The Harder Side of Church Discipline

Transcript

Good morning. If we’ve not met, my name is Greg Taylor. I serve as one of the lay pastors here. This morning we’ll continue in our series going through 1 Corinthians. If you’ll please open up your Bible this morning to 1 Corinthians 5. This is the 9th sermon in this series, and I think we’ve mapped out 33. So that’s kind of where we’re at. 9 of 33. And this section this morning I’m calling the harder side of church discipline. And I was feeling kind of bad—what a drag for the moms that on Mother’s Day they have to hear this. You know, but this is what happens when you preach expository verse by verse through the Bible, right? You sometimes land the plane on a place where you really just have no choice. This is where the plane lands today. And this harder side of church discipline

is, if you will, a worst case scenario that requires immediate and difficult action to be taken. And it’s very, very different than what normally happens in church discipline situations where it’s a very slow process, and it usually just happens between two people. And it’s where the level of scandal and the seriousness of the sin is much less. It’s not like what we see here. So anyway, if you’ll open up to 1 Corinthians 5, I’m going to read the entire chapter for us this morning. If you don’t have a Bible, there should be one under the seat in front of you. And this text will be found on page 897. And if I could ask you to please stand for the reading of the word of God, hear now God’s word to you.

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans. For a man has his father’s wife, and you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit. And as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled, in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of 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. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven, that you

may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I 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 whom you are to judge?

God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Well, let’s pray as we get started this morning. Our Father and our God, we know that this is a tough text about a very difficult situation. And yet we know that it offers us much to learn, much to think about. We pray that you will fill us with the Holy Spirit to have soft hearts and attentive minds to hear what it is that you would have us to know from this text this morning, what it is you would have us to learn and put into practice. We thank you for your word. We trust in it and pray this will bring you glory. We ask this all in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Problem of Perversity

Well, every two years, Lifeway Research and Ligonier Ministries does a survey of Americans. And they do this survey of both Christians and non-Christians. And they do this to gauge what they call the state of theology in America. And what they’re primarily trying to see in this survey is what are the overall theological beliefs of the average American evangelical, comparing that to what does the culture believe. So I want us to look at a few of the findings from the last survey, which was done in 2022. The 24 survey is not completed yet. So this is almost two-year-old information. First question, everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature. True or false? Well, 66% of people in the United States said that’s true. Among evangelicals, 55% said that’s true. So what does that tell us? Well, that tells us that Christians in America have been deeply influenced by secular humanism.

It teaches us that man is basically good. He’s born a blank slate. He’s born good, and he only becomes bad because of his environment. So the Bible would say, nah, all we like sheep have gone astray. There is none good. Next question. Gender identity is a matter of choice, true or false. Well, 42% of Americans said that’s true. Among evangelicals, 33% said that’s true. Well, what does that tell us? Well, that tells us on one hand that things aren’t quite as bad as some would have us to believe, but it’s pretty concerning that 33% of people who identify as evangelical Christians agree with that statement. Because what does our Bible say about that? The Bible says, and Jesus Himself said that in the beginning, God created them male and female. There are two genders. You’re either an XX or an XY. And that doesn’t change depending on how you feel.

How about the next question? Religious belief is a matter of personal opinion. It’s not about objective truth. 62% of Americans said that’s true. Among evangelicals, 38% said that’s true. Well, what does that tell us? Well, that tells us that many people have bought into this lie that truth is relative. Your truth is whatever you want it to be. You know, it’s Oprah Winfrey. It’s Opranity, somebody’s called it. You just live according to your own truth. Truth is what you want it to be. Well, what does Scripture say? Well, Scripture teaches us that the gospel, the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, is based on historical facts. It’s truth. And all the Bible is ultimately pointing to God’s redemptive plan in Christ. Last question for you. Sex outside traditional marriage is a sin. True or false? 53% of Americans said true. Among evangelicals, 77% said true.

Now, that’s pretty interesting if you think about it. Because that tells us that people innately know some right from wrong, right? And Romans teaches us that humans have to suppress the truth and unrighteousness to engage in some of these levels of sin that we see in our world today. And I think this should give us a little bit of hope that 77% of evangelical Christians haven’t lost their minds on this topic. But we can’t say that about the Corinthians, I’m sorry to say. My guess is if there was a survey like this that was given in the first century, the Corinthians’ answers would have been just about identical to that of the world’s.

