his heart and his mind his soul and his strength and then he died for sinners on the cross
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He is our propitiation wrath Satisfying sacrifice the father laid the sins our sins upon Christ and punished
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Christ in our place Jesus did the time because we did the crime if you want to think of it that way
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And then he was laid in a borrowed tomb. He was really dead He was buried and he rose again on the third day now
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You should all understand that message and we should we should probably all in this room I would imagine even those who are not believers.
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I would imagine would be able to recite that message You would be able to say I understand. This is what the gospel is
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But let me push it a little bit further this morning to this is what the gospel does
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Jesus came to save not Individuals from their sins the text says in Matthew 121 But to save his people from their sins
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And so as the blood of Christ flows from the cross of Calvary it flows into Jerusalem it flows into Judea it flows into Samaria It flows into the uttermost parts of the world and what springs up from the blood of Jesus local churches
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People God is saving his people the gospel. I'm telling you friends this morning
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We don't understand the purpose and outflow of the gospel if we separate it from the local church
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God is saving a people from their sins and so this comes into What is
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Christianity? We don't have to turn out of Matthew for this either I'm gonna go to Matthew 16.
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You want you want to know what Christianity is? There's many verses we could use to Summarize it, but what if I gave you
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Matthew 16 18 Jesus says and I tell you you are Peter and on this rock.
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I will build my church And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it I bet you've never heard of a definition of Christianity like this, but I'm going to give it to you
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Christianity is the is the outworking of Christ building his church in the world today
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That is Christianity You cannot separate Christianity from the church.
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We live in a world today We especially in the Bible Belt, especially in central Arkansas We live in a society today that wants to understand
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Christianity Separated from the local church, but I'm telling you in the New Testament You can't separate the two to be a
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Christian is is literally to be part of the church and to be part of the church if you want to call it the universal church is to show yourself in attached to a part of committed to the local church
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So we're talking about the rarity of church discipline today. And one of the reasons that we have
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The rarity of church discipline today is because we don't understand the gospel we don't understand Christianity and then thirdly we we don't understand
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Discipline we are probably the most undisciplined society ever right we're like Most people
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I want to pick on younger generations I Don't want to pick on younger generations
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But it just seems to get worse and worse and worse and that is younger generations come in They see the older generations have this this this and this
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Younger generation comes in and they demand I want this this this and this You have this this and this you have the truck.
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You have the home you have all these things. I want these things I deserve these things. Give me these things or I'm going to cry
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Well, what happens is we have created a a society again.
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I'm not trying to be punchy here I'm really not but just the word snowflakes is his
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Rattling around my head and we've created a society that they don't want to work for anything
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We don't want to be disciplined. We don't we don't want to have to earn something we don't want to have to to to to to to grow or whatever if we if we if the if the young lady has
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A college degree she wants to be the CEO and get as paid as much as whoever's been there for 40 years
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We're an undisciplined society But when it comes to the church, we don't understand that God has given discipline to the church for our good there's a man he's a he's a
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I Can't even pronounce his last name Jocko. I don't remember his last name Anyway, he has a little saying called discipline equals freedom
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When our lives are disciplined before the Lord when we're disciplined in our in our Bible reading in our prayer time
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I'm using a secular concept to apply. There's freedom in that. So too when it comes to the church a
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Disciplined church is a healthy church. We'll talk more about that later. Let's move on So first of all the missing of the message
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Secondly, I want to talk about the marks of a true church now I say secondly, but remember we're still under the first heading so the rarity of church discipline
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I want to talk about the marks of a true church now. We like verse 20 in our text.
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In fact, I've heard Matthew 18 20 Quoted a gazillion times more times than our national debt if that's even possible
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Verse 20 for where two or three are gathered in my name There I am
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Among them. Have you ever heard that quoted? Has anyone ever quoted that to you?
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Has anyone ever said to you? Well, you know what? I can't I can't be gathered with the church today But I'll be at deer camp and you know what the
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Bible says We're two or three are gathered in my name for we need to understand what a church is now historically
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I'm not really going to defend this from the scriptures this morning just because we have to get moving on but historically
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Let me just give you three marks of A church not a healthy church of a church period right?
