Depravity: Church Discipline

[0:00] All right, 1 Corinthians 5. The Corinthians have had this problem of abandoning Paul, starting with Paul and the gospel and Jesus, but kind of abandoning that and moving past that and taking Greek philosophy, rhetoric, and all these kinds of things and combining it with the gospel and coming up with sort of a new thought, a new idea. And that has led to division in the church and the kind of division that makes them think of themselves as super spiritual, better than everyone else, better than Paul, and that's where we've been. And that division is the first thing that Paul has kind of been attacking. Now we're moving into a new section that spans from chapter 5 through the middle of chapter 10 related to depravity. In other words, ways that the church is sinning or has sin in the church. And the first thing that Paul talks about is church discipline, church discipline. In old terminology, this is what some people would call excommunication, or even older terminology might be they were churched. They were churched. Years ago, I sat down with my grandmother and we were having the conversation about people in the church and things going on. And she was describing a situation in her church about somebody who was living in sin. And I said, well, grandma, doesn't your church practice church discipline? And she was like, oh no, no, no, we don't do that because that's bad. And I was like, what do you mean it's bad? And she said, when I was a girl, they used to make people get up in front of everybody and confess their sin from the week before, and then they might get chastised or admonished. And I, no, no, we don't do that. I just don't think that's right. And to some degree, she was right about a few things. The idea of putting somebody in front of the whole church and making them confess their sin to the whole church, I'm not sure that that's really biblical. But it is biblical to practice church discipline. And Paul deals with church discipline in this chapter. So here's what I want us to do. I want us to read the whole chapter, and then we're going to ask about four questions of the passage to help us understand this issue of church discipline. Beginning in verse one, it says this, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans. For a man has his father's wife and you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit. And as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of the Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.

[4:04] Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or as an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler. Not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. All right. Now let me ask you, how many of you feel like, even though you've probably read the Bible several times, how many of you feel like that's the first time you've ever heard that passage? Yeah, yeah. I know you've probably read it, but there's probably some of this that you kind of go like, whoa, this is pretty heavy stuff.

[5:28] Some pretty heavy stuff. So before we ask the questions, I did want to point out two things that I think are just interesting that are not on topic here. The first has to do with the very first five words or so of the passage. It is actually reported. If you will remember that back in chapter one, in verse 11, it says, for it has been reported to me by Chloe's people. When you see a place that says it's been reported and another one that says it's reported, that's how you know that Paul's been talking about one topic. He's going to talk about a different topic because he's used the same word to sort of signify this new section. He's going to continue that, but instead of it being reported, he's going to talk about things where he's going to say the words, now concerning. Now concerning.

[6:36] Because he's received a letter from them where they're asking him questions. And after about chapter six, I think it begins in chapter seven, he starts answering questions that they have about things.

[6:54] So I just thought I'd point that out to you. And now I don't remember what the other one was. So there we go. Bob's your uncle. All right. So now let's talk about these questions. The first question is this, what's the problem in this passage? And let me ask you, what do you think the problem is that Paul's addressing in this passage? There's a sexual immorality. Okay. There's the big sin right there. Let's talk about that sin for just a second. It is a member. It is a member of their congregation.

[7:36] A man is committing sexual sin and he describes it as that he has his father's wife. Most scholars believe that this wife is a step mother, not a biological mother. Either way, it's adultery.

[7:57] And is in the realm of incest. Right? That's the sin that is in this church by a church member.

[8:09] This sin is such that even the pagans, now my translation reads, it's not tolerated even among the pagans. But most, I think most translations read something like this. It's not even among the pagans. In other words, this is something that the pagans don't even do. This is the kind of sin that the culture around them hasn't even thought to start to do. It doesn't mean that there's not someone else in the world who has never done this and this is the only person. It just means that in Corinth, this is not typical. This is not a typical sin that you could just walk around and go like, oh, son and mother, son and mother, son and mother, son and mother. You just don't see it. So it's something that even the culture around them would call out as being bad and wrong. The other thing about it, if you look at verse 6 and 7, he says, do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

[9:11] Okay, so what does that mean? What does it mean for leaven to leaven the whole lump? Well, stick with his, he's using an analogy. Just talk about the analogy first before we talk about the application of it. Okay, and what's leaven? Yeast. And what's the lump? The dough. So if I have a lump of dough and I put some yeast on it and I start kneading it in, can I then pinch off a part of that dough and that dough have no yeast in it? It affects the whole lump. So part of what's wrong with this sin is not just that the culture around has a problem with it, but it's affecting the whole church. The whole church is impacted by this, whether you know it or not, right? He goes on in verse 7. He says, cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened.

