Directed Discipline

We're in 1 Corinthians 5 today. We're continuing this series from Matthew 18 regarding the church discipline. So let me read verses 1 through 4 and 9 to 13. 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 the body, I am present in the spirit. And 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 our 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. Now dropping to verse 9.

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 am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is 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 who you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. You may be seated. We're in week three of a sermon series about church discipline. And to summarize, I don't want to take a 15-minute thing to remind you what we already went over.

But I do find sometimes review is helpful for people and often as the introduction to this week. I want to remember that Jesus Christ is the head of the church. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. And because we are the church, we are under his authority. He is the one who tells us the rules. He's the one who tells us how to act.

And thankfully, because he's perfectly good and all wise, everything he tells us is the very best thing that we can be told. So it's not like when you go get advice from your friends or even from your pastor, and there's always some part of you that knows, wow, that's fallible advice. There could be some better advice out there, technically. When God tells us how to act and how to behave, he is 100% always spot on.

Secondly, I want to remind you that discipline in our mind, I think, in our context, and maybe not yours, maybe this is just the way I've heard it, discipline is often immediately associated with excommunication. And in fact, we're going to talk about purging the evil person from among the church today. And so I want to remind you that discipline is all of those little moments where we're provoking one another to good works.

It's all those little moments where we say to someone, hey, I think maybe you were off on this. Or maybe theologically there's something going on in your life where you're believing something that's causing you to act a way that is not the way I would have you behave. and so it's all these little moments of loving one another enough to care about them and in some sense it's in the same way that you might love somebody enough to tell them that you think that they should change their diet or exercise or things of that sort sometimes it's very hard to look at someone and say hey you need to do something different in your life but we care about your health and so we might tell them you know maybe a more extreme example is when you have interventions when people are drug users or when people are as the world calls it, an alcoholic. And we have interventions because we care about people's physical health and their life.

So spiritually we have the same type of thing that we need to think about is that we all want to grow spiritually and so we need each other to do that. And discipline in its beginning forms is just admonishing one another, loving one another, provoking one another to good works. Not envying one another. Not becoming conceited. All of the one another's in scripture, when you boil it down, they're forms of discipline.

So we use the word discipline strictly as a negative sometimes. When a parent says, I'm giving my kid discipline, I don't know how many people in here would think that might mean a number of things. And what I mean by that is if the parent says, I have to go give my kid discipline, we usually assume it means they're going to go spank them. but having your kid miss out on an event they wanted to go to is also a form of discipline having your kid wake up in the morning early one day to get something finished is discipline you know was the bird had his boys moving bricks as a form of discipline discipline doesn't always mean the rod discipline just means simply training so we're training one another so the third part of the series is discipline is directed towards the purity of the church so we talked about it being deliberate I need you guys to be deliberate about it in fact I was I was informed that there was something going on in this church that I really didn't know anything about and that the sermons that I preach, like help people to kind of get through it or something like that.

I don't really know what happened. And that's part of the point, I think, of members doing discipline with one another is the pastor doesn just become effectively just the teacher that everyone tattles on as brother or sister to And so it a wonderful thing when we disciplining one another So we're deliberate about it, we're also discreet. So we practice discretion in this case.

I still don't know what happened, whatever it was, it doesn't matter. And I don't have any bad thoughts about anyone because nobody came to me and said, oh, hey, did this happen? Can you just give me some advice? But in the process, you're poisoning your brother or sister's mind about the other person when you do those kinds of things. So we try to be discreet.

What we really hope for when there's any kind of discipline involved is the restoration of the other person. And if that person is going to be restored to fellowship with you, you certainly don't want to break their fellowship with someone else in the process. So turn to Galatians 6. We're going to look at a few different verses here. And then we will land back into 1 Corinthians 5.

So this is, you can truly say this is not an expositional sermon from the perspective of the 1 Corinthians verse I read at the beginning. But discipline is directed towards the purity of the church. And that is really twofold. And there's a third element of it that I'm going to talk about today. The first idea is that it's directed toward the restoration of the offender.

