There's a couple of places in
Scripture we're going to be today, and by the Lord's grace, next
week we're going to be back in 2 Thessalonians. We'll find two
passages of Scripture. One is very familiar to most
of us, and that is Matthew chapter 18, starting at verse 15, just three
verses there. And then a longer passage of
Scripture in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, Go there now, 1 Corinthians chapter
5, and then we will be all over
the place with other proof texts, if you will, if I can dare use
that term, working texts that show us also in correlation to
what Jesus is teaching in both of these, and what Paul, of course,
is teaching to the church in Corinth, which is Jesus' teaching. Let's hear the Word of the Lord
in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. 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. Are you not arrogant? And you
are arrogant. Ought you not rather 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
his 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 or 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 idolator or
reviler or 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. Let me pray. Lord, these are very delicate
places in your scripture, but they are true and sound and worthy
of acceptance and worthy of observation and worthy of learning. Father,
please, by your mercy, disallow a humanistic expectation on these
things. Lord, take our flesh away from
our mind, that we might not think on fleshly ways as we look at
these texts. Father, protect us from intruding
our own thoughts with a false gospel, to think, oh, I am not
this way, therefore I am right with you. Lord, help us to realize
and always rest in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ, our righteousness.
But Father, even when we have instruction given to us as your
people, Lord, we need all of Your grace. We must rest in all
of Your sufficiency. We must surrender in every aspect
of our thinking to the truths found in Your Word. Let us not
theorize or philosophize, Father, or hold to the traditions of
man, but Lord, in all things, I pray that You would help us
to hold to Your Word. And I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen. A couple of things that I want
to say in beginning. It goes without saying that we
all understand who God is. Salvation is understanding and
knowing God. John 17, 3. This is eternal life,
that you know the one true God and the Son who He has sent.
Salvation is not to be found in the will of man, nor the blood
of man, nor the actions of man. John's Gospel is clear in that.
John's gospel, the writing of Peter, Paul to the Galatians,
everywhere you look in the New Testament narrative, everywhere
you look in the letters of the apostles, we see a clear and
explicit gospel which is the good news of God in and through
the person of Jesus Christ. That there is no merit in man
that makes him right with God. There is no such thing as justification
with faith plus works. There is no place In the economy
of God's grace, where man can boast before God, I said the
right thing. I did the right stuff. I followed
the right prescription. Friend, the gospel is not like
doctors who prescribe a pill and say, if you take two of these,
you will be healed. It's not like that at all. The
gospel is, He finds men who are unable to swallow and He infuses
the answer into their souls. He finds men and women and children
who are dead, unable to see, unable to speak, unable to understand. And by His righteousness, by
His glory, and for His glory, He gives us eternal life in Jesus
Christ. The effects of salvation are
endless. Myriads of things, the manifold
wisdom that God has seen every day in the lives of His people,
and we celebrate His grace, His glorious grace, and we make much
of His name, because He has saved us, beloved, not because of us,
but because of His great love for us in Christ Jesus. That's
the gospel. And most of us, I would say that
all of us have heard that day after day, week after week, year
after year, beloved. But do not think for a moment
that there are not things in this world that will deceive
you and draw you away from these things. Draw you away from the
sufficiency of Christ alone and put you in a place where you
begin to wring your hands and bite your nails and wonder, what
more should I do to be right with God? What else can I do?
What resolve can I make that I might walk rightly before Him?
Beloved, there is nothing more to do but believe on Jesus Christ
alone. For Christ has done all the work
necessary for our salvation. And because of that, He is to
be praised. But here's something that you
might not think about. What if God in His wisdom chose
not to save one, but to condemn every human being that would
ever live to a just wrath? Beloved, He'd still be worthy
of praise. He'd still be worthy of praise, because God is worthy
of praise, because His intrinsic worth is displayed in His holiness.
He is worthy, worthy, worthy. He is holy, holy, holy. And He is the Creator of all
things, and there is nothing that exists apart from His pleasure
and His will. So that as the potter, He does
that which He wishes with His clay, and we are molded after
the righteousness of God, because Christ is our righteousness. Why such an emphatic gospel message
at the beginning? Because beloved, what this text
is teaching right here is quick for us to consider what we are
doing right and what we are doing wrong. And it's quick for us
to consider also that we might actually be better than some
of us. That our neighbor sitting to our left or right may be a
little bit less mature than we. and that we might start having
some sense of self-righteousness. Beloved, we are all in the same
boat, worthy of justice, worthy of the righteousness of God to
pour out His wrath upon us. As Paul would teach the Roman
Christians, for the wrath of God will be poured out on all
the unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress
the truth. Beloved, don't believe one moment that just because
you sit as a member of a Reformed church that you are okay with
Christ. Don't believe one moment that
just because you hold to the 1689 Confession or to whatever
semblance of what you think is a true gospel message, that just
because you have that book on your shelf that makes you right
with God, you are not right with God except that Jesus Christ
made you just before Him because He took your sin on Himself and
He suffered the wrath and the justice and the righteousness
of God. God and His holiness is the foundation
of His essence. So, beloved, as we come to this
text, let us come to this text with this in our mind. We know
that God's holiness requires vindication. We know that God's
holiness demands justice. And the Scripture teaches that
man's wickedness is worthy of God's wrath from the small little
children who roll their eyes and who say, to the 90-year-old who refuses
to lay down his life for his neighbor. It's all worthy of
wrath. We also know that Jesus Christ
in the flesh, as I've already said this morning, fulfilled
the holy requirement of the law of God, becoming man, taking
flesh upon Himself, living in obedience according to the commands
of the holiness and the righteousness of God, so that when the time
was right, God put forth Christ, according to Romans 3, as propitiation
to be received by faith, that His wrath is now satisfied against
the elect, in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, who knew
no sin, became sin that we might be the righteousness of God so
that He would be just. God put forth Christ so that
His righteousness would prevail. God put forth Christ. Why was
it necessary for Jesus to die? Because if God forgives me with
a frustrated heart because traffic is a little backed up, I'm worthy
of judgment. Because I don't wear my seatbelt
every time, I violate the law of God because I disobey the
law of man and the government that He has established. And
because I don't click my seatbelt, I'm worthy of eternal damnation,
beloved. We often think that sin is this
debauched expression of gross neglect of morals. But sin is
falling short of the glory of God in any inclination. Any inclination. Sin is not believing. Sin is
doubting. Sin is depression. Sin is ill
thought. Sin is bearing false witness
in your own mind against someone who really is wicked. And we're worthy of judgment,
but God, in His infinite mercy... Paul tells the church in Ephesus
that God, in His mercy, because of the great love with which
He loved us, calls us to be born again in Christ. We are in Christ,
beloved. And it is only because we are
in Christ that we set right before God. Easy-believism, decisional
regeneration, church membership, deaconship, eldership, pastorship,
the call to the ministry, the call to missions, is not proof
of our election. It's not proof of our salvation.
