Well, good morning once again. I'm going to start
our time together this morning in kind of an
unusual way. I want to share with you a testimony
that I read online this week. It's from an anonymous
woman who wrote a testimony of her experience
with this thing we call church discipline. And
it was posted on a well -known Christian blog,
and I thought it would be a good way to sort
of get our hearts and minds rolling on this difficult
subject. And by the way, if you're joining us
this morning for the first time, sorry to be
talking about church discipline, but it's an
important part of Scripture. It just might be
a difficult morning for you to try to catch up
with where we've been, but God's sovereign over
that as well. But let me read this testimony.
It's a little bit long, but I think it's worth
our time to understand the issue we're going
to talk about this morning. Here's what this
woman wrote. In 2006, I sat at a conference table
with men from my church and I heard words I never
wanted to hear. Church discipline. I was in the
middle of an affair with a married man and the
life that I had tried to keep buried was now
being exposed. My sin had found me out and now
I felt like I was being dragged out into the
street. Hard words for men who weren't afraid
to say to me, What you're doing is sin, and this
is the way out of it. I had no real defense,
but in that moment, I was blind. I was persistent,
and I was impetuous, and I was willing to give
up family, friends, and my reputation for what
I wanted. So I opted for defense strategies.
These men were the bad guys. They didn't understand
grace. I should be free to be me. As we sat around
that conference table, their faces were somber,
and I felt the weight of what was coming. They
laid out my sin. They addressed my wrong choices.
They contrasted Scripture with my actions and
gave me a plan for restoration. I had to repent,
they said. I had to leave the man I was actively
sinning with and cease any and all contact with
him, and he would be encouraged to seek reconciliation
with his wife. I thought about the date we had
planned for the next day, our visit home for
Christmas, our plans for the new year. I pictured
him in my mind. We have only each other now in
this cold, hateful world, I thought. I can't
do it. It's not possible. We're too far down
this road, and I will not turn back. Our love
is stronger than this. Deep down in my gut, what
these men were doing felt cruel. It felt unjust.
They continued to talk to me about how to find
healing and restoration. There was hope, they
said, and a way to find freedom. But their voices
were a drone of truth and I wanted to cut my
ears off. The discipline was already doing its
work, revealing my rebellion, helping me feel
the weight of sin, and it was heavy. Oh, so heavy.
And there I sat, now sobbing. This was breaking
me and there was a small distant voice somewhere
on the outskirts of my mind screaming at me to
repent. I heard the voice like a distant bell
in the dark telling me this is the way out. But
I pushed it away. When the elders told me I had
a few days to consider what they'd said, what
I heard was this, an opportunity. I had a few
days to run. I scanned the faces of everyone
sitting around that table. These were men who
were like family to me, but on this day they
felt like thieves. I thought this will be the
last time I ever sit across from them as a friend
and a sister. After that meeting, I did run.
I ran from New York in the midst of my affair,
and I was sure I had found a safe haven in North
Texas. No one would find me there. No one knows
my name. No one knows my face. We had run off
into the proverbial sunset, and I was sure we
were going to find our happy ending. Until I
got the phone call that letters had arrived on
the desk of one of the pastors at the new church
I was attending. I shuddered as he read the names
of the elders back in New York. Why were they
following me? I thought. Can't they just leave
me alone? I was furious. How quickly friends
become enemies as soon as they get in the way
of what we want. Fast forward four years. Once
my life had imploded and I found the bottom of
the pit, I heard that voice once again. This
is the way back home. And I found myself. I don't
know why. I don't even know this woman, but I'm
getting emotional. I found myself walking back
into that church in New York, now as a single
mom with very little to my name. Waking from
my spiritual slumber, it felt like seeing the
light of day for the first time in years, and
then seeing the wreckage of my life. It was devastating.
The only thing left standing were the arrows
that pointed me back to where the gospel had
first broken through my heart and mind. And one
of the biggest arrows was now pointing me back
to my old church family. I desperately hoped
that it hadn't been too long for me to say to
those elders, I was wrong and I'm sorry. I need
Jesus, will you forgive me? And praise the Lord,
I found that I wasn't coming home to a scolding
finger, but to forgiveness. Church discipline
had revealed to me the weight of my sin, but
it also provided a way back home. When I said
I can't do this anymore, I was met with a family
that said, finally. And we wept together. Sinner
to sinner, brother to sister, a messy, snotty
welcome home on the dusty road to redemption.
The goal of church discipline is to reveal sin.
And when it's done well, it has the potential
to be a rescue boat in the middle of a raging
sea. What seems like harshness at first, calling
out a fellow believer is in fact not unkind.