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So the first mark of a church Is that a church has to have the right preaching of the
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Word of God? So if you go to a place and they're breaking out, you know, whatever
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The case may be Joyce Meyer books or Reader's Digest or whatever and you you may laugh at that But there are places you could go today called churches.
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You could walk in and they will preach to you from a Reader's Digest Okay, that's not a church because a church has to have the right preaching
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We must be preaching the Word of God in accordance to the Word of God. That means we ought to be
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Exalting Christ from the scriptures because from Genesis to Revelation the Bible is about this one main thing namely
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Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners So we have Christ the right preaching without the right preaching of the
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Word of God a church is not a church secondly There must be the right administration of the ordinances
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Now we're going to be careful here because I ultimately even though I would
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Completely disagree with Presbyterians. I'm not willing to say well, they're not even a church
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But what I really would mainly be talking about here in the right administration of the ordinances, which are what there's only two baptism in the
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Lord's Supper We understand that the ordinances are signs and symbols. They are not
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Means by which we are brought into the kingdom Understand the ordinances so if you go to a place and they say these are the means by which
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Redemption is applied to you. These are the means by which you are justified. These are the means by which you are regenerated well
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You're not a church a church Rightly understands and administers the ordinances and then you know what the third mark is historically that has been said
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About a church right preaching and I would include in right preaching a well -ordered church, you know ordered rightly right administration of the ordinances baptism in the
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Lord's Supper Historically maybe this
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Historically the third mark of a church is rightly practicing church discipline
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That is a church that does not care about its membership a church that lets membership just wander off into sin and and doesn't love one another well enough to confront that a church that sees a man or a woman repent of sin and and and just kind of Dismisses them and doesn't care about helping them or or bear their burdens or or walk along the the pathway of restoration together
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Ultimately, they're not a church. So we're not talking about a healthy church versus an unhealthy church
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We're talking about a church versus a non church gospel preaching right understanding in the ordinances and then church discipline what our text here
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I mean, for example Can you imagine a place? Call itself a following of Jesus that does not follow what
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Jesus's words say Neither can I thirdly then under this heading the missing of the message the marks of a true church
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Thirdly, I want to just touch briefly on the meaning of membership now
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We're a Baptist Church and we're not ashamed about being a Baptist Church but one of the things that we believe about a
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Baptist Church is we believe that The doctrine is called regenerate church
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Membership and so what does that mean? Regenerate church membership means we believe only people who are born again can be members of the church now that sounds
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Self -explanatory, but there's a lot of there's a lot of Weight in there, right and that is if we believe that only believers are part of the church
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Then we treat one another Like what like believers even Jesus says it this way verse 15 if your brother sins against you
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Go and tell him his fault. I'm gonna expound on that in just a minute or or let me give you another place
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I'm gonna flip over to 1st Corinthians chapter 5 1st Corinthians chapter 5
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Now you're gonna have to hear me well on this because you could take this and run with it, but in 1st
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Corinthians chapter 5 Paul says something that I think would literally
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Cause the brains of people in our day to just collapse on themselves
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Paul commands the church at Corinth to judge What What Let's see what the
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Bible says 1st Corinthians chapter 5 verse 12 This is what Paul says to the church at Corinth now This is with a very serious and public scandal a man
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I'm gonna say it as PG as I can but a man essentially was having an immoral relationship with at best his stepmother maybe his mother but with that best his stepmother and Paul's addressing this and he says in 1st
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Corinthians chapter 5 verse 12 for what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to?
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What's your translation say? judge to judge this is not to be judgmental in the sense of Casting people like you know, like we're not talking about Well, I'm gonna pick on Connell because I know
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I can and because he's just standing right there in front of me But I'm not gonna look at Connell and be like, oh You're wearing jeans today
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Connell. Well, look like that's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about that We're talking about judging with right judgment because we expect that one another is what are what?
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Believers so we we interact with one another as though we are what born again as though the
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Holy Spirit of God is residing within us as though we desire to live a holy and and and Proper life before God as though we love
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Jesus and love his word and love the church That's the way we look at one another's because we have an expectation
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That we're believers why because we believe only believers are part of the church
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So This is some of the reasons for the rarity of church discipline.