Proof of our salvation is that God has promised it, God has
decreed it, and Christ has secured it. And then in the giftedness
of the Holy Spirit, we see it effectually expressed in faith,
and believing, and intimacy, and forgiveness, and forbearing,
and all the things that we're instructed to do in the New Testament. The Word of God, we hold it highly
as the highest authority for the church, for the truth, for
the revelation of God to man, unto salvation, unto good works,
unto obedience, unto faith, unto the practice of forgiving, unto
the grace of God and the Spirit of God moving through the Word
that we might know how to handle even the everyday things that
we deal with in life. These things come from the Word
of God. We just don't hold the banner
of Sola Scriptura to say because it's historic. The Word of God alone. Beloved,
even men who call themselves holding to the authority of Scripture,
I can't find many. Evidenced by the counsel that
comes across the pastoral desk. Evidenced by the expressions
that I see on Facebook. Pray for me, I'm having a bad
day, so and so talk bad about me. And men of God will say,
sue them! Men of God will say, you go tell
them a thing or two, or a thing or two. Sisters, my husband's
just so harsh with me. My neighbor, my boss, and other
sisters. I tell you what you do, slash
his tire in the name of Jesus. That'll show him. It'll show him. But you may not
be a lover of your enemy. 1 John 3 says that you're the
son of Satan if you don't love your neighbor and your brother. And that's not even the bad part
about it. What about pastors who would have you do everything
possible in your flesh and not even use God's Word in the gospel
of Jesus Christ to counsel you through depression? You don't
know what it's like. Yes, I do. I have died inside. Pray that God would kill me that
I wouldn't have to take my own life. In Hebrews 1, God at many
times in many ways spoke to us through the prophets, but in
these last days He speaks to us through His Son. the fullness of His glory, the
exact imprint of His nature, where all the fullness of God
was pleased to dwell. God speaks through His Son, Jesus
Christ, who is the Logos, who is eternally the God of heaven,
who came to earth to pay for my sins, to save me from the
American dream, to save me from moral living, to save me from
churchmanship, to save me from church growth, to save me from
a false gospel, and to save me from purveying and perpetrating
the wickedness of Satan, on and on and on, that I might stand
in judgment. God wiped it all away on the
cross of Calvary, in the body of Jesus. And Jesus deserved
not one piece. How do you know that? How can
you be so passionate? Because God's Word teaches me
that. The Word of God alone is authoritative. It is the rule of faith. Scripture
should be the source of our grace, the source of our security, the
source of our worship, the source of our transformation, the source
of our obedience, the source of our sanctification, the source
of our doctrine, the source of our theology, and so on and so
on. I hate to say this in the middle
of this, but it's in my mind. I shall express it. There's a
movie coming out about a book called The Shack. It is not worthy
of the child of God. It's not worthy. If we are not empowered and broken
and embracive and worshipful for the Jesus of Scripture, oh,
surely the Jesus of the world will not appease. God speaks through His Word alone,
beloved. What we do as God's people is
a reflection, listen to this, this might be new for some of
you, of what He has decreed before the world began. Do you hear
that? Sanctification, while there is
some sense of progressive I can't even use the words because they
don't make sense in that context anymore. We're holy completely
in Christ. We're righteous completely in
Christ. It's not our righteousness. So even to say, you know, we're
getting a little more holy, that's a joke. But our lives will display
the decrees of God. Because unbelievers can live
holy lives before men. Unbelievers can live righteously
before their neighbors. Unbelievers can teach the Word
of God and pray and preach. Seminaries are full of them.
Pulpits are full of them, too. If it weren't for the grace of
God, I'd be a lost man leading you. The Word of God teaches us as
the church what we are to be striving for and how and through
what means. And when we look at this type
of text in 1 Corinthians 5, it's very scary for some of us. Oh,
no, no, no, no, no. It's becoming legalistic. Where
the Word of God calls us to do that which we should do because
Christ is alive within us. Paul expresses it very eloquently
this way, I live this life, it is not I who live, but Christ
who lives within me. I live this life by faith in
the Son of God who loves me and gave himself for me. So that
Paul would say that all that he is, and all that he does,
and all that he teaches, and all the obedience that his flesh
exhibits, is nothing but the work of God in him. Like Jesus
would say in John chapter 3, those who come to the light do
so that it may be clearly seen that their works have been carried
out in God. And I would say, just as Jesus
says, unless your righteousness is greater than that of the Pharisees,
you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. The Pharisees, you
could not catch them in sin. You would not catch them in sin.
They did not sin in their lives according to what was written.
That's all they did. Every act of righteousness was
an act of sin. Every thought they taught, every prayer they
prayed was an act of unrighteousness. Everything they did was just
sin, but for the Lord it was filthy rags. He said, look at
all this self-glory, self-righteousness, self-commitment, self-establishment. Look at all these people doing
everything. Jesus calls them dogs, vipers,
whitewashed tombs, the sons of Satan. That's some harsh stuff. Faith in Jesus Christ produces
faithful things, but those things are not security of salvation,
beloved. Faith is not doing faithful things,
it is trusting the faithful one. I've heard that before. Yeah,
Twitter is my sermon note box. Oh, I don't want to forget that. The question then, as we get
started this morning, is do we trust in the faithfulness of
Christ? Do we trust in the Word of God as God's prescription,
and God's power, and God's grace, and God's effectual instruction
to His church through the power of the Spirit? Do we trust in
the faithfulness of Christ to do what God's called us to do?