Instead, it's a marker in their life that may
someday remind them that God was always at work,
that they were being pursued and loved, and that
there's always a way to be restored. It is a
work of love to see someone running towards a
cliff and do all you can to stop them from falling
off. I'm thankful for those who were faithful
to follow through with my church discipline.
I'm thankful for their words that didn't deviate
from the truth. I'm thankful for their hearts
that never gave up on me. And I'm thankful for
the way back home. Let's grab our Bibles. Sorry
about that. That testimony did that to me during
the week too. And it did it to me again this
morning. 1 Corinthians chapter five. Last Sunday,
we looked at verses one through five and we teased
what was coming this morning. Really, this is
part two of a single message because this entire
chapter, all 13 verses, relate to one incident
in the life of the Corinthian church and how
it's to be dealt with. So let's back up to verse
one. We'll read it from there. Again, this is
all one, what we call pericope in scripture,
one incident that we need to cover. Verse 1 says
it's actually reported that there is sexual immorality
among you. An immorality of such a kind as does
not exist even among the Gentiles that someone
has his father's wife, meaning stepmother. You
become arrogant and have not mourned instead
so that the one who had done this deed would
be removed from your midst. For I, on my part,
though absent in body but present in spirit,
have already judged him who has committed this
as though I were present. In the name of our
Lord Jesus, when you are assembled and I with
you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus,
I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan
for the destruction of his flesh so that his
spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Verse six, your boasting is not good. I want
you to stop there for a moment and consider what
Paul said already. I know this was last Sunday,
and maybe you need to go back and listen to it
online. In a state of shock over the perversity
of the situation there in Corinth, Paul says,
look, your response to this is the exact opposite
of what it should be. You're proud of how you
tolerate sin. You're boasting in this deviant
version of grace that allows for sexual sin to
stay in your body and fester there when you should
be ashamed at the lack of concern that you have
for the purity of the church and the testimony
of the church. It's the exact opposite. As we
go through the rest of the text, I'm actually
going to go a little bit out of order. I know
that's strange, but if you track with me, you'll
see the logic in this. Let me give you an outline
of where we're headed here. First, we're going
to see how Paul corrects the church's understanding
of a previous letter he wrote to them. That's
verses 9 through 11. Then we're going to see
him lay out this really important principle about
who we in the church are supposed to be judging
and who we're not supposed to be judging. And
then we'll come back to verses six through eight,
where Paul exhorts the Corinthian believers to
take the right steps, the right actions toward
becoming who God already declared that you actually
are. Make sense? So drop down to verse nine.
Let's start there with Paul's correction. Look
at verse nine. He says, I wrote to you in my
letter not to associate with pornois, is the
Greek word, sexually immoral people. Now, this
is a reference here to what scholars call Paul's
lost letter. It was written probably sometime
around the year 52 or 53 to the church there
in Corinth. But outside of this little comment
we have in verse 9, we have no idea what else
Paul wrote about or what became of the letter.
It's lost to the dustbin of history, which tells
us God saw fit not to preserve it for us so that
we could read it today. By the way, there's another
letter also. that we don't have today that was
written between our 1 Corinthians and our 2 Corinthians.
In fact, I'll give you a little diagram because
you know how I like timelines, right? The third
letter is actually mentioned. So you see there
the lost letter, then comes 1 Corinthians. That
third letter is mentioned in 2 Corinthians 2,
verse 4, where Paul talks about having made a
painful visit. to the city of Corinth, and then
having written what he calls a tearful letter
that caused the Corinthians sorrow. But what's
interesting, when you get to chapter 7 of 2 Corinthians,
you find out that Paul's actually, he hears news
from Titus, and he's actually filled with joy
because that tearful letter, while it did create
sorrow on the front end, it ends up being godly
sorrow that produced repentance in that church.
So he's actually grateful for it. So if you do
the math, our 1st and 2nd Corinthians are actually
2nd and 4th Corinthians. But I don't want to
confuse you on that. But when you step back and
look at all the things that Paul wrote to this
one church, you start to realize how complex
his relationship was with this congregation.
And for those of you in ministry, you know how
hard it must have been to shepherd a congregation
like this with so many problems. And we're going
to see that throughout the rest of this letter.
So Paul writes this first lost letter to the
church and he says, do not associate with sexually
immoral people. Now in verses 10 through 11,
he's going to clarify what he meant by that.
Look at verse 10. He says, I did not at all mean
the sexually immoral people of this world. Or
with the covetous and swindlers or with idolaters.
For then you would have to go out of the world.
But actually, he says, actually, I wrote to you
not to associate with any so -called brother.
