Well, what a joy this conference
has been. I want to thank Ligonier for the kind invitation to be
a part of this conference, and what a joy it has been to speak
along with R.C. and R.C. Jr. and Mark Dever. And to spend this time with you,
I trust it's been as profitable for you as it has been for me.
As iron sharpens iron, so one man another. And I think this
has been an opportunity for us to sharpen our skills in ministry
and sharpen our focus in the task that the Lord has called
us to. We come to the last session,
and I have been given the title, The Blessing of Discipline. As
I walked in this morning, I was speaking to the men who run the
Ligonier Academy, and one of them told me, I see your title,
that's going to be a tough sell, the blessing of discipline. But
I want you to take your Bibles and turn with me to the book
of 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 5. And I want us to spend
our time this morning in expounding and expositing this text of Scripture. I want this to be our main focus
today. And I want to begin by reading
the first five verses of this chapter, although we will look,
Lord willing, at the entirety of this chapter. We want to focus
upon church discipline and God guarding the purity and the holiness
of the church. This conference is focused upon
the peace and purity and unity of the local church, and one
means by which God preserves the holiness of His people is
by the loving practice of church discipline in that church. I want to begin by reading the
first five verses of 1 Corinthians, chapter 5. I want to ask you
to stand for the reading of the Word of God. Nehemiah chapter
8, when Ezra took the law and began to minister, the people
spontaneously rose to their feet in a sense of reverence, because
as Augustine said, when the Bible speaks, God speaks. The Word of God reads, it is
actually reported that there is immorality among you, an immorality
of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that
someone has his father's wife. You have become arrogant and
have not mourned instead, so that the one who has done this
deed would be removed from your midst. For I, on my part, though
absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged Him,
who has so committed this as though I were present. In the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are assembled, and I
with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus. I have decided to deliver such
a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit
may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. May the Lord add
His blessing to the reading, and now to the exposition of
His Word. You may be seated. It is a fundamental principle
that the church must be different from the world in order to make
a difference in the world. The more the church is like the
world, the less impact the church has in the world. When the church
becomes like the world, whether in its message or its worship
or in its lifestyle, it loses its power to attract the world
to the message of Christ. Yet strangely today, there are
many churches whose stated goal is to become as much like the
world as it possibly can with the hope of attracting the world
into its midst. Consequently, in such churches,
exposition is replaced with entertainment. Preaching is replaced with performances. Theology with theatrics. and
the unfolding plan of… the unfolding drama of redemption with just
plain drama. With this shift has come a lowering
of the standard of personal holiness in the church, and the fear of
God has evaporated. Instead of preaching the Word
and holding its members accountable to the straightforward teaching
of, thus says the Lord, such churches have become more fraternity
houses than houses of worship. And the truth is, without the
practice of church discipline, the preaching of the Word of
God is reduced merely to the offering of suggestions and offering
alternatives. In 1 Corinthians 5, the Apostle
Paul confronts the church at Corinth with this very failure,
the failure of exercising loving church discipline. Rather than
confronting sin and calling for its repentance, and if need be,
its removal through putting out a member who continues to live
in unconfessed, unrepentant of sin, this church chose to do
nothing. And in the process, the greatest
scandal was not this man who was in sin. The greatest scandal
was the church that failed to deal with this sin. They chose
to coddle sin rather than confront it. They chose to remain in sin
rather than to remove it. This entire chapter speaks to
this very issue. In verse 2, Paul says, the one
who has done this deed should be removed from your midst. In verse 5, he says, deliver
such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. In verse 9, he
says that we are not to associate with immoral people, and he will
qualify that, not the immoral people of the world, for Jesus
spent time with tax collectors and sinners, but with the immoral
people who had been put out of the church. At verse 11 in this
chapter, Paul says that we are not to associate with any so-called
brother. And in verse 12, he says we are
to judge those who are within the church. In verse 11, the
last verse of this chapter, Paul writes, to remove the wicked
man from your midst. Nothing could be more abundantly
clear for anyone who would read this passage of Scripture but
that God calls for the church to discipline its own members. This is not an isolated verse.