The church in our day, just like the church in Corinth, is negatively affected and influenced by the world. And this plays itself out in the church’s thinking and the church’s practice. The church has a pretty anemic Christian worldview. Now, the Corinthians, they were using worldly standards to judge right and wrong versus taking the things that Paul and others had taught them from the scriptures to be their guide. These Corinthians, they thought, man, we are so progressive, and we are cool, and we’re understanding. And they were willing to look the other way at gross perversion that was not even tolerated by the pagans. Let that sink in for a minute. Now, Paul, in writing this part of this letter to the Corinthians, is seeking to show them the importance of not allowing unrepentant sin to gain a foothold in the church. Paul tells them they’re arrogant,

that they’re boastful, and he gives them a series of seven commands to help to remedy this situation and to prevent future situations like this from becoming an issue. And as we look in and dig into these 13 verses this morning, we’re going to see that unrepentant sin must be dealt with by the church. And this is for the good of the sinner. It is for the purity of the church. And it is in obedience to God.

So you might ask, why does the church need to be involved in practicing church discipline? Well, Mark Dever helps us answer this question when he lists in his book Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. Church discipline is one of the nine marks that he lists in that book. And he says the following about church discipline. He says, it’s not surprising that the church is instructed to judge. After all, if we cannot say how a Christian should not live, how can we say how a Christian should live? We need to be able to show that there is a distinction between the church and the world, that it means something to be a Christian. If someone who claims to be a Christian refuses to live as a Christian should live, we need to follow what Paul said. And for the glory of God and for that person’s own good,

we need to exclude him or her from membership in the church. So for the rest of our time this morning, I want to show you five things that Paul points out to the Corinthians to help us understand the importance of church discipline, that if practiced well, will produce purity in the church and the restoration of backslidden people. So we’ll look at this in five sections. We’ll have the problem of perversity. That’s verses 1 to 3. We’ll have the need for public discipline in verses 4 and 5, purity in the church in verses 6 and 7, the way to produce gospel opportunities in verses 9 and 10, and then we’ll close out verses 11 to 13, looking at purging sin. So let’s look at our first point this morning, the problem of perversity. Look with me at verse 1. 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. Well, this word here for sexual immorality is one you’ve heard before from us. It’s the word porneia. And it primarily means fornication. But there is a stronger sense to this word that the hearer would have heard this to be any kind of sexual behavior that is outside of the bounds of marriage between one man and one woman. And despite what might be going on in public around us or what might be legal, this is the Christian sexual ethic. It’s really very simple. One man, one woman in a marriage. Now for obvious reasons, having some young ears in the room, I’m not going to go into great details about this man and his relationship. But I would encourage you all to write this down. Leviticus 18, verse 8, will explain this to you

really well. And you might want to read through Leviticus 18 because that chapter deals with a lot of these types of perversions that God forbids. Now I think we can say with accuracy that this man being called out is a member of the church there, right? And he’s fallen into some very serious sin. But if you notice, nothing is said about the woman, which tells us that she is likely not a Christian, not claiming to be a Christian. There’s no instructions given by Paul about her. And Paul says that this kind of sin is not even tolerated by pagans. How bad was that? We should be really thankful that in our culture, there are still things that are not tolerated by the pagans. That’s a good thing.

Now we know this must have been going on for quite some time because Paul either receives word via a letter or by some person visiting him where he was in Ephesus. But it would have taken quite a while for that to happen. So by the time Paul hears about this and then writes a letter and sends it back, this was probably months going on, which really makes our next verse more serious. Verse 2, and you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. So these Corinthians, they are just pridefully allowing this thing to go on for some time. And Paul calls them out. He says, you’re arrogant. You should be mournful over this. And friends, if we ever have to deal with something like this at Trinity Church, something that is so bad that it

requires us to do public church discipline like this is calling for, we should be extremely mournful. We should weep. And what this kind of sin does to people, what it does to families, what it does to the church’s reputation, there’s just not words for it. It’s so awful.

We recently found out about a family that we know. And the wife texted my wife. And she said, we’re going to have to sell our home. My husband has left me for another woman. And the day we heard that, we were just sick about it. There are little children all the way up to teenagers involved in this family. We know the woman to be a believer. I am not sure about the husband. I don’t know him well. But I just immediately, I just began praying for this family and for the church that this woman attends, that someone will get involved. That someone will do what needs to be done and sit that man down and tell him, you can’t do this. He needs to be confronted in his sin.

