The End, Exercise, and Effects of Excommunication

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: 1 Corinthians 5:1-13

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Well, as most of us know this morning, we're taking a detour and putting a pause on our study of the
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Beatitudes and using the the opportunity of what lies before us this afternoon and what lies before us in the weeks and months to come to really consider what's probably foremost on our minds, what's heavy on our hearts, which is this matter of excommunication.
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As we as a body gather the covenanted members to deal with and vote upon the excommunication this afternoon.
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As I was preparing earlier in the week and had some encouragement and some prods toward the end of the week to consider taking this opportunity, is of course when else would we go to this passage?
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This is not something when everything's easy and you don't need to that you you have a focus and a time and preaching on excommunication.
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And so it's certainly needful and very important that we consider these things from God's Word and have them on our minds, on our hearts, in our prayers as we proceed.
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And so I went through my notes knowing that there had been occasion in years past to preach on church discipline and the day that I found those notes were four years ago to the day.
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It was August 9th. I opened this matter of church discipline in a sermon and it was
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August 9th that I found those notes and realized that they were very general and they approached church discipline as a whole topic and worked through Matthew 18 and this matter of dealing with private sin as well as the first Corinthians 5 or second
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Thessalonians 2 and looking at matters of public sin. And so I don't want to go back there nor do
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I want to be unnecessarily general. I want to consider head -on this topic of excommunication and as we'll see in a moment, we're not there yet, but to view it in three major points with some sub points in between to consider what the end of excommunication is.
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That is, what's its goal? What's the purpose? And to consider why it's important, the exercise of it.
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Why should we exercise it? How do we exercise it? And then the effects of excommunication.
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What can we expect? And in some ways the last part is just a trace that I hope will open up some discussion as we gather later tonight to deal more practically with this matter as a body.
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So excommunication. First of all, we must recognize excommunication deals with individuals as well as the church and as we'll see,
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Paul's concern is not about the individual in writing 1 Corinthians 5. It's about the church.
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And the modern church has made the mistake of making everything about church discipline be about the individual rather than about the church.
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And so we want to make sure that we establish that as we move forward to understand what
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Scripture does have to say about the individual in our bodily relation. But we must say church discipline, excommunication, regards not only an individual but the church.
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And Paul's priority, as we'll see, is the church. We're reminded that our confession holds forth a view of what a church is, what a church consists of.
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This is from chapter 26, verse 6. The members of these churches are saints by calling.
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Who belongs in a church? Those who have been called by the Lord through the Holy Spirit. You can't be born into a church.
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A bishop can't just arbitrarily include you into a church. Members of churches, those that properly belong to a church, are those who are saints by calling.
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Visibly manifesting and evidencing in their profession, in their walk, their obedience unto the call of Christ.
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So who belongs in a church? What does a church consist of? Those who are saints because they've been called by Christ.
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Those who manifest and evidence that calling in their life, not only by what they profess, but in how they walk, that they have obeyed this call of Christ, the call of the gospel in their lives.
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Those are the proper subjects of the church. Now you take that as a backdrop as we consider this passage before us, 1
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Corinthians 5. Paul begins. It's actually reported there's sexual immorality among you.
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And such sexual immorality, it's not even named among the Gentiles. A man has his father's wife, most likely his stepmother.
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And you are puffed up, and you have not rather mourned, so that he who has done this deed might be taken away from you.
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For I indeed, though absent in body and present in spirit, I've already judged, as though I were present, him who's done this deed.
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In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the
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Lord Jesus. So this sin in 1 Corinthians 5 has become a public offense.
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The church is not scandalized by it. In fact, they're so comfortable with it that they've become puffed up about their tolerance.
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Paul is scandalized by it. The report has come to him most likely because others were scandalized by it, other churches.
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We see the same dynamic in chapter 11 and 12. The sin had become a public offense.
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They knew about the sin, but they avoided dealing with it. In fact, Paul says they gloried in it.
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Your glorying, he says, is not good. That probably meant, again, if we understand the things that Paul would have normally taught, just look at chapter 13 and how he speaks of love.
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They probably took aspects of Paul's teaching and said, look at the kind of love we have. And Paul understands that their glorying has not been good.
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It's been a corruption as a result of the acceptance of this leaven. And so what does Paul command in light of that?
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Verse 5, he commands a gathered church. Notice that though he's an apostle, though he says
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I've made a judgment, though in that apostolic authority at this foundational level of the church, he has commended and commanded what must be done.
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Still, it's the exercise of the gathered church. Deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.
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What does this language mean? Well, the phrase seems to happen again in another case of excommunication when we come to 1st
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Timothy 1. There we read about Hymenaeus and Alexander, and he says, Hymenaeus and Alexander, I've handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.
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In other words, so that this work of the flesh would be destroyed so that the spirit may be saved on the day of the
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Lord Jesus. So what does this phrase mean? The destruction of the flesh, of being handed over to Satan?
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Well, likely it means in the gathered church, removing the offender from their midst, no longer identifying their profession as credible.
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It means that they're in this way removed from the body, removed from the covenant nature of the body.
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They're no longer under the authority of the church, and therefore in some ways no longer shielded by the covenant and authority of the church.
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They're handed out of the domain of the church back into the domain of Satan, who in 2nd
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Corinthians 4, 4 is described as the god of this age, the prince of the power of the air.
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And we see this if we just consider how Paul understands conversion. This makes a lot more sense. In Acts 26, 18, he says he's been sent to Gentiles.
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Why? To open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, to turn them from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness for their sin.
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So Paul's understanding of conversion is there's a sense in which they're under the dominion, under the authority of Satan, and conversion has brought them out of that dominion into the dominion of Christ in his church, under the power and the authority of Christ.
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In Colossians 1, 13, we see the same understanding. He rejoices that God has delivered us from the power of darkness, conveyed us into the kingdom of the
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Son of His love. So here again, you have the idea of conversion being taken out of the dominion of Satan, out of the reign of Satan, brought under the control and reign of Christ.
