Well, I invite you to turn in your Bibles tonight to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. This is the last sermon on the section here that deals with the keys of the kingdom. And I didn't want to start 1 Corinthians 5 without really considering the second half of this, which calls us to separation. I think that's confusing for people. What does that mean? We have often thought about, as we're considering tonight the subject of discipline in the life of the church and why church discipline is so necessary and how it's been so abandoned in our time and the consequences of that are everywhere. What does it mean to be separate? I think we think at times that means to shun people, and we're going to look at that tonight to see what is the design of discipline, what does it achieve, and how is it to be implemented, And what is the application of that in the life of the church, but in the life of you as in dealing with those who have sinned and are living in sin? Those are important questions, and that's what we're looking at tonight. So I'm going to read a few Lord's Days here. I won't have you answer. I'll just read them, and then we'll read 1 Corinthians 5. What are, this is Lord's Day 31, the keys of the kingdom, the preaching of the holy gospel, and Christian discipline toward repentance, Both of them open the kingdom of heaven to believers and close it to unbelievers. How does the preaching of the Holy Gospel open and close the kingdom of heaven? According to the command of Christ, the kingdom of heaven is opened by proclaiming and publicly declaring to all believers, each and every one, that as often as they accept the gospel promise in true faith, God, because of Christ's merit, truly forgives all their sins. The kingdom of heaven is closed, however, by proclaiming and publicly declaring to unbelievers and hypocrites that as long as they do not repent, the wrath of God and eternal condemnation rest on them. God's judgment both in this life and in the life to come is based on this gospel testimony. Question 85, how is the kingdom of heaven closed and opened by Christian discipline? According to the command of Christ, those who, though called Christians, profess unchristian teachings or live unchristian lives, and who after repeated personal loving admonitions, refuse to abandon their errors and evil ways, and who after being reported to the church, that is to those ordained by the church for that purpose, fail to respond also to the church's admonitions, such persons the church excludes from the Christian community by withholding the sacraments from them, and God also excludes them from the kingdom of Christ. Such persons, when promising and demonstrating genuine reform, are received again as members of Christ and of his church. And now the text tonight is 1 Corinthians 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, and you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you, for though absent in body, I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. That's what we really worked up to last time and we'll overlap here, but now we're really getting into our text. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters. Since then, you would have need to go out of the world. But now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he's guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders. Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. That's 1 Corinthians chapter 5. As we turn tonight to this second sermon on the discipline of the church and the meaning of the discipline of the church, if you're kind of stepping in tonight, this is kind of a serious subject, and one of those subjects that we work through in the course of a year to understand the whole of our Christian faith. So you're stepping into a challenging one tonight, but I hope you'll appreciate if you're stepping into this that the church of the Lord Jesus Christ has standards, and the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is called to pursue holiness. And that's particularly important today. Actually, as I made the case last time, it's one of our greatest witnesses, that people care and understand what they believe and understand why it's important to be the people of the Lord. My goal tonight is to present church discipline since it's had so much baggage throughout history, and I don't know if I've ever really heard it talked about much in a positive light. Anyone who talks about discipline today and the implementation of discipline, it's just viewed as one of the ugliest things ever to do, having no real benefit, and that is just not true. We can see just in society the consequences of children with no discipline. You can see the consequences of that. There has to be discipline, loving discipline, nurturing discipline, or you're setting your children up for failure. We know that, That this is what's happened in the world. But why is that so important in the life of the kingdom of God? Paul explains this tonight and helps us with this. The importance of discipline. Because the same problem happened in the first century. That the church in Corinth didn't understand and appreciate it either. It was one of those things. That it was just easy to neglect and leave alone. Why mess with it? Why do it? Seems to cause more problems than it's worth. It's like the bad-tasting medicine in the cabinet. Can I get away with not having to take it? That's what they viewed church discipline like. Why does the Lord want this done? What does it look like? To neglect it is to deny the Lord Jesus Christ who set us free. To refuse to render judgments about sin is to say it's not that important. It was evident in Corinth that they had forgotten what it meant to be separate as Christians. That's an important theme here. I think one of the biggest struggles today for the church and for us is to appreciate our new identity. And to understand how it's a holy identity. oh in the world people give themselves to their new identities all the time don't they how much energy is given to an identity culture that we have pick your identity lgbtq plus think of the energy given to that identity think of the energy people give to everything under the sun to have an identity in this world and we as christians stand back and and we're ashamed of our identity. We're ashamed of who we are. We're a little bit embarrassed. When you have the best identity, you have the only true identity. You have the identity of Jesus. And that's what Paul's helping. They had forgotten what it meant to be separate. They had forgotten what that looks like. To neglect discipline was to join with the world. To neglect discipline was to bring down serious consequences on the whole body. And might I just say, has the church really done well in America by neglecting discipline? Might it be that the Lord is displeased because this has all but been abandoned? This is an important calling that the Lord gives to us. And the important point to make to begin with tonight is that sin is not some isolated phenomenon in the life of the kingdom of God. So he's going to explain this for us tonight, and I want to pick up where we left off last time in this call to separate. That's what I want to start with, this call to separate through discipline, and then the meaning of this separation and the application of the separation. So I'm going to focus on this theme of separation and what it means and then to also sort of put some stops and restraints on it because at times in the church it's been viewed wrongly and has been abused. So we'll look at some of those things here beginning with this call. I hope I can help tonight all those who've gathered to value discipline for what it is. and as we looked at last time, it's God's way of protecting the sheep. It's God's way of going and getting a wandering sheep. It's God's way of demonstrating his forbearance and patience to people who are wandering away and denying