In other words, a person, a man or woman who
identifies themselves as a Christian. Don't.
associate with them if he is a sexually immoral
person or covetous or an idolater or a reviler
or a drunkard or a swindler, look at that last
phrase, not even to eat with such a one. Now,
don't get lost in the list of sins that Paul
lays out here. Typical of the writing of that
day. What he's providing for us is a whole series
of categories of sins. It's not intended to be
an exhaustive list or to cover every possible
sin that should be avoided. These are general
categories. Sexual immorality, greed, thievery,
idolatry, drunkenness, slander. And if you break
down that list, it's interesting. What you see
is these are sins against three different parties.
They're sins against one's own body. There's
sins against other members of the church, and
most of all, sins against God himself. So it
covers the whole gamut. And Paul says, don't
get mixed up with people like this. Do not enter
into fellowship with them. What did the Corinthians
hear? They heard what they wanted to hear. They
basically said, okay, fine, then we will cut
ourselves off from all the unbelievers in our
city who do these things. And Paul responds in
verse 11, no, no, no, no. It's not what I was
talking about. I was not talking about unbelievers.
If you were to cut yourself off from all the
non -Christians who practice these things, I'd
have to take you out of the world completely.
You just have to leave the entire world because
guess what? The things I just listed for you,
those are the fleshly deeds of people who don't
know God. And they're all around you there in
the city of Corinth. And by the way, this raises
an important principle, not just for the Corinthians,
but for us. You know, we said it before. We live
in a city kind of parallel to Corinth in the
first century right here in Los Angeles. And
this is the phrase that often gets cited under
this concept of we're to be in the world, but
not of the world. Right. And that is sort of
a conglomeration of a whole bunch of. passages
from the New Testament and the Gospel of John
and 1 John, we put that together and we come
up with that important phrase. And there's truth
to it. As Christ followers, we are citizens of
a new kingdom, a whole new realm governed by
King Jesus. And that means we are not of the
world in the sense that we no longer belong to
its virtues, no longer belong to its loyalties
or power structures. And yet, and yet, we're
called to remain in the world. True. And for
a purpose. When Christ saved us, when we gave
our lives to him, we're told he called us out
of the world, but then he put us on mission within
the world, which sounds kind of strange, right?
I'm going to call you out of the world, but then
I'm going to send you right back in to be on
mission in the world. So Paul says to the Corinthians,
you can't just cut yourselves off from the sinners
around you. If you did that, you would forfeit
the mission that God has you on in that city.
Make sense? To win the lost, you have to spend
time with the lost. And that is the harvest field
that God has given you specifically to walk into.
Now, it's a whole different situation with people
who live an openly sinful life while at the same
time claiming to be a brother or sister in Christ.
That's a different situation. In that case, Paul
says, you're not to rub shoulders with them.
You're not to hang out with them. In fact, you're
to cut off fellowship with that type of a person.
Don't even eat with them, he says. Why? Because
they claim they're telling the world publicly,
I'm under the authority and lordship of Jesus
Christ, but they're living in opposition to that
claim, which makes them a liar and a deceiver.
And that is not somebody you want representing
Jesus in your community. Now, we'll flesh that
out a bit more as we go along. And I know at
first glance it sounds harsh, right? But don't
get the wrong impression. We don't cut off fellowship
from this type of person out of anger or out
of hatred or out of vengeance. There is a great
purpose to Paul's instruction here. And it's
actually rooted in both truth and love. And we'll
get to that as we go on. First of all, Let's
go to verses 12 to 13 and look at what Paul says
about this very important principle, which the
world cannot seem to understand, and that's the
issue of judging. Who are we to judge and who
are we not to judge? Look at verse 12. Paul says,
what have I to do with judging outsiders, people
outside the church? Do you, Corinthians, not
judge those who are within the church? But those
who are outside, God judges, you guys remove
the wicked man from among yourselves. This is
a surprising verse for people who claim to know
what the Bible says but don't really know. And
part of that is because we as Christians often,
we make the mistake of running around judging
everybody out there. We kind of have a reputation
for that, so we've got to be aware of it. So
people we call natural men and women. Those who
don't know Christ, don't profess to know Christ.
It is not our role to go around judging them.
And I know that's a hard thing for Christians
to grasp, right? Because, again, I said it earlier
this morning, we see so much wickedness out there
in the world, and our immediate reaction is to
get really upset about it. This temptation, this
inclination to run around pointing fingers at
everybody. Paul's point is the church should
not focus its energies there at running around
pointing to the world and saying, look at all
the sin. Of course there's sin. Of course. What
else would you expect from fallen people living
in the flesh without the Spirit of God? What
else would you expect? And I know it could be
hard to look at social media or look at news
clips without saying to yourself, my goodness.