Or do we trust in the wisdom of man? Do we trust in the faithfulness
of Christ for salvation? for security, for the sufficiency
of our suffering, of our problems, of our health, in the times of
need, in the times of want, in the times of feast, in the times
of famine, do we trust in God's Word for satisfaction? I need an answer. Thus saith the Lord. That's enough.
Okay, hear what God says. Now what? What else? There's
nothing else, beloved. There's nothing else. What else
do we need? Well, there's got to be something. What else can I do? Trust in Christ. Be the one who
is believing on Christ. Do you realize that the verbs,
trust, believe, faith, all that stuff in the New Testament, in
the original language, are active? If they were translated accurately,
those who are the believing ones, John 3.16. Those who are always
believing, always holding, always running, always enduring. I say
this often, but not often enough. Your salvation is not a point
in history, but a present reality, because that's the way God works. Your salvation, beloved, I would
even argue according to Scripture, is not effectual on the day you
recognized it. But it was effectual long before
that. That's why God is so glorious.
That's why it's such a good news. And we come to this issue that
the Bible teaches us, if it's sufficient, and if we hold to
it, and if we trust in Christ, and we believe in what He's teaching
us, the Bible is sufficient to deal with things that come into
the life of the church. And beloved, this day we come
as a people to do what God's Word has told us to do, and that
is to remove a brother from the fellowship of our flock. And I've never had the opportunity
to do it absolutely what I believe is absolutely biblical. Because
it's always been, you know, when you inherit a church, you inherit
a lot of stuff. You inherit a bylaw and a constitution.
You inherit corporate documents and statements of faith. You
inherit a lot of things that you have to work and shepherd
people around. Well, beloved, by the grace of God, grace through
church, planted with a seed, the Word of God. And we haven't,
and many of you come from a place where hurt and harm and just
flat wickedness has invaded your life through the local church.
And it happens that way because that's the world we live in.
Some of the most harmful things that have ever happened to me
in my life have been for the people who are closest to me
in the faith. Who stood behind me, who held
my arms up when I was unable to go, who did all sorts of things
for the sake of my joy and sufficiency in my ministry, and then to turn
around because the carpet color didn't please them, or the song
style didn't make the cut, or the lighting. just didn't work
for them, or it was too cold, or it was too hot, or this person
has been here longer than this person, and they shouldn't be
in charge of that, or this is my ministry. I've had people
tell me that. It's your ministry. I think Jesus
was on the cross, not you. But God has called us, and He
shows in His Scripture that He disciplined those who are legitimate
children. Now, you hear what I'm saying? Now see, discipline
for the church is not punitive. What is punitive? You go to jail,
you're paying for your sin. You're paying for your crime.
You pay a fine, it's punitive. Church discipline, the discipline
of the Lord is not punitive. Paul was being serious. He wasn't
being sarcastic when he says, therefore now there is no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. He didn't roll his eyes when
he said it. It's true. So if there's no condemnation
for those in Christ Jesus, what is discipline for? It's corrective.
I mean, is it wicked sin when a child wants to touch a hot
light bulb? Oh, pretty. Is that wicked? No, that's not
wicked. That's curious. But is touching that bulb out
of curiosity good for them? No, it'll ruin their hands. It'll
hurt them. They'll cry. What father goes,
No, don't just touch it. Let me put your face on it. That's
wicked. And so the disobedience, the
sin comes when a child, when you say, no, don't touch that,
it'll hurt you and they don't believe you. And then they decide
that what they want in their flesh and the thing that they
see with their eyes is more glorious to experience on their own terms
rather than the terms of the parent who knows what's best.
Does that sound familiar in a scriptural point of view? How about the
Garden of Eden? How about this morning and yesterday in all
of our lives? And when they do touch it, or
when they get close, you say, don't touch that, and they go
back. What do we do? Say, no, that's going to hurt
you. Don't touch that. Why? Because we want what's best
for our children. God, we who are His, disciplines us so that
He can correct us, so that our behavior will learn that God
is faithful to steer us. We love Proverbs 3, 5, and 6,
don't we? What does it say? Trust not in
your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He shall direct your path. We love it. We embroider it on
our windows. What are these guys? Pictures? We write it in our Bibles, we
stick it on stickers, we have it on bumper stickers, we put
it at the end of our Twitters and our Facebooks and our emails.
Proverbs 3, 5, 6, we trust in the Lord and His ways and He'll
direct. But yet when God says, don't go there, it'll hurt you,
death is coming. We go, ah, not really. Scripture
says, do not forsake the gathering together of believers as some
are accustomed to doing. And we go, nah, it's okay, I'm alright.
He'll understand. Do not get drunk. That's alright.
Do not look at pornography. Do not commit adultery. Do not
do that. Oh, it's alright. Do not lie. Do not steal. Well,
just this one time. I posed a question to a youth
home class that I taught on the problem of evil this past Wednesday
in 90 minutes. And I said, the problem is with
ethics is that we rationalize ethics. I said, for example,
in third world countries where young children steal food from
vendors, the law says they're to be put to death or have their
hands chopped off. I said, the problem is that we as human beings, we
rationalize that that's not a sin and it's not wrong because he
was hungry. But it is good and just and righteous when they
take that child kicking and screaming to cut his hand off. See, that
bothers us. Now, if it was a grown man, not
gotten, needs to get a job, he'd be like, cut his hand off. But
when it's a child, No, no, no, don't cut his hands off. He's
just hungry. But his hunger, his need doesn't give him the
right to violate the law of God. So when they don't cut his hands
off, it's called what? Mercy. Grace. God's discipline is mercy
and grace in our lives. And so when we get to the table
here of this text, we're talking about church discipline. Church
discipline is something that is talked about by a few churches.
and practiced by hardly no churches. In my experience in the last
nearly two decades of churchmanship and church work, We see, I've
seen discipline go like this, you know, you're doing this and
you're doing that, can you please stop? Okay, I'll stop. And the
person doesn't stop. This person makes a public spectacle
of their sin. They continue to grieve the Holy
Spirit and to bring reproach upon Christ and this church.