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That's exactly what Paul is describing in 1st Corinthians 5, in the opposite order. So the destruction of the flesh, as Simon Kistemaker explains, it serves the purpose of destroying the flesh, of so focusing the weight and leverage of the church's pronouncement that it begins to humble and break and lead to mercy, so that the sinner's soul can be restored, so that at the end that spirit may be saved.
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It's the very works of the flesh that have caused this action in 1st Corinthians 5.
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What in Galatians Paul says are manifest, the things that lead toward death. Paul says that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
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In that sense, they have no business in the church. And notice what
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Paul expects of those who are inside the church. He creates this whole inside -outside dynamic.
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And as I said toward the end of last week, if the church could understand what Paul says in chapter 5, verse 12 and 13 in 1st
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Corinthians, it would radically change the way the church is on the inside and toward the outside.
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And what happens is, because we don't understand this inside -outside dynamic, the outside comes in and the inside goes out.
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Paul has a separation in his mind. What have I to do with judging those who are outside?
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Do you not judge those who are inside? The expected answer is yes. Does not the church judge those who are inside?
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The answer is yes. Of course, people on the outside will live in these ways, but not on the inside.
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Those on the outside God judges, Paul says. Therefore, since you are ones who judge on the inside, put away from yourselves the evil.
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So this is really the central text. There's other passages that speak to excommunication, but this is the central text.
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What is excommunication? Excommunication is the removal of communion.
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It's being taken out of, ex-, out of communion. It's the removal of membership from the local body.
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It's a removal of the benefits of membership in the local body. It's a removal of the fellowship of Christians in the local body.
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Until repentance is acknowledged by the church and restoration and reconciliation are thereby enabled.
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That's what reconciliation will do. So let's consider now in three parts here.
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First, the end. What's the end of excommunication? Then what, what is, what is the exercise?
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Why do we do it? How do we do it? And then lastly, the effects. So first, the end of excommunication.
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Well, what you see in 1 Corinthians 5 is that the offending brother or sister is no longer given a charitable judgment of being a brother or sister.
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Of course, excommunication does not grant us some supernatural ability to discern someone's soul before the
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Lord. We can only examine things as they pertain to the, to the walk, to the profession, to its credibility.
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And especially where there's been admonition and church discipline already applied, then our eyes, our prayers, our focus is more deliberately upon those very things.
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With everyone in this room, one who has made a profession of faith and is a member in the body, there's a certain extension of charitable judgment.
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We all sin in many ways, as James says. You don't have to look hard to see sin in the midst of the body.
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A church truly is made up of sinners, but sinners who are saints because of the calling of God in their life and what that calling bears out and leads to.
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And so in excommunication, that charitable judgment of, so far as I can tell, notwithstanding sins or stumblings that are evident,
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I can no longer extend that identity, that label, that understanding, that relationship of brother or sister in this case.
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Not until repentance and reformation has been accepted by the church. Without it, we're commanded by Jesus to regard the offender as a heathen, as a tax collector.
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In other words, as one on the outside, not one who's been brought in. Now, of course, when we're talking about the end of excommunication, what does
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Paul point as the end? He uses very difficult language. Hand him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.
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But why? What's the end? So that his spirit may be saved. That's the end.
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And so it's easy to say on the one hand, out of scandal or out of outrage, hand him over.
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Be rid of him. Purge. But understand that Paul's own weight and pressure toward the church is so that he'd be saved.
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This is necessary in order to bring about salvation. And so, in other words, if one is regarded then as a heathen and a tax collector, well, how does
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Jesus himself treat heathens and tax collectors? How does Jesus himself regard outsiders to the kingdom?
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Well, we see that he's rich in mercy. We say that he's long -suffering. We see that he labors to intercede.
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He's honest to speak truth. He's honest to point the Word of God to bear. We can see that Jesus, in many ways, in the end of Matthew 18, is encouraging there to be a continued desire in pursuit of repentance and restoration.
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So the end, let me be very clear, the end of excommunication is always, always, always restoration.
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Is there some something punitive within it? Of course. Paul says so in 2nd
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Corinthians 2. The punishment inflicted by the majority is sufficient. Of course, there's something punitive in it, but it's punitive because the end is restoration.
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It's seen as a necessary step that lesser steps have not and will not prevail.
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Restoration is always the end. So the church examines itself. Is that our end?
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Is that our prayer? Is that our hope? Will we labor toward that end?
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A church will not rightly exercise discipline if they don't have that end. Let that be clear.
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Now, of course, they're not merely treated and regarded as heathen and tax collectors because Jesus feasted and ate with heathen and tax collectors.
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It was one of the things that always kept him at bay from the condescension of the Pharisees. In this sense, in 1st
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Corinthians 5, Paul says you don't eat with this one. You don't keep company. This blunts or dulls or brings a fog over the inside -outside dynamic that the church is meant to uphold.
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This is a means of restoration. And where it's vague and foggy and the relationships are still there in all the ways they had been, that leverage, that pressure, that means of restoration is lost.
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And so there's no relation of being casual, short of repentance that the church acknowledges.
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It's not just water under the bridge. That doesn't mean there's a cold shoulder. That doesn't mean there's sort of this
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Amish shunning. That does not exist. The goal is restoration. There's warm -hearted admonition.
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There's a labor in prayer, a watchfulness in prayer. Love hopes all things.
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Love endures all things. That's the Spirit. So they're encouraged to come sit under the ministry of the
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Word. Heathen, tax collectors are encouraged to come sit under the preaching of the
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Word. This is where mercy is found. This is where the Lord is presented, where His presence is found, where His power is revealed.
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In the time of excommunication, in other words, the church withdraws Christian fellowship, but not
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Christian compassion. In fact, the very movement of withdrawing
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Christian fellowship ought to breed Christian compassion if we are those who have been saved by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And that is because church discipline is all about restoration. If He listens to you, you've gained your brother.
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That's what Jesus says in Matthew 18. James says, if one turns back a man from the error of his ways, know that he saved a soul from death.
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That's the heart. That's the heart. If a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore him in a spirit of gentleness.
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The goal is always restoration. It's the same situation in Corinth. Commentators are divided over whether it's the same man from 1st
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Corinthians 5 or not. Either way, it doesn't matter. We have examples of what church discipline and excommunication has brought about in someone's life and how for therefore how the church is to regard them afterward.