[10:16] He is telling them this thing is affecting and having issues in your church. Now, this is the presenting sin, the sexual sin, but you'll notice that this is not the only sin that might need to be confronted. If you go down to verse 11, he says, now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he's guilty of sexual immorality or greed or idolater or reviler or drunkard or swindler. Now, I had to look up these words. I wanted to know what these words, obviously greed is going to be somebody who really craves a lot of different things. And I think greed greed is like the title over these other four things. Okay? So let's look at these four things.

[11:14] An idolater, somebody who was visiting temples, that's going to be in Corinth, right? An idolater visiting temples, visiting these other worship places, worshiping these other gods. The city is full of these other temples. So if, you know, here in Texas, one of the things we have a lot is you have all of these various cemetery associations, right? Almost every cemetery has got a little association, and almost every cemetery has a yearly fundraising banquet meal where they all get together and they talk about the business of the cemetery and this kind of thing. And in East Texas, they're all over the place. And you cannot plan anything on any day without it interfering with somebody's cemetery thing.

[12:02] It's just a thing that happens. These other religions, these other temples to these other gods always had festivals going on. And so an idolater for Paul in Corinth is going to be somebody who's going to these places and participating. A reviler is someone who makes a public spectacle of themselves. I'm sorry, I'm having trouble talking. Making a public spectacle of themselves by stirring up rebelliousness, right? They're abusive to other people. They're never happy. They're the kind of person that sits in the restaurant and when the waitress is a little bit late, they berate her for not only being late, but for how bad the food is. They push so hard that people three tables over are extremely uncomfortable and begin to feel like, let's just go. This is a reviler. It's somebody that thinks that they're always right and the louder they talk, the more they feel like they're getting their way. And there's a lot of Christians that I've seen that act this way. A lot of Christians I've seen act this way.

[13:17] A drunkard. A drunkard. Obviously, this is someone who is drunk on alcohol. This is a person who has drank too much and maybe, most likely, is going to be someone who's got an ongoing habit with this, right? A swindler is someone who's always trying to trick people out of their money.

[13:39] They've got a new scheme for you. It's like our friends that called us one day and said, hey, we'd like to come visit you. By the way, amway. You know? Like, you know, somebody who's trying to always trick you out of money. So the point is this. He uses sexual sin, this specific kind, to introduce the concept that there's times when the church is going to have to deal with problems and the problem has got to be looked at in the right way. It's a problem that includes gross public sin. Gross public sin. The kind of sin that might get you arrested. The kind of sin that would bring immense amount of shame upon the name of Christ. The kind of sin that even lost people out there are aghast that that would happen. That's the kind of sin that's being dealt with in this passage. This is not dealing with the fact that sometimes I get a little bit out of shape and I hold a little grudge in my heart, but in about 20 or 30 minutes I'm done with it and I repent of it.

[14:47] It's not the kind of sin where somebody's driving by and they cut me off and I get a little frustrated and say something, but then my wife in silence just sits there and I feel chastised and so I have to go pray the Lord and ask for forgiveness. It's marshmallow cream. Exactly. It's not, we're not talking about those kinds of things. We're talking about gross public sin that even lost people would be ashamed of to be around. And it can come not just in sexual sin, it can be in these other categories as well.

[15:25] But there's another problem in the passage besides the sin. The other problem in the passage is that the Corinthians aren't doing anything about it. They're not doing anything about it.

[15:40] He tells them in verse 2, you're arrogant. He tells them that they ought to be mourning instead. He tells them in verse 2 that he says you should have removed him, but they're not removing him.

[15:52] And he says in verse 6, your boasting is not good. So their arrogance and lack of doing anything most likely stems from the fact that they don't see a problem with what's going on.

[16:06] And it's almost like he's saying about their arrogance, you think you're super spiritual. You think you've grown past me as an apostle of Christ. Well, look at your church.