The effect that this man’s sin will have is like taking a rock and throwing it into a calm pond. And you see the ripples just go out. It’s so destructive. And that’s why Paul says, let him who has done this be removed from among you. So this man in Corinth needed to be sat down. He needed to be called out. And he needed to be told, you cannot come to church here until you repent and stop sinning this way. Now Paul, he’d already judged this situation. Look at verse 3. He says, for though absent in body, I am present in spirit. And as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. But this is Paul’s way of supporting them, of giving them the courage to go do what they must do. And what they’re going to have to do

Public Discipline Required

is to go now and practice public church discipline, which brings us to the second point, the need for public discipline. Look at verse 4 with me. Paul says, 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. So when he says this to the assembly, he’s talking about the church, its members. And we know Jesus is present in the church. Revelation 2 and 3 talks about Christ walks among the lampstands. That’s a metaphor for the churches. He knows what’s going on. He’s present. And Paul is with them in spirit. And they have the power of Christ behind them to do what needs to be done.

Think about Matthew 18.18. That’s a little section about church discipline. Jesus says, truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And what that means, according to one commentator, is that the church discipline decisions the church makes when it follows Jesus’ guidelines carefully and maintains a right attitude are in keeping with what has already been decided by God in heaven.

To say that the church is to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, it’s a bit puzzling, that statement. Some believe that it may involve bringing about a physical affliction upon this man. Paul talked about having a thorn in his flesh that was a messenger of Satan that was sent to buffet him. Job was tormented by Satan with God’s approval. We don’t know for sure. But whatever it is, it is to be done to remove this man’s assurance of salvation. It is to withhold the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. And it is to forbid fellowship with the saints in order to shock him into seeing his sin for what it is, for seeing his sin as God sees it, and to repent.

This is excommunication. This is when the local church has to say to somebody, we see you in unrepentant sin. And therefore, we cannot affirm you as a believer at this time. We don’t know the heart of people. Only the Holy Spirit knows the heart. But we do know this. A person cannot live this way and claim to be a Christian brother or sister and everything to just be OK. That’s not how it works. And that’s what the Corinthians were doing. You can think of the things they might have said. Oh, he’s such a nice guy. Oh, he’s so gifted. So gifted. I think he gives a lot of money. None of that matters. None of that matters. This guy has to be put out of the assembly by the assembly.

Sam quoted this morning, Bonhoeffer. He said, nothing can be more cruel than the tenderness that consigns another to his sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than that severe rebuke that calls a brother back from the path of sin. Friends, we must try never to be more compassionate than God. We don’t get to look the other way in the name of being inclusive or being loving, because that is not loving.

Notice the goal here is actually restorative. Paul says that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord there, that’s a reference to the final judgment. That’s when Christ returns. It’s the end of the age. And it is that in the final analysis, this man repents, thus proving that he was good seed in good soil. He is saved.

Church discipline is called for and discussed in many places in our New Testament. Matthew 18, Romans 16, 2 Corinthians 2 and 13, 2 Thessalonians 3, 1 Timothy 5, Titus 3, and Galatians 6. And in Galatians 6, Paul says,

brothers and sisters, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourselves, lest you too be tempted.

— Galatians 6

(ESV)

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Purity in the Church

So we have a duty, right? We have the Lord’s power and blessing. If we are staying within the scriptural guidelines that He’s given us to do church discipline, and we are to do that in a spirit of gentleness, keeping watch on ourselves. Putting someone out of the church who is living this way helps to achieve the next point which we’ll look at, which is purity in the church. In verses 6 and 7, look at verse 6 with me. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Well, this is a theme in God’s economy. You let in a little bit of sin, and it is infectious. Just like you get yeast in the dough, it goes through the whole lump of dough. Paul told this to the Galatians as he had to confront them over the false teaching

that they had led into the church. They were not protecting the what of the gospel. He said to them, he said, you were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from Him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. In Numbers 14, Moses sends the 12 spies out into what would be the promised land. And they come back, the 12. And 10 of the 12 come back with a bad report. We’re not going to be able to take this place! There are giants there. And only Caleb and Joshua had a good report. They said, no, we can do this. The Lord’s going to be on our side. Well, the 10 were so infectious to the rest of the people that they began to grumble against Moses and Aaron. And they said, oh, would that we had just

died in the land of Egypt. Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. The sin of cowardice is infectious. And much of what we see today going on is actually people just going along with the crowd in their sin. Romans 1 is very clear about this. Romans 1.29 says, they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. That’s frightening. And this is what the Corinthians were doing. They were approving of this gross perversion of unrepentant sin in the church. Look at verse 7. Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump,

as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Well, this is Paul reminding them who they are. That they are a new lump. They are new people because they are in Christ and because of what Christ has done for them. And this is really cool Old Testament imagery from the Passover where the Jews had to rid their houses of any yeast. They couldn’t have any yeast in the house, right? In order to celebrate Passover and to be taken out of Egypt. How often do you think about your fight against sin in this way? If you don’t, you should. Because you’re in Christ. You’re a new creation. You are changed. You’re no longer a slave to sin, as Paul told the Romans.

