Warnings to the Orderly

We'll turn in your Bibles, please, to 2 Thessalonians 3. I'm going to read verses 6 -15, though we'll preach only from the last three verses that I'll read verses 13 -15.

And these three verses, 13 -15, are the finishing of what he started in 6 -12, sort of the capstone of verses 6 -12, which we handled last week.

And in those verses, you'll recall, we found instructions to the church at large on how to deal with unruly members, those whose unruliness was in their unwillingness to work.

And by not working, they had so much time on their hands that they became sort of a nuisance, an unruly nuisance to the rest.

And so in those verses that we handled last week, he tells the church, Paul tells the church, how to deal with them, what to do with them.

He instructs the church on how to deal with them. And in verses 10 -12, again from last week, he tells the unruly themselves, he speaks directly to them, and tells them what they're to do.

And in the middle of all this, verses 7 -9, you might recall, was the apostolic example of how the church is to conduct itself in terms of taking care of your needs.

So now in verses 13 -15, the apostle is going to warn those who would bring discipline to those unruly ones that we described so much last week.

Verses 13 -15, a warning to the orderly. So when you have that, please stand with us as we read

God's Word together. 2

Thessalonians 3, beginning at verse 6. Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you receive from us.

For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day that we might not become a burden to any of you.

It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.

For even when we were with you, we would give you this command, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busy bodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the

Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Now the three verses for this morning's message.

As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him that he may be ashamed.

Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. God bless the reading.

Now the preaching of his word. Please be seated. Let's begin with prayer and ask

God's blessing upon this day. Heavenly Father, we now come to you once again.

I pray, Father, you use the efforts that your servant, that I have put into this message, looking to your word to proclaim its truth to your people who are here this day.

I pray, Father, that you by your Spirit would open our eyes and our hearts to the wonderful truths that are in your word, and that,

Father, as your truth is proclaimed, that it would have its effect on us. And we pray that your

Holy Spirit would do this which we cannot do, which only you can do, Father, that you would use your transforming power by your word as it is proclaimed this day.

We ask in Jesus' name, amen. So you notice the warning here is no longer to the unruly.

The warning is no longer to the idle. I name this message warnings to the orderly.

Warnings to the orderly. It is to the disciplined. It is to the diligent that this warning, these warnings of verses 13 through 15, are given.

The warning is to you and to me. The warning is to everyone who would take up this blessed duty of correction.

And in this, you must not become unruly as you correct the unruly.

In other words, you must not become like those who you are correcting. Unruly, perhaps in a different way. You would keep your job as you try to get the idle to become more productive, but become unruly in different ways which are here warned against.

So the orderly must remain orderly. If you're going to correct the unorderly, the disorderly, the unruly, you must remain yourself ruly and orderly.

As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. That's verse 13. Doing good is hard work.

It's hard work, especially when the ones receiving the good do seem to be taking advantage of us, just kind of soaking it up as they get more and more and more from those who are being productive, those who are working, and in this nonproductive life that they're living.

Paul calls them unruly and idle. For the others, for those who are not in that situation or haven't put themselves in that situation, we need to acknowledge that this doing good and not growing weary in doing good is hard work, which is why the apostle tells us don't grow weary.

So what had happened here? The unruly Thessalonians were those who sort of checked out of the world early.

We've seen this before and we've cited the modern examples of those who thought Jesus was coming at a particular time.

He could get it down to the hour almost, and so people took measures to anticipate that, measures that the scripture that the apostle

Paul says are wrongheaded, checking out of the world too early. These Thessalonians believed false teachers who told them

Jesus was coming soon. It was like, hey, it's tomorrow, and look, he's right at the door. He'll be on that next cloud.

Just get up on that mountain. Get your eyes off your navel. Stop contemplating that. Look at that. There's that cloud, and there he'll be, and they expected it so soon, and they're so certain of it that as I said a moment ago, they just sort of checked out of their earthly duties, their citizenship on this earth.

They left jobs. They stopped their labors. They went wherever they thought Jesus would land, and what happened?

What happened? Of course, they got hungry. Now, Paul seems to have seen this coming when he was there.