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Now, let's move to point to the responsibility of church discipline
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Now, let's walk through our text I'm just going to tell you when Jesus says this here's one of the greatest ways to interpret the
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Bible When the Bible says something It's what it means
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So when Jesus says this there's no code here, there's no like well, I wonder what he really meant no, no
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This is what he means If your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone
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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.
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Tell it to the church And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a
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Gentile and a tax collector Okay, first and foremost.
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I Want to say number one that this is a command of Christ And now we're going to walk through these verses
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Jesus understands that when his church is Gathered that even though it's going to be composed of Regenerate people it's going to be composed of people who are still sinful
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I'll give you an example. You want me to tell you the number one problem in your marriage?
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It's the wife Right No, it's obviously not
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The no, it's the husband now, right? the number one problem in your marriage is that your marriage is composed of two people who still need more sanctification each person
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Still needs to grow in the Lord and each person still wrestles with sin every day whether that's a
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Blatant sin or or a misplaced motivation a misplaced thought, you know Not doing what you're supposed to be doing in your time with the word, whatever the case may be
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Both parties are undergoing sanctification and they need to grow in Christ Now friends if that's true in the marriage relationship
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Can you not see how much truer that is also in the local church relationship?
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Your brothers and sisters in the local church are not yet glorified
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Did you know that? They haven't arrived They need to grow in grace each one of them including your pastors
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Need to grow need to be more and more Conformed into the image of Christ and so our
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God is so good to us So kind to us days that he tells us these commands here that when this happens
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Here's how you handle it number one If your brother sins against you
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Post it on Facebook subtly subtly But you post it on social media and that'll get us attention
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No, that's not what our Lord says This is this is one of the most important things that has to happen
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This ought to be happening actually regularly, right? If your brother sins against you, what do you do?
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You don't get a posse, right? You don't even now there can be serious issues
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Exceptions you may need to come talk to your pastors, but you don't even get your pastor Like this is between two people who is that the offender and the offended in fact, it's so beautiful We're not even leaving
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Matthew right now in a lot of this go to Matthew chapter 5 for just a second And notice too.
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I'm just kidding. I'm giving you the ideal situation, but you understand that we live in a fallen world so on Matthew chapter 5
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Verse 23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you
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Leave your gift there before the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift
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So here's the ideal situation You've been offended by your brother But then your brother is convicted by the
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Holy Spirit and he realizes that his brother that is you has something against you
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Or has something against him. In other words the offender and the one who are offended both
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Realize they need to go to talk to one another and they're out heading each other's house They show up at the other one's house, and they're not even there
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Why because they went to the other house, right? They passed each other on the way because they both realized there's been sin
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And there needs to be reconciliation Now that's the most beautiful and perfect and best scenario, but the idea is someone has offended me
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I'm going to go tell them Privately secretly not on social media not together with a group of people in the church
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That had to be public because it's public sorry, but you go to your brother alone one -on -one
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Now hopefully it ends there. Hopefully it's done there. Hopefully it's you know what I did I said that and I shouldn't have said it.
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You know what? I was rude to you at church. I I Shouldn't have done that and you forgive you reconcile and look at what
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Jesus says if he listens to you you have gained your brother praise
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God This should be happening by the way a lot as the steps get further and further and further
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Like the ones that are at the beginning they should be happening more and more and more The later ones should be happening, you know more rarely, but they still should be happening.
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Well, let's say that doesn't work Well, I whoa. Okay. So what I do this person sinned against me and and and they have they have done something wrong to me
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They've sinned now now the Bible does say love covers a multitude of sin So it doesn't mean all the all the time, you know
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So -and -so didn't wave at you at harps. It doesn't mean it's like, okay, we got to get this started you
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Okay, you can overlook that right like there are things that we can overlook and that we should overlook But there are things that we can't overlook that we've been sinning against we need to deal with we go to the person
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Hey, you've sinned against me. No, I didn't I'm not changing. Yes. You did. Look at the Bible. You've done this you were wrong
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You need to repent. No, I'm not repenting Okay Well, I guess it's just over then we tried
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Jesus, right? Nope verse 16, but if he does not listen Take one or two others along with you and every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses
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So, let me say a couple things here. First of all, this isn't like the next hour, right? So like he didn't repent.