It is so bad out there. The world is spiraling
down so fast. Guys, when you feel that, first
of all, take a deep breath. And remember two
things. First of all, that God is still sovereign.
He's still in control. And number two, remember,
that's what you used to be before God plucked
you out of that life. True? So we can't get on
our high horse and judge everybody else out there.
That's who we used to be. And because these outsiders,
as Paul calls them, don't claim to know Christ
and they haven't submitted themselves to the
word of God, we can't hold them to standards
that we've accepted. They've not submitted themselves
to the word of God. We can't hold them to that
and then judge them for not doing it. They don't
have the spirit of God. How could they know?
So we let God handle that. Those on the outside,
God judges, Paul says. But within the church,
it's different, right? Paul says we are to judge
one another. Now let me qualify that. We're not
to judge wrongly. We're not to judge quickly.
We're not to judge hypocritically. We're not
to judge pridefully. We don't judge each other
in anger or resentment. Our judgment within the
walls of the church has to be motivated by a
heart of love. and concern for unity, concern
for purity, and for one another's spiritual condition.
So we're to judge, but with the right heart motive.
Therefore, Paul concludes, because of this, he
says, the Corinthians have to take action against
this unrepentant, sexually immoral man. He's
to be judged by the body and removed from the
congregation. Remove him from among yourselves,
Paul says. Interestingly, that is a citation
from the Torah. So Paul reaches back into his
Jewish heritage, and he quotes from Deuteronomy
17. Now remember, in Old Testament times, in
that day, God manifested his presence in pretty
spectacular ways in the midst of his people,
in the camp of Israel. And because of his holiness,
it was required that the Israelites cleanse the
camp from all sin. Well, guess what? Paul recognizes
that similar principle under the new covenant.
God is still... among his people, now indwelling
believers in their hearts through the presence
of the Holy Spirit. And that means, yes, within
our camp here at this church, under the new covenant,
we too have to expel that sin from among our
body. So the parallels are similar, aren't they?
Are you tracking with me? Okay, good. This is
important. So here's what I want to do now. We're
going to do a little excursus for a second on
the issue of church discipline. Let's pause and
let's talk about the process because this is
important. This matters, guys, both for life
here at Oak Hill and life at any church you might
go to in the future, to understand the process
of church discipline. It's important to realize,
first of all, that the situation we're reading
about here in 1 Corinthians 5 is not typical.
of how most cases play out today, typically they
start out privately and informally. That is not
the situation here. Remember, Paul says, look,
I'm hearing reports. It's publicly known about
what's going on there. Typically, it doesn't
start out like that today. It's usually private
and informal. But like the 1 Corinthians 5 scenario,
in its final stage, church discipline, even today,
involves removing the sinner from membership
in the local church. and barring him from participation
at the Lord's table. This is why we guard the
table here at Oak Hill. It's important that elders
do that. By the way, this is just one of the
reasons why, I'm just going to say this, one
of the reasons why membership matters here at
our church or any church. Membership should matter
no matter where you go in the future, any church
you're a part of. If a church is going to practice
church discipline, it first has to have membership.
Because when a believer commits himself to membership
in a local church, he makes a series of vows.
He makes vows to other church members. He voluntarily
places himself under the authority of the elders,
and he puts himself under church discipline of
the entire church body. How does he do that?
Well, he says, look, I'm signing this covenant
membership agreement, making these promises and
saying, yes, please, I want accountability. Every
church talks about accountability. And we always
want it until we don't. Right? But this is the
reality. When you become a covenant member, you
say, I desire accountability. I want to be put
under the discipline of the entire church body.
So membership is essential to this whole process.
Now, backing up for a moment. By the way, let
me just say, churches that don't have membership,
they really don't have standing to discipline
their members. Why? Because unrepentant sinners
from the body who haven't first been affirmed
as believers through that membership process,
folks who haven't asked for that accountability,
guess what? We don't have a standing to really
discipline them out. That's why we continue to
encourage you guys to come into covenant membership.
All the beauties of membership, but also this
issue of your saying to one another and to the
world, I want that accountability. And maybe,
I say this often, maybe that's why our church
remains small. Because not everybody wants it.
They say it, but they don't want it. They don't
actually want it. And so sometimes people go,
you know what? This is a hard church to belong
to. Okay, praise the Lord. Because we're living
biblically together. Okay, back up for a moment.
So the process of church discipline has to happen
in stages. And of all people, guess who laid
out those stages for us? Jesus, yeah, that's
a good answer. That's the Sunday morning answer.
Jesus did, right? In the Gospel of Matthew, he
tells us exactly how this should play out. Stage
one is found in Matthew 18, verse 15, where Jesus
says, look, if your brother's in sin, here's
where we start. Take it up with him privately.