[16:19] Look at the problem in your church. And so that's the other problem is that they're acting like they don't need to do anything about this problem. So that's the problem. Okay. What is Paul's solution to the problem? Well, he says in verse 2, remove him from your midst. He says in verse 3, I've already pronounced judgment on this guy. He says in verse 5, deliver this man to Satan.

[16:52] Then in our analogy, verse 7, he says, cleanse out the old leaven. And then you get to verse 11, where he becomes a little bit more clear. He says not to even eat with such a one. Don't associate with him. And then you get in verse 13, purge the evil person from among you.

[17:15] Now, those are all the places that Paul talks about doing something to this guy. And what he's saying basically is that this guy is a member of your church. He needs to be removed from membership. Now, you and I, because we have a building, are going to think to ourselves that that means we're removing him from the building. That is not, they had no building.

[17:40] So to remove him from among their midst is not to exclude him from attendance. It's to exclude him from membership and membership benefits. As a member of a local church, you have the right to help direct the affairs of the church by your vote. You have a right to pastoral care and counsel.

[18:07] You have a right to deacon service and help. So here's a person who would receive all these benefits and sin and bring shame upon the church. That's what can't be. So he says you need to remove them from membership. And his language is tough, right? Part of the language is he's judged them already.

[18:29] Now, we just need to talk about judging, right? Because the world's most famous verse is what? Judge not lest you be judged. Matthew 7, verse 1 through 5, speaks about this. And I want to just turn over in your Bibles there. We'll just go on over there and talk about it for just real brief.

[18:52] Because I think it's important for us to see this. Matthew 7. Says in verse 1, Judge not that you be not judged. And that's the verse that everybody quotes.

[19:14] When you read one verse, you miss the context and the explanation. So never read just one verse, right? Verse 2 says, For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. In other words, verse 1 is the command. Verse 2 is the explanation of the command. So when he says judge not, he's not saying, never critique, never have any discernment, never have any distinguishing aspect of things.

[19:47] But he's basically saying, be careful with the kind of judgment you're using, because it's going to be coming back at you. Right? Because here's the thing you need to know. The word judge, even in English, can mean lots of different things. Right? So if I judge someone, I can be calling down an execution. I can be making a final distinction. Or I can be looking at various qualities. I think about judging animals. Right? You go up there and you're looking for various qualities. And that first part of what you're doing is judging. Right? You're looking at the different qualities of things you're looking for in the animal. And once you've done that, then you make another judgment by saying a summary statement of that animal. And then there's a third judgment in which you then hand out first, second, third place, and this kind of a thing. Those are three different ways of judging. This judgment here is not about execution. But this judgment is about how we discern, how we look at things. He goes on to say, why do you see the speck that's in your brother's eye and do not notice the log that's in your own eye?

[20:58] And how can you say to your brother, let's take the speck out of your eye when there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. That's the point of the passage, is that to judge and to judge properly, you have to see yourself as a sinner who's got a problem. And let's deal with that problem.

[21:26] And once you recognize your own frailty, your own sinfulness, your own wickedness, and you're dealing with that between you and the Lord, then you have the right humility to be able to lean over and say, let me get that out of your eye.

[21:39] Because the worst thing in the world is to let someone stay with a speck in their eye. I'm sorry, you have a speck in your eye, but actually you have nothing. It's fine. You're good.

[21:52] I mean, that would be condemning of them. So when Paul says he's judged them already, he's already taken into account all the things, and it is proper for us to judge.

[22:03] It's proper for you to look at me and to watch my actions, to listen to the teaching, and to draw conclusions and say, you know, that action that you just did is not in line with what you're teaching. And it's good and right for you then to say, what's going on? I mean, it would be wrong for you to go like, you're such a wicked sinner, get out of here. You know, instead, you need to be inquisitive and say, what is going on here? You know, if you've ever seen me get mad and me raise my voice at someone, the proper response would be to come to me and say, brother, what's going on? Because I mean, I know that you know that it's not right to raise your voice like that at people. So what's going on? That kind of judging is absolutely necessary.

[22:59] Well, then he says, deliver this man to Satan. Wow. Wow. I mean, practically, what does that even look like?