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If anyone has caused grief, Paul says, he's not grieved me, but all of you to some extent, not to be too severe.
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Now commentators who say that's not the man of 1st Corinthians 5, they say, could Paul really be saying he hasn't grieved me?
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He seems very grieved in 1st Corinthians 5, but understand what he's saying. I've made the judgment.
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My concern is the church, the testimony of the gospel, the purity of God's people. I've already made it.
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I don't need to be there. I don't need to meet. I don't need to go through a series of admonitions. I've already made the judgment.
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When you're gathered together, move in this way. So it's the church, he says, that ought to have mourned.
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It's the church that gathers and moves in this way. And then he says, it's not that I've been grieved.
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If anyone's been grieved, it's been you, the church, has been grieved. Church learned how to mourn in moving forward in this very painful and difficult way.
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And he says, well the punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for the man.
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By the way, by the majority is the basis of how we vote in these proceedings.
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It's right out of 2nd Corinthians 2 in that way. And you get the sense that even though Paul the
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Apostle could say, I've already made this judgment. When you gather in the name of the
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Lord Jesus, by the power of the Lord Jesus, purge this one from among you. But not everyone in Corinth was convinced.
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It was the majority who punished. That's telling, brothers and sisters. But what does he say?
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Now, you ought rather to forgive and comfort, lest he be swallowed up with too much sorrow.
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Now, in 2nd Corinthians 2, what is Paul's main concern? It's the man.
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It's the offender. In 1st Corinthians 5, in light of discipline, what's Paul's exclusive concern?
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The church. I don't even need to see him. It's the church. But when church discipline, when excommunication has brought forth this kind of repentance, what is
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Paul's chief concern? The man. I don't want him to be swallowed up in too much sorrow.
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You need to go forgive him, comfort him, he says. It's been sufficient. Don't let it go a day longer.
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Do you see? John Owen, speaking on this passage, says this is the whole of excommunication.
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This is all that we plead for. The Apostle commends the church for what they had done.
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You did rightly. What the majority did was right. And then he gives an account of the effect of it.
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He says it brought about proper humiliation, proper repentance. And now he says, go and comfort him and forgive him.
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Go embrace him. Don't let him be sad. And so what does restoration look like? If that's the end of excommunication, what does it look like?
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Well, the restoration is done with all meekness. With all meekness.
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If the one who's been purged is brought to meekness, then when he's restored, the whole church restores him in meekness.
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One who had been overtaken by a trespass is restored always in a spirit of meekness.
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So with meekness. And that means what had been a storm of discouragement is now clothed over and submerged with this meek warmth and love.
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The restoration comes with consolation where there's been sorrow. Now there's comfort where there's been a night of weeping.
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Now there's a morning of joy. There's a consolation that is vibrant and rich. And so the restoration is a restoration of joy.
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This is a feast day. It represents the very heart of Christ towards sinners in this way.
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So what about the exercise of excommunication? So the end, as you said, is restoration. What about the exercise?
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Well, as we approach and as I've had time to study more and more about not only the scriptures in this regard, but even the history or the practice of excommunication among Reformed and Protestant churches.
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What's striking to anyone is, of course, how the exercise of church discipline had long been regarded as a mark of the true church of God.
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The Reformers, in carving out and understanding what a true church is, since Rome had gone off the rails and away from the
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Word of God, they had to go to the Word of God to say, well, then what is a true church? It's not big buildings that impoverish the peasantry of Europe.
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If that's not the church, what is a true church? What are the marks of a true church? And it was the preaching of the
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Word of God, the administration of the sacraments or the ordinances, and church discipline.
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It's a mark, one of the three marks of the true church. Gregory Wills, who's a
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Baptist historian, he says in the antebellum South, a church that wasn't regularly engaged in church discipline wouldn't have been regarded as a church by anyone.
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This is what a church is. Now, statistically, that all falls off a cliff as we come into the 20th century, and there's many reasons why.
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We can sit here as ones that, even in a very young church, ought to be struck with the fact that excommunication, the exercise of discipline in this regard, has been expressively rare.
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Al Mohler, in writing on this, he says, the decline of church discipline is perhaps the most visible failure of the contemporary church.
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The church of today sees itself as autonomous members with very minimal moral accountability to God and even less with one another.
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The absence of church discipline is no longer even remarkable, Mohler says. To most church members, it's not even a meaningful category.
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It's not even a memory. You can't think back to remember it ever being so.
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Of course, one of the major explanations for this, especially it was dropping off really in the 1800s, heading into the early 1900s, but once you get to the 50s and the 60s, we really see that there's now a rejection of the very concept of church discipline.
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And Mohler tries this to the theological category of sin being replaced, in most circles, with some sort of psychology or therapy.
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His idea is we're not looking at the word and understanding the categories that the word gives us. We're looking to the world and finding ways to view sin as anything but sin and to see ourselves as anything but the problem in that regard, something that the word of God will never let us do.
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And so there's no longer this category of sin. There's what? Poor choices. There's a failure to live up to expectations.
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There's a way that we don't fit the norms of an impressive culture. There's a way that we're inadequately self -actualizing.
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It's all psychological jargon. And none of it is from the word of God.
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There's no longer sin. James Twitchell puts it in this way. Go and sin no more has been replaced with judge not, lest you be judged.
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This is not the category that the word of God gives to us. This is not how Paul understands the church of Jesus Christ to operate.
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So the first point on the exercise of excommunication is this. We exercise excommunication because it is the institution of Christ.
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It is the institution of Christ. Notice what
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Paul says about this. This emphatic repetition. In the name of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, when you're gathered together. Along with my spirit, with the power of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Do you see what he's drawing together? In the name, in the power, in the presence, with the authority.
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This is the institution of Christ himself. This is not something that.
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About 800 years ago, some curmudgeonly elders decided would be practical. This is what the word of God says about the church of the
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Christ. In his name, with his power, this is what is to be done.
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John Owen, who a tremendous book, the true nature of a gospel church.