We celebrate the Lord’s Supper every week here. And we come to that table having examined ourselves and then we feast on Christ. And we remember what He has done for us. And I hope this will be motivating for you. This is what it means to celebrate the festival. That is to celebrate Christ. Notice here that Paul contrasts this leaven of being malice and evil and the unleavened bread that is sincerity and truth. And this is this call for the church to be pure, to be holy as God is holy. Peter emphasized this in his first letter. He said, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct since it is written, you should be holy for I am holy. So let’s be people who will do what needs to be done,

Gospel Opportunities

not out of spiritual pride, but for the purity of the church and for God’s glory. Now let’s look at our fourth point. The way to produce gospel opportunities. Look at verse 9 with me. Paul says, 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. What Paul’s doing here is he’s clearing up some confusion that they have from a previous letter that he had written to them. And they have been separating themselves from unbelievers who are living openly sinful lives. But Paul never said not to be around unbelievers. To do so would mean you couldn’t live in the world, right? Because those people are all around us. We are not to be monastic.

Christians are to live in the world, but not be of the world, right? James said, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever wishes to make himself a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Now I think Paul captured this in his letter to Titus about as good as there is in our New Testament. Listen to this to what he said in Titus 2. Paul said, the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, who are zealous for good works.

Then he says, declare these things. Exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. Right after this, in chapter 3 of Titus, he says, for we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us. Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. To kind of sum all this up, our attitude toward the sinners we live in and around is to be one of proclaiming Christ. It’s to be one of being light in the darkness. Because remember, we were once as they are now, in need of the saving truth of Jesus. Kim Rydelbarger says,

paganism often provides the needed justification to sin against nature. Throughout the Scriptures, Christians are commanded to live in purity according to a biblical sexual ethic. Christians endured this highly sexualized environment in Corinth while challenging pagans with the claims of Christ, even as we must do today. But we must do this carefully. And as James said, keep oneself unstained from the world. So I’ll ask you the question, how are you doing with this? Do you know your unbelieving neighbors? Do you get to know your unbelieving co-workers? Or do you just avoid people that are messed up and sinful? Do you try to create relationships that can at some point open up gospel conversations with people so that you can do what Paul says here, declare these things? They’re excellent and profitable for people. This is the truth of the Gospel the world desperately needs to hear from us.

And maybe you’re here this morning, and you have never come to Christ. Then you need to hear the things about Christ this morning. You see, this is a really unpopular truth, but the greatest danger that humanity faces is not nuclear war. It’s not climate change. It’s not a pandemic. It is the danger that this world faces from God Himself. Because everyone will someday have to stand before God. And to do so without Christ will be so terrible, I cannot put it into words. But God has made a way through His Son, the Lord Jesus, to forgive your sins and to give you eternal life. And you must repent of your sins, and that is to just admit that you know you have sinned against a holy God and that you need Jesus to be your Savior and to forgive you. If you got a bulletin when you came in this morning

Purging Sin

on page 5, there’s a little prayer in there called the Prayer of Belief. It’s something that we’ve written that if that resonates with you, it might be something we’d encourage you to think through and maybe pray that prayer to God today. There’s no magic in the prayer. It’s the position of your heart and your mind. And I want you to know you’re always welcome to come after the service and speak with any of us that you’ve seen up here this morning. We’d be delighted to have a conversation with you about what it means to become a Christian. Well, let’s look now at our last point. Purging sin. Look at verse 11 with me. 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 you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. Well, this closing section here really is meant to help us understand how we are to respond to immoral members in the church. Paul’s referring here to Christians. They’re people in the church who claim to be one of us, yet live in patterns of unrepentant and willful sin. Paul is saying that we must not associate with them as part of the exercising of church discipline. And this idea of not associating with someone under church discipline in this capacity really involves removing the kinds of things Christians do together. Right? So the community aspect of church cannot be extended to someone in this state. Notice Paul says not even to eat with such a one.