[23:13] I think it, I think when you remove a person, here's, here's the way I think of it, okay? Think of a, being a church member as having an umbrella of protection over you. That umbrella of protection comes by way of other Christians, pastors, and deacons. We are an umbrella to one another, protecting one another from sin, protecting one another from bad things. As the pastor, I'm preaching the word, I'm preaching the gospel, trying to help you see things so that you're covered, so that you can be challenged, encouraged, chastised through the preaching. You have other brothers and sisters in Christ, they're an umbrella to you because they hold you accountable. They see something going on, and so they're that protection for you in that regard, right? Deacons, they're there as well to serve you and help meet needs, right? So that the need doesn't become an opportunity for sin, and so they're a protection for you. Removing somebody from the midst removes them from those protections and puts them out there so that now, now you've got Satan after you, right? Now, this is not an unusual concept. Paul talks about this in 1 Timothy, where he says, among them are Hymenaeus and

[24:36] Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. God does this with Job. In Job chapter 2, verse 6, the Lord said to Satan, behold, he is in your hand, only spare his life.

[24:53] The idea is that we remove protections from them, allowing them to be out here so that they're taught not to sin, so that they're taught that this is bad for them, that they ought not to be this way.

[25:08] Cleanse, and here's the other thing. The other image of all this is an image of the time of Passover. Cleanse out all the leaven out of the house before you can, as a people, go forward. But here's what I want to do. I want to talk about this solution of removing them from the standpoint of church discipline and give you some things. We've talked about this before, but we're going to go over it again. Here's the elements of church discipline. One, there's self-discipline. If I keep myself reading the Bible, praying, making sure I'm being obedient to what God's Word says, I'm less likely to face church discipline if I discipline myself. I'm also less likely to misconstrue your actions as sinful. Because one of the problems in church discipline is when I'm offended by your actions, but your actions are not sinful. Because that gets in the way. Because just because I'm offended by somebody's actions doesn't mean that they've done anything wrong. It probably means that

[26:15] I'm doing something wrong. Right? So I have to have self-discipline. Then under the church discipline formally, there's formative discipline and then corrective discipline. Formative discipline is happening right now. Right? It's like telling your child that you want them to go scrub the toilet.

[26:40] What's the first thing you do? You show them how to do it. Then you charge them to do it. And you only correct them if they don't do it or they don't do it right. Right? So this is formative. I'm showing you from God's Word how to live. Right? Well, if we don't live that way, then we need to be corrected.

[27:02] Right? And that correction, 90% of the time, that correction just needs to be sort of off the cuff and right there and done. And it's all over with. Like nobody even notices what's going on. Right? And we're going to talk about that at the end. But sometimes the sin that someone commits is against me and it's something that I can't get over. It's not something that I can put to the side and we got to deal with that sin. Matthew 18 lines out how to deal with that. And that's where you've heard, you know, about where you go to them first by yourself. Then if they don't listen, then you take somebody with you.

[27:41] And then if they don't listen to that, then you tell it to the church. And if they don't listen to that, then you excommunicate them. What we're talking about in this passage is a little different because this is about gross public sin. And in this case, this public sin, they need to be removed without having to go through the process because their sin is so great. I'll give you a couple of examples. If all of a sudden we find out, you know, we hear news that Jack has been arrested and we go to find out why he's been arrested and it's because he was shoplifting and he was stealing things and his name gets plastered. It's going to get plastered in the blotter. Right? And people are going to put it on Facebook because that's what we do. We would, we would in that case need to come together as a church and remove him from membership without going through the process because he's committed gross public sin that has brought a shame to this. Now he gets released in two days.

[28:45] What we would then do is we would go to him and say, brother, you need to repent. And if he's willing then, then we would go through a season where we're working with him and then we would bring him back into membership at some point. But there's another case. There was a guy who he was going, he was a, he was a pastor at a church and he confessed to the other pastors of the church that he had been sexually abusing his daughter. They immediately called the police, which was the right thing to do.

[29:23] He was arrested. Then the next day they brought the church together to consider the matter and they removed him from membership. Now, because of the case, he couldn't, he couldn't be there with his family anymore. Right? So he had to move a distance from them because of the sexual offense of that crime.

[29:42] But they had to remove him because of that. If we're not willing to do that, we're, we're just opening the church up for, for trouble. We've got to be willing to do that. But hopefully we can work in such a way as to keep from getting there. Now, I want to answer a third question. That's this. Who's supposed to do this church discipline? Whose responsibility is it to remove someone from membership? Look what Paul says in verse four. When you are assembled, when you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, my spirit is present and with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. When the church assembles together, it's not anything that any one member can do. So I, as the pastor, cannot do this.

