because today we think about discipline and God's
family. It's the only other way to this book
which I've read for the last three or four months.
I'm going to read it in the first verse. It is
actually reported that there is immorality among
you and immorality affected by it. that someone
has his father's life, and you have to come here
again and have not more than despair, in order
that the one that went from the sea might be
removed from your midst. For I, of my heart so
absent in body but presence and spirit, have
already judged you to have committed this, as
though I were present in the name of the Lord
Jesus, that you are as simple as I was to you
in spirit. With the power of our Lord Jesus,
to deliver such a one to seek, for the destruction
of his flesh, and his staff may be saved in the
days of the Lord Jesus. Your mercy is not good.
Do you not know that a little weapon, weapons
the whole world? Christ our Passover also ends
in sacrifice. Let us therefore celebrate the
feast, not with the old breath, nor with the
lemon of malice and wickedness, but with the
unleavened breath of sincerity and truth. God
has established three institutions within human
society for our own good and prosperity. of these
institutions plays a crucial role in the carrying
out of FY loving and providential purposes for
humanity. The three institutions are the family,
the state and religion. The family, the state
and religion. I want you to think about each
of these. before the fall in despair. Man and
woman were united together by God in the commitment
of Mary in order to love each other and to rule
over what God gives to them. From that we also
understand that if God gives to them children's
careers, they are to do that in such a way that
both children become happy. and bring goodness
to the greater society around him, which after
all really is a collection of family units of
his. But God instituted the family. God instituted
also the state, which even from Genesis chapter
9 after the flood. And God's word to Noah in
the covenant that he made with Noah I am with
all of you in the sight of the Lord God. Here
we see that man is ordered by God to provide
human society with certain basic elements for
man's good. The faith is ordained by God to provide,
first of all, for justice, secondly, for order,
and third, for freedom. of Dr. David Noble on
videotapes right now because this is part of
our potential. But the state that provides for
humanity, justice, order, and freedom, justice
might be defined as the criminal science of right
and wrong. That is, legislating laws that reflect
the right and wrong of your God. And then also
to take it to impartially, impartially punish
the wrongdoers and protect the rest. That's a
simple concept of justice. The state of law would
provide for order. It is to provide for established
authority. It is to lay out a structure for society
by which we can function as human people. collections
of families. And third, the state gets the right
for freedom. It is to balance individual rights
with the common good of everybody. Otherwise,
we need to understand that personal or individual
rights do not come from the state. They are derived
from our dignity and the creed, the creation
of God. as people who are created in the image
of God. Those people who designed our formal
government, understood that it is a fact that
flavor really comes from God, the state recognizes
it and respects it. I fear that that is not a
perception that is cared by very many anymore,
those who are making laws for our past. For God,
our name is the state that have In other words,
the purpose of God -ordained religion is to provide
for man to know its creator. There's no greater
good that can come to man than the higher joy
that a man can experience than this, that he
might know God and serve Him. But sadly, after
the fall, God created us. fellowship with Him,
our Creator. But after all religion became perverted,
for man began to worship idols and false human
philosophies rather than the Creator. Romans
chapter 1 verse 25, man worshipped the creature
rather than the Creator. turned from the truth
of God to the lie. And so when we hear the word
religion today, many of us immediately have a
negative connotation to that because of how it's
been converted. The man was created a religious
creature, and the best sense of that term, that
we need God. We need fellowship with God. Oh,
what religion has been turned broadly among humans
too, that which is false. God has always had
a remnant in the world that received and believed
and propagated the truth, although many turned
to the lives of the enemy of Satan. God has always
had a remnant that believed and received and
promulgated the truth is true revelation. In
this age in which we live that remnant is what
the Bible calls the Church of Jesus Christ. And
so we can say, fairly and accurately, that God
has ordained family and state. or government,
or the church. Now within the context of each
of these institutions, God has also ordained
authority. Within the family, the husband is
the head of the home. The parents are the authority
over the children. Within the state, the king
is to be honored, and the governors who are sent
by him. It says in Peter, or as we would understand
it, The designated political rulers within our
system are to be honored. God has established
it as the authority over us in the realm of government
and the state. And within religion or within
the church, there are the elders. For God ordained
authority within the church. And to the ordained
authority in each sphere is committed responsibility.