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And in the 10th chapter, which is all about excommunication, he points this out. He says, looking, he's spending most of the time looking at 1st
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Corinthians 5. And he says, this censure, this judgment is an institution of Christ.
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For whose administration he gives authority to his church. It's everything we've seen.
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God judges those outside. Do you not gather church, judge those inside? It's his authority given in this way.
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So again, this is Owen. It's an institution of Christ for whose administration he's given authority to his church, which is necessary for its edification and for the preservation in honor, purity and order.
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This is why Christ has instituted it. This is why we have it. Jonathan Edwards, who inherited a royal mess at the
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Northampton congregation, which he came to in 1726 as an associate laboring in ministry under his grandfather.
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And of course, his grandfather had established this halfway covenant that allowed children of full members to be church members that in Edwards reformation would not be allowed to partake of the table and yet could bear authority and exercise authority in the church as members and regarded as members.
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It was his grandfather that viewed coming to the Lord's table as a converting ordinance. Even though there's no profession, no repentance.
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Well, they've been born into the church. We might as well let them come to the table. Maybe the Lord will save them then. This is a terrible understanding of what the church is.
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But Edwards, rightly barring the table in this way, rightly understanding that a mark of the true church is church discipline, exercise discipline, in fact, preach sermons on excommunication.
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And one that he preached in 1739, the first case of excommunication that that Northampton congregation had seen in Edwards ministry was for a one named
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Mrs. Bridgman, who was a drunkard in the congregation. And so he preached out of Deuteronomy 29.
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And he spoke, he spoke to this very fact.
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Jonathan Edwards wrote this. Discipline is to be looked upon as done by Christ himself.
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It's according to his will. It's according to his word. And therefore, we ought to esteem it as really and truly from him, as if he were on earth personally inflicting it.
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This is the idea. God judges on the outside, God, by his spirit, with the authority he's given judges on the inside through the gathered church.
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But it's no less the Lord who's bearing his will in his body. It is governed by his will,
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Edwards says, not by our own. Indeed, it's only an application of his word.
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That's why in Matthew 18, he says, this is Jesus. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.
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Why? Because it's the authority I've given. It's me who's ruling in my church. So church discipline is meant, first of all, to press the claim of Christ over his church.
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It's not just an urgent call for repentance, lest someone be dragged away to death and destruction.
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It's not just a plea and a labor and prayer for spirit wrought obedience. It is an institution of Christ.
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We have to start there. Secondly, we exercise excommunication because of the purity of the church, because of the purity of the church.
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In other words, there's a serious danger to not only the influence of sin, but just the toleration of sin.
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And that's Paul's whole point in First Corinthians five. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
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Therefore, purge the old leaven that you may be a new lump. Because why? Because you truly are unleavened.
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Do you understand his theology? There's no there's no way there could be a halfway covenant in his understanding of the church. He says a little leaven leavens the whole lump, a little sin tolerated, a practice of sin embraced in the church corrupts the whole church, he says.
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But the whole church is truly unleavened. In other words, Paul's concern is about the purity of the church.
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Why? You were washed. You were sanctified. He's not saying you were sinless.
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Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were made unleavened, and that's what the church is.
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And when those in the church show themselves to not be washed, to not be sanctified in this way, Paul says that little leaven leavens the whole lump.
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And it may not be that they go and do the same things in the same way. But the fact that they no longer are scandalized in the way that Paul was scandalized already shows the leavening corruption.
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This clarity is important for this very reason. The reason that the world is no longer scandalized by the most abominable sins is because long ago the church stopped being scandalized with the least.
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People roll their eyes now about butchering preteens. Mutilating them.
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This is unimaginable. Where does it begin? The church no longer could wield the light of God in her midst to be that salt in that light, to pronounce the word of God.
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Right. In fact, finding ways to dodge and cloak and camouflage what God has to say about sin.
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And in the very desire to be merciful and to share the gospel and the good news, they did their best to to hide and twist and make the bad news.
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And really not that bad at all. We're a loving church, a welcoming church and affirming church. You're no church.
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You're no church. For a welcome of sin, an affirmation of sin.
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It's not the kind of church that Paul has in view here in First Corinthians five. You truly are unleavened, he says.
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Therefore, purge the leaven from among you. And as we said on Thursday, there's leaven that must be swept out of everyone in this church.
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If church discipline, if excommunication is primarily about the church, then as we'll see, the
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Lord has something for everyone here if we truly are unleavened. Yes. So this clarity is important for the offender.
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They can think of themselves in a right way from the word and before God.
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That's the only way there could be restoration. Otherwise, all the embrace, all the tolerance, it's just padding the way to destruction.
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You see, in the very desire to be merciful, it's the most merciless thing you could ever do.
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To affirm someone to hell. To welcome someone to death. No better, we're hated and spurned and ignored in our attempts to show people that their sin will take them to hell.
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And that freedom can only be found in the good news of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
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This clarity is important for the offender. They need to see themselves rightly. They need to see God's word rightly. They need to stand before God in the right way.
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We don't want them to be shocked at the last. We want at the last their spirit to be shaken. To be saved. But this clarity is also important for the church.
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Frankly, it doesn't matter. Paul is not concerned about whether the offending man gets it or not.
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That's not his concern in First Corinthians five. Who does he want to get it? The church.
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Who does he want to have clarity? The church. Here's what you ought to have done.
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Here's what you must do. Here's how you need to view these things. Don't you know these things? Do you see what
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Paul's concern is? Clarity is for the church. Clarity is to rightly discern the body of the
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Lord. As we see moving forward in the letter, there are those who are profaning the body of the Lord. He says, don't you know, this is why some of you are sleeping?
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Some of you are dying. You're not approaching this rightly. You're not understanding this rightly.
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What is the body of the Lord? It really it runs through the whole course of First Corinthians.
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What is the body of the Lord? And Paul understands sheep are not goats.
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Tares are not wheat. Light is not darkness. Truth is not error. Righteousness is not sinfulness. Defilement is not holiness.
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There's a fundamental inside outside to every aspect of our walk. And you see his concern a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
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I'm not a baker, but I know that to be true because I've seen the little packets that you buy in that little bit soon swells up the whole of the dough.