[30:37] Now, I could call the cops and have somebody arrested for a crime, and I don't need anybody's approval for that. But I can't then go and open up the computer, find their name, and go, you're off of here, buddy. I can't do that. I cannot remove them from membership. That is something that only the body of Christ can do as they gather. And it is something that he says, we are there in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ with the power of the Lord Jesus. The church, as it gathers, has that authority to do that.

[31:11] Now, let's go to the final question, and that is, what is the goal? What's the goal of this? Here's this person who has committed gross public sin. We've gathered together to remove them from membership.

[31:26] What is our aim? What's our goal? What are we after in doing this? We're after verse 5, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. That his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. That day of the Lord is the end times. So our goal is always aimed at the end, and in the end, we want to be sure that this guy is saved. We want to see him rescued, redeemed, forgiven, covered in the blood of Christ. Maybe he's a Christian who's just fallen into bad sin and needs the process of restoration to happen. Maybe he's somebody who's a member of the church who was never a Christian and needs the gospel preached to him in order to see him saved.

[32:14] But the goal of all of this is to put him in a category so that everybody's thinking, this person's lost, share the gospel with him. We want our thinking to be in such that we've got him in a different category so that we will share the gospel with him. And verse 7 and 8, he says, cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. In other words, what Paul's doing is he's using that night of the Passover when the death angel was going to pass over the door. And everybody had to dress with their shoes on, with their loins girded, with the lamb roasted, with no yeast in the dough because you're going to just bake bread and not wait for it to rise. And you couldn't do this celebration with any leaven in the house.

[33:12] All the leaven had to be gotten out before you could celebrate as a church, as a congregation, as God's people in Israel. And so here Paul's saying, listen, Christ is our Passover and we need to gather together to be able to worship, but we cannot worship as a body if there is sin in the camp. We have to remove the leaven so that we can then come and worship together as a church.

[33:40] So the goal is not only the salvation of this man, but for the good functioning of the church. And let me just show you a passage that I think is interesting in this whole conversation. It comes from 2 Corinthians 2. 2 Corinthians 2, verse 5. Now, if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely, to all of you. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you, reaffirm your love for him. For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for the sake, for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs.

[34:50] Most scholars believe that Paul is here talking about the guy from 1 Corinthians 5, that they removed him from membership. And in that, he began to repent with excessive sorrow. And now he's telling them, bring him back into membership. Restore him once again. That's the goal. The goal is to see them restored, renewed, and living a more godly life. So let's talk about then the steps we should take.

[35:26] What are some things that we need to do based on all of this? I have three things for you. Number one, make sure to discipline yourself first. There is nothing more important than thinking about controlling your own behavior under the power of the Holy Spirit. And that's why I'm always talking about read the Word and obey the Word, because the more we do that, the more we can avoid so much of this other. Secondly, have spiritual conversations with one another. And as you have spiritual conversations with one another, be willing to confront on some key issues. Particularly, let me just give you four ideas, right? Thinking about fear. Somebody's talking and they begin to express some kind of fear.

[36:18] It's good for us to listen and then to ask questions to kind of see, is this the kind of fear that I need to say something about and kind of get into their life a little bit to help them because they're struggling? Or is this a different kind of fear? In other words, is this fear interrupting their daily life? You hear them talking and they say, yeah, I'm just afraid that, you know, and fill in the blank.

[36:44] Like, that might be a moment to listen a little further and go, you know, is that bothering you in your daily life? No, no, no. I just, you know, I just was saying, yeah, I'm just afraid of that.

[36:54] Like, sometimes we just express things with worry and we're not really worried about it that much. It doesn't impact our daily life. So you want to know, does this impact this person's daily life, right? Is it just one area that they're afraid of? Is it, is it, does it have a cause? Is it something that goes deeper than just, we're just having a conversation? And so you look at, you look for things like fear. You look for people's anger. You look for people's sadness.

[37:21] You look for the things that people are craving. And there are ways to very gently, as a brother and sister in Christ, to just sort of confront those things with scripture that doesn't ever arise to the level of church discipline, but it's such a good habit to have.