And then church discipline goes to something like this. A few
men who are elders, not all the elders, but a few men of the
elders, sit down with this man or this couple or with this situation
and say, y'all just need to find another place to go because you're
not going to stay here. That's to the extent of church
discipline. Well, in a couple of weeks, on Sunday morning,
we're going to receive, I don't know, a dozen new members? Actually,
it might be two dozen. The Volcanoers are coming in.
All of their children become members as well. And we're going to receive everyone
publicly. Everybody is like, yes, I'm a part of this family.
I'm a part of this local church. These are my people. We love
each other, we're gonna forgive each other. How are we gonna
forgive? Because we're gonna sin against each other, okay? We're gonna hurt each other's
feelings, it's gonna happen. Even by assumption, we're gonna
sin against each other. But the gospel is bigger than that. Christ
is bigger than that. And we bring people in publicly
in the same way that we discipline publicly. And there are two aspects
of church discipline. Well, there's more than two aspects. There's the idea that people
can be brought under discipline because of a public sin and a
private sin. In Matthew 18, if you want to
go there real quick, I'm not going to focus on this text.
I'm going to focus on 1 Corinthians 5. But Jesus says, if your brother
sins against you, go to him and tell him his fault. Between you
and him alone. If he listens to you, you've
gained a brother. If he doesn't listen, take one or two others
along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence
of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them,
what does he say? Tell it to the council. Tell it to the board. Tell it
to the deacons. Tell it to the elders. Tell it
to the church secretary. He says, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even
to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. I thought we're supposed to love
our enemies. Absolutely, there's no prescription here to not love
somebody. Matter of fact, this exercise is an exercise of love.
Someone who says that they're in Christ and continually makes
an offense. Titus tells us that if we see
people continually be divisive in the church, see it's not just
sin and life, it's division in the church also. Tell them once,
warn them twice, then have nothing else to do with them. Why? Because
disunity in the body of Christ is wicked. Public sin, private sin. This
right here in Matthew 18, 15 through 17 is talking only about
private sin. Someone, if I sin against one
of you, you come to me. If I sin in front of all of you,
there's no reason to come to me. Then 1 Corinthians 5 comes
into play in other places. But the whole point of this is
that this public and private sin, we believe as a church that
we deal with it even so tenderly and so carefully. We go the extra
mile to make sure that every possible opportunity for repentance
is given. I want you to hear that. We don't
have to do everything that we do. If one of us sins publicly, We could just, we all get together
and everybody, you know what the elephant in the room is?
You know what that phrase means? Imagine an elephant, a full grown
elephant. I'm not talking about a figurine. I'm not talking about
a baby one. But a full grown elephant in this room would be
hard to ignore. The phrase the elephant in the room means that
there's something that everybody knows is in the room and it's
really big and intrusive and it's causing a lot of stink.
But nobody wants to say, what's the elephant doing? Why is there
an elephant in the room? You know, why is there a toilet
on stage? I mean, if I just put a potty right here, why would
you do that? What in the world is that for? And people are like,
I don't know, I don't want to say anything. Why is it that
way? Because that's the way our culture has been taught. That's
what the devil does in his attempt to persuade the church to just
ignore things and maybe they'll go away. Friends, church discipline
is not only something that's good, it's something that's commanded.
Let's look at, when we see this public sin, we see this elephant
in the room, we all know that somebody needs to say something.
But it is never wrong to try to do it privately. And if each
one of us, I'm not talking about spiritual police officers, please,
don't call me out on everything that you see that is not quite
Christ-like, because I don't want to talk to you 24 hours
a day. No real preacher that loves the
Lord wears shoes like that. Well, you don't bring people
under discipline for that. Unless the shoes say something bad about
Jesus. We're all going to sin. These
things are written that you may not sin, but if you do sin, what
does John say? You have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is our propitiation. God
is satisfied with His judgment against us because Jesus took
our sin on Himself. So therefore, we now can go to
each other and say, hey, beloved, the sin that I see in your life
is not good for you, it's not good for your joy, it's not good
for our relationship, and it's not good for the church. How
can I walk with you in helping you put this to death? And that's a loaded question. It's actually erroneous to think
about it. Because you know what the answer to that is, right?
The gospel. Jesus paid for this sin. Your
flesh is dead. Walk in it. But I can't. Of course you can't. Christ can't.
Christ can't. Christ walks. It's not I who
live, but Christ who lives within me. I don't get it. Well, I pray God would open your
eyes that you might get it. Because as long as you're continuing
to try to figure out how to walk in righteousness and walk in
putting to death your flesh, you're not walking in salvation. It is reported, 1 Corinthians
5, we all sin, we all need correction, we who are in Christ will take
heart the correction. It is actually reported that
there is sexual immorality among you. What does that mean? That means when it comes to church
discipline that sometimes we have to tell someone else, hey,
there is sin in the life of this person. Did you know that? Now,
you must say, well that sounds like gossip. Yeah, it is gossip
if it's private. And it is gossip when we're murderous
in our hearts. Because we want to tell something.
It's the tabloid syndrome. You know that righteous lady
that's in church? She doesn't sin. I'm going to tell it. Now I feel a little bit better
because she's down here. That's the tabloid syndrome. When you
see all the stars and the leaders. That's why the world loves it
when a pastor falls into sin. It makes all the news broadcast.
It makes all the newspapers. Oh see I knew. See he's just
like me. Of course he's just like you.
The only difference is he's forgiven and you're not. Does it make
it right? It's not like we should have
a license to sin, so we should go and sin so the grace can abound?
It cannot be, Paul says. Absolutely not. It cannot be.
But there's a report sometimes that needs to be made to the
church. And when sin is so grievous that it's not repented of, and
what's that even mean? A brother and sister have to
recognize repentance by definition is a change of mind. It's brought
by the Holy Spirit through regeneration. And that in itself is brought
by the decrees of God and the election of God and salvation.