This is an entire chapter. It is possible sometimes for
theologians to twist a verse in a different direction, but
no one can alter the flow of an entire chapter. This, of course,
is entirely consistent with what Paul teaches elsewhere. In Galatians
6 verse 1, Paul writes, brethren, even if anyone is caught in any
trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit
of gentleness. In 2 Thessalonians 3 verse 6,
Paul says the very same. Now we command you, brethren,
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from
every brother. who leads an unruly life, and
not according to the tradition which you have received from
us. You are to saturate him with your absence and cut him off
from the fellowship of the church. In 1 Timothy 1, verse 20, Paul
writes, among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed
over to Satan. so that they will be taught not
to blaspheme. They need to be taught, they
need to be directed not to blaspheme, and the way that this will be
brought about is we will cut them out of the fellowship of
the church and turn them over to the realm of Satan. In 1 Timothy 5 verse 20, Paul
says again, much the same, this in reference to those elders
that sin in the church. Those who continue in sin rebuke
in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful
of sinning. In Titus 3 verse 10, Paul yet
again says, reject a factitious man after a first and a second
warning. In each of these verses, Paul
calls upon the entire congregation, as well as the leadership of
the church, to exercise church discipline wherever there is
continued, unconfessed, unrepented of sin that harms the witness
and the testimony of the church. The church must be different
from the world if we are to win the world to Christ. And that
necessitates the pursuit of holiness in the individual lives of the
members and to hold them lovingly and patiently accountable to
the unchanging standard of Scripture that is set before the membership.
Else, the church becomes nothing more than a glorified country
club for people to come and have social interaction. As we look
at this chapter, 1 Corinthians 5, I want to set before you four
main headings. I want to walk through this chapter,
and I want to hang my thoughts on these four main headings. I want you to note first in verses
1 and 2, the sin confronted. The sin confronted. Paul begins
this chapter by confronting the flagrant sin in the church at
Corinth, something that this church has failed to do. The chapter begins with these
astonishing words. It is actually reported that
there is immorality among you." It's the talk of the town. It
is the talk of the street. Everyone knows this. It is reported
far and wide that there is immorality in the life of one of the members
of the church. Now, it was a sin of immorality. It's the Greek word pornoneia,
from which we derive the word pornographic. It refers to any
illicit sexual activity, be it premarital sex, marital sex,
extramarital sex, prostitution, incest, bestiality, homosexuality,
or anything else unlawful to mention. This known sin in this
church was destroying the witness and the testimony in this town
that was known for its sin. this sin was going beyond what
even the pagans were doing. They were out-Corinthing Corinth
in their sin. And he goes on to say, an immorality
of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles. Such a practice was not even
named among the godless heathens. Their own conscience was some
restraint to them from plunging ahead into what this so-called
brother has done while being a member of this church. And
he defines what the sin is. He names the sin at the end of
verse 1, that someone has his father's wife. That is to say,
he was living with his stepmother. The woman was not his natural
mother, but had married his father. Either his own mother had died,
or there had been a divorce in the family, but the father had
remarried. And now this church member in
Corinth is actually having an illicit sexual relationship with
his own stepmother. Of course, this is forbidden
in the Word of God. Leviticus 18 and verse 7 speaks very directly
to this sin. You shall not uncover the nakedness
of your father. That is the nakedness of your
mother. She is your mother. You are not to uncover her nakedness.