[37:39] So, for instance, I come in on a Sunday morning and I can be a very frantic person. When I have a lot of tasks to do, I'm a very task-oriented, get-or-done kind of person. I want to be sure that all the lights are on, the doors are unlocked, the computers are on, and the guitar is tuned, and, you know, there's just so many things to do. And I tend to try to do them all rather than getting people to help me because I don't know why. I'm an idiot, you know? And so I do that. And so sometimes I can be walking around with a little bit of panic. And Jack will sometimes look at me and say, is there anything I can do to help you? Like, he sees me because it's visible on my face.

[38:23] And I appreciate that, but probably after the service that day, it'd be better for Jack to come up to me and sit me down and say, you know, I've seen you do this for the last three weeks where you've just walked in and panicked. And man, what can I do to help you? Like, because if you're living with that kind of stress and panic, number one, it's not good for your body. But number two, is it hindering your trust in the Lord about what's happening in the service? Yeah, like printing the bulletin. Yeah.

[38:54] You know, and so if that brother loves me enough to sit me down and go like, you know, is that, what's, what's going on with that? His goal is not to say, listen, I've been seeing you sinning every Sunday morning. That's not his goal. His goal is to go, man, what's, what's going on?

[39:09] And I've given you some passages. These are passages you can even take and read and, and, and share with someone in those moments. The goal is to have spiritual conversations with people, because I think that that would be of benefit to us to just be looking to one another and saying, what's, what is going on with this? How can I help you? The last thing is that I, I would say that we should be praying for our whole church to sort of understand these things about church discipline, because as I said to the group last night, putting in place formal aspects of church discipline is not something that I would be willing to do until the whole body is convinced of the matter. And the reason for that is because of what it says in verse 11, that if somebody does have one of these sins, then you're not to even associate with them, not to even eat with such a one. What that means is this, that if, if

[40:10] I've committed some sort of gross public sin, then the dealing with me has to be on the level of the goal, redemption. So we don't bind ourselves to this kind of a person and act like nothing's wrong.

[40:27] We get with, if they, if, if I recall up Jack, you know, I've been, you know, I've had some gross public sin and I call Jack because I'm a little frustrated because I think you're being mean to me. And I'm like, Jack, let's go have lunch together. Jack should say this to me. He should say, actually, listen, I really can't do that because you're not being repentant of the sin that, that you have been removed for. But, but brother, I love you and I want to see you restored. And let me tell you the gospel and let me plead with you to repent and let me plead with you to turn back to Christ.

[41:02] That's all I can do. If everybody in the church treats me the same way where it's, it's, it feels like a shun, but it's not because you are saying, no, please, I want you to repent. And if you want to get together and repent, I'll be glad to get together with you and read Bible with you and pray with you so you can repent. But we can't just act like nothing's happened. Because we, I've been in a church where we had to do church discipline and we went through the process. And after this guy was removed from membership, there were about six people in the church.

[41:40] Who acted like we were big meanings. They confirmed to him, his suspicions that he was a good guy and we were just being bad. And it's because they just weren't on board with the practice of church discipline. And so one of the things that I would not do is say, we're going to do this without everybody being on board because just one of us, just one of us not being on board destroys this.

[42:05] We'd all need to be committed to this course of action. And that's one of the things we have to pray for. And if you find yourself going like, man, I just don't understand some of these things, then that's a place to study some more. For you to really wrestle with what the scriptures say and come to an agreement on this. Because without that, we can't move forward. Because it is true.

[42:26] It has been abused in a lot of places, in a lot of churches. And we don't want to do anything that would abuse one another. Yeah. So I would think that it would happen through the process of, because if we had somebody in our church, I would, I would be seeking to ask them to meet with me on a weekly basis.

[42:51] And I, and, and, and I would seek to try to help them come to that place. And if I begin to see, I mean, man, I think, I think we're, they're ready that I would be bringing that to the church body and giving recommendation and saying, yeah, it would be like them coming in as a brand new member.

[43:10] So we would vote them back in because it would be an opportunity for us to kind of express our love in that way. That's a very formal sort of way. You know, you're talking about like someone who's a traitor and maybe not going to lunch with them.

[43:25] I find myself, um, beginning on someone to lunch with them. And I've really learned to people, and that's what I've really learned to them in my mind.

[43:36] And that's where I don't have a problem with them. I've learned to them. So, so for the Corinthians to have a meal with someone is to show hospitality.