Privately. It says, go and tell him his fault
between you and him alone. The idea is that we
handle the situation privately so as to not broadcast
it and create unnecessary gossip that circulates
around the church. Now, there might be times
when the situation is complex and you need to
get counsel from an elder before you go to your
brother, but the goal is the same. At the outset
of this, you want to keep the circle as tight
as possible, as few people involved as possible.
So you go humbly to your brother. And you have
this confrontation about sin. By the way, how
many of you guys like confrontation? It's hard.
It's hard, isn't it? But it's biblical. This
is one of those things, man. Christians say,
I don't want to get involved. You're not given
that option. If you follow biblical truth, you're
not given that option. So we go humbly and we
confront our brother. Humbly, right? Not with
a big giant log sticking out of our eye, but
we go humbly. We don't accuse him right out of
the gate. We give him the benefit of the doubt.
And we ask clarifying questions. And we ask him
to explain. Say, look, I'm having a difficult
time reconciling your profession of faith with
the way you're living. The lifestyle that you've
chosen doesn't seem to line up with your profession
of faith. And then you give your brother an opportunity
to explain. It's possible that you've misunderstood
something. Or you didn't see what you think you're
seeing. So give him that opportunity. And the
vast majority of the time, if the confronter
approaches with that right motivation, the sinner
is going to respond well because he feels that
you're here out of love and concern. And Jesus
says that is the goal. He says, if he listens
to you, Jesus says, you have gained your brother
or you've won your brother over. Amen and amen.
We move forward, right? Your motive is always
love. It's love for the sinner. It's love for
Christ. It's love for your fellow members. And
it's love for the testimony of the church that
we get this thing cleared up. Amen on stage one.
Now, if things go poorly and you are convinced
that your friend is living this sinful lifestyle,
you might want to go and have multiple conversations
with him privately first to try to win him over.
But if he's unresponsive, you have to take it
to stage two. And that's to bring another believer
with you, somebody else who cares about this
person, someone from the church family. Maybe
bring one or two other people. And you try to
persuade the sinner to own that sin and to turn
from it and repent. Jesus says in verse 16, if
he does not listen, take one or two others along
with you that every charge may be established
by the evidence of two or three witnesses. Catch
that now. This is a very important courtroom.
principle. Church discipline is not mob justice.
Church discipline is established by due process
and a multiple sets of eyes and ears on the situation
so that it's properly evaluated. Make sense?
Now, if the sinner still digs in his heels and
you've had multiple opportunities now to break
through, it goes to stage three. And Jesus says
in verse 17, if he refuses to listen to the two
or three witnesses, Tell it to the church. Okay,
this is the 1 Corinthians 5 stage, right? Tell
it to the church. And this is where it gets really
serious because it goes from private to public.
Now the sin has to be laid out before all of
the members of the church. So you don't want
to get to stage three. Repent of sin, right?
Repent of sin. Typically, members of the elder
team who have oversight responsibility in the
body, they're the ones who lead this step, but
they should never stand up in front of the congregation
and speculate about what's going on. They should
have done their due diligence, gotten the agreed
upon facts, and then lay the case out before
the members. Now, that doesn't mean that every
single gory detail about the sin has to be revealed
or exposed, but enough needs to be said. Enough,
and it's a difficult line, enough to be said
so that the members can grasp what's really happening
in this situation and feel comfortable with the
fact that we are voting now to remove this person
from membership. So not all the gory details,
but enough so the body understands the situation.
And this public revelation then kicks off a whole
nother stage, a time of prayer. and a time of
more aggressive confrontation of the sinner.
Now it's not just those two or three witnesses,
it's the entire church family. We're going to
go after this person strongly because we love
him, because we care about his soul. We're all
going to go after him and plead with him with
tears to turn from the sin and come back. And
this is part of the process that cannot be rushed.
Adequate time needs to be given for people to
go to the center. Adequate time has to be given
for God to work through those multiple conversations.
So that can take months. But if after enough
time has passed and the center just appears he's
not going to turn from his ways, then the elders
of the church step into the role that Paul has
here in 1 Corinthians 5. They express their judgment
and they ask the members to follow that lead.
And this is the heartbreaking point, right? And
we've gone through it at Oak Hill, and it's the
hardest thing we have to do as a church family.
This is the heartbreaking point. Again, Jesus
explains the final step in verse 17. If he refuses
to listen even to the church, could you imagine?
If he refuses to listen even to the church, let
him be to you as a Gentile. and a tax collector.