In verse 10, he says, even when we were with you, we would give you this command. When he was first there, about a year, maybe a little bit more before he wrote this letter to them, he saw something.

He doesn't tell us what it was, but apparently he saw some tendency in some contingent of the church there that would overemphasize

Christ's return, that would take the promises of Jesus returning for his people in a wrong way, take them too far, take them as too definite in terms of timetable.

So what happened? They checked out of the world, and what Paul said? We gave you this command.

If anyone was not willing to work, let him not eat. Well, they didn't listen. They ran out of food, and now they depended on the good will of their more orderly brothers.

So if Paul saw this coming while he was there, he now sees another danger crouching around the next corner.

If the danger was that some were going to become disorderly by this checking out too early, there's a corresponding danger on the other side.

He sees the orderly ones in the church giving in to disorderliness.

He sees the possibility that they will stop doing good in this context. That means opening their door and helping these silly people out, that they'll just get tired of it, that they'll become disorderly themselves, not the same kind of disorderliness, but disorderliness nonetheless.

As for you brothers, do not grow weary in doing good, which is to say, in a way, as for you brothers, do not grow so weary in doing good that you start doing un -good, that you start doing unruly things, that you start acting in a way that is different than the unruly ones we're trying to correct, but just as unruly.

What would we say? Someone comes by the door, and you've grown weary of doing good, this hard work of keeping at it?

You say, well, I've had enough of your leeching. You heard what Paul commanded when he was here just as well as I did.

You didn't listen, and now you're paying the price. Goodbye. See you at church next Sunday.

All my best to your family. Well, no one would actually do that, would we? I don't know if I could do it.

I look out at you. I don't see anyone here who would actually see a brother or sister who is hungry, knock on your door, you open it up, and say, well,

I've grown weary of doing good for you. Bam. We couldn't actually do that.

But God doesn't look so much to the slammed door as to the heart that would be giving the bread while wishing

I had the courage, I had the guts to slam that door. And so God judges the heart.

He looks. We see these people are always in need, don't we? We know these people who have excuses by the bushel, and we don't want to be enablers.

We don't want to be those who help others continue in their sin, in their disorderliness, in their unruliness.

There's a certain validity to that. We don't want to do anything that would keep another person in sin.

But you know, that's sort of a modern way of thinking. That's sort of a 20th and 21st century way we speak of enabling.

Paul warned the unruly when he was there, and again in verses 10 through 12. Now this warning, this warning in verses 13 through 15 is to, can we say, the ants?

The ants in the proverb where Solomon says, go to the ant you sluggard. Well, who's

Paul warning here? He's warning the ants. He's warning you who were diligent, you who when the season was good, saved your money, put away food, prepared for times when you might be in the hospital, prepared for times when you might be laid off, worked hard, worked diligently, and built up your storehouse, as it were.

Go to the ant you sluggard. You just look up sluggard in a concordance and you'll have all the ammo you need to rebuke and to correct and to admonish and to deny someone any good.

You see, the concern about those unruly ones, those idle ones, what was Paul's concern? Why was

Paul so concentrated on them? In verses 6 through 12, do you remember where it started and ended? We command you in the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ, and we talked about the gravity of using that full formal title for Jesus.

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, and that was to the church, to do something about the idle.

Then in verse 12, he commands the idle ones, we command you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I encourage and exhort you in the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ to stop doing that. But why? Why was that so grave?

Well, it's because of what idleness was saying about Jesus Christ. Not just your or my reputation, but your or my reputation as a church and as we reflect

Christ Jesus himself. That was Paul's concern. Now, what have these silly people done?

We've talked about it several times. We're almost done with 2 Thessalonians, so it would bear, I think it would be good to speak about it just a little bit again.

They got so excited and so mistaught about Jesus' imminent return that they checked out of the world.

Now, to anticipate Jesus' return is a wonderful thing because Christ is going to return.

And to know that we don't know when he will return is also pretty wonderful. But what are we to be doing in the meantime?

What is Christ to find his people about? Well, we're part of this world.