for husbands to remember that we are responsible
to God for our homes. It has been for those who
work in the realm of government and public service
to recognize that not only are they responsible
to the electorate, but ultimately they are responsible
to God for how they carry out their duties. And
it is good for elders in the church to be reminded
that they are responsible to God as well. for
the shepherding of the flock. But our responsibility
includes discipline for those who are in their
care and stewardship. The Cretan Fellowship stood
in need of discipline because of sin within its
membership. This sin had not been confronted
by the leadership. Discipline was long overdue,
and while it was not, we're not whole. Why the
elders in this church had not stepped up to this
and faced it and led, were not given that information.
So the apostle Paul, as the spiritual parent
of this church as we saw last week in chapter
four, comes into the picture with discipline
that he orders as an apostle of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I came across the fact that somebody
gave to me recently a funny little story about
discipline within a church. It says a certain
suburban neighborhood had two brothers who were
8 and 10 years old and who were exceedingly mischievous.
Whenever something in the neighborhood went wrong,
it often turned out to be that these two brothers
had a hand in it. Their parents went in knowing
how to control them. And so hearing that a priest
lived nearby who worked with delinquent boys,
the mother suggested to the father that they
ask the priest to talk with these boys. And the
father replied that he would do that rather than
shoot them himself. And so the mother went to
the priest and made her request to get the neighbor
in to try to help. He wanted to see the younger
boy first and alone. And so the mother sent the
younger boy by himself to the priest. The priest
sat down across the huge desk from the boy and
for about five minutes they just sat there and
stared at each other. And finally the priest
leaned forward and pointed his finger at the
boy and asked him, where is God? The boy looked
under the desk. He looked into the corners of
the room all around and he said nothing to the
priest. And so the priest, being a little bit
agitated, leaned forward and again put his finger
in the boy's nose and said, Where is God? And
the boy looked all around and said nothing but
third time a former voice at the priest leaned
across the desk and asked, Where is God? The
boy panicked and ran all the way home. and finding
various gravity dragged him upstairs to their
bedroom and into the closet where they usually
planted their mischief. And he said, we are in
big trouble. The older brother asked, well, what
do you mean big trouble? His brother replied,
God is missing and they think that we did it.
As it falls, that's one way to get this across.
we need to understand that discipline within
the family of God, as Paul makes clear here,
is essential if we expect the blessings of God.
Discipline within the family of God is essential
if we expect the blessings of God in our church.
So the apostle begins to lay it out before them,
first explains the accusation in verse one. It
was something that was widely known. Paul indicates
that it was everywhere. They bloomed. And it
was spreading. And the accusation he raised before
them is that there was immorality among them.
This word, immorality, is the Greek word for
man. And I use that so that you can hear the
word and understand that it's the root of our
word, pornography. or they are referred to sexual
intimacy of any sort outside of marriage. Paul
says there is immortality among you. It is commonly
known. And I'm talking about the man who is living
with his stepmother. Now the way that Paul puts
this together, it's clear that this was not a
single act. of the morality. But here's a man
who is currently involved in an ongoing affair
with the woman that his father had married. And
again, the implication is that this was not his
real mother, but his stepmother. Paul says that
this is so heinous that not even the pagans approve
of it. We know in the Old Testament in Leviticus
18 and Deuteronomy 22, forgiveness, this sort
of relationship. The poem even points beyond
the Bible, and he says even the Romans in their
law forbid this kind of behavior. As a result
of what was taking place in the church, this
group of people had lost their testimony. And
the glory of Christ was degraded in court because
they were allowing the step to go on unchecked.