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All right, it's posse time. Call him up. Here we go. We're getting him. That's not what we're talking about We're not even talking about the next day or the next week.
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You need to search your own heart You need to pray you need to to take it before the
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Lord But then when it is time and that we don't have a specific time, but when it is time you
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Take with you another faithful brother Two or three faithful brothers with you and then you approach the brother again
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Now I've been told before that these must be witnesses to the sin That's foolish
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To two reasons that's foolish number one. There are a lot of things that happen one -on -one that you don't have any witnesses number two
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It's foolish because it's not the context of the the passage what Jesus is saying is you take two or three others along with you
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You talk to this brother or sister who has sinned and and that way they can hear the case
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You understand they may side with the person That's why you need to get unbiased like you don't take like your your absolute best friend in the church or whatever.
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That's a little bias you understand that these witnesses may hear the case and say
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II I know you said you're sinned against but It was really okay that they were chewing gum next to you.
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That's you shouldn't that's not a big deal, right? You understand I'm being silly, but they may side with the other person.
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That's why you want to take godly unbiased witnesses however If he does not listen take one or two
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Others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses That is if these people say, okay, this is warranted brother.
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You need to repent now You've got a still small group. The church doesn't know Facebook doesn't know you're not
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Broadcasting this you're keeping this in a very small group and you're taking this To this man and or this woman and you're saying we want you to repent you understand the goal of this, right?
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The goal of this is not the Spanish Inquisition. We're not trying to burn anybody at the stake. What is the goal?
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The goal is godliness for the glory of God the goal is that we love each other enough to help if I see if I go by your house and it's on fire and I walk by saying
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I don't want to get in their business. I'm a wicked man Because I've let your house burn
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With you in it And I didn't want to take the time to get in your business How much worse is sin in?
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one another's lives We want to help one another so now you have these two or three witnesses
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But he still or she still refuses to repent verse 17 He refuses to listen to them
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Now we bring the local church into Tell it to the church
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Yet, it's still not over yet. You tell it to the church. Why what's getting?
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No, you tell it to the church so that the church can talk with this brother or sister
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Well, who is the church? Oh, it's the elders No The elders,
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I don't know. I keep putting air quotes around Are not I don't know air quotes around me.
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They're not the church. The elders are not the church The church is the people now the elders obviously have to be leading this be involved in this
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God gives pastors to oversee things even like this But but the reality is when you say you tell it to the church
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It's so that the members of the church can plead with this brother. They could or sister They can take them out to lunch.
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They can go over to their house. They can say hey, look you've got these things going on Explain this to me.
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You need to repent and Hopefully at each one of these cases at each one of these steps
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I should say they're repenting Hopefully one -on -one they're repenting, but if not, you go to step two. Okay, hopefully you got the witnesses
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They're repenting, but if not, you take it to the church. Hopefully now that the whole church is involved.
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They're repenting But Jesus gives us stipulation Even there if they don't and if he refuses to listen even to the church, you know the idea here is like This guy has or girl has been lit has not listened to one has not listened to a group
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And he won't even listen to the whole church Let him be to you as a
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Gentile and a tax collector In other words, it is the church's responsibility
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That's what verse 18 means, let me read it first truly I say to you whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth
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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 their
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Father in heaven You understand this is all in the context here of discipline for where two or three are gathered in my name
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There I am among them when the church gathers together and a person refuses to repent it is the church's
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Responsibility to now treat that person as though they are an unbeliever That may seem hard to some of you
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It may seem foreign to some of you But what I'm trying to encourage us with this morning is that Christ is worthy of a healthy church
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And this is the way that Jesus has taught us how to do church That's the command of Christ.
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I have another point under here Commit the commitment of the church. I'll just mention these real quick and then we'll get to our last point.