We're in this world. We'll be engaged in society to be that fragrance of Christ wherever he would have us, to be working in our jobs, to be going to our

PTA meetings, to be coming to church, to be edifying and building one another up. The whole sphere of our existence here in this country where Acts 17,

Paul's message to the Stoics and the Epicureans, God determined our borders and our times, the duties we have as citizens, and represented us, most importantly, represented us as Christ.

This is what we're to be doing as we await Christ. The ruly ones in the

Thessalonians church seem to know that. As I await Christ, I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to work hard.

I'm going to be doing all things to the glory of God, do all things heartily as unto the

Lord, as it says in Colossians. I'm going to represent Christ in my life here.

These other ones, sort of in an almost childish, naive way, say, well, if Christ is coming and Christ is imminent,

I'm done here. He's coming so soon that even though my stomach's going to rumble a little bit,

I'm not going to starve because he's going to come and take me to himself. What does that imply about Jesus' return?

Or Jesus' people, I should say. He's not part of this world. I have no concern for what's going on out there.

Where's the evangelistic zeal in someone who's checked out of this world and is just looking, as I mentioned, as I used it a moment ago, just kind of looking at his navel, contemplating things, thinking

Jesus is coming back right now. Well, it doesn't say much for Christ. That was Paul's concern.

And now Paul's concern is still for the reputation of our Savior Jesus Christ to the ruly ones who are going to admonish the unruly.

So I want you to think of it this way. Just imagine a church full of people who checked out of the world, weren't doing anything, were living off each other and looking for other resources that they hadn't worked for.

Well, that wouldn't say very much for Jesus Christ, would it? Of course not. Now imagine a church full of rich men walking past hungry, sore -ridden

Lazarus. To use Jesus' parable there in the Gospel of Luke. And you walk by and say, well, hello

Lazarus church member. Sorry about those sores you have and the fact that you're so hungry and the dogs are licking your wounds, you can't do anything about it.

But you got yourself into this situation. I'm not going to enable you to continue in sin, so we're just going to walk on past.

Or if they come to the door, close it and deny them. Which would do more damage to Christ's reputation?

I think Paul's concern goes both ways. As equal on both parties.

That's why he's warning. Paul writes in Ephesians 4 .28 that former thieves ought to now work so that he can have something to share with anyone in need.

Now you and I may not have been, probably were not thieves in our lives before Christ, but the principle here still applies.

Don't grow weary in doing good. If it is good to help someone out with food, even though they made some poor, even silly, even naive decisions that got them in that situation,

Paul is saying yes. And that's one of the hard parts in continuing to do good.

Where does the blame lie? The blame lies with the person who took himself out of the world in a wrongful, naive, unbiblical way.

Is that our concern? Well, our concern is to correct our concern is to get them straightened out according to what the scriptures say.

Yes. In the meantime, don't grow weary in giving them what they need to get by.

Don't grow weary translates a word that means to not lose heart. Luke 18 .1,

Luke says that Jesus told the parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge. Do you remember that? The persistent widow, she had a case.

Her case seems to have been right and she goes to the judge and he just doesn't want to bother with her. And finally, he says, you know,

I don't care about justice. I just care about getting her out of my hair. It's just really a bother to me, so I'll give her her case.

Do you remember that parable? Well, at the beginning of it, Luke says, here's why Jesus gave it to us.

To the effect that they always ought to pray and not lose heart. Same word

Paul is using here in 2 Thessalonians. Don't lose heart. Don't grow weary. It's the word Paul used in Galatians 6 .9.

Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.

It's hard work. It's constant work. And perhaps the hardest part is to put aside our desire to blame and to make sure that they know that it's your fault and you got yourself in this mess.

Which, usually when somebody's looking at an empty table that sometime before when they were working was full and they realized that Jesus didn't come that next day, they pretty much know who's to blame.

John Chrysostom, who died in 409, he's still quoted today and cited in many commentators' books and works.

Listen to what he wrote about this. For as Paul had said, if any does not work, neither let him eat.

Fearing lest they should perish by hunger, he has added, but in doing good, be not ye weary.