It's just and righteous because of what Jesus did on the cross
of Calvary. But if we are seeing each other stumble, we love each
other. We're just trying to do something
to help each other. And you know why we fall into
sin? Unbelief. You know how we fall into the
sin of gossip, the sin of adultery, the sin of thievery, the sin
of lying, unbelief. We believe the lie of the world and the
lie of the devil that says that Christ is not enough. And that
if we just dabble in this, is it ever joyful, really? Have
you ever gone to bed after a day of just really harrowing the
row of sin seed and gone, man, what a great day? No! You want to throw yourself under
the tractor. Plow me under, God. Oh, woe is me, a man of unclean
lips amongst a people of unclean lips. Kill me now." Have you
ever prayed that? I pray it several times a year. Kill me now. And the gospel reminds
me, I have killed your flesh and the son that I sent. You're
dead already, son. Isn't that what the Bible teaches? Now, I didn't hear that. I know
that from Scripture. People are going, God talks to
him? Exit stage right. God does talk to us through His
Word. And this sin that was reported,
Paul says, is not even tolerated among pagans. The sin of incest. Verse 2, and you're arrogant. Why did Paul call them arrogant?
Because they felt like they were still okay, and still giving
glory and honor to Christ, and still able to continue to worship
and live together in harmony and unity and peace, while letting
sin just run rampant among them with knowledge of it. Paul says,
you're arrogant. You won't rather mourn. Let him who has done this, what
is the prescription? He doesn't even take time to
express it, does he? Paul doesn't even bring an argument.
He's like, what are you, crazy? You need to be weeping. You're
prideful. Get this brother and chuck him
out on his head now, quickly, because your reputation is being
tarnished. And we know what God thinks about
his reputation being tarnished. We saw the discipline of Israel
time and time again, did we not? that God would say through the
prophets, My arm of correction, My hand of discipline is coming. I'm going to send the Chaldeans
in there and they're going to destroy you. I'm going to keep a few
of you alive because I promised to, but I'm going to let them
kill most all of you. I'm going to put you all into
slavery in Babylon. I'm going to let the Egyptians
come in and take you away. God would speak through the prophet
Ezekiel and say, it's not for your sake that I'm about to act,
oh Israel, but for my sake, for my great name which you defamed
among the nations. Brothers and sisters, we have
got to understand that God disciplines those He loves and He expects
us to exercise the same type of scrutiny amongst each other. Let him who has done this be
removed from among you. For though I am absent in the
body, I am present in spirit. And if present, I've already
pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing." You might
say, well, who is Paul? Paul speaks and there we hear
the Word of God. See, this is why people who don't
hold a high view of Scripture can't even receive what I'm teaching
today because it doesn't fit with the culture. Times have
changed, James. God's immutable. He does not change. Therefore,
the decrees of God do not change. They were established before
He ever said, let there be light. If God changes, I'm just like
God because I can change with the wind too. If I can change
God, then I'm as great as God because I can push the Creator
into the corner. And Paul says, with his apostolic
authority, God says this man is judged guilty of what? Sin! Who is Paul? Paul just repeats Jesus. Paul
just repeats Jesus who gave the law on Mount Sinai. Wait a minute,
that wasn't Jesus, that was God. Okay. In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. God. Jesus. The Father. The Spirit. One God. Three Persons. Distinct. All worshipped as God. It's another sermon. But I'm
present. I'm telling you, this person
is guilty. When you are, look at verse 4,
right to the point. When you are gathered again,
when you are the church, when you are assembled, when you get
together again, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my Spirit
is present. What's the Spirit of Paul? The
Holy Spirit. Oh no, now you said Paul's divine.
No, I'm not. The Holy Spirit's in us. The Holy Spirit's in each
other. We have a spirit of unity that
comes through God, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that gives understanding,
the Spirit that brings our dead flesh to life and our eyes to
be opened and the gift of faith is expressed through continual
holding fast the confession of our hope as we draw near, as
Hebrews would say. It's all the work of God. When
you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my Spirit
is present, and also the Spirit of Paul, is the words in which
He is teaching. The truth that He teaches, the Spirit in which
He speaks. With the power of the Lord Jesus,
this is the authority through which He is commanding them to
do this, and the authority in which they can exercise what
He is about to tell them to do. You are to deliver this man to
Satan for the destruction of his flesh. What in the world? That's strong language, isn't
it? I mean, we've seen Hollywood movies. We've seen depictions
of the devil and all these things. We've seen depictions of hell.
We've all read, well most of us have probably read Dante.
And we've seen the illustrations that come through those things.
And if you haven't, I mean, don't do it now. And we've seen what has been
portrayed to us as the devil with his bifurcated tail, and
this serpent tongue, and these horns, and this pitchfork. Friends,
the devil is not in hell. The devil is here on earth. Hell
does not exist as a place yet because the Bible teaches that
God will create hell at the day of judgment and He will throw
Satan and all of the fallen angels and every unbeliever into the
lake of fire that His recompense, that His wrath be poured upon
them justly with all peace for all of eternity as the smoke
of their torment goes up forever. And it's right. That's why the
Apocalypse of John teaches that there is peace. The water that's
like a sea of glass. There's not even a ripple in
the water. Because it's right. You ever thought about the fact
that evil is dominant in the world? Because God willed it
so and He put Satan and all one-third of the heavenly host into this
world to continue to perpetrate evil so that He'd be justified
and glorified in His wrath against it. And evil is also eternal,
beloved. What? God's not going to annihilate
evil. He's going to contain it and judge it forever. It will
live forever under His judgment. So when we see a brother or sister
who will not turn from sin, you see the difference? Not spiritual
police officers where we've got a whistle. You said a bad word,
bring it in front of the church. How about when we see a brother
or sister express that kind of stuff several times over. We
say, hey, can I pray for you? Is there something going on? When we take the speck out of
each other's eye, what does Jesus say? We need to make sure we
get the log out of our own first. And we also need to understand
the teachings of the apostles where it talks about that we who are
spiritual must bring correction, lest we fall into temptation
ourselves, knowing that if we come alongside someone and thinking
that we're going to be the effectual agent in their repentance, oh
my goodness, we could fall right in line with their buddy system.
which is to just believe in a false gospel, or worse, fall into the
sin and practice with them. But in this sin that's unrepentant,
in this sin that's grievous, in this continued obvious sin,
these aren't even hidden sins, beloved. There's a lot of hidden
sins that when they come to light, we deal with them. We're not
peeking in each other's windows in each other's lives. We love
each other. We're not looking to hurt each other. We're looking
to help each other, you see. If you go to someone and you
tell them of their sin and they repent and they love you more,
then you've gained a brother. If you can't get them to hear
it, go and take someone with you that they may hear and that
you've gained a brother. And if they don't listen, take
it to the church, that the church may what? Go after them, that
they may hear the church and you have gained a brother. And
if they do not listen to the church, kick him out of the church. And
here's a point of that in history. You ought to deliver this man
to Satan. What's that mean? Well, he's living for Satan.