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It works itself into that dough. And you can't stop and say, go no further. You can't say we'll allow you to leaven this part of the dough, but not that part.
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Once that little leaven is there, everything is leaven, you see. So what happens when you tolerate sin corporately?
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I'm asking what happens if we fail to purge out leaven as a result of this? Well, just look at Corinth.
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First, you tolerate instead of excoriate. You sort of become comfortable with maybe you just maybe you're not comfortable, but you're resigned to it.
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It's going to be messy. It's going to cause all these problems. I don't really want it. I'll just whatever.
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We're all sinners. We'll just so first you tolerate instead of excoriate.
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And then you boast. Look, no one can judge us.
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Look how loving that we are. Look how you boast instead of mourning. And then if you've gotten to that place where you're boasting instead of mourning, you end up celebrating rather than purging.
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And so the very churches dotted throughout New England states, the former
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Congregationalist churches, the former Baptist churches, Presbyterian churches throughout our region of this country were once churches that understood this true mark of the people of God and exercised it.
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And for that reason, there was a there was a light, there was a salt. There was two great awakenings that broke out in the recent past.
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And now what are those same buildings bear? Have they mourned or have they celebrated?
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Have they purged or have they accepted? These are the very places where rainbow banners and pet blessings are now the norm.
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And what's absent? The word of God and the purity of the church. In other words, the lampstand is removed.
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John Dagg, an old 19th century theologian who could see the decline of discipline in the churches that he was aware of.
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And he said. When the church. Puts out discipline,
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Christ goes with it. It's his institution.
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To purify his body. And so no fear of man, no fear of mess.
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No fear of intrigue, no fear of pushback, no fear of division should ever bow us to tolerate what the
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Lord has forbidden. It's his church. It's his body. And in giving embrace and refuge.
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To a rebel in his midst. We then are rebellious to him. No wonder, brothers and sisters, that this purity is also meant to be a testimony.
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That's the third point. What testimony do we have if it's not the purity of the gospel?
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There is no other testimony. The gospel is the power of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. It's the power of his shed blood exercised by the spirit he sent since he is now risen and exalted on high.
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That is the gospel. And so that's our testimony. There is no other testimony. It demands the purity of the church.
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And again, church discipline is meant to restore. The testimony of the gospel, it's meant to restore, on the one hand, the testimony of the gospel in the life of the offender that we can no longer, in a charitable way, call a brother or a sister.
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But it's also meant to, as it were, vindicate or purify or restore the testimony of the gospel in and through the church.
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This is a vital point. The testimony of the gospel is lost, where a practice of sin or unchecked hypocrisy or unheeded admonition or hardened patterns of sinful practice are ignored.
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Now, of course, there's there's a rub here, right? We all feel it.
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If you don't feel it, there's a problem. We know that James 3, 3 says we all stumble in many ways.
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We know that we all have sin. We know that we all struggle against sin. And so the question is, church discipline directed towards sin?
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The answer is yes. Do we all struggle with indwelling sin? The answer again is yes.
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So then why aren't we all under church discipline? All of the time. And the answer is, in part, because church discipline is only ever directed by degrees, by steps, by a process of admonition toward unrepentant sin or.
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That which over time undermines the credibility of repentance itself. Let me say that again, because it's very important.
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Why aren't we under church discipline all of the time, every one of us, if we all have indwelling sin?
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The answer is, in part, because church discipline is only ever directed over time with a series of admonitions toward unrepentant sin or that which over time undermines the credibility of repentance.
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I want to establish this. Paul clearly connects the holiness of believers, the purity of the church, the pure testimony of the gospel with the completed work of Christ.
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There is no other holiness. There is no other means. There is no other avenue. There is no other clothing or glorious dress.
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It is the finished work of Christ. And yet Paul connects that into the lives, into the profession, into the manner of walking of Christ's people.
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And of such are the church, as we said at the beginning. Colossians 1, 21, and you who are once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he's reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy, blameless, above reproach in his sight, do you see?
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So there was once an alienation. In fact, the status of being an enemy to Christ.
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How is that made manifest? By wicked works. And yet now, as a result of the work of Christ, the reconciliation that has taken place in his body, in his death.
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What is the result? What is made manifest? His desire born by his work through his spirit to present his people holy, blameless, above reproach in his sight.
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In other words, this holiness is not something mustered up in the life of a sinner. It's something revealed by the work of the spirit because of the work of Christ.
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And therefore, the fruit of holiness abounds from his redemptive work. And so if at the beginning of the series of admonitions of this time of of dealing with sin, if at the beginning discipline is about examining the testimony of the gospel.
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Then by the end. At the very last stages of discipline, it's about vindicating the testimony of the gospel.
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This is not the picture of the gospel. This is not what
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Christ has died to bring about. And so the
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Puritans and the reformers, they they made a distinction between sins that were common to men, sins that, even though it may cause pain and lead to steps of Matthew 18, it didn't immediately halt a charitable view.
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Right. Extending a charitable judgment of being a brother or sister. They distinguish between that and what they called grave sin, serious sin, significant sin.
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Anthony Willias, he was an old Dutch reformed theologian in 1643, published a book of complete works, and he wrote in part on excommunication, he says, if a man after a grave sin committed against the church, will will define and discuss grave sin in a moment.
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If a man after a grave sin committed against the church professes repentance. So not not something in the early steps of Matthew 18, but something grave that has impacted the whole church, something like First Corinthians five.
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If a man after a grave sin committed against the church professes repentance, nevertheless, it must be proven to the church whether that repentance is sincere.
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And that can only be gathered from its fruits. Look to the the fruits of repentance, what fruit?
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Second Corinthians seven. Is the the fruit is the manifestation of repentance, more like the death of worldly sorrow or more like the life of godly sorrow, godly repentance in Second Corinthians seven.
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And then he says this, and this is very wise. Why then? Well, why is discipline exercise in this way until repentance is seen by the church to be sincere, gathered by the fruits?
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And he says, well, because in the meantime, the scandal must be removed from the church.
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In other words, the testimony must be vindicated. And then he keeps going in the same way that this sin became manifest to others over time.