Thus having said, withdraw yourselves and have no company with him. Then fearing lest this very thing might cut him off from the brotherhood, for he who gives himself up to despair will quickly be lost if he is not admitted to freedom of conversation, he has added, yet count him not an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

Which we'll come to that last part a little later. So here's how we think of this.

Don't grow weary in doing good. Even when you know that the brother you're doing good for is to blame for his situation, he needs your good because he messed up.

We know that. He knows that. More importantly, God knows that. But here's how we think of it.

God never stops doing good in the face of more evil and more hatred than you and I could ever imagine or will ever face.

Jesus fed the crowds that he knew would soon turn on him. Jesus bore with Peter and the other disciples, mostly with Peter.

The disciples said, did they not, they would not abandon Jesus when he was arrested? We will die with you,

Peter said at first. And all the disciples said likewise. Yes, we're going to die. And it was a solemn occasion.

It was almost like they gave a solemn oath to the Lord. And then what happens? Then they ran, leaving their sworn word on the ground like the young man's clothes in Mark 14, 52.

Remember Peter denied the Lord Jesus Christ three times? Did not Jesus bear with him? Oh, he looked at him.

And I shudder to think what it would be like if Jesus Christ were here now and gave me a glance for my sins.

Read the book of Hosea and see the long -suffering God reaching out and pleading, as it were, with his people to return to him, suffering along with them and their idolatry and their sins, not growing weary in sending prophet upon prophet, as we read at the end of 2

Chronicles. And here to Israel, the northern kingdom, Hosea sending him time and again to be a living parable in many ways of what it means that God is long -suffering.

Think of Joseph and how he handled his brothers when they were at his mercy. These are the temptations to cut someone off from mercy and fellowship.

Today we might call it tough love, another one of those modern things that we impose upon the Bible. It's like enabling.

Well, we don't want to enable sin, but we take too much freight from that in the 21st century and bring it back to what the

Scriptures say. Tough love, yes. We want to give tough love. We don't want to be easy on people.

We want them to be able to come along and just change and to repent, all true, all true.

And yet Paul warns you, do not grow weary in doing good, good in God's sight, good in what the

Bible says, good with a good and right heart. The good you do to others, you see, cannot be contingent on the good that they do.

We get subjective. We would fall into the same kind of self -serving excuses that disorderly ones had, disorderly idle ones had.

Like how many times do I have to tell you when Jesus in Luke 9, 41 said, O faithless and twisted generation, how long am

I to bear with you and bear with you? How long am I to be with you and bear with you? Excuse me. Bring your son here.

And then he cast the demon out of that faithless and twisted man's son. Good you do.

Do not grow weary in doing good. It's not contingent on the good of the people to whom you do good.

What if God had waited for something good in you before he did good for you in Jesus Christ?

What if God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die for your sins? He said, well, your sins, yes, but I'm going to wait until I see some good in you, a glimmer of righteousness, a hint of holiness.

Do a good deed with a pure heart. Just one little good deed, and then

I'll give you the good that Jesus is. What if God, what if God himself withheld the good of Christ from you until he saw good in you?

Well, do we simply tolerate the disorderly and the idle? No, of course not. God gives us a responsibility and the means to deal with that.

We need to check our attitude. We need to check our spirit. We need to look and make sure that we are, as God is, patient with his people.

We are patient with them. We're going to talk about some of these verbs that Paul uses. We're going to go through them very quickly, but it's a constant effort, which is why

Paul says don't grow weary, do not lose heart, stay strong, because it's God's work.

And the attitude we need to have for it, the check of our own spirit is just what I said a moment ago.

Where would I be if God withheld good from me until he saw something good in me?

The answer's clear. Keep in mind Habakkuk's prayer in wrath, remember mercy.

Here is that bread you and your family need. You know, there's a vineyard down the road that needs workers.

Here's a log for the fire so you can keep your family warm tonight. Walmart needs greeters.

Can I help you apply? Long work, hard work, necessary work, godly work, good work, do not grow weary in it.

And do not let our desire to help people and to make sure that they know their responsibility become, as it were, vengeance against them as we pound them into the ground.