He's living as though he belongs to Satan. But he's trying to
stay in public good graces with the people of God. But you know,
in my experience, the people that fall into unrepentant sin
and rebelliousness, they fall away from the church a lot sooner
than the sin comes to knowledge. Why? Because, man, I have never
met a drug dealer, a gangster, a murderer, a rapist, a thief,
or a swindler who hangs out at the police department unless
they're in the back, locked up. I mean, you know, gangs of New
York back in the 30s, they didn't get up and say, hey, man, let's
go down to the precinct, chill out with the coppers and get
some donuts. No, they don't do that. They're like, there's cops down
there, let's eat the other side of town. When we're living in
sin, we don't even want to be part of the church. We don't
want to be in the proximity of God's people. We don't want to
hear the Word of God because we don't like it. We know something's
not right. So here, we turn them over to
Satan by kicking them out of the church. And we'll talk about
what that looks like in just a few minutes. Why do we do that? Because friends, where there
is no consequence, there is no correction. God loves us, therefore
He disciplines us. And He disciplines us and corrects
us. And the correction that comes through God's discipline brings
us always into a place of worship and repentance and forgiveness
and everything else. And if God loves us, that is
what's good for it. We learn not to touch the light
bulb so that our joy is full. We learn not to stick our finger
in the light socket because we know it will cause harm. And
we are joyful because of that. We learn not to lie because it
grieves. What happens in a lie when people find out about it?
Relationships are severed. What happens in adultery? Families
are severed. What happens in unforgiveness?
Relationships are destroyed. We turn them over to Satan by
moving them out. This is the consequence. You're
not going to get away with continually living a lie. If you say you
have fellowship with the light, but you walk in darkness, then
you lie. That's what John says. So the
church has an obligation. And if we cause a consequence,
if this person truly is part of the Beloved. If He truly is
the elect of God, if he or she is truly filled with the Spirit
of God, then God, through the consequences of discipline, will
reveal, what? His Spirit in them. He will reveal
a life of trusting in Christ Jesus and the Gospel. Not a life
of right living, because we can fake it. But a life of right
testimony. A life of right Confession that
brings with it all the decrees of God. He says, see, your boasting is
not good. What was the boasting of the Corinthian church? Do
you know what it was? Look at us. We're some holy people. Wow,
we're powerful. God's working greatly among us.
We're speaking in tongues. We're healing. We're flipping
upside down. We're seeing people raised from the dead. We're doing
all sorts of stuff. Everybody in here is a prophet.
I mean, they were really saying, look how good we are. Everything's
great. They wrote a letter to Paul and
Paul wrote back. And then Chloe's like, not going
to happen, y'all. I'm not letting y'all get away
with this. I'm hosting this church meeting and y'all are bringing
this trash into my house. I'm telling. I'm telling. You ever had your kids do that?
And the other kid runs back, no, no, no, don't tell. Chloe's
like, I'm telling. And she wrote a letter to Paul.
And we don't know what it looked like or what it said, but we
know what was in it because Paul responded with this letter back
to the Corinthian church. Chloe's like, they lying, Paul.
They lying. They suing each other. They're
involved in temple worship and pagan worship. They're doing
all sorts of stuff. There's incestual relationships.
There's all manner of abuse and rebuke. And they're taking the
Lord's table like it's a picnic lunch. Man, this is a bad bunch
of people. You need to come fix this stuff.
And Paul's saying, throw him out. You've got no reason to
boast. Do you not know a little leaven?
Leaven's the whole lump. See, here is one of the reasons
why we have to deal with sin in the church that's non-repentant. It's because if we allow sin
to come into the church, what happens to the next person who
decides that the temptation of their flesh is strong and they
want to sin? Hey, you know what? They got
away with it. They taught a false gospel. I
can teach a false gospel. They got angry and started gossiping
about this person. I can gossip. I can be divisive.
I can go around and do whatever I want to do. I can live how
I want to live. And nobody is going to say anything. Paul says that we have to kick
them out. Because if we do not remove the
leaven, then all of us become leavened. All of us become diseased. All of us become subject to the
consequences of immoral people who profess to be in Christ,
but who are bringing reproach upon the body of Christ. Now,
I pray that all of us, when we hear a phrase like that, we go, But yet we would see also that
by God's grace, He is not allowing us to stay in our sin. Celebrate Christ who is our Passover
lamb. He has been sacrificed. You see
that? That's the remedy, isn't it? See, we don't need... I mentioned
counsel earlier. We don't need counseling to put
the deaths in. We don't need it. What do we
need? Christ, our Passover lamb. What about Him? He's been sacrificed. He's been sacrificed. His body
was broken. His blood was shed. There is
no more condemnation on you, beloved. Why, oh why, is there
sin so alive in you who Christ has killed the flesh of? You see how that looks? We celebrate the festival. of
Passover. We celebrate the Lamb. Israel
did not get right in Egypt. God forgave them because He put
their judgment on Jesus. That's the picture of Passover. We celebrate. You know what that's
to teach us there? It's to teach us what the power
of the Gospel has done For I'm not ashamed of this, are you?
I'm not ashamed of the power of the gospel. I'm not ashamed
of the gospel, for it is the power of God. I'm not ashamed
of the power of God, for it is life unto the Jew and unto the
Gentile. There is no other way to righteousness
except through Jesus Christ, the Passover Lamb. There is no
other way. The Lamb of God that takes away
our sins is the only way. Well, explain that to me. Break
it down with some evidence and some arguments. That is the argument,
beloved. That's, I can't get rid of sin
in my life. That's the problem. Amen. See, that's what we should say
to people who say that stuff to us. Amen. I just can't get over this sin. Absolutely. You're speaking truth.
What am I to do? Woe is me. Christ has done it. Christ has done it! Christ has
done it! Christ has taken our sin! That's
the answer. That's too easy. That's God.