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Oh Wait, I need to back up Let me say a couple things real quick because of sin and because of the fallenness of humanity not everything works like this meaning
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It's not always a cut -and -dry scenario. Let me just make up a scenario that way So I want to be careful if you think this applies to you it doesn't apply to you, okay
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I'm literally making it up on my feet But let's say a person in the church gets drunk
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They go to the basketball game. They're drunk. They make a fool of themselves in front of everybody
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They go on the court. They you know are saying very Bad things to the referee or the other team or whatever they get arrested
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Okay, you understand that they have because of their own sin Accelerated the process of discipline
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What I mean is you say well first is we got to go to him one -on -one Well, no because they have they have taken a situation of they haven't that it's not personal sin
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Now it's public sin you understand and when the sin is public there has to be a an
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Acceleration if you will of the church discipline process where you go now, they've they've sinned in public now
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You've got to go to them in public. They don't just show up at church on Sunday, and you're like well It's nothing well. We're not gonna talk about that right that was a rough weekend man.
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Sorry about that No, no you you're approaching them, and what are you approaching them with not like? Oh, I'm worried about how our church is gonna look no
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No, I'm worried about our reputation or you're gonna make our pastor look bad no No, you what are you worried about the glory of Christ?
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Right the Fundamental goal the chief goal of church discipline is the glory and honor of our
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Lord Jesus Christ And so we want to see this center Restored and helped and man.
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We're gonna do everything we can to see that happen Now if he refuses then we also have an obligation and let me so now the second point commitment of the church
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I'll just mention three quick points. The first is we do this because we fear
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God Have you considered?
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What it is? for the supreme God of the universe To tell you to do something and you say no
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See we presume upon grace now I Praise God Would not be where I am today if not for the graciousness of our
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God He is so gracious and he's so good and he's so patient and he's so kind But I remind you of stories in the
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Bible like Ozzo. You remember Ozzo Ozzo is walking and they think they have this great idea but Ozzo has this idea that as the
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Ark of the Covenant, which is a representation of the presence of Yahweh and He's walking behind the
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Ark of the Covenant, which they weren't supposed to be moving it this way anyway, but that's another sermon He has this great idea that when the
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Ark of the Covenant is going to fall and it's gonna fall into the mud He's all he's going to do. Listen, would you put yourself in the man's spot?
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This thing is about to fall This is representative of the presence of God. It's about to fall in the mud.
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What are you gonna do? Stop it from falling? And he does that and God kills him for it
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Because he desecrated the holiness of God Friends I tell us this morning and I've been guilty of it too in my family
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I mean this is what sin is, right? So in my family and my in my with my children with my wife with with the church at times
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We've all been guilty of God saying to do this thing and we've not done it or God saying not to do this thing
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And we've done it. Anyway, what I'm saying is a church cares about church discipline because we fear God Secondly a church cares about church discipline because we trust
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God Now this is where I see a lot of places and I don't want this to be true of us a lot of places
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Introducing things that are smarter than God, right? So, okay God, I understand
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This is how you are telling us But maybe you don't really understand the 21st century and man we really got is really kind of hard You know, we got the you know
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Generation Z or or whatever it may be we got that was really hard and in and if we do this, you know
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People outside of kind of look at us as like either weirdos or judgmental or mean and so God We're gonna do another thing and the thing that we're gonna do it's this we're just not gonna do anything
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Is that okay When a church does that it shows that we don't trust God God hasn't given us these
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Instructions so that we could Just do them or not do them.
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He's given these instructions to the church for our good Please hear me for our good
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The church is to walk with one another to confront sin with one another to walk in repentance with one another to love one another
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To carry one another's burdens to be there for one another to help one another we're to be a family together in accordance with the with the scripture the way the
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Bible says it because God has given these instructions for The church is good. And When we disagree with the
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Bible what we're saying is I don't trust you God And then thirdly because we fear
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God because we trust God thirdly because we love the church Do you love the church
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It's easy to say right I love the church on potluck Sunday, that's easy to say that's not today by the way, but Some of you like what?
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No, it's easy. I love the church love to eat. It's good. No. No, I love the church enough
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To let them in my life to point out sins in my life so that I can be a better pastor and I love the church enough to walk alongside them and to say to them.