Remember this, because the context here in 1st and 2nd Thessalonians both is about people who made poor choices because they misunderstood something.

Because they misunderstood the Lord's return, they made these bad choices. But understanding the Lord's return the way they did, they made very logical choices.

Now their basis was wrong, we know that. But given that this is what they thought was going to happen, what they did made perfect sense.

They started from the wrong place, but they went to the logical place if what they thought was right.

Have you ever made a choice that didn't turn out very well because you didn't quite understand all the ramifications or parameters?

Ever? I should see some heads nodding a little bit. Mine nods.

I'll give you one example. Years ago I bought a 1985 Corvette. I've always admired

Corvettes. This was an 85, those are dime a dozen, they made gazillions of them. And I thought

I could fix that car up I was so excited about it. But I way, way underestimated how much work it needed.

And I correspondingly overestimated my time and ability to do that work. Now years later, when we could again afford a moderately priced two -door car where you could take the top off, you know which car

I have, I have a little sports car, well today I have the truck. But years later, when we could do that again, my wife didn't hold over me and say, now wait a second, you made a bum decision before with that other one, we're not going to go through that again.

You keep driving that old truck. But honey, we can afford it. No, you screwed up before. You messed up.

We can't hold it over people's heads. We can't pound them into the ground again. Where would

I be if God had grown weary of doing me good? Where would you be? What would be your hope?

We'd have none. There'd be nothing there. What's the means that God gives us here? Well, the orderly people, as we stay orderly in our actions and most importantly in our heart and our spirit, the orderly must advance shame.

If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him that he may be ashamed.

This is the means for correction, to bring shame. Bringing them to shame is part of doing them good.

And it's long and hard work so you can't grow weary in it. But it's what the Scripture would have us to do. It needs the same admonition.

Hard work. Long work. It's work that keeps our own tiny speck constantly morphing into a log.

So it's a good work. I want to say something I said last week.

I got some pushback on this and I'm pushing back. I've got the pulpit, so I get to push back. But there are many who think that this is excommunication.

We have nothing to do with them. It's excommunication, that we've put them out of the church. That is not the case.

That is absolutely not the case. There are two main reasons I say this. I'm going to go very quickly through them.

But it's just from these three verses. Going through 6 through 12, we could do also, we could go other places in the

Scripture, but that would take too long and it's not necessary. Just verses 13 through 15.

Grow weary. Do not grow weary. Not just after one day's exercise or a super marathon, but a continual basis, not growing weary.

Continuously. Day after day. Week after week. Do not grow weary. It's a continuous thing.

Not a don't grow weary this one time and then you're done with them. Doing good, the form of a habitual activity on the part of the subject, which is you brothers, the ruly ones, who are correcting the unruly ones.

Again, a process. Continual. Take note is used only here, so its range of meaning is a little bit hard to figure out, but in context, it means to note who they are.

Don't go sauntering up to just anyone, but the ones who are disobeying. So you wouldn't look at, for example, our co -pastor here and say, okay, you know, he's got a full -time job as an engineer.

He works virtually full -time at the church. He's got a whole bunch of kids. He's a father and a husband, but I saw him with 17 and a half minutes and he was twirling his thumbs.

I'm noting him. That would make no sense at all, would it? Of course we wouldn't do that. Take note doesn't mean looking down your nose and going, oh, got her.

Yeah, I know who I'm going after next. No, it just means you're noting the right person. That when we're looking at an unruly person, they truly are unruly.

It takes wisdom. It takes counsel without gossiping, which takes wisdom.

Have nothing to do with, has a couple of shades of meaning. First, it means not to take part in their example, as I preached from 6 through 12 last week.

Second, it means to deny them close, warm society that we have in the fellowship of the saints.

Not their presence here, but that closeness of relationship because they're doing something that's shameful, that's bad for the reputation of Christ.

Ashamed is not a continuous verb. It's an aorist, as we call it, so it denotes a definitive action, something that takes place in time and space and is completed at that moment.

Do not regard them, an active verb, continually don't regard him that way. Warn him, an active, a continuous action again.