Or as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5, do not associate
with him, do not even eat with such a one. Rather,
he said in the beginning of the chapter, deliver
him over to Satan for the destruction of his
flesh so that his spirit might be saved in the
day of the Lord Jesus. So this is where the local
church, through tears and sorrow, says to the
unrepentant believer, you cannot stay here with
us while you insist on clinging to this sin.
We are grieved to tell you we can no longer affirm
your profession of faith. We can no longer say,
yes, you're a born again believer. This is what
I described last Sunday as the wielding of the
keys of the kingdom. The binding and loosing
process that we see in Matthew 16, we see in
Matthew 18. And this is a heavy responsibility
that a church body has. The members of the church
together bind a believer as they affirm his profession
of faith and his baptism as he comes into the
church as a member. And we then invite him to
come to the Lord's table. That is the binding
process. And then the loosing process is when
we remove that person from membership in the
church and we prevent him from coming to the
Lord's table because we can no longer affirm
his profession of faith. Binding and loosing.
It's been given to the local church. We have
jurisdiction over these things. Heavy, heavy
stuff. Now, it's important to understand that
this final step of discipline does not mean that
the church is assigning this person to hell,
eternal hell. We don't have that power. Right?
The final step doesn't even mean that we're saying
with certainty that this person isn't a believer.
That gets tested in the discipline process. What
we're saying again is, look, we don't have x
-ray vision to look at a person's soul. We can't
be certain, but we can say this. Based on your
lifestyle, based on the fact that you will not
repent, we can no longer affirm that you're a
believer. That's the extent of our power. And
according to what both Jesus and Paul say in
Scripture, At that point, all personal relationships
in the church family have to change. We can no
longer spend casual time together with this person
as if things are okay because they're not. They're
not any longer. We can't just hang out with them.
Any time we spend with this person now has to
be about asking them, pleading with them to repent
and return. And the point of cutting off a fellowship
is simple. There is a point to this. The reason
we cut off fellowship. Once this person is removed
from the community of God's people, the hope
is that he or she will go out into the world
and be miserable. That they will find life intolerable,
unbearable. That he'll look at his sin at some
point and like the prodigal son say, what am
I doing? Look what I've lost. I'm going back.
I'm going back to my church family. That's what
we heard in that testimony I read at the beginning,
right? Her life became unbearable, and she went
back. That's the process. That's the process.
Now, one of the questions that often comes up,
and it's a good question, is, all right, well,
what sins? What sins warrant this Matthew 18
process? Does every single sin that we commit
warrant this type of process? Practically, the
answer is no. Right? We'd be so busy. Aren't
you glad? We'd be so busy if we treated it that
way. And Jonathan Lehman, if you know him, author,
Nine Marks author, uses a funny example to make
this point. He says, my wife might privately
rebuke me for selfishly eating all the ice cream
in the freezer, and I might even continue in
that pattern without repenting, but that's probably
not the kind of sin which would warrant public
discipline. You get the point. It's good to categorize
the things which would require the whole process
to be carried out. So our best understanding
is these three words. Any sin that is outward,
significant, and unrepentant. So church discipline
is necessary when first a sin becomes outward
in the sense it becomes common knowledge. Even
among unbelievers, they know what's going on.
That's what we see in 1 Corinthians 5, right?
Paul says it's being reported everywhere that
this is going on. It's an outward sin. Right?
They're living in such a way that causes a disconnect
between what they claim and what the world sees.
It's out there. So, you know, it's got to be
visible, at least with the eyes or the ears.
But then it's got to be significant, meaning
it's serious enough that members of the church
say, okay, I can't reconcile that person being
a believer in the way they're living. It's got
to be that serious. So again, eating ice cream
is probably not going to go, I'm not sure you're
a believer. Because you're eating all the ice
cream in the house. But there are other sins
as well. Things like fear and worry, even bouts
with lust that we struggle with. Those things
are not outward and probably not serious enough
to where I look at you and say, oh, you're struggling
with fear? You're not a believer. Right? So it
wouldn't rise to that level. So it's got to be
outward and it's got to be significant. And then
finally, most importantly, as we looked at last
Sunday. It's only when a person refuses to repent
of that outward significant sin that Matthew
18 becomes required. Does that make sense? So
this is a wisdom principle, right? It's something
that the church body needs to discern in each
unique situation. It's never going to be just
black and white. By the way, the church discipline
process is never just cut and dried black and
white. It requires wisdom on the part of leadership
and wisdom on the part of the body. I said this
last Sunday, I'll say it again. If you didn't
grow up in a church that practiced discipline
like this, or you've never seen it practiced
as an adult, I know this is hard. I know this
is a difficult teaching, but you should know
that this was once a very common practice in
Protestant churches. It's only over the last
50 years or so that we seem to have grown tired
of holding each other accountable to Christian
living. Or perhaps other principles have gotten
in the way. Now it's all about, well, we don't
want to offend people or we want to grow our
church. And so we've laid aside a biblical command
because we just don't want to rock the boat.