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Hey, brother. Don't do it that way Hey sister, don't do it there because I love the church because I'm not gonna say, you know
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I imagine what would you say to a father who says look son? My six -year -old son hadn't
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I've got all these grenades, you know, it would be really fun hadn't here's some grenades Why don't you play with those?
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That'd be a wicked father So too are we a wicked people to not care if our brothers or sisters play with sin
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Okay, thirdly the rarity of church discipline the responsibility of church discipline
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Thirdly some of this will be reviewed, but I think it'll be helpful the reason for church discipline
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First and foremost the reason for church discipline is the glory of God Friends We talked about in Sunday school that Christ gave himself to redeem a people from all lawlessness and Who are zealous for good works?
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I butchered that so much that I'm just gonna read it Titus 2 Titus chapter 2
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Verse 11 says Jesus gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession
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Who are zealous? for good works First and foremost the reason for church discipline is the glory of God We love church discipline because church discipline get this out of your mind church
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Discipline is not the Crusades church Discipline is not the Inquisition the even it should be very rare in church
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Discipline that someone actually gets removed from the role like there should be a lot more happening in church discipline without that There should be a lot of other things happening and people are being restored and people are repenting and and and there's beauty
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God Sometimes breaks us to show us beautiful things sometimes God even allows sin to come into a
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Situation so that we can learn from it so that we can grow so that we can so it can be stronger And that God is not the author of sin.
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God has no fellowship with sin But even he is sovereign over sin even allowing sin at times so that we can learn and grow and love him all the more and so Discipline ultimately is about the glory of God Secondly discipline is about the purity of the church
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Cry listen friends Let this not just be a silly motto
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Just put it on a bumper sticker and that's all we care. No Christ is worthy of a healthy church because when the church is
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Doing discipline rightly then the church is pure. She's not perfect, but she's pure She's seeking the purity now listen this place
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I need I cannot stress this. This is why we we we love this doctrine so much. I cannot stress this enough this place
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Providence Baptist Church is a place for sinners It is a place for those who don't have it all together
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We if you're perfect, we don't want you to be part of this church. You'll mess it up, right?
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As you don't exist This is a place for sinners This is a place for broken people
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But it's a place where sinners come to be restored It's a it's a place where the broken come to be healed
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Would you love a drug rehab center? That was like? We love people coming here so that we can keep them dependent on drugs
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Like no, that's not your purpose. Well, yes, the church is a hospital a hospital if you will for sinners
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So that they can be restored right so that they can grow so that we can be
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Sanctified not so that we can remain as we were and so we care about church discipline because we care about the purity of the church
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Thirdly and this may sound funny, but it's because we care about the unity of the church You understand that Paul's argument is in In First Corinthians 5
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I was there earlier a little leaven leavens the whole lump. His argument is a little bit of sin
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Within the body is going to affect everyone I cannot tell you enough and some of you need to hear this you need to hear this very pointedly
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Your sin doesn't only affect you Well, I'm just looking at this stuff on the internet man.
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Ain't nobody else know about it It don't matter first of all God knows about it. It don't matter if the church doesn't know about it.
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It's still affecting the church Sin in your marriage sin in the home sin at work as We it's the difference between a
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Christian and non -christian is not one sin and the other doesn't it's that Christians repent of their sins So if you're living in secret or unrepentant sin, it is affecting not just you
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It's affecting your home and it's affecting the church at large This is a terrible analogy terrible terrible terrible forgive me some of you'd be mad that even use this analogy
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But it's gonna fit and that is You're baking brownies
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And you're stirring up the batter you leave for a minute. You're doing something you you see the the
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Your little four -year -old is now stirring the batter. It's so cute. You know now they're stirring the batter and whatever
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And you notice the spoon that you were stirring with is Gone, but now he's got a different spoon stirring the batter like son
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Why do you got this spoon? Oh, I I had scooped up a little bit of dog poop this spoon And now
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I'm stirring the brownies with it. It was just a little bit though. No, no, there's a mom's getting mad No, no, mama. No. No, it was just a little it's only that much.