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. There
is the stepmother. It is your father's nakedness. And then in verse 29 of Leviticus
18, it calls for the death penalty of such sin. For whoever does
any of these abominations, those persons who do so shall be cut
off from among their people. That is the sin. and a flagrant,
open, rebellious violation of the holiness of God and the very
Word of God. And we're not told, but perhaps
this person has so gone off into license that he feels that he
can sin and grace will just cover it all, that there are no consequences
to sin, that to so the seed, there will be no harvest, no
consequences for his actions. And so in verse 2, Paul puts
his finger on the live nerve in the church at Corinth, and
he says, you have become arrogant. That's why you haven't dealt
with this in your church. You're arrogant. You care more
about your fine upstanding posture and stance in the community and
looking the other way regarding this sin than to actually addressing
it and confronting it. We would have expected in verse
2 for Paul to say, the man who has gone off into sin is arrogant. That is true. But Paul here indicts
the church at Corinth. He indicts the saints at Corinth,
and in so doing, the spiritual leadership, that you are arrogant. This word arrogant means puffed
up. You are so self-righteous and
self-smug that you must feel as if you are above the very
law of God itself. And then he says in verse 2,
and you have not mourned instead. Nothing seemed to break their
heart of pride. They did not mourn over their
sin. I want you to know the heart of God was grieved. Ephesians 4 verse 30 says, do
not grieve the Holy Spirit. All sin, even the sin of believers,
grieves the heart of God, and the same should grieve our heart
as well. Understand this. The blood of
Christ has satisfied and propitiated and placated the righteous anger
of God toward our sin judicially and eternally. But God is grieved
over our sins parentally and relationally and temporally.
John MacArthur writes, quote, all sin is painful to God, but
sin in His children breaks His heart. When His children refuse
to change the ways of the old life for the ways of the new
life, God grieves. The Holy Spirit weeps, as it
were, when He sees Christians lying instead of telling the
truth, being unrighteous rather than righteous, stealing rather
than sharing, speaking corrupt words rather than edifying words." Paul confronts this sin in the
church at Corinth. and it is incumbent upon all
of us as church leaders who shepherd the flock of God that has been
purchased with the very blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It
is our responsibility as parents to children to discipline those
in the congregation, knowingly and intentionally, without confessed
sin and without repentance go off into prolonged sin. Could it be true in your church
where you serve that such a one could be violating not only the
law of God, but forfeiting the witness of Christ in your area? I want you to know, second, if
you would, the steps required. Not only does Paul confront the
sin, but Paul gives the action steps of what must take place. I want you to know, second, the
steps required. Not only does Paul give the right
diagnosis, but now he prescribes the right cure. In the middle
of verse 2, he begins, so that the one who had done this deed
would be removed from your midst." That's strong language. This
one is to be like a cancer in the body and is to be cut out,
and is to be removed from the body and from the sphere of your
fellowship. This means to be excommunicated.
This means to be put out of the fellowship of the church. Lower
in verse 7, he says, clean out the old leaven. In verse 13,
he says, remove the wicked man from yourselves. This is the
fourth and final step of church discipline that Jesus has outlined
in Matthew chapter 18 and verses 15 and following. Let me read
these verses one more time and lay out the four-step process
of church discipline from the very lips of the head of the
church, the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew 18, 15 says, if your
brother sins, go and show him his fault in private. Galatians
6, 1 says to go in a spirit of gentleness, the idea of coming
alongside, approaching him as you would
want to be approached, speaking gracious words, motivated by
love. to point out the error of a brother
or sister's way that is now having an effect upon the fellowship
of the church and also the witness of the church. Go and show him
his fault in private. This is not to be done in front
of other people. It is to be done in private,
where He will hear you, will not be immediately defensive,
perhaps, and to give him opportunity to repent so that this is not
done in front of others. Jesus said, if he listens to
you, you have won your brother. You have won him to holiness.