If there's someone in the church who is living in sin, our goal is to assist them to overcome that sin and to achieve some form of practical holiness in this life that the church may be more pure. Jesus Christ desires a pure bride. Paul wants to present the church to Jesus blameless. And so it's part of our goal to work with one another to try to help each other to, practically speaking, have a more holy life.

Now, everybody in here will sin until the day you die. There is a reality to the way we are that we will sin until the day we die. To pretend that we will not see measurable improvement in our holiness in this life is completely contradictory to the Word of God. Let me say that again. to pretend that we will not see measurable improvement in our practical holiness is totally contradictory to the Word of God.

In fact, one of the reasons why our religion has been so perverted by, I wanted to say cult, but Roman Catholicism truly isn't a cult, I guess, but one of the reasons our religion has been so perverted into other religions that promote works so much is that our religion truly does talk a lot about works. You were preordained for good works, according to Ephesians 2.10, as the result of your salvation, which is by grace through faith. The only way that we can really recognize a person as truly a Christian is that they bear good works that keep with their repentance that they professed.

And so works are an important element of the Christian faith. There's an entire chapter of our confession about good works that explains these things. So I'm going to trust that people will read that if they have questions. at no point, if you walk out of here and you think, wow, Pastor Michael just told me that I'm saved by my works. You weren't listening.

You're saved by the righteousness of Christ alone. And what I'm going to tell you is that if you've been saved by the righteousness of Christ alone, as Calvin said, faith alone saves, but saving faith is never alone. You're going to have practical things you do. So, we want to restore people to not only to fellowship in the church, but we want to help them with their practical holiness.

I'd like to believe that if I asked you hey tell me about the person you were one year ago that one of the things you'd be able to say is wow I'm glad I'm not that guy anymore I'm glad I'm different from what I was a year ago and if you can't say that I'm afraid maybe you're not growing enough I'm not saying there won't be periods where we have slow growth and I'm not saying we won't ever have a backslide to use the term people. I hope you understand what I mean. But what I'm saying is that the general progression of your life should be growth in your holiness.

So in Galatians 6, 1 and 2, Paul writes, Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in the spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Turn to Hebrews 10. I only read that just to show you a little bit of a survey that restoration is the goal of discipline.

For some people you can hear it in the way they talk about others. You can maybe sense it in your own heart at times. For some people the discipline that happens within the church context in their mind is designed to just get rid of people. And as much as I hope God keeps people away from this church that are unreasonable and wicked, I hope that there are no wolves that come in not sparing this flock.

As much as I hope that God would perform that, like our goal when somebody comes into our midst is that they would be brought closer to Christ. That on the day that Christ returns, they would be standing with us rejoicing in that. That's our goal, even for the person in the church that is the hardest one for you to get along with. even for the person who just rubs you the wrong way even for the person who you think well man they don't really even seem to totally believe the confession you know our goal is always restoration we really want people to come to their senses and to do the right things so in Hebrews 10 let's read some verses here starting in 24 deliberate discipline is here and let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works It kind of a nice little phrase I just toss it out Bert can verify this with the Greek but I think the word more is like instigate or provoke Stir up doesn't sound very incendiary as instigate or provoke, but that's not the point of today's message.

And let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works. not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day draw near it's classic verse used to explain you go to church okay this verse is one of the reasons some of us aren't going to other churches right now because we were at churches that stopped meeting when when mike dewine said quit meeting and so we don't neglect to meet together well why? because we're going to encourage one another when we meet together and then the author writes for if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversary so here we are, we're reading this passage that he's writing to the church he says in 28 anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of just two or three witnesses how much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified listen to this and has outraged the spirit of grace now I know there's been some debate on what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit it is. But I'll tell you what, if you apostatizing and walking away from the faith that you've been taught outrages the spirit of grace, which is the context of this passage, then certainly it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And so here we are.