Instead of being the White House of truth, they
had become an occasion for ridicule by the unbelievers
in the city of court. So Paul explains precisely
what he's talking about. He also talks about
the attitude that's being expressed by the church
toward this sin. The first part of verse two.
The attitude is basically two -fold. First of
all, they had become arrogant. And then secondly,
they had not mourned. That was their attitude.
Had become arrogant. Literally the word means
they had become inflated or pumped up. We're
going to put it into our language today, we might
say they had become airheads about this. Now,
it doesn't mean that they were doles or idiots,
but it means that they had become proud and conceited.
In verse 6, it refers to them boasting regarding
this person still being in their church. They
were glory. rejoicing in what was wrong. And
we wonder, how in the world could a church come
to the point of protecting and glory and sin?
Perhaps it was because they wanted to be broad
-minded. We see elsewhere in this additional
many talks about how they... were abusing Christian
liberty. They were making that concept, which
is biblical, but carrying it to an invalid extreme.
And they tell them that they have to bring their
Christian liberty into account. Maybe it was
that kind of thinking that was involved here
that they said, well, we have liberty as Christians
to live as we want to live. If there were today,
we would say that they were both being a big
tolerance. A big tolerance. Tolerance, of course,
is the highest measurement for what is right
in a pluralistic society. It is self -contradictory,
because those who brag the most about being tolerant
are very intolerant of those who have absolute
convictions. And so it's very consistently applied,
but it's sort of the buzz language of our day,
but we need to be tolerant about sin. There was
a commentary in the last weekend, I think, and
is that right? In the article that you sent me
last weekend, there was an article that was started
by a woman who was oppressed, betrayed, and ministered.
in which she was abhorred of her denomination
for being spanned against homosexual behavior.
And how intolerant and vindictive that was of
her denomination to the death. You see, she never
came into the court. She's hurt very, very well.
It says you have not mourned, you have not grieved.
The word here is the kind of mourning that one
does. It is that wailing, that lamenting that
comes out of your very gut, your pardoning expression.
When someone mentions your intestines, all it
says you have not agreed regarding this step.
You have become callous and insensitive to sin.
You should rather have felt shame. place but
there are occasions for sorrow in the church,
and the presence and the allowance of sin is
one of them. James says, draw near to God and
he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands,
you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double
-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep, but
your laughter depends on mourning and your joy
to bloom. They shouldn't have mourned for their
sins, but instead they protected me and consoled
me, and most of them. So it is possible that
I am not to explain the action that expects them
to take. For it was being commentated on this
particular passage says, if a Christian was his
church. He will not stand by and forbid sin to
weaken it, and perhaps ruin its testimony. You
see, that's what had happened before. All had
expected that they would have already removed
from their midst the one who was living in sin.
You notice this aspect. Since they had God, he
felt them very clearly. What were they to do?
Well, they were to put the offender outside the
fellowship, which by no means. I have decided
the assailants to deliver such a warrant of safety
for the destruction of the flesh. They were to
put the offender outside the fellowship of the
church. They were to deliver us to reveal...
to both, but to judge other than those of the
other, or the ministries of others. But we are
to be honest about one another's conduct. And
here he says that they were to honestly baseball
was taking place, and to deliver up this warning.
to say that there really is no benefit in belonging
to church, but the apostle Paul says, yes there
is. There is a benefit. And that benefit is that
there is a protection. And here he says, we remove
that protection from this one so that Satan may
have at him. Place him outside the sphere of
your church into the sphere of Satan, he says.
In fact, the Bible tells us that discipline is
not inconsistent with love. If we love our children,
we will discipline them. Because God loves us,
he chases us. church that physically stands in
its midst in the church down below. He has expressed,
and he's doing it with his authority, for the
best of whatever that might be in the name of
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the
means that he has delegated to us that ordinance.
Thank you very much. instead of feeling the explicit
pain that he needed to feel in order, hopefully,
to be brought to his senses. And so he tells
them that as a body of people they are responsible
to gather all of them to support this action.