That's the simplicity of the good news. That's the power of
God in salvation that no one can boast in any way. What I
did is I threw out this and I severed that relationship and I came
up with three points of a plan that would help me overcome and
I put it on my palm and I put it on my refrigerator and I just
claimed it. Well, you just claimed morality. You just claimed cleaning
your act up. And you just claimed self-righteousness.
You didn't claim Christ. It's the Passover lamb. So we
celebrate. We don't celebrate the old ways.
We don't celebrate repentance and sacrifice. We celebrate Christ.
We don't celebrate the leaven of malice and evil, but with
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Jesus says that the
Father is looking for worshipers who worship in spirit and in
truth. Now if you know much about John's Gospel and by the Lord's
grace, I will start preaching through John's Gospel in the
spring. It's my plan. Unless I die. And if I do celebrate,
Jesse, you can preach in John's Gospel or somebody else. But when Jesus talks to the woman
in Sychar in John 4, she's an unbeliever living in unrepentant
sin. She's an unbeliever living in
self-righteous works. She's an unbeliever living on
the cuffs of religion. She's an unbeliever living in
tradition. She's an unbeliever holding fast to the historical
faith that she hopes will give her eternal life. She even holds
to the Father Jacob. And the oracles of God, even
through Israel, that they have changed and twisted and infused
paganistic worship. They had even built a replica
of Solomon's temple on Mount Gerizim, so that they could worship
just like Israel worshipped. And Jesus says, there will come
a day, and it is today, it is now, when true worshippers will
not worship on Mount Jerusalem or Mount Gerizim, but will worship
in spirit and in truth. She had argued doctrine, she
had argued soteriology, she had argued tradition, she had argued
history. And Jesus had already told her that the hole in her,
the thirst in her, she tried to fill it with everything, even
sexual desire. Go ask your husband to come.
She says, I have not a husband. And Jesus says, yeah, you say
the truth here. For you do not have a husband
and the man you have had five and the man you are now with
is not your husband. I perceive you a prophet, she says. Oh, wow. Understated. Then riddle
me this, Jesus. You say that you worship there.
We say we worship there. And that's when Jesus says that.
You worship in spirit and in truth. For the Father is seeking
such people to worship Him. And all of a sudden... I mean,
listen to this. He didn't argue anything. He
didn't do any kind of evidentiary apologetics. Nothing. Nothing. That's got to go. He just spoke the truth of life
to her. And all of a sudden, she says, that I believe my only
hope is Messiah. Now, why did that come to her
then? Because she had been revealed the truth of Christ. And Jesus
says, the one of whom you speak, I am. And she runs immediately to the
town that she was ashamed to be seen in. And she goes and
she says, behold, I have met a man that told me, What does she say? Everything
I've ever done. Not that I'm living in sin in
an adulterous affair. Not that I'm hiding. Not that
I'm trying to become. She didn't even list the five
things that Jesus told her. She said, behold, I've met a
man who told me everything I've ever done. Beloved, the gospel is active. The gospel is effectual. And the gospel is that, only
that, that gives us life now and forever. I cannot change
me. That's right. Christ has changed
you. Ergo, Christ will live in you.
What must I do? Believe. Paul says in verse 9, get through
this here, not to associate with sexually immoral people. And he says in verse 10, I'm
not talking about those of the world, for you would have to
leave the atmosphere. That's what he says. You'd have
to leave the planet. But those who claim the name
of Christ Verse 11, I'm writing to you not to associate with
anyone who bears the name brother if he is right now guilty of
sexual immorality. Do you see that? That's a command
of God. And he's not talking to James
about not hanging out with John. There's no John in here, is there?
Okay. Or Bruce hanging out with Pontificus. I've got to use fake names or
I'll make somebody uneasy. But it's the body of Christ not
hanging out with the one. You see that? Don't hang out with them anymore.
Don't associate with them. What's an association? Being
seen together. Being seen together, being called
brothers, being called pairs, associates. Associates don't
even have to be friends. Don't be seen with this brother.
Don't be seen with anybody who bears the name of brother if
he's guilty of ongoing, guilty of sin, guilty of sexual immorality,
guilty of greed, idolatry, revile, or drunkard, or swindler. Don't
even eat with such a woman. And he asked two questions. Because
he knows the people of Corinth will say, well, who are we to
judge? For what have I to do with judging
outsiders? See, Paul's not talking about
the world, he's talking about the church. The world is going
to do that which the world is going to do. And the church is
going to be who God has decreed the church to be. So when the
world and the church look the same, something's wrong. When
the world's stuff is also the same stuff that the church is,
something's wrong. What's wrong? The gospel? No. The profession? Don't associate. Don't even eat. Is it not, verse 12b, those inside
the church whom you are to judge, God judges those outside. Purge
the evil person from among you. What does that look like? That means when someone is continually
resisting to the affection of God's people, to walk with them
and teach them the gospel, that their life might reveal Christ. Christ's work. come to the light. Isn't that
what Jesus says? This is the judgment. When that takes place and they
reject it, the only thing we have left to do once we've all
tried, is to say this person is no longer welcome in our lives
until such a time as we see the light of Christ. So that when we see that brother
or sister, the only conversations we're going to have with them
is, Do you believe on Christ? Are you trusting in Christ? Not, hey, you want to go fishing?
I'll just be a buddy and I'll try to get him back in good graces.
There's no such thing as getting in good graces. It's believing
Christ. It's believing the gospel. Purge the evil from among you.
And anyone in the body who continues to associate privately with those
who have been removed from the church are guilty therein of
rebelling against Christ. And not only that, when the brother
who's removed from the fellowship actually decides, well, we're
going to take our family and we're going to go someplace else
to fellowship. When we hear about it, we write a certified letter
to say, hey, watch out for there is leaven headed your way. Whoa,
that's a bit harsh. No, that's a bit obedient. Because we may have different
congregations, but brothers and sisters, if you're a child of
God today, we're one body. And if we've got sin spilling
out of our doors, and spilling out of this mouth, then it's
bringing reproach upon the body of Christ. That's what's wrong
today. Nobody's willing to call evil, evil. Because it's not
politically correct. And the ones who do call evil,
evil do it with such haughtiness, they forget that if they were
for the grace of God, they'd be evil. So how do we do it? And why do
we do it? We do it because it glorifies
God in obedience. Every time the church acts the
way the church is supposed to act, lives the way the church
is supposed to live, prays the way the church is supposed to
pray, teaches the way the church, learns the way the church, sings
the way the church, does the things the church is supposed
to do, God is glorified because He's doing it. We also do it not so that we
can bring, remember I talked about in the beginning, what?