The author tells us, consider how to stir one another up to love and good works. And don't neglect the meeting together because of all the things that follow. Because there are going to be people who they neglect to meet together. This is what a lot of us would consider a very minor sin and that's skipping church on Sunday. Now there's a little more to this.

He's talking about people that utterly are denying the faith here. But he's describing that in the context of people who refuse to go meet with the other Christians. So he's not saying these are people that raised their hands and said, by the way, I deny the faith, I'm no longer a Christian, and then they get a book deal with Oprah or one of those kinds of people.

He's not talking about those types. He's talking about the people that just sort of stopped showing up because, well, there's people there I don't like. This guy offended me. Our confession actually has a whole paragraph about how if you're in the middle of some kind of disciplinary situation and there's a bunch of tension and difficulty, that you are not allowed to skip church as a result.

It's chapter 26 that says that. So I always say Paul when I'm teaching Hebrews, because I always thought it was Paul, and I hear some guy definitively say it couldn't have been Paul, and then I feel kind of weird. But I know people that think it's Paul too. But the author is saying, look, the people that neglect to come together and edify one another and encourage one another and admonish one another and frankly just do the one another's with one another.

Those are the ones who we actually just look at and assume, wow, you're going on sinning deliberately after getting a knowledge of the truth and God's going to repay you. And so we have this idea here that church discipline is designed for the purity of the church. So the people that decide to go away from church, you reach out to them. And this is true of people in any kind of transgression or sin.

But you reach out to them and you tell them this is the right thing to do, brother. Hey, sister, this is the right thing to do. And then they decide what they're going to do. and the church becomes purified because people come back to church who belong there and Lord willing, people that don't belong there won't. Now if God wants to have a devil among us, he will.

It's a frightful thing. But we hope that he would bring regenerate people to our church membership. Secondly, if you see somebody coming to church on a regular basis, no matter how difficult that person is no matter how different they are from you no matter how different their upbringing was they do things that you were told hey, just don't do that you bear with that person in love you actually seek fellowship with them and it is through that actually sort of grinding together maybe of two different personalities and two different peoples even people groups maybe that you will sanctify one another because iron sharpens iron as one brother sharpens another and so you come to church and you work with each other on things and you're open to things that's why we have our little men's group and we're going to read a book but at men's group one of the things we hope to do is talk about some of the hard things too you know and talk about confess things that are difficult and so you come to church and you hear preaching and I'm not it's always weird for a pastor or preacher to say these kinds of things I don't want you to like run up and hug me or pat me on the back after and all those things like that but there a point where the reason I saying the things is to change you Okay if you were all right you wouldn really need to be at church You see what I'm saying?

You're here because as Bert prayed, we need by God's grace to be continuously sanctified because we can't even help but sin. You know, the best man that ever lived that wasn't Jesus Christ couldn't do anything but sin apart from God's grace. and I'm talking about on a moment by moment basis we are constantly sinning without knowing it sometimes just because our flesh is pulling us in the wrong direction and so we come together and you hear the preaching of God's word and you have a choice when you hear it you can sit and argue with it you can say oh well that guy doesn't know me or you can say he knows me too well that was unfair that he said that from the pulpit. That's a great one.

The more I get to know people, the more ideas come in my head of things I can preach about. And then don't get so offended by it. If you don't like it, repent. Or if you legitimately question, hey, did you teach something wrong? Well, talk about it. Like I am so open to just talking about these things.

It's crazy. I know I might come across a little strong. So you might be, it might be fearful to art. seem like you're arguing with me because I'm such a type A guy, but really I just love to talk about these things. I love to open up books. I'm so excited about the book, The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology, that we're going to read as a men's group.

I'm so excited about it because we're just going to sit around and talk about theology. We're going to talk about what God has revealed in his word. And I think that's super exciting. And you know what? I think there's going to be times we're going to have some things where we disagree or maybe we don't understand each other. And that's okay.

We'll figure it out. You want to talk about God's law? We've got how do we worship God? What's an idol? How do we obey the Sabbath? What constitutes blasphemy?