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It's just a little bit. Just just just a little bit What are you gonna do with those brownies
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Right, you're throwing them out. I hope You're throwing them out
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Why? Because they've been tainted the whole batter is messed up because of just a little bit and same two friends with sin
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And if we allow sin in the church unchecked and uncared about It will ultimately breed disunity
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Thirdly fourthly, sorry the reason for church discipline Restoration and healing
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I've said this a lot, but I just really need to stress this In fact, would you please everyone please turn in your
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Bibles to Luke 17, please turn there because I need you to see this Luke 17
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Luke 17 first what a great admonition in verse 3
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Pay attention to yourselves So if you hear this today and you're like like cuz cuz you know like okay now
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We're all sheriffs and we're all gonna be in snooping on it No, no, first and foremost. The admonition is to pay attention to who first and foremost yourself number one
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Pay attention to yourselves And if you ever see a brother or sister fall in sin and your first thought is ha that could never happen to me
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What a goofball you misunderstand the grace of God and the depravity of sin
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You need to remember if not for the grace of God there go I Okay.
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So first pay attention to yourselves, but then listen to this if your brother sins rebuke him and if he repents
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Rebuke him again No, forgive him Okay, I can do that But I ain't doing it more than once he gets one pass
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Okay verse 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times
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Saying I repent You can think about forgiving him if your translation says that drop it in the trash
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Because that ain't what he says You must forgive him
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Now we're not talking about Blatant abuse situations and blatant unrepentance, but what we're talking about what
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Jesus is talking about here is There's gonna be a lot of sin and this isn't to depress you
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There's gonna be a lot of sin in the church at times because we're sinners and we need to have a healthy
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Understanding we need to have a culture here We need to pray that God would build a culture here that we really understand the gospel
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We say we understand the gospel But if we are really understand that the worst thing about me, you already know the worst thing about me
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You're like what tell me tell me I will tell you I'm so wretched the Son of God had to give his life for me
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That's the worst thing about me and we begin to understand one another we say we
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Understand that this is a church full of people who are meeting grace who are growing these things
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So we want to see we care about church discipline because we care about Restoration and we care about healing
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And so When our brother or sister repents Now again,
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I'm not talking about false repentance. I'm not talking about Your donuts are on the on the on the bar and he takes one donut.
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He's like, oh, I'm Hey, don't steal my donuts. Oh, I'm sorry as he's taking the rest of your donuts, right?
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He's like, I'm sorry No, no, we understand he's obviously not repentant at the same time first Corinthians 13 says this about love
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Love hopes all things So if my brother sins against me and he tells me that he repents my first inclination should be
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I'm going to believe this Until until he proves me other like, you know, the idea of innocent until proven guilty
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That's not just a cool like court thing from the United States like that has a biblical precedent
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You understand if my brother looks at me and says I repent then until he proves me
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Otherwise because he may be wrong. He may just be saying he repents, right? That is true true repentance is going to bear what fruit you don't see true repentance in a single moment of time
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But you see true repentance over the course of time in the course of life But as he tells me I repent is my responsibility.
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I'm not making this up This is what Jesus says is my responsibility to forgive him Unless he does it eight times in a day
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Right, that's not what that's not what the Lord is saying. He's not saying okay
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You keep you a little checkbook and on the eighth time you've done No The point is we say how many times do
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I got to be gracious? Friends, I'm just going to tell you that you've never been more gracious to a sinner in your life
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Then God has been gracious to you And so we care about church discipline because we care about our brothers and sisters restoring them helping them walking alongside them and then
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Finally, let's make sure it didn't happen. Monty said when
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I said finally he was gonna stand up and say hallelujah, but finally the beauty of the church
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Friends I'm gonna say this quick. I really time honestly got away from me there So, let me just say this and I will conclude the plane will land
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The church is the most beautiful place on earth It is a foretaste of heaven
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It is a group of goofballs Outcasts Sinful people
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And God has redeemed by his sovereign grace And put together in a family
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I'll just be frank and blunt with you. I didn't sit down and choose you to be part of this family and You didn't sit down and choose one another
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But God in his sovereign wisdom and goodness shows us to be together
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And I couldn't have picked a better thing So I praise
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God from whom all blessings Father help us to love the church
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To see her beauty to be committed to her health