How would they have been able to do it with awareness?
Call it selfless therapy in spirit. because I
want you to be aware that I am here with you,
so I am absolutely bodily. I am there to the
content of this epistle, and I have entered my
judgment by this letter. There was no one aware
of what they were doing, what God wanted them
to do, and forth they were to do it with power.
to come to us. Now look at the context, though.
Because the context very real is discipline,
and we're going to take that. And therefore,
the steps of discipline have been followed, and
often only one has to be passed out in the center.
He says, I am there with you, if you have action.
If only two or three of you are there, I am in
the midst. And here, he also says, you are to
be. the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now why
am I going to do this? The verse 5 is intended
for the salvation of the longer. It is for the
destruction of the class Y, so that that Christian
the chapter 11 of the same epistle. He who eats
and drinks before his table, eats and drinks
judgment to himself if he does not judge his
body rightly. For such reasons many among you
are weak and sick, and they number weak everything
inside. The false call is pointing to a fact.
you and I want you to take this action for this
reason, for the salvation of the long -awaited
event, even though his body may be destroyed
in the end, his spirit will be slain in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It makes it clear that
any valid truth... to help on the salvage of
the revenue or able to take protection files.
For the sake of the church, work the 6th through
8th. To illustrate the destructive effects of
critical attitudes and behavior policies, you
must deal with this. You send us long enough.
I think that is the best way to escape from the
weather. If there's air pollution, people won't
get the car. Man, you've seen the awful effects
of anyway what we love cars. Cars are passed
over as a sacrifice for them. That will be the
wire of the lemon and the illness of your lips,
you say. Then you're going to talk to your husband.
what they call the feast here. He says, let us
celebrate the feast. That Old Testament feast
is a picturary trifle. There are lines that would
be like that for salvation. He says, keep the
feast. It would be important to collect them
within the body and eat on Christ. Dallas refers
to his viciousness in his heart. The character,
the word wickedness, talks about work with the
outward expression of the malice of the heart,
but that's not the way for you. The letter observes
the sequence of clarity, purity, and with truth,
meaning integrity. And so here we see how Paul
waves out within the action of expected. the
walk they wouldn't do. help to bring destruction
to an individual and to a church. This is the
first one. We call it as nominous and take it
for granted that we could never be the center.
We would want to make it very spiritual and a
leader at one point in time. I don't want them
up here looking to kill. permeates the planet
to produce decay. And an individual will start
in the most first, but then he will spread to
the whole most, and all of it will be contained.
The Holy Spirit will come to us, and out of love
for this finger is our heart, and point from
its abandonment. And that's the way it is in
the old days. Immediately when God makes us aware,
we need to accept it and not have it just covered
over with our spirit. If we fail to listen to
the Holy Spirit, And hopefully we will be able
to do other things. We will be able to do that
on the floor, and there will be an admonition
and a warning to us. If we do not do that, it
will be pressing again, and this will be the
end of the job. The results will be catastrophic.
The most beneficial barrier that I can think
of is... how dangerous and destructive it is
and how God keeps it. David Blaynard, over a
long distance, Blaynard met a photo of me. He
was a missionary in the American Indians. He
lived a short life, died in his early 30s. But
it took time to write him down, so he fought.
In a journal, he saw the effect of life delivering
I found that when my people were threatened by
disgrace even though forgotten of Christ and
yet crucified, I had no need to give the destruction
of that morality. I found that one followed as
sure and inevitable for the other. I find my
Indians began to put on the garments of holiness.
Your common life begins to be sanctified even
if it's small matters when they are possessed
by the offspring of Christ and can crucify. We
have to change the false video for you to play
with us today. If we will not have our eyes on
Jesus, we will not allow If we take them off
again, then we'll be in trouble. So today, that
is my plea to all of us, every one of us, to
simply make sure our eyes are on you. And we
will go swallowing in a wonderful face and then
we'll sing the verse. So let's pray if we can.
I don't know why this isn't -