You just look at the first four commandments and we can have a million questions come up. Well, how do these apply to our lives? And you know what? Some of us are from different traditions that may have allowed certain things. And some of us are from other traditions that maybe didn't. And we're going to knock heads a little bit.

And we have to sit down, open the Word of God, and decide what, for the sake of the purity of the church, so discipline is directed towards the church's purity, how do we decide what has God really said? And then we just do it. A person emailed me this week or texted me this week and asked me if images of Jesus, like the incarnate Christ, if those were a violation of the second commandment or idolatry or something like that.

And I can just tell by the person's question that they'd never heard this before. or if they had it hadn't been spoken of as seriously as I would and I explained it the best I could and the goal is that I don't want the person to feel bad but at the same time my hope was that the person literally repented and said wow I don't ever want to do this again I used to have images of I never liked images of Jesus frankly but I never was bothered by them from a second commandment standpoint until I became reformed When I became Reformed, I had to repent of all of the times that I had allowed that stuff. And so that's just part of how we grow. So turn to 2 Thessalonians 3.

2 Thessalonians, that's hard to say. 2 Thessalonians 3.6. We're going to get to the bullet point too. So bullet point one. Discipline is directed towards the purity of the church. And bullet point one is, it's in order to purify the church. that is to actually make the church members more pure.

It's to actually help you to be holy in this life, your practical holiness. You already have the perfect holiness of Christ before God for your justification. But the first point is, is we want to restore people so that the church might be more holy. And it's a weird way to put it, but when Jesus comes, the less he has to clean up, the better for us, right?

You know, that's what one of the arguments people have against tattoos is God's probably going to wipe it off anyway. Why put one on in the first place? You know, it won't cost God a beat of sweat to wipe your tattoos off or whatever. So no big deal. But the second purpose of discipline that is directed towards the purity of the church is to cast out those who do not belong.

So we want the church to be purified. That happens by taking the dirty elements in the church. That's us and cleaning us a little bit. So now we're cleaner. Now we're a little more holy. We, you know, maybe we look a little nicer.

Maybe, you know, wear a shirt and tie when you preach, you know, something like that, right? There's some things we do different, practically speaking, that are not just incidental like a shirt and tie. But secondly, we actually want to do discipline in such a way where we're trying to restore people. We're trying to tell people we want the best for you.

We want to hope in your profession of faith that you have professed. But the way that you are behaving has actually made it so that you're a detriment to the church. And you're showing yourself to be a non-believer. And so the last stage of discipline, we talked about this last week. That was the one that wasn't recorded. So if you're an internet only person, sorry.

But the last stage was when we excommunicate someone. When the church votes to say this person should be treated as a Gentile and a tax collector. Or in our case, just a non-believer. this tax collector is still a really good synonym for sinner in any culture probably right but once we do that our goal is we hope that that person will be turned over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh and be restored but ultimately we don't know but the other hope is if that person is truly we'll say a devil like Judas was we'll actually be very glad that we got rid of him not because we don't love the person not because we don't hope the best for them, not because we don't still hope that they're elect and come to us. one day, but we're happy for the church's sake that that person's gone.

We're happy if a predator who would prey on children is gone. We're happy if a person who would bring in divisive or false teaching is gone. We're happy if a person who would live a lascivious life and even influence other people or the children is gone. Not for the sake of kicking people out, but if they refuse to repent and refuse to follow the confession that they've agreed to.

We are happy about that. So in 2 Thessalonians 3 6, just to give you an idea of how serious this was to Paul. Now we command you brothers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you keep away from any brother. Now this is pretty intense. Keep away from any brother. So it's probably going to be like murder and rape and what's another real bad one, right?

It's got to be bad stuff. He says, any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. This is just a guy that's living on welfare, basically. That doesn't mean everybody ever accepts government assistance. That's not my point here. This is the person who the habit of their lifestyle is idleness.