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So also the repentance must be made manifest over time. The way out becomes the way back in.
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It's this slow, purposeful manifestation filled with charity, mercy, prayer and longing, not rushing to nor pushing away, but in the same way that the sin manifested itself.
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So repentance and the fruit of repentance must manifest itself. And now, well, as says, well, someone immediately objects.
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God immediately forgives the one who repents. And therefore, the church has to do the same. As soon as someone says,
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I repent, that's it. Well, well, as says, that's true. That's true.
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God sees all. God sees the heart. God sees beyond what any man can see, any church can see.
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And for this reason, it's only when it is clear to the church. And only when the church can do so with edification.
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Do you see what he's saying? That the fruit of repentance has become clear. And now we know how to both edify the one who has been excommunicated in a way of also edifying the whole church.
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That's the point. So it raises the question, as I said, what is a grave sin?
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What's what's a significant sin or serious sin or what Edwards called a gross sin in this way?
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Also, all sin is grave. All sin is serious. Any any sin, the least sin is enough to warrant the eternal wrath of God.
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But significant sin can be understood in this way. Jonathan Lehman, who his earlier writings from nine marks,
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I find very helpful. Unfortunately, where he's gone culturally and politically, I don't think is very helpful. But Jonathan Lehman puts it this way.
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It's sin. Significant sin is sin that makes it difficult to continue believing that someone is bearing the spirit of God as a
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Christian. OK, it's sin that makes it difficult to continue believing that someone bears the spirit of God as a
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Christian. And since membership is a church's affirmation of a person's profession of faith, significant sin in this way makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to stand before a watching world and affirm that profession of faith as credible.
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To say this is what someone who believes the Lord, this is what they are.
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This is what they live like and look like and speak like and operate like. And so, again, it's about the church, the church's testimony, the church's affirmation, what is a church rightly defined and rightly ordered.
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This is why excommunication is exercise. It's a sin to just elaborate further, which being walked in, being practiced, as Paul says very clearly, will not lead one to inherit the kingdom.
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It is a work of the flesh, as Paul says in Galatians five, those who practice the works of the flesh, they don't inherit the kingdom.
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And that's why in First Corinthians five, that flesh, that work of the flesh must be destroyed. The same list that appears in First Corinthians five, we have in First Corinthians six.
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And again, Paul says to the church, do you not know? Hasn't this been clear?
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Don't you understand? Don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
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You say, yeah, but we're all unrighteous. It's why we're in the church. We believe the gospel because we've acknowledged that we're unrighteous before God.
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But you see, it's Paul is approaching the church in the same way I began with.
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What is the church? Saints called by Christ, having a right profession of Christ, walking in accordance to Christ.
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And so Paul says to a sinful church filled with all sorts of unrighteousness, he says to the saints at Corinth.
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Holy and beloved, elect of God. So he differentiates between the unrighteous acts of those who are truly saints in the church and the one who must be excommunicated.
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Not because one day he'll be righteous and therefore can come back, but because in this profound way, he's on a path in which he will not inherit the kingdom of God.
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So Paul says this to the church. Do you not know the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
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Do not be deceived. As we said in 2
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Corinthians 2, if this is the same man, some in the church still were deceived. We just know from that letter that a lot of the
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Corinthian church had very little regard for Paul. And they disliked and turned their nose up at his authority.
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And they disliked his teaching compared to others. Paul says here, don't be deceived.
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If you miss it, he says it twice. Don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
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Don't be deceived. Not fornicators, not idolaters, not adulterers, not homosexuals, not sodomites, not thieves, not covetous, not drunkards, not revilers, not extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
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Don't be deceived. If some Methodist bishop in a dog collar tells you otherwise, don't be deceived.
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Jonathan Edwards describing gross sin in this way. He says the daily shortcomings of the best of men don't ordinarily obstruct the charity of the brethren.
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Again, this is how they understood the practice of discipline. We all sin and we don't understand one's soul really before God.
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It's easy to play the hypocrite and go through the motions and speak the jargon. And you may convince everyone.
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And what has that got you in the end? It doesn't get you anything but the shock and the terror of judgment at the end. But we still, in light of not some scandalous sin or some gross sin, we extend charity, he says that the daily shortcomings of the best of men don't normally obstruct the charity of the brethren.
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But when a brother falls into a gross sin, we argue in this way that to commit that gross sin doubtlessly has been preceded by a practice of many less and less secret sins.
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And no doubt we begin to have a concern for the soundness and sincerity of the heart.
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And therefore, all those who commit any gross sin begin to obstruct the charity of the brethren and invite their inspection and admonition.
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And therefore, they are proper subjects of church discipline. And unless they this is Edwards, unless they confess their sin and manifest their repentance, they are also proper subjects of excommunication.
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John Owen, writing on this, says the same thing in different words. He says, well, what does that manifestation look like?
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It looks like this. Repentance must be evidenced. Not to the offender, but to the conscience of the church.
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He says it in this way. Repentance must be evidence to the consciences of the rulers of the church as sincere, as proportionate to the outward nature of the offense, according to the gospel.
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And while persons are under admonition, in other words, he's assuming already they've been moving close to an act, admonition, an act, church discipline leading toward this.
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He says, while persons are under admonition, if new sins are added to the former scandal, it is an indication of the necessity of excommunication, you see.
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So the first thing is this charitable judgment is sort of halted. You say we need to look closely at what's happening.
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And then there's admonition as a way of saying, is there real repentance here beyond the I am repentant?
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Is there something more that can actually be seen as the fruit that scripture describes in Second Corinthians seven?
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And so you patiently and prayerfully and laboriously work out those admonitions. You you pray and ask
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God to give you discernment to kind of see that fruit. You notice not only what is said, but what's not said. You notice how things are said or actions, decisions that are made, things that are taken.
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You don't make too much of small things. There's still a lot of charity. We do it meekly, knowing that we to walk and stumble in many ways.
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But if during that time of admonition. What's in view and what's been focused on, if if new sin in the same way is just added on to that, it shows how necessary church discipline is to the end to excommunication.
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So let's be very clear, be very clear before we close with the effects. Someone who is either unwilling.