I've shared this before. I'll say it again. Our
spiritual ancestors, the Protestant reformers,
literally defined a church by three things. Here
they are. Number one, that apostolic doctrine
is rightly taught. Number two, that the sacraments
of the church are rightly administered. And number
three, that church discipline is rightly carried
out. They saw those three things as necessary
to define a church. So what happens today when
a church, first of all, begins to water down
its doctrine in order to please people? Number
two, stops treating the Lord's table as sacred
as it should be. And number three, just shelves
the whole idea of church discipline. Because
it's offensive to some people. What happens?
The church becomes powerless. Are we not seeing
that? The church as a whole in this country becoming
powerless, losing its credibility even in the
eyes of God because we're not doing the things
that God commands us to do. And so we'll do this
at Oak Hill. With tears, it's hard, but we will
continue to be faithful to what Scripture says.
Okay, let's keep going. Go back up to verse 6b
now. This is the final piece to this passage.
Paul says to the Corinthians, don't you know
this? Don't you know that a little leaven leavens
the whole lump or the whole batch of dough? Do
you not know this basic principle? Now, why does
he use leaven? Well, there's two reasons he uses
leaven. One, there's a... A really important
Old Testament connection, which we'll get to
in a moment. But secondly, consider the properties
of leaven. What does leaven do? Cooking people,
right? Come on, chefs, right? It's the yeast,
right, that makes dough rise into bread. And
what's interesting, it has a, get this big word,
permeating property to it. What that means is
leaven first mingles with the dough. then it
works its way throughout the entire batch, and
then it actually modifies the finished product.
It mingles with the dough, it works its way through
the whole lump, and it modifies the dough itself.
Now think about what sin does, unrepentant sin
does when it's injected into a local church body.
It has that same internal spreading influence
that modifies the condition Of the body itself.
That's why he's using this as an example. It's
brilliant. So failing to deal with sin in the
church is catastrophic. Just a little bit of
leaven, right? Goes all the way through the dough.
Just a little bit of cancer in the human body
can kill. Just a little bit of poison dropped
into your food can do its work. A little hole
in the bottom of a boat can sink a ship. A little
bit of corruption, a little bit of false teaching,
a little bit of moral compromise, all those little
amounts have dire consequences. It cannot be
allowed to stay. And because leaven was used
back then as what we call a starter, how many
of you guys do sourdough? Okay. It was a starter
to produce a new loaf of bread. It carries a
whole other idea, and this to me is so profound.
It carries the idea of bringing something from
the past into the present. Something that hangs
around from the past that's brought into the
present. Now consider that principle in terms
of the sins of your past life. Talk about the
old man, the new man, the desires of the old
man that once dominated your thinking. Paul says,
don't bring that old leaven into your present
life. Don't do it. You're a new creature born
by the spirit. Leaven represents what you once
were, but not anymore. Your new life, he says,
is unleavened. Isn't that cool? Don't bring the
old leaven of sin into your new creature life.
You're now unleavened. That's the basis. Look
at verse 7, the basis of Paul's command. He says,
clean out the old leaven so that you may be a
new lump or a new batch. He says, just as you
are, in fact, unleavened. He's screaming at the
Corinthians. You are in fact unleavened. This
is what God says you are. So get rid of that
starter from the past. That sin from your past
that you've been nurturing and holding on to.
You don't need it. You don't want it. Don't let
those old patterns of your unsaved life remain.
Old things have passed away. Let them go. Become
who God says you are. You are in fact unleavened.
Unleavened in Christ, he says. So become that.
When you were justified by God's grace alone,
he declared this to be true. You are unleavened
in my son. Wow, it's beautiful, isn't it? And
when that old leaven seeps back into your life,
because it does, right? We're all in the battle.
None of us are perfect. What do we do? Well,
God has told us what to do. Confess it to the
Lord. repent of it, turn away from it. You trust
in his promise to cleanse you of unrighteousness,
and then you move forward again without guilt,
without shame, because that's not part of your
identity in Christ, and you live by the power
of the Spirit once again. Amen? Continuing in
verse seven, we see Paul reach back into his
Jewish past. He says, for Christ our Passover.
has also been sacrificed. Now, when you first
read that, you're like, that's kind of an obscure
reference, right? But he's connecting it back
to Levin in the Passover festival. Do you remember
what God commanded the Israelites to do in the
Passover? Whoa. I jumped ahead. Was that you,
Casey? Casey. Do you remember this command? To
the Israelites, sacrifice to the Lord your God
a Passover lamb from the herd and do not eat
leavened bread with it. For seven days you're
to eat unleavened bread, which is the bread of
hardship because you left the land of Egypt in
haste. No leaven is to be found anywhere in your
territory for those seven days. The sacrifice
of the lamb now, get this, symbolizes the separation
of Israel from the land of Egypt. The Israelites
were leaving that old way of life. They were
being freed from slavery. So he's like, don't
bring that leaven with you when you leave Egypt
and you go to the promised land. Don't bring
that stuff from your past into your present.