This guy is capable of working. He's not getting up and working and he's going to church and he's expecting other people to take care of him. And we've all probably, I hope, I assume we've all known people like this by now, but I've known lots of them. I was part of a group at one point where it was kind of, well I'll just say it's called Alcoholics Anonymous.

I repented of that. I'm not part of it now. I don't endorse it whatsoever. But I was part of Alcoholics Anonymous and it was a great place for poor people to show up because they would just pray on all the new guys who who were feeling so guilty for the way they were living that if a homeless guy asked you for ten bucks, you just gave it to him because it made you feel better about yourself.

Don't walk in idleness, but the point here is that Paul says keep away from them. If you're going to keep away from them, you're certainly not inviting them to church, right? You're certainly not sitting next to him at the fellowship meal. and if the church decides hey we got to keep away from this guy because we actually believe that what's best for him according to our lord and savior jesus christ to whom god gave all authority in heaven and on earth according to him what's best for him is that he be turned over to satan so that his flesh will be destroyed and that he'll miss being with the believers of the church so much and he'll miss the means of grace at the table and he'll miss the preaching of the word and he'll miss singing the songs together and he'll miss hearing the book of Revelation read that that person will actually come back.

That's the hope you have. And if you're going to keep inviting that guy over to your house once a week and you're going to have maybe something you call a Bible study with him, you're going against the Lord Jesus Christ. And you're going against his church. And so we need to take it seriously and do it together. It's a serious thing. So back to 1 Corinthians now.

1 Corinthians 5. a lot of people, it's kind of a famous chapter because it's kind of salacious what's going on here I guess, I don't know, maybe that's the wrong word but it's pretty evil, this guy is committing sexual immorality so he's basically with his dad's wife and because of the phraseology instead of it being his own mother a lot of people assume it must be his stepmother, but either way Paul's point in the passage is this is so perverted even the people of Corinth think it's bad it's of Corinth where they would have had like temple prostitution and all sorts of stuff right even the people of Corinth think this is bad and these people aren't handling it properly they're actually excited they're so welcoming right we're so welcoming and salvation is by grace through faith alone so it's not of works and they make this big deal about the fact that it's not of works, it's just by faith. And they commit the error of antinomianism where they believe that there's no real law we have to follow because the law couldn't save us. The law goes away when you get saved is the way that they see things.

But instead, the gospel sweetly complies with the law. It says in our confession, chapter 19. And when you believe the gospel, Your eyes are actually open to how the law couldn't save you, but your eyes are open to how beautiful it is because it's a reflection of who God is. And so anyway, not to get into antinomianism and all these things with you, there are people who will pervert the grace of God into licentiousness and sensuality.

They'll take the fact that salvation is only by faith, and they'll make it mean, well, now I can do anything I want. And that as horrible of an error as the Roman Catholic error that says that it not by faith alone They both basically soul condemning in the end These people were supposed to see this man for what he was. An unrepentant, sexually immoral man.

Someone who should be purged from the church. And so Paul tells them in verse 4. when you're assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus again Matthew 28 all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me so when we act as the church we're acting in his authority when we do the things he said to do in his word we're basically just acting in his authority and my spirit is present Paul's saying my spirit's going to be with you I'm with you in this like when you go and you do this thing I'm encouraging you, I'm with you too. That's a nice moral support.

Have you ever been somewhere and you knew that somebody was praying for you? Or you knew that somebody had your back, that if you went into that situation and it didn't go well, you knew that when you came out, your buddy was still going to be on your side, even if you lost that battle. And I know for wives, that's really big for husbands to have wives that support them.

So don't say, if my wife's on my side, I can face the whole world. And if my wife wasn't on my side, it wouldn't matter if the whole world was. I'd be devastated. But he says, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. And he says, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. So there is a sense that Paul is telling them, you desire his restoration.

This guy who's committing abominable deeds that you should actually be so embarrassed about, it should have already happened. You should still be hopeful that by you taking the right actions as a church, he will repent. He will see the errors of his ways as the result of the authority of Christ being exercised toward him, and he will turn back to the Lord.