You have won him to paths of righteousness. The wounds of
a friend would bring about blessing to him. But what if he doesn't
hear you? The next verse, Jesus said, verse
16, but if he does not listen to you, if he becomes arrogant
and puffed up, if he repels your words, if he puts you off, if
he begins to make excuses, if he fails to examine himself and
look inward and to humbly ask the Lord, Lord, could this be
true in my life? If he does not listen to you,
take one or two more witnesses. so that by the mouth of two or
three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed." And the idea here
is not to gang up on the brother, but for there to be a sense of
tightened accountability, and for there to be the resubmitting
of the heir of his way to him, and for two or three witnesses
to see his response. Is there soul searching? Is there
humility? Is there a desire to make it
right? Is there that which was in Zacchaeus
who would want to give back fourfold that which he had taken? Is there a grieving within his
own heart and soul? If so, if there is repentance
and the confession of that sin and a desire to make it right,
then you've won your brother. What a blessing. What a glorious
ministry for the life of the church to plug up the holes in
the dam so that the world in sin and the devil does not come
pouring into the life of the church. But if he does not listen,
verse 17, Jesus said, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to
the church. You need to go public. And the point here is to call
upon the whole church to pray for this brother, or so-called
brother, and to come alongside of him and for the whole church
to urge him to repentance in a spirit of love, in a spirit
of gentleness. Brother, sister, I appeal to
you. If this is true in your life as the shepherds of this
church have indicated that it is, I love you and I call upon
you to repent of your sin and to put off your unholiness and
clothe yourself with humility and for the whole church to rally
around this sinning brother or sister and call them back to
ways of holiness. of verse 17, and if he refuses
to listen, if he just continues to run the stop signs, if he
continues to throw off all reproof, if he refuses to listen even
to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. That is to say, he is to be removed
from the fellowship of the church. He is to be on the outside looking
in. He is to be cut off from the
privileges and blessings of the people of God, and the people
of God are to withdraw their fellowship and to leave him to
his sin in the hope that this will sober him and bring him
to the realization of his own sin so that he would repent and
come back. And should he, then we would
kill the fatted calf, as the father did with the son who came
home, and we would rejoice that this son of mine who was lost
is now found. He was dead, and now he is alive.
It would be that spirit. This is exactly what Paul is
saying in verse 2, that He is to be removed from your midst. He's not to be coddled. He is
to be removed. You are to deal with Him as seriously
as His sin has offended God. Verse 3, "'For I, on my part,
though absent in body, but present in spirit, have already judged
him.'" Not in a censorious spirit, looking down his long nose with
a judgmental attitude. No, Paul says, I have already
declared the mind of God upon this matter. Paul has already
brought the verdict that this church has drugged their feet
to make. I have judged him in the sense
I have declared the mind of God. This man is in sin, and this
man needs to be removed from the fellowship of the church." He says, I've already judged
him who has so committed this as though I were present. Very strong words from the Apostle
Paul who does not mince words. at stake is the very holiness
and purity and unity and peace of the entire fellowship of the
church. No one ever sins, and it does
not affect others. So, verse Paul appeals to the
name that is above every name, the name of the Lord. In the
name of our Lord Jesus, he appeals to the highest court of heaven.
When you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power
of our Lord Jesus. That is exactly like when Jesus
said, when two or three are gathered in your midst, there am I with
them. and carrying out church discipline.
It is the Lord who stands with the church, and it is the Lord
who stands in the midst of the church that carries out such
loving discipline. Now, verse 5 is the knockout
punch. If this were not in the Bible,
I would find it hard to believe. May there be some sense of shock
and awe in all of our hearts. I have decided to deliver. That is a strong term for judicial
sentencing. I have decided to deliver. That
is equivalent of excommunication or putting the professing believer
out of the church. I have decided to deliver such
a one to Satan, meaning out of the church into the world. Satan
is the god of this age, the prince of this world. He presides over,
under the sovereignty of God, but presides over the entire
world system. I have put him out of the church.