[43:46] And I think the idea is associating with them as though there's nothing wrong, right? I mean, yeah, I know you got an issue, but like, that's not a big deal. I think, I think that's the flavor.

[43:57] So if, if this person is willing to meet with you with a meal and you're going to do that, and, and they're, you're going after the gospel with them and this kind of a thing and, and corrective measures, then I think that might be okay.

[44:09] The only thing I would say is also if it's gross public sin, then what does, what is the appearance of evil out in the community? Like if you're sitting down eating with them, is there, is there something to consider there?

[44:23] So, so maybe it needs to be a private, you know, kind of meal. So I don't think it's about, well, you can't eat same food or, you know, but it's, it's about that association and giving them the idea that there's nothing wrong.

[44:36] Yes. Yes. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

[44:51] Yeah. Yeah. So, so if I call Jack and say, Jack, let's have lunch only if we're going to talk about what's going on. So, yeah. Other thoughts, questions?

[45:02] Questions? It is. It is.

[45:14] We, we, you know, maybe a hundred percent is idealistic in my mind. I, I've just been at the place where I have seen churches who go this direction just really do it very badly.

[45:28] And I want, I also know, I also know that, that you've got, you've got to have the vast majority.

[45:39] I mean, I would think, I would think it's got to be 90% of the people in the congregation that agree with it. Because, because without that, you don't have that support as you're going to, to confront someone.

[45:50] I mean, did you see this outside of the church? Hmm. I've had a very good memory. Yeah. Yeah. How did that work out for you?

[46:01] With the guy that we, that we churched. So, it, it was a really ugly situation.

[46:11] And, and I'm not sure that we handled it all in the right way. Eventually, he left the church and went to another church. And that just ensconced him in his view that we were wrong and he was right.

[46:26] And, we, we did. Even the people who went to him afterwards and they were like, you know, I think they're, they're, they're being mean or whatever. They even voted yes.

[46:38] And it's like, that's, that's one of the things. A lot of times we, we, we vote without thinking. And we really need to make sure what it is we're, we're voting on. Now, in this church, is there a process like, you know, there's an issue.

[46:52] You know, this person. Can you go to the deacons first and let them talk about it? Or can you go to the front of the church? If it's, so if it's, if it's gross public sin, then it's going to be something we all know has happened.

[47:06] And at that point, the, I, I would go to the deacons or other pastors and I would say, we're going to have to go to the church with this. And so we would call a special meeting and we would visit about this as a church body.

[47:18] We would have a pathway of that conversation and what, how that would, I would, I wouldn't have that conversation without laying out kind of the, a way that we're going to talk about this. And, and then we would do what business we need to do, but we would also bathe that in prayer before and after and, and talk about what it is now.

[47:40] Now you as a church member, what is it must, must you do from today forward towards this person? And we would try to line out and explain all of that. No, I wouldn't think so.

[47:52] I know that there's times some churches have done that kind of a thing. And so I guess it would, it might depend. Well, right. And I, you know, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm leery of exposing somebody's sin publicly.

[48:12] If we don't know details, then we might not need to know details because I do think sometimes that that can be a temptation to somebody else to commit the same sin.

[48:22] And so we just, just want to be careful not to damage the church body. That's the goal is to the protection of the body. Well, if you want to know the details, I think you could go to that person, but I would always.

[48:38] Right. Right. You know, it's like, yeah, yeah. Right.

[48:51] If it's, if it's a sin that's between you and someone else and it's not a gross public sin. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Well, let me, let me just say one final thing and then we'll, we'll pray.

[49:18] And that is this, this is, this is a heavy topic and it is difficult, but we have to always remember two things. God is holy. And because of that holiness, he is not to be trifled with and his church is not to be trifled with.

[49:34] But God is also love. And he is a God of grace and a God of mercy. And even if we fail to do church discipline properly, there is still forgiveness for us, even in that process of messing it up.

[49:54] If we do it too harshly or we don't do it enough or whatever, there is still forgiveness for us for, for messing that process up. And, and there is, there's a lot of grace in the Lord that covers our sins that he has paid for.

[50:08] And all of this stems from, he says right there in the middle, for Christ is our Passover lamb. Not only is that the motive for why we would do church discipline, but that is the place we run to when we've messed up the process or when somebody is in the process, we run to our Passover lamb, Christ.

[50:28] So, all right, well, let's pray. Any.