And then chapter, well, we'll just go down to 7. Cleanse out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. He says, let us celebrate the festival not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the leaven of unleavened bread, unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Leaven is often used in Scripture as an analogy for sin.

The only time when Jesus says the kingdom of God is like leaven that was put in bread and soon the whole thing was leavened. But leaven leavens an entire lump. That's what Galatians says. A little bit of leaven and a big loaf of bread will leaven the whole thing eventually. And a little bit of sin in even a large church will eventually spread. And so he says, don't associate with these people.

And now he's got a little side note. He's like, I'm not saying don't associate with people of the world who do these things. basically says that if I told you don't associate with sinners, you'd just never be able to go anywhere, right? We live in a world of sinners. He clarifies. I'm not telling you that. He's saying don't associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he's guilty of all these things.

Sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, reviling, drunkenness, swindling. He says don't even eat with such a one. you don't even go out to lunch with this guy but you have to you let them know as the church this is what we believe we are following what the Lord said and it's hard for us you can let the person know that you're grieved but you care more about their eternity than temporarily hurting them but then Paul says purge the evil person from among you there is a point where one of the reasons why we have church discipline is eventually we hope that if we're constantly admonishing one another, if we're encouraging one another, if we're constantly having theological discussions, if basically we're semper reformanda, if we're always reforming, we will get to the point where you and I will both continuously grow in holiness, grow in our unity and love for one another, and even sometimes in disagreement, we will find wow I can love you more now knowing that we're in some disagreement about something that is not essential to our church covenant but then also in that process we will eventually there will be some chaff weeded out okay so you not looking for the chaff you not trying to you not looking okay we have nine members okay you not thinking okay who the devil like i don want you to do that that not the point here there's people who do that i don't want you to do that but you look at the other eight members and you love them and you try to be in fellowship with them intentionally deliberately for the purity of the church itself. Finally, one side effect of all this.

Turn to 1 Timothy 5. And then I'll read a bunch of quotes from guys that said stuff better than I could. It is amazing, the whole plagiarism scandal. I hate to bring it up again, but I guess I don't. because if God wanted us to plagiarize it, it would be easy because some of the best sermons ever written were already written. And we could just get up and read other guys some of whom are way smarter than any preacher today is.

I mean, it would be so easy to do that. And it would be arguably better to listen to Charles Spurgeon preach on this text than me. And it technically may be, I may go down in history as not better than Spurgeon. That's okay. No one else will either. But the point is this.

God ordained preaching to be a live activity between one man who studied the text, poured over the text, prayed over the text, and then came and poured out what is in his heart that God the Holy Spirit put there to the people of that one congregation, or as many as you maybe go preach a sermon. And that's the purpose of it, is it's this live activity where the Spirit's at work during our worship in a unique way that's different than if I just read, you know, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was arguably the greatest sermon anyone ever preached. It was one of the most impactful people said because he preached it in Northampton, England.

No, I probably said it wrong. But the story goes that when Jonathan Edwards preached sinners in the hands of an angry God, that by the time he was finished, there were people like clinging to their chair, afraid they were about to fall into hell. I mean, it was so real, the picture he had painted at the time. And people got saved and there was, you know, the great awakening.

But, you know, Jonathan Edwards preached that sermon in like six different places, I heard, too, though. and there's only one of those places where the special work of the Spirit is reported so the same sermon in the same time period didn't seem to didn't seem to have the same effect on people down the street, let's put it that way so we, God ordained preaching a certain way and plagiarizing is just worthless unless you want to build a fake church but we'll get into that another day 1 Timothy 5.20 disciplines directed toward the purity of the church one, to purify those who actually belong to the church the elect, two, to cast out those who do not belong there's a process where we can actually cleanse out something that doesn't belong still again in the hopes that they're restored, but one final thing verse 20 of chapter 5 1 Timothy, as for those who persist in sin rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear. It is a warning to the rest of the people of God when we get to what I'll call the extreme points of discipline that you know that we take it seriously. So the person sitting in their seat and they're just dipping their toes in the water of some sin, maybe they're just chatting with a woman and it's not their wife on the phone, but they're not actually thinking they're going to go out with her.