Punitive. We don't bring punishment against the offender. We want
them to be restored. I've given three public notices
about this situation over the last year. And one of them here on this
platform, just a few weeks after we moved into this building,
I lost all composure. because it grieves my heart to
know that a brother of mine is lost in sin. And that should be our heart. If anyone is caught in transgression,
beloved, Galatians 6.1, you our spiritual should restore him
in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch over yourselves, lest
you too be tempted. It also upholds the purity and
the worship of the church. Friends, we can't worship when
we're full of leaven. We can't worship when we turn
a blind eye to sin in the life of each other. Oh yeah, I know
so and so. None of my business. Well, if
my hand starts rotting off, it's my business. What about yours?
If you wake up tomorrow and your foot's kicking yourself in the
face, you're going to have something done about that. It vindicates the honor of Christ.
Paul even talks about the elders who live in sin in 1 Timothy
chapter 5 and he says, and if they don't turn and do something
about the sin, if they don't stop, we're to tell, we're to
confront them in front of all so that it may cause what? Fear
in the lives of the church. Ananias and Sapphira. You know
the story? They lied to the Holy Spirit.
And so instead of them having a meeting with the council of
apostles, God just killed them in front of everybody. Just kill them. Why? The Bible says so that fear would
be struck in the hearts of the church, that they might know
that it is a bad thing to lie to God. Now were they believers? I don't know. Probably. But they decided they would just
lie to God and God said, well, the weight of the sin is death,
you don't have eternal damnation, but by golly, you're not going
to live here anymore. And I look at Revelation as we're
going through it on Tuesday nights, and I see where John begins to
record the words of Jesus in Revelation chapter 2. He says,
if you do not do these things, if you do not come back, if you
do not repent, if you do not straighten this out, I'm going
to take your light out. Let's put that in a southern redneck
phraseology. I'm going to kill you all. If you don't straighten up, I'm
going to kill you. Your daddy ever told you that? He was serious. And he may have took you outside
so mama didn't get mad because of the blood, but he would have
killed you. And I'm not making light of a
serious issue, but I'm telling you, friends, sometimes God takes
a church away. Sometimes God takes a congregation
and just folds it up. And sometimes a congregation
goes away because of persecution. Lord, let us die for the sake
of the true gospel rather than being punished for the sake of
sin. What now? What now? Where do we go from here? Brothers
and sisters, I know this sermon has been specifically taught
for a direct purpose in our body, but we've got a brother in our
body whom all of you have heard is living in unrepentant sin.
We have pleaded with him. We have prayed for him. We have
provided for him. Gosh, alliteration comes so easy
when you do church growth stuff for so many years. We have pondered
with Him. I mean, you know, He just keeps
coming. But we have prayed and provided
and pleaded with this Brother for over a year and a half to
come to Christ, to leave the sin that is destroying Him and
His family and His children and His marriage and the life of
others and others' children and others' marriages. He has lived
with our elders. He has taken money from our fellowship,
some of you, and He does not see, though He has come here
twice to repent, it has only been short-lived like a day or
three. And we as a body have to do what
God has called us to do. And this day, publicly, I ask
you all to stand in agreement with me that we are to treat
Him as a Gentile, as an unbeliever, That He now publicly is no longer
a part of our church family. And that we pray and we plead
with God to give Him repentance that He might be saved. And that the Lord would use this
disciplinary action to give glory to Himself. And to cause us to
shake and praise Him for His grace in our lives that we too
are not on this chopping block. And I use that lightly. That
we are not in the same place of expulsion. and that we might
pray more diligently for Him and for each other, so that God
would do the work of continually to hold us in the sealing of
the Gospel, that we might not sin against Him, that His Word
would be and living and breathing in all of our hearts and minds,
and that when we see the sin inside of our hearts, and our
thoughts, and our words, and our apathy, that the Spirit of
God would bring quick work to it, and that we would praise
Christ, for He died for such sin, and that we not fall into
the practice of sin again. So that's it. That's what we
have to do. We don't vote on things like
that. We just obey the Lord. We just stand in agreement. And
I know it may be conflicting for some of you. That's why I've
made sure that I continually keep it before us. Oh, what happens
now? What happens now is that the
will of the Lord is done and that we will see God either bring
glory to Himself through restoring this brother, or He will bring
glory to Himself in making us pure. But He will be glorified
in it. So I ask you a good opportunity
for us to, as the body, labor over this in prayer and unity,
and then partake of the Lord's table. to remember that the gospel
is the work of God through the suffering and the death and the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. So I ask you, church, that we
stand together on this, physically with our bodies and with our
souls. Brother Jesse, are you here?
Would you come up for a second? Brother, I just want you to come
and pray. Father, this is not a good day for our hearts today.
Lord, you know that we are broken over this. We are undone over this, Father,
that we never thought that we would have to do this, Father. Lord, I plea is, Lord, that you
would save him, Father, Lord, that You would have mercy upon
him. Lord, that You would restore him, Father, that You would work
in his heart through Your Word and Holy Spirit, God, that we
convict him of his sin and cause him to flee, Father, that You
would pull him out of the darkness that he dwells in, Lord, and
transfer him into the light. Lord, we so want to have our
brother back. We so want to be in fellowship
with Him, Father. We so want to behold His face
weekly because of Your love that You have given us for Him, Father. We beg of You, Father, as we've
been begging You for time now, Lord, that You would bring Him
back, God. Lord, let us not rest and laboring
in prayer for Him, Father, until You do bring Him back to us,
Father. And also, Lord, let this be a
warning to the rest of us, that if we do not trust in You,
if we do not hold close to You, Father, that we too could fall
away, that none of us are above falling away. For we know our
flesh is hostile towards You, Father. We're desperately in
need of Your Spirit every day to work in us, to keep us trusting
in You, Lord, that You might carry us in this life, that we might obey You. We ask this in the name of the
King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. Amen.