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Or unable to not only acknowledge, but engage with their sin is in need of church discipline.
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Let me say that again. Someone that is either unwilling or unable to not only acknowledge, but engage with their sin is in need of church discipline a step further.
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Someone that is bound to sin. Unable to find godly repentance that leads to life is a need of church discipline, literally for mercy's sake.
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What does the Lord Jesus say in John 831?
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He says to the Jews who believed him, please notice that. Jesus said to the
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Jews who believed him. If I want you to notice the chain that's happening here.
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If this, then this, and then this. This is what Paul's, this is what
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Jesus is going to say. If this is true, then this will be true. And if because this is true and this is true, this will also be true.
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He's creating a chain. Please see this. Jesus said to the Jews who believed him, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed.
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And in light of abiding in his word, being his disciple in light of that, this will follow.
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And you shall know the truth. Why? Because you've been abiding in the word.
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What is the word? It's the word of truth. So you are my disciple if you abide in my word.
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And what would that look like? Well, if you're abiding in my word, you'll know the truth of my word. You'll know the truth.
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And then what follows? You're abiding in the in the Lord. Therefore, you're abiding in his word.
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Therefore, you know his truth. What follows? And the truth shall set you free.
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Now they push back. What do you mean free? Jesus answered this most assuredly,
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I say to you, when he says that verily, verily, it's like slow down, you know, shut your mouth, open your ears, listen to what he's saying with extreme care.
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Most assuredly, truly, truly, truly, I'm saying to you. Whoever commits sin is a slave to sin and a slave does not abide in the house forever.
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Slaves to sin can abide with us. Slaves to sin can abide with us.
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Let's be clear. People, you know, we're interviewing for baptism, for membership, people that have been here, people that sort of came and we don't really understand a lot about their life.
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There's people that have just been here all along and it's kind of, you know, they're always sort of elusive and sort of slipped through fellowship and engagement and contact.
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Listen. Slaves can abide in the house. But not forever. Not forever.
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Slaves to sin can abide with the church for a long time, literally to the very end.
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But slaves to sin cannot abide with the church forever. What is bound on earth will be bound in heaven because what's true in God's sight of the body of the
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Lord Jesus Christ on earth will only ever be true of the body of the
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Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. Most assuredly,
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I'm saying to you, when you're committing sin, you're a slave to sin and a slave does not abide in the house forever.
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But a son abides forever. Therefore, if the son makes you free, you are free indeed.
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The church is meant to be the. I was about to say the orphanage of God's people, but nothing could be further from the truth.
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It is the family of the adopted sons and daughters of God. Sons and daughters abide in the house forever.
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Why? Because they've been set free by the son. The son who says, if you abide in my word, you as an individual, you as a man, you as a woman, you as a young person, you as an old person, if you abide in his word and you know his truth, that truth will set you free.
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You'll abide in the house forever. If we as a church abide in his word in the most difficult ways.
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And we, too, as a church will abide with him. So lastly, with the time that is now so depleted, let's talk briefly about the effects.
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And of course, as I mentioned at the beginning, this is just meant to flow over into more practical discussion tonight.
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So it's much more, should I say, vague than where we can discuss just practically how to move forward as a church.
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The effects of excommunication. Let me I'm just going to ask two questions and answer them. OK, the first question is this.
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What if we fail to go forward? What if we fail to practice discipline? What if we fail to move forward with excommunication?
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Well, let me suggest a few things from someone much wiser than I. I mentioned Gregory Wills, who's a historian.
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He studied churches. He's a church historian, studied especially churches through the 19th century.
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And this is conclusions from his observations about what happened in churches that over time began less and less to practice or engage with discipline.
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So here's what I think what will happen. Gregory Wills churches first, which failed to fail to practice discipline, will first undermine their unregenerate character.
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What is a church? Saints, by the calling of Christ, with a profession of Christ and a walk in Christ.
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That's what a church is. So the first thing is churches which fail to practice, fail to move forward in this way.
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They undermine their character as a church, an unregenerate character. We don't want a halfway covenant.
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Because that means that there's many that think their membership in the church is somehow a means of salvation. It is not.
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Jesus is the savior. The church is not the savior. And so they tolerate sinful behavior among their members.
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And the extent becomes that the church is now a comfortable place for unregenerate people. There was a time where the church was a pretty uncomfortable place to be if you were against the
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Lord and apart from the Lord. A lot of stand up jokes about sweating it out in the pews.
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Most churches now are the most comfortable place you could possibly go. You know, you're completely immoral and defiant of everything that God has said.
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Welcome. We're going to give you a gas car. We've got water slides, cotton candy. It's like we make carnivals now for unregenerate people.
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It's not what a church is, brothers and sisters. Churches which, secondly, churches which fail to practice discipline undermine the church's holiness, a point we've already made.
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Why? Because it weakens believers in their struggle against sin. If sin is now tolerated, then
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I don't need to fight tooth and nail against it. Why should I lop off my arm and gouge out my eye?
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I don't have to face the music in the church. Maybe I don't have to face the music toward God. The practice of church discipline moving forward in excommunication sobers us in this way where it said.
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I could be I could be utterly lost if I'm not resisting and fighting my sin to the death.
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As Owen said, be killing sin or sin will be killing you. There is no other way. And of course, we understand discipline in that way as a gospel remedy.
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What did we say at the very beginning? The end of excommunication is always, always, always restoration.
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We look at church discipline and understand if it's an institution of Christ. It's a gospel remedy. This is a gospel remedy.
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This is not the day of judgment. This is to prevent the day of judgment. It's a gospel remedy when it's embraced and exercised in this way.
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Thirdly, Will says churches which fail to practice discipline undermine their own spirituality, their zeal, their devotion to the
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Savior. Why? Let me just read what Will says. It's such a good point. Here's why it undermines our devotion to the
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Lord Jesus. Here's why it undermines our zeal for the Lord Jesus. What were the Corinthians zealous about? What were they devoted to?
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Look at our love. Look at our tolerance. Look how merciful we are. Aren't we wonderful? We need more teachers that are great, too.