and into the world where Satan rules for the destruction of
his flesh. This may mean for illness and
sickness to come to his body, or it may mean ultimately, as
it does in 1 Corinthians 11, later when they came to the Lord's
Supper in an unworthy manner, and Paul said, for this reason,
some of you are sick and some of you are asleep, meaning you
have died in Jesus. You have become such an embarrassment
to the Lord upon this earth that God simply has called you home
early. To put it in the vernacular,
the Lord has taken you out. And it really is an act of church
discipline on God's part. When we read the book of Acts,
the first example of church discipline was administered directly by
the hand of God. When Ananias and Sapphira lied
in church and lied to the Holy Spirit, it was God that dropped
them both dead. Moses struck the rock, and he
was told to go up into the mountain and die. And this man, who has so sinned
against God with the perversion of his own wicked flesh, Paul
says, I will now do what you have been cowardly to do because
you are arrogant and prideful and puffed up. I have, as an
apostle, overridden your pastoral authority, and I myself have
declared him out of the church and delivered over to Satan for
the destruction of his flesh." Now, please note the end of verse
5. It is gracious. It is kind. because no one has been able
to get through the thick skull of this brother, whose heart
is being hardened and hardened by his own sin. And what Paul
says at the end of verse 5 is, this must be the recourse, as
it were, almost to grab the man by the lapels and shake him to
arrest his attention before he goes to hell. He writes, "...so that," this
leads to the purpose, "...so that His Spirit may be saved
in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ." He is obviously acting
as an unbeliever. and through His ongoing continuous
sin in the flesh, as well as His resistance against those
who have come to Him to reprove Him of His sin, He is so acting
as an unbeliever. There can be no real assurance
that you truly know the Lord. You may, but your fruit in your
life betray your confession. And so we are doing this with
evangelistic purposes, to rescue your soul from hell, that you
would be saved in the final day. The final day refers, or the
day of the Lord Jesus refers to the final day. That sometime
before the final day, while this man is in this world, that such
tough love would so sober him and arrest his attention, that
God would use this to plow up the hardened soil of his own
heart, so that the seed of the gospel might be sprinkled in,
that he would come to a saving relationship in Jesus Christ. For not everyone who says to
Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who
does the will of My Father in heaven." Your profession betrays any possession
of a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. So, brother, in great
Calvary love, we cut you off and we put you out, as though
we were setting roadblocks in front of your life, lest you
perish in eternal destruction." This is the step, the steps that
must be taken. This is non-negotiable. This
is apostolic. It is true for every church,
whether it be Presbyterian, Baptist, Independent, Methodist, Episcopal. It is binding upon the life of
every church in every generation in every place. Now, note third in verse 6. I want you to note the sacred preservation. Without the loving
exercise of church discipline, the church becomes like the world. Have you ever been in someone's
home where the kids are not disciplined? You ever gone to a restaurant,
one booth over, and the kids are not disciplined? You ever
gotten on an airplane and been next to the food fight that breaks
out? You don't want to be anywhere
near children who are not disciplined by their parents. And the effect
that it has on the other children as they become emboldened and
their disobedience, because there is no disciplining of my brother. Suddenly there is renewed courage
to sin more brazenly. But it's an amazing thing when
you discipline one child, how everybody else sits up straight
in the back seat of the car, as we've just had a come-to-Jesus
meeting. The same is true in the church. So notice verse 6. Paul says, your boasting is not
good. That's your problem. You're arrogant,
you're prideful, and you're boasting. It all goes back to chapter 1
and their infatuation with human wisdom and subverting the standard
of God and their carnality and on and on and on. They are a
proud, arrogant, boastful people. They could strut sitting down.
your boasting is not good. John Calvin writes of this verse,
they were as proud as if they were living in the conditions
of a golden age, when in reality they were surrounded by many
shameful and unseemly things. Close quote. In other words,
they are blinded by their pride into thinking what a great church
we are, and what a large church we are, and what a prominent
church we are. And we had as our founding pastor,
we had the Apostle Paul himself, and how they love the rhetoric
and love the wisdom. Paul says, no, you are an arrogant,
prideful, boastful church full of hot air. Do you not know, he says in verse
6, meaning this is common knowledge, everyone who has two brain cells
that are connecting between their ears knows this. Do you not know
that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? It's
a general principle from nature that leaven spreads quietly,
and it spreads through a lump of dough, and the leaven eventually
affects the whole. It cannot be compartmentalized.
It cannot be isolated. It cannot be segmented. It cannot
be retained in just a corner of the loaf. But at a given time,
it will permeate, it will spread until it will saturate and affect
the entire whole. We understand the argument that
Paul is making here. If we do not deal with this sin
in the life of this church, it will spread from stem to stern. He says in verse 7, spinning
out of this analogy, this metaphor, cut out the old leaven. Remove
it. Cut it out. It's the idea that
we would say in modern terms of cutting out cancer in the
body before it spreads any further. Cut out the old leaven so that
you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. A leaven is a symbol of impurity.