All of this impossible if they're physically out of the church, if they've been rejected as in the end of church discipline.

And that's second, when Jesus says to excommunicate an unrepentant member, he says to treat them as a

Gentile. What's a Gentile to those Jewish hearers that Jesus was speaking to? A Gentile is an unbeliever.

A Gentile is a godless one. Treat them as a Gentile because they're acting like one who does not believe in God. Treat them as a tax collector, says

Jesus. What was a tax collector to those ears? A traitor. The tax collectors were

Jews working for Rome and getting the taxes for Rome and extorting more taxes from the payers.

So treat them as an unbeliever and as a traitor to your people.

No such language here. No such language here. Paul makes it explicitly clear that they're not enemies of the church or of the gospel.

They are brothers. In 1 Corinthians 5 -2, when he speaks about the man who had his father's wife, probably his stepmother, let him who has done this thing be removed from you.

Literally, take him away from your midst. Now, 2 Thessalonians 3 -14 says have nothing to do with him.

You take yourself from their immediate presence, from that warm, intimate relationship.

You take yourself. Not take them out, but you take yourself. The net Bible comes close to the actual meaning when it says do not associate closely with him.

Do not keep company with him. Do not be intimate with that person. It's relational. It's not physical distance.

It's relational distance that Paul has in mind. Withdraw from close society, not put him out.

Now, Paul was never shy about severe punishments. In Galatians 1 -8 -9, he pronounces curses on those who bring another gospel.

No such language here. Their status as brothers is repeatedly emphasized.

Verse 6, we command you, brothers, keep away from any brother. Verse 15 repeats that title.

This is harder work, actually, than praying for an expelled member to repent.

This is the continuous work of you, brothers, to bring somebody something that repulses us all, and that's shame.

We have to circle back to that word shame. The world at large thinks way too little of shame.

Shame is, in many opinions, what causes the misbehavior in the first place. Now, I just did a quick search, so I found this very quickly.

I know we could go on and on if we keep looking through all the results you get on the Internet. Just a couple of quick quotes about shame, and I think these are typical of the world's view of it.

Quote, few things so undermine human well -being as the sickness of shame.

And then I read this, and just once more, shame makes us direct our focus inward and view our entire self in a negative light.

So, Adam and Eve were just fine until they did one little thing wrong, and then with the knowledge of that one little thing wrong,

God made them ashamed and gave them the sickness of shame. But no, shame is powerful.

Shame is biblical. Shame is a divine means of correction. This is what

Paul says, that have nothing to do with them, have not that intimate and close relationship in society with them, so that they might be ashamed, so that they might know that they need to correct their ways.

Follow the apostolic example, God willing, follow your example. But if you read the prophets, especially

Isaiah and Jeremiah, you'll see that shame is one of God's primary weapons for destroying pride, for engaging repentance, and for promoting humility.

Shame is a biblical weapon against unruliness. Shame is something that we can bring upon someone.

Nothing is more Christian than humility, and few emotions bring it out quite the way shame does.

Ecclesiastes 3 .11 says that God has planted eternity in our hearts, is part of the image of God.

We have that innate sense of right and wrong, the exceptions, the sociopaths, they actually prove the validity of the rule.

And part of that image of God in us is that we are social. We need each other.

We need to be connected socially and relationally. See image of God. As God, the

Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the three persons of the one true and living God relate to one another in eternal love and coordination.

So also we are relational. That's that image of God in us. And to pull away from that with someone removes them from something that is part of that image of God in us.

Something they desperately need, something you desperately need. And God willing, even though it's long and hard work in many cases, it will bring such shame that it will bring correction of their behavior, which will bring glory to Christ Jesus and a greater repute of his church as the outsider looks in and sees how we conduct ourselves.

Now we are relational. We need these relations. Social ostracism is what

Paul means here. A denial of that free -flowing, easy conversation that's part of friendship.

It's being able to talk as easily about the Giants and the kids' soccer game and the Lord Jesus Christ. And when this kind of free -flowing and easy conversation is denied, it brings shame.

It's what the Scripture says. If they aren't brothers, they will not feel shame.