Well, this is because sharing a meal in their culture was a very intimate thing. So to invite someone to a meal, someone who’s been excommunicated, inviting them to a meal would be to say to the world, we’re okay with this person and their lifestyle. And notice that Paul gives a vice list here. Right? But on four of the six things here, he uses a personal noun for these things. Just indicating that he’s talking about these people as being just deep into these sins. He says someone guilty of sexual immorality or greed. Greed is to practice dishonest gain, to cut corners for your own financial gain. Paul then gives this list, idolater, reviler, drunkard, swindler. An idolater, quite simply, is somebody who puts things above God, who lives in a way where they’re just constantly putting things above God. A reviler could just easily be translated a slanderer,

someone who says untrue things about people in the church. We know this was being done to Paul from a couple of weeks ago when we looked at chapter four. Drunkard, pretty self-explanatory. This was a wine culture in Corinth. So drinking wine was a social norm. It would have been amongst the Jews as well. We have a lot of social drinking in our culture. And Paul’s talking about those who get drunk. He’s going to talk about drunkenness again in this letter. And in their culture, drinking was often associated with temple worship and celebrations that led to just open debauchery. Christians must be very careful when, how, where, and around who we drink alcohol. There’s no prohibition against alcohol for Christians, but it doesn’t take much to get to a place of excess. And it could be something that could cause a weaker brother or sister to stumble.

If we look around, we have many people in our culture who have suffered great harm because someone in their life abused alcohol. Or they themselves had an addiction and now they have broken free from it and they must be very, very careful around alcohol. My stepdad used to say two things to me when I was a teenager. He used to say, Greg, nothing good happens after midnight and nothing good happens after two beers. There’s a lot of truth to those two statements. Ever look at the crime blogs? There were more than two beers involved and it was early in the morning, right? But let’s be careful with that. How about a swindler? That’s somebody who’s just literally cheating people out of things. Now, Paul uses these six references to these sins because they all hearken back to Deuteronomy. And they were specific sins that he was having to deal with

the Corinthians struggling with. Now, let’s be very clear what Paul is not talking about here. He is not saying that we should cease to associate with those in our midst who are struggling with sin. One commentator really explains this well. He says, Paul is not talking about avoiding people who are struggling with sin. He is talking about people who continually self-justify their sinful conduct and who show no signs of being concerned that what they do is an offense to God. There’s no repentance. There’s no godly sorrow. Friends, the church is a hospital for sinners. And every single one of us, to some degree or another, is in a battle with our sin. We are all struggling with it. And you should know that this is the place that you can come to get people on your side to help you fight your sin. People who can pray with you and for you,

hold you accountable, and walk alongside you in this battle. And you should also be willing to do that for other people. Right? Get connected with people and build deep relationships and connections that will produce this kind of support and openness. Having to disassociate from a person who is deep in unrepentant sin, proving they love their sin more than Christ, is one of the most unpleasant parts of church membership and leadership. And notice how Paul concludes. He says God will judge those outside. Now he’s talking about unbelievers. Our responsibility is for those inside the walls, not outside. Paul closes this section of the letter with a quote from Deuteronomy. The Israelites purge the evil person from among you. God said the same thing over 30 times in Deuteronomy telling the Israelites, you shall purge the evil from your midst. Purging sin is one of the most unpleasant things

that must be done by the church, done by its members, but it is a most necessary part of church life. And it is actually a loving response to the Gospel to help someone get to a place where they can see their sin and repent and be restored. Sometimes, God’s people fall really hard in their sin. And when that happens, the church is to be there for them and those affected by it. If I look around at the average age in this room, the members of Trinity, some of you have 40, 50, 60 years left to serve the Lord. Think about that for a minute. That’s a long time. And you are going to want to make sure that you are in a church where you will have people who will challenge you and help you should God forbid you stumble in a serious way. Because it will actually be God’s kindness to you.

And you need to be the person who grows up to have such maturity and backbone that you will get involved in the messiness with people if and when that occurs. Now, the Reformers believed that a church that doesn’t practice church discipline is not a church. And there’s a lot of those in our culture, isn’t there? Why does the church need to be involved in practicing church discipline? It is because to not deal with unrepentant sin brings harm to Christ’s church, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And church discipline is one of the mechanisms that God uses to bring wayward Christians to a place of restoration. And this leads to greater purity in the church where God is obeyed and Christ is glorified. So may we all pray that God would give us the courage to get involved if needed, but to always do so with a spirit of gentleness

and sobriety. Let’s pray.