Leaven spreads and permeates the whole, as we have said. A
little leaven leavens the whole loaf. But now in Christ, as they
have begun this church in a relative state of holiness, as they have
been called out of the world and sanctified, and all that
Paul will say in chapter 6, 9 through 11, that if you don't deal with
this sin in your church, be assured it will in one way or another
spread like a prairie fire and go from one life to the next,
to the next, to the next, to the next. It says in verse 8, therefore,
let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the
leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the leavened bread of
sincerity and truth. Until they deal with it, they
are the antithesis of sincerity and truth. They are disingenuous,
and they are living a lie. They betray their own conscience.
They are in violation of the very Word of God. In order for
them to be living in sincerity and truth, they're going to have
to step in and deal with this, just as every parent has to step
in at times with their children, and the longer you put it off
the more difficult it will be to turn it around. I want you to notice finally in
verse 9 the separation maintained. Once this unrepentant man is
put out of the church, they are to remain separated from him. They're not to have lunch with
him. not to go morning walks with Him, and not to hang out
with Him. They would have nothing to do
with Him. And not in a mean spirit, but if He's truly saved, if He
has a regenerate heart, this will have, by God's grace, an
effect of bringing Him back. So notice verse 9, I wrote you
in My letter. It's referring to a first letter
Paul wrote to Corinth. It's a non-canonical letter. I wrote you in My letter not
to associate with immoral people. There's a certain shock value
when we hear that, is there not? Of course, in the analogy of
Scripture, all Scripture must be seen in light of the whole.
And Paul, the excellent teacher that he is, qualifies that in
the next verse, because he is not saying that we're not to
go into the world and to reach the world with the gospel of
Christ, or we would never be able to perform evangelism. He's
going to make a distinction in verse 10 between immoral people
out in the world and immoral people in the church. And what
he's going to tell us is, you go after immoral people out in
the world, and you share the gospel of Christ with them, and
you reach out in love to them, because they're just acting like
lost people. Lost people act like lost people. and they will
be living in adultery, and they will be living in incest. And
that's where we fish them out, and by God's grace, they are
brought to Christ. But it's different for those
inside the church. Peter says, let judgment begin
with the household of God. So he says in verse 10, I did not at all mean with the
immoral people of this world. Paul's not teaching Phariseeism.
Paul is not saying, hey, we can't rub shoulders with tax collectors
and prostitutes and drunkards and all kinds of sinners. We're
to go after them. We're to go into the highways
and the byways and compel them to come in. We're to put our
arms around them. You remember in Luke chapter
15, the Pharisees kept saying, why does he spend time with sinners? And Jesus gave the three parables
of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son to show you
don't know the heart of God. You want to know why I spend
time with sinners? Because that's the heart of God,
to go after those lost sheep and to search for those lost
coins and to receive lost sons. That is the heart of God. But for those so-called brothers
in the church, it's a totally different story, because when you go to them in
private and they will not hear you, and two or three witnesses
come, and they will not hear you, but just keep piling up
sin upon sin upon sin, and everyone knows out in the community what
is going on, and everyone within the church in one way or another
is being soiled by this. You talk about sucking the air
out of a church and negative energy being put into a church
and positive energy being brought out of a church, and you're just
spending your time having to talk about this with others. It just demoralizes a church. So in verse 10, he says, I did
not mean at all with the immoral people of this world or with
the covetous and swindlers or with idolaters, for then you
would have to go out of the world. I mean, you'd have to go to the
moon or to the sun or to Jupiter or to Mars to live someplace
without sinners. Paul is saying, that's not what
I mean at all. We're not withdrawing from the
world. We are in the world, but not
of the world. Our boat is in the water. We
just don't want the water in our boat. So look at verse 11. But actually, Paul now clarifies
with more precision what he means. But actually, I wrote to you
not to associate with any so-called brother. And notice he qualifies
that so-called. because I don't think we can
have confidence in his confession of Christ. I don't care how many
times he's been baptized or by what mode. He is a so-called brother. But actually, I wrote to you
not to associate with any so-called brother If he is an immoral person
or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or a
swindler, that's quite a laundry list. And when you've got so-called
brothers and so-called sisters like this in the life of the