They might get angry. They may make themselves believe that you never really were friends. The hope that Paul sets before us is that brothers will so miss that warmth that they will feel the shame, they will repent, and they will reorder their life.

And if not, the church does have more means at its disposal if it goes to that level.

And finally, the orderly must be measured in their punishment. I've been alluding to this throughout, but the orderly must be measured in their punishment.

Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. We could say, do not become so exuberant in your punishment that you degrade the person.

Let me read to you from Deuteronomy in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 25, verses 2 and 3.

Even the guilty man cannot be degraded in that way. And this was

Paul's experience himself. In 2 Corinthians 11, 24, he writes,

That's exactly what he's referring to. Do you know why he got 39 instead of 40? Say it again.

Just in case. So they'd be counting. So they'd all count together.

Each low, one, two, three. But in case they all together lost count, they didn't want to give 41 lows and so degrade the person or violate the word of God.

So they'd count to 39, stop, just in case a mistake was made. Well, this is what Paul received five times.

So they wouldn't degrade him, supposedly. So why does Paul give this warning to those who are to give warnings?

I think 1 Corinthians 10, 12 would apply here. Paul says, lest ye fall on another level when all eyes are on him or on her.

They're off of me. Or bring punishment to them. They're not looking at me and seeing all the things

I did that often are just like the one who we're pointing our finger to. Paul says,

Which means do not degrade the person. Do not make them so they can't show their face in public ever again.

And the closer their malfeasance comes to my own, the more loudly

I'm going to decry theirs. Don't we do that sometimes? Don't we act as Hamlet's stepmother?

The saint doth protest too much, methinks, to borrow from Shakespeare. The louder we protest just kind of deflects the attention from me and we just thank

God in our prayers that the attention's on that one who's doing what I was doing.

It's pride and it's relief. Pride makes me think I stand on my own righteousness. Relief that my unrighteousness has cover.

Everyone's taking note of her. They're looking at him. How do we check our spirits? Make our corrections godly and powerful to bring change?

Paul warns us in verse 13, Do not grow weary. As we're doing the Lord's will, the Lord will give us strength to endure both in what we do to bring about this grace of shame and to keep our hearts in the right place.

Albert Barnes writes here, This shows the true spirit in which discipline is to be administered in the Christian church.

We are not to deal with a man as an adversary over whom we are to seek to gain a victory, but as an erring brother, a brother still though he errs.

There was necessity for this caution. There is a great danger that when we undertake the work of discipline, we shall forget that he who is the subject of it is a brother and that we shall regard and treat him as an enemy, such is human nature.

And Paul, by using the word brother so many times, says he is not an enemy of Christ. He's not an enemy of church.

He's not an enemy of you. He's erring. He's fallen onto hard times that he himself caused, and yet he's a brother.

And we are to correct the brother. We are to bring discipline to our brother in the way that Paul says, in doing good.

Do not grow weary in doing good. Roll up your sleeves. It's hard work, brothers and sisters. It's long and hard work.

Checking our spirit, getting the log out of our eyes, long and hard work, and bringing this shame, as much as we despise shame, the way we've been raised.

It's a grace of God, and it'll bring the person back. The constant effort that we give to this is like Jesus' parable of the one sheep out of 99, the one coin out of 10, the one son out of two.

The Lord spared nothing when he rescued you and me from our sin. He sought that which was lost, and he sought and he sought and he sought.

His seeking for us ended at the cross, and that's where his victory won our freedom, where his suffering made final atonement for your sins.

Jesus sees your and my unruliness. He sees our misconduct, yet he never ceases to be our elder brother.

He never rejects and treats us as a brother, treats us as adopted children, and because of him, we can neither cease to be brothers to him or to each other, and we're to always treat one another in that way.

Amen? Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for bringing us together once again and for this word that warns us and constrains us, and I pray that we would be like Jesus Christ and we'd be like you,

Lord, with the patience that you had. We can never have that, but Father, as much as we are able, as much as your

Spirit would make it possible, make us like Jesus in this way to seek and to seek and to seek and not do a weary in doing good for his sake.