And in the same vein, the sacrifice of Christ
is what separates us from our old way of life
and the present. We too are freed slaves. Do
you realize that? The imagery of this, we are
freed slaves, free from being a slave to sin
and to death. The Exodus has so many applications
to our lives. You start digging into it, it is
rich. A once for all sacrifice has been made
for us. Therefore, Paul says, remove the leaven
from your life. Don't harbor it, don't nurture
it, don't bring it with you. It's in your past.
And when you find leaven, What do you do as a
Jew? You identify it and you remove it. Identify
it, remove it. This is what God has commanded
us to do in our lives as New Testament believers.
By the way, on this Sunday night, tonight, our
covenant members will gather around the communion
table. And this is what we will remember, this
very statement, that Christ, our Passover lamb,
has been sacrificed. And as a church family committed
to living life together in purity, you know what
we're going to do tonight? Once again, we're
going to cleanse the camp of sin. By self -examination
and by confession, we will come together and
we will rid the camp of all sin. And then we
will come to the feast. The parallels are amazing.
We'll celebrate the cross. We will enjoy the
bread and the cup as a sign and a symbol of the
grace that's been poured out upon us. And that's
what we see in verse eight, last verse. This
should be a regular celebration in the life of
the believer. He says, therefore, let us celebrate
the feast. Not with the old leaven, nor with
the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with
the unleavened bread of sincerity. And what a
beautiful summary of the life that we're to live
now that we're found in Christ. A continuous
celebration that says, out with the old and in
with the new. Old things like malice and wickedness
and hatred and division, they go out. And over
time, as the Spirit of God works in us, new things
like sincerity and truth and compassion and humility,
they come in. Friends, our life as followers
of Christ is a continuous process of leaving
behind the old leaven and delighting in who God
says we are and living that life. New creatures
freed from the burdens of the past, free from
slavery to sin. Therefore, let us keep celebrating
the feast. Make church membership a top priority
in your life. Commit to a church family. Ask
for accountability. Voluntarily place yourself
under the authority of the elders and the discipline
of the entire church and come to the Lord's table
in celebration. There's nothing more important
than this. Don't be afraid to come under the
discipline of the church. It is the best thing
for you. It's the best thing for me to know that
you guys will hold me accountable. Let me just
close with just a small snippet from that testimony
where we started. Listen to it again. With all
that we've now walked through, listen to it again.
This is what that woman wrote. The goal of church
discipline is to reveal sin. And when it's done
well, it has the potential to be a rescue boat
in the middle of a raging sea. What seems like
harshness at first is in fact not unkind. It's
a marker in their life that may someday remind
them that God was always at work, that they were
pursued and loved and that there was always a
way to be restored. I'm thankful for those who
were faithful to follow through with my church
discipline. I'm thankful for their words that
didn't deviate from the truth. I'm thankful for
their hearts that never gave up on me and I'm
thankful for the way back home. Beautiful, isn't
it? Is God's design for the church not amazing?
If we would just embrace it and say, yes, Lord,
that's what we want. Let's pray together. Father,
these things can be difficult for us. And really,
Lord, it's only because we live in a culture
that no longer likes hard truths, no longer is
willing to offend for the sake of what you have
said is true. And so Father, as an elder team,
we don't take credit for being more courageous
than anyone else. We just praise you that you've
saved us and that you've given us the conviction
that we need to be faithful to your word. And
so we thank you for that. We thank you you didn't
leave us to guess how to handle these situations.
given us this process so clearly in your word.
Help us, Lord, to continue at this local church
to be faithful, to do the things you've asked
us to do. Because we trust you. We know you're
sovereign. We know you're good. We know that
your design for the church is far better than
anything we would ever dream up. And so, Lord,
thank you for your word, and thank you for your
instructions, and thank you for this church body
who continues to press hard into the truth that
you've given us. Lord, as we study this hard
thing, now we get a chance to respond by singing.
Singing praises to you. So help us to do that
in both spirit and truth as a body together today.
Lord, we thank you for this time. And we praise
you in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
And we all said what? Amen.