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What is Paul devoted to? What is Paul zealous for? When you gather in the name of the Lord Jesus, with the power of the
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Lord Jesus, for the purity of the body of the Lord Jesus, that's Paul's concern. So look at this. Discipline teaches the church to obey the
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Lord. Why should we move forward? Because as a church, we need to know how to obey the Lord, especially in an area that is unpleasant.
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Distasteful, contrary to the whole world's sensibility on this matter.
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But we don't want to obey or be amenable or be persuasive to the ways of the world.
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We want to obey what Jesus Christ has revealed in his word. Christians then learn to trust the wisdom of Christ rather than the wisdom of the world.
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And Christians learn how to obey Christ regardless of however uncomfortable the consequences may be, because otherwise, once well trained by neglecting church discipline, churches will inevitably lose their commitment to the gospel itself.
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We will no longer have a gospel if we don't understand things in these ways. That's what
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Paul sees occurring at the church at Corinth. So then how do we move forward? If we if we cannot fail to move forward, how do we move forward?
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And I close with with four points. First, briefly, we move forward wisely.
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We move forward wisely. So much of our discussion tonight will be if the end is restoration, how do we do this?
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What kind of contact, what kind of time can I spend? How do I communicate? How don't I communicate?
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If the end is restoration, what means do I engage with? Could I risk blurring what the church's discipline is meant to accomplish?
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Well, all of this requires wisdom. So one way to move forward is wisely. Secondly, soberly.
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Soberly, if we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie. We don't practice the truth.
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We say we have no sin. We deceive ourselves. The truth isn't in us. If we say we have not sin, we make him a liar.
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His word's not in us. We walk forward soberly. We watch forward thirdly, watchfully.
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We move forward watchfully. Edwards, in his sermon on it, said if discipline is maintained among the church, it will tend to make the church more fruitful in holiness.
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It won't only make you more guarded against sin, but for that reason, you'll be more careful to maintain good works, you'll be more abundant in the fruit of the spirit.
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And so notice what Edwards is saying. There's a watchfulness that needs to happen. And what do
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I expect to be an effect in our church, in my own life? I've already seen it.
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You know, my brother's testimonies, I've already seen it. You can't go through things as painful, this heart wrenching, this full of gravity without seeing yourself.
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And so you look at it, as Hebrews 12 says, looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness spring up and many become defiled.
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Those are the stakes. It's always the stakes. You think Satan's sitting this one out?
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Give me a break. You don't think he's like serpentine routes through the pews, hoping to sprout up bitterness and division and intrigue?
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Of course he is. So you look carefully, you don't go forward in this way, you can't move forward in this way if you're not looking carefully at yourself and saying,
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Lord, have there not been so many times in my life where I was on the very brink of falling short of your grace and being lost forever?
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So why can I stand today? And therefore, there's a watchfulness, there's a watchfulness over yourself, looking carefully with yourself.
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And one thing I hope we see, part of sweeping out the leaven, listen, brothers and sisters, part of sweeping out the leaven in this church will be that we learn how to look carefully and watch over one another.
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John Owen says there's a mutual watch of the church over one another. This is for the good of the church, for the honor of the church, for the reputation of the church, for the building up of the church.
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And those who have no concern for these things are dead and useless members in the church. Part of us sweeping out the leaven is bringing this to bear on our corporate life.
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Do we really see, are we really looking, are we really watchful? And then lastly, we move forward humbly.
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It's everything we've seen in the Beatitudes up to this point, isn't it? You move forward in these ways humbly.
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Poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungering, thirsting, laboring in prayer for righteousness.
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That's the only way to move forward. In fact. I would go so far as to say we dare not move forward unless we can do it humbly, we dare not move forward unless we can do it humbly.
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Lest God judge us, every one of us. Humility in this way.
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Ought to clothe us, Peter says, be clothed with humility. Why? Because God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.
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Clothed with humility because of our own sense of sin, and you recognize, I hope each one of you recognizes, I was saying this to Tony yesterday morning.
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You begin to recognize I am far more like the man in First Corinthians five than I am like the
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Lord Jesus Christ and all of his perfections, that alone ought to humble me. And if I have true humility, that's going to lead to true compassion, compassion because we see on the one hand this sad dishonor that's been brought upon the gospel.
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But on the other hand, this urgent need for the power of the gospel. And to that end, we move forward in humbly and in all humility with prayer.
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And as we pray and just so that we can pray, this is what we ask, Lord, give me a love for souls.
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Give me your love for souls. Lord, give me your heart for sinners. Lord, give me your heart even for myself.
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How would you want Jesus' heart to be toward you? That's the kind of heart you need to ask him to give you toward other souls.
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God, give us that heart as we pray and move forward in these ways, let's pray now together. Father, we we thank you.
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You see and know all things and you've determined. Your path and your purpose, even in this.
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Lord, we know that you intend good, even in pain. And you intend blessing even where there's shame.
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And so, Lord, I pray on the one hand, Lord, that in your wrath you show mercy.
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And on the other hand, Lord, I pray that in seeking mercy, no one here would be deceived.
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Unless we be deceived, I pray you'd give us your heart, your zeal, your love for your church, for the purity of your work by your spirit within her.
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But this would sober us and and bend us low in humility and meekness, that we would see our own bankruptcy and hypocrisy as odious in your sight and therefore be diligent,
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Lord, to sweep out the leaven, to cut off those things that so easily entangle us. Lord, to to be repentant in a way that leads to life.
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That your gospel wouldn't just be preserved as an outward testimony, but Lord, it would be an outward testimony because it's true within us and it's shining a light through us.
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Lord, these are the things we ask as your church guide us. Now we pray, Lord, as we as we lean on your word and not on our own judgments or thoughts, as we lean on what you've instituted, what you've given, we depend wholly on you.
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We do it in your name. We ask for your presence, for your power to be made manifest. And Lord, we thank you that your power is exercised unto mercy, long suffering mercy.
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And Lord, we pray that we would see with eyes of mercy, pray with eyes of mercy that we would be those who are blessed as merciful because we desire as well to obtain your mercy.
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Lord, be with us now as we pray, guide our church. Do not remove your lampstand from us, we ask in Jesus name.