church, this is devastating. There is an elephant standing
on the air hose of this church. There is a shutting down of the
spiritual energy and power. He says, stay clear of such a
person in the hope that God would use that isolation where he is
abandoned to himself like the son in the pigpen who finally
came to his senses. Verse 11, not even to eat was
such one. Eating a meal with a person was
a sign of acceptance and fellowship and common identity There's an
intimacy and a close personal bond face-to-face with such a
person. Paul says, you're not to even
have a meal with this person. That's not unkind. It's actually tough love, biblical
love, spiritual love, godly love, so that he will be saved in the
day of Jesus Christ. verse 12, for what have I to
do with judging outsiders? It's a rhetorical question. The
answer is nothing. The believers were not to be
judging those on the outside of the church. Of course, there
is a time for a prophetic word to declare the mind of God on
a social issue that's in violation of the Word of God, but on the
whole, we are not to be known as just a negative church, always
decrying what is wrong out in the world. That hurts our testimony
to try to reach people for Christ. So he says, for what have I to
do with judging outsiders? The answer is nothing. We leave
that to God. But then he says, do you not
judge those who are within the church? And this implied answer
is yes, we do judge those who are in the church. We must. Those outside the church are
for God to judge. Those inside the church are for
believers to judge. In reality, it is God working
through those believers to bring about His loving discipline. So the final verse, verse 13,
and what a monumental argument the Apostle Paul has laid out
in 1 Corinthians 15. I chose not to preach Matthew
18 for this message because we're so familiar with it, and it's
a smaller number of verses. but to step back and to see the
broad sweep of a building argument of an entire chapter of holy
Scripture. I mean, there's… none of us can
think our way around this. We can't avoid this. There it
stands. I mean, it's like Romans 8. It's
like Romans 9. It's an entire chapter. It's like John 17. Here it is. So finally, verse
13, Those who are outside, meaning
outside the church, in the world, under the realm of Satan's dominion,
God judges. But then he quotes this Old Testament
text that is drawn from Deuteronomy, remove the wicked man from among
yourselves. put Him out, cut Him out, remove
Him. What are the blessings of discipline?
One, the good of the one who is disciplined. May it be used
by God as a last resort of sorts to reach Him for Christ before
He self-destructs Two, for the good of other Christians, because
it puts the fear of God into their hearts, and it tightens
and heightens their sense of accountability to God whenever
we see someone else disciplined. It is used by God to cultivate
a healthy, holy fear of God within our own hearts when we see others
who are disciplined. Three, for the good of the church.
It preserves the holiness of the church. As a little leaven
leavens the whole church. It actually is a part of sanctifying,
preserving the progressive sanctification of the entire church, because
we all rub shoulders with others for the witness of the church,
how it is damaged when there is one in our midst who openly,
knowingly is living in sin. Oh, you go down to that church,
you're just a bunch of hypocrites. And then fifth and finally, the
glory of God. What this is preserving is the revelation of the glory
of God that would shine through the lives of the church, and
it is sin that veils that glory. and it is purity of life that
radiates that glory. As we in this conference have
discussed the purity, the unity, the peace of the church, this
is a necessary biblical ministry that we do so with a
spirit of gentleness, that we err on the side of grace, that
we be long-suffering, that we approach others as we ourselves
would want to be approached, with a soft voice, an arm around
the shoulder. But if there is one who continues
to run through the stop signs Paul says he must be put out
of the church to preserve the purity and the unity and the
peace of the church. May God give us grace and wisdom,
patience, love, courage to do what apostolic mandate and divine
command call us to do. Let us pray. Our Father, these are heavy words. We do not preach from them glibly
or lightly. we do not entertain these truths,
I trust in a self-righteous way to put down others so that we
would elevate ourselves. God, remove such Phariseeism
from our own hearts, but for the good of the one who is in
sin, and for the solidarity of the fellowship of the church,
and for the potency of our witness and testimony to the world, and
ultimately for the purity of the radiance of Your glory through
the ministries of the church. I pray that You would enable
us to be not merely hearers of the Word, but doers. Show us
how to implement this in our own spheres of service. and we pray that our churches
would be such that we would never have to enact this and carry
this out, for it is painful to the parent as well as to the
child. But Lord, I pray that You would
impel us to carry out such discipline when and where it is needed,
for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ in His church. Father, we pray this in the name
of Jesus Christ. Amen.