Or maybe they're just lying a little bit on their time card at work and thinking no one will notice. Or maybe they just skipped one Sunday a year to go deer hunting. Whatever it happens to be, right? There's a lot of different sins and applications of God's law that could come up. If you see a person have to see it in front of the church and either confess sin to the church and publicly repent of it, which would be wonderful, or if we have to announce that this person, we are now bringing a charge of persistent sin against them that they are not repenting of, that should be a warning to people in the seats that have not yet gotten to that point in their sin.

You should be rightfully fearful that that sin could overtake you as well Neglecting discipline is the spiritual equivalent of abandoning exercise and eating nothing but junk food. Except avoiding biblical spiritual discipline will destroy you eternally rather than only physically. You look at your spiritual discipline, which comes between the one another's for the most part, If you neglect those things, you can think of it as a far worse punishment you actually do to yourself than if you had just eaten nothing but junk food.

There's no parent in here that gives their kids nothing but junk food. Because you know it will kill them. And yet some of us give our kids nothing but spiritual junk food, but hopefully not. Hopefully not in this room. Okay, a couple of quotes from Better Men Than I Am. John Calvin on Hebrews 10 about the not forsaking the assembling together.

This is great. Having said not forsaking the assembling together, he adds, but exhorting one another by which he intimates that all the godly ought by all means possible to exert themselves in the work of gathering together the church on every side. for we are called by the Lord on this condition now listen this is interesting that everyone should afterwards after you're called by the Lord strive to lead others to the truth restore wandering to the right way extend a helping hand to the fallen and win over those who are without the Lord but if we ought to bestow so much labor on those who are yet aliens to the flock of Christ how much more diligence is required in exhorting the brethren whom God has already joined to us this point is that you have so much effort outward to your neighbors and to do evangelism there's a lot of important work God's given us and yet the coming to your own church and working with people is even more important now here's Spurgeon on church purity another cause of mourning is when we see the holiness of the visible church be clouded. Oh, I wasn't going to tell you this was Spurgeon because, now I remember, I was going to have you have to think about it because this could be said today.

But Spurgeon was saying this 130 years ago, 140 years ago. When we see the holiness of the visible church be clouded, I trust I am not given to finding fault where fault there is not, but I cannot open my eyes without seeing things done in our churches which, 30 years ago, were not so much as dreamed of. In the manner of amusements, professors have gone far in the way of laxity.

What is worse, the churches have now conceived the idea that it is their duty to amuse the people. Dissenters who used to protest against going to the theater now cause the theater to come to them. Where is the holiness of the church of God today? Ah, were she what she professed to be, she would be fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and then terrible as an army with banners.

But now she is dim as smoking flax, and rather the object of ridicule than of reverence. So these are excerpts from a longer sermon. So he just criticizes the church, saying the church is in church. And now he says, may we not add to this our own failures in the matter of holiness. It is easy enough to drag the whole church up as I did just now and scourge her as she well deserves.

But it is not so easy for each guilty person to flagellate himself. Yet this is what is needed. Ask, have I been as holy as I should be? Has my house been ordered to write? Is their family prayer observed, not as a matter of form, but in life and power? am I towards my children towards my husband towards my wife towards my servants as I ought to be are we as upright and generous as we should be in our business and in our connection with common daily life oh sirs we may each of us become mourners with the church of God if we examine ourselves with care let me pray father in heaven we do ask that you would cause us to be self examiners even as we talk about discipline and admonishing one another let us remember the command of Christ to get the log out of our own eye first before we would go to our brother to take a speck out of his eye help us to grow in our love in the unity of the bond of peace that this church may thrive according to your word in Christ's name I pray Amen