the faith. This is God's way of going and getting someone in sin. And so when we neglect it, we say to God, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. That's pretty offensive. And that's the point of Paul driving this home tonight. As we return to 1 Corinthians 5, you have a case study that's presented in the life of Corinth in which Paul is calling this church to the responsibility of church discipline. Remember what happened? A man in verse 1 was involved sexually with his father's wife, and what greatly, I mean, it's what greatly so agitated the apostle was the church didn't do anything about this. The sin was so evident. The sin was so perverse. The sin was so outside of nature, even the Gentiles had laws against this in the, in the rule books, in the court books. Paul says they don't even allow this in the world, but you're allowing it in the church. So here he was, he was helping them to think a little bit about this, about the importance of exercising discipline and how serious we are to take sin. And last time he addressed their attitude in the whole thing. It was their pride. The pride that said, we're not going to worry about this thing. You know, there are some sins that are very evident. There are some sins that are not, and this was one of those that's very evident. You can't stand back and say, it's okay. And so they were prideful, Paul says. You're arrogant. It's as if, if the Lord Jesus Christ were walking among us, you stood against him. And you went and sided with your friend in his sin. And that has a history. Israel did that. We'll come back to that. And so Paul had given the call in church discipline, which was a striking call to us. Remember what he said? I want you, when you're gathered together in the name of Jesus, here's what church discipline looks like. And here's what it sounds like. I want you to publicly declare. That's why the Heidelberg picks that up. It's a public declaration. I want you to deliver one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that, listen to this, so that his spirit may be saved in the day. What a, what a remarkable verse. His spirit may be saved in the day. And we looked at that and what in the world would that accomplish? Well, to put somebody back out into the realm is to do what Jesus said. When somebody hardens themselves in their sin and they refuse to repent and it gets to the church and the church does loving admonition and the church does all they can to try to restore and if they still say, stop it, don't judge me, leave me alone, as everyone does, then he says, you make a public declaration that they are now outside of the church, and they are put back into the realm of the world where the world is held sway by the evil one, and guess what he's going to do? He's going to attack. And here's the beautiful thing that might happen. While we pray, the Lord, when their eyes are opened, prodigal son, to their empty state, their wasting of life, the destruction through all the sexual morality they chose, and they wake up one day and they've ruined their lives, their flesh has been ruined, and they say, what am I doing? And the Lord may use that to bring them home. See, when nothing's done, the church has the stamp on it. It's okay. You're still okay. Everything's good. Paul is saying you have to make a rendering of a judgment so that they understand there is a separation between the holy covenant community, those in that holy covenant community, and those on the outside. And those who have chosen to live in rejection of Jesus cannot live as if they have fellowship in the gospel anymore in the holy community. That's what church discipline's saying. So you're putting them out. They're now heathens and tax collectors, says Jesus, with the goal that they'd wake up. They'd wake up. Well, that's what he was explaining to them. And the message was this. When the church did this, on a member who continued to live in darkness, as they lost the care of the community. Think of all the care that goes on here. Think of all the love. Think of the supper. Think of the fellowship. Think of all that. It's all that's forfeited. And they have said, I don't want it. And we have said, we recognize that. And now we've delivered you over to what you want. They've lost that. And when all the consequences of the pain of that is felt, the Lord is saying that is his way of bringing them home. It's a remarkable thing. It's a remarkable thing. Instead of rubber stamping it and saying, it's all good, do whatever you want to do. The Lord doesn't use that. So, this is where we are. That was the call to it. And the message was, when the church had done this, they had placed him in the best possible place for mercy to be shown. To do nothing was not love. To spare the rod was to hate the son. But now I want you to think of how Paul drives this home. And what Paul does is explain what is at stake in the neglect. So he's explaining the meaning of their separation at this point. And as I said, the easy way is to do nothing, and there's a lot of pressures to avoid it. But the first thing he does here in following the call to discipline is to provide them a reminder of who they are. Notice this. This is hard for us today. Verse 6, your boasting's 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 are really unleavened. For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival not with old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. His basic point here is to say a little bit of leaven corrupts everything. Now in context, think about that. You're thinking sin is some isolated thing that people do. And when it becomes known in a congregation and it's not really affecting anyone and it's not really affecting anyone here, you think that's just okay. It's isolated. It's not really hurting anyone. You can just leave it alone. What does Paul say? Well, you've forgotten something. A little bit of leaven leavens the whole lump. It corrupts the whole body. That's how God looks at things. So what is the one thing we're all trained about to think about in American life? Well, we're all trained in American life to say, listen, I will do what I'm going to do. You do what you want to do. Don't you dare tell me that what I'm doing is wrong. I'm not hurting anyone in what I'm doing. You leave me alone and you don't judge me. That's what we're used to. we're trained to think, we're trained to accept that as long as that sin is not hurting anyone else, it's all good. That's not Paul's mentality at all. Paul is actually going after that. When it comes to the church, he emphatically saying that's not true in the kingdom of God. That's not how the kingdom of God works. If you claim to be a Christian, you are part of a holy communion. You're a part of a holy community. You're a part of a covenant community. Redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus. And there's a principle that is at work in this. Someone's unrepentant sin that's known and tolerated and accepted. That's the caveat here. Obviously, there could be sin in the life of the church that's not known. But if the sin is known and tolerated and accepted, then a serious thing has happened. And that's why, you know, we say when somebody runs to another church and is in sin and runs to a church where they can hide, what those churches who accept that don't realize is they've just brought in a great contaminant to their body. It's an important point. It's a great contaminant to their body. And that was the principle throughout Israel's history. Think of Achan. The people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things. This is the principle of Achan. For Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things and the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel. Who took it? Achan. Who did his anger come down on? Israel. Because they knew it and did nothing. I once heard about a city in the hills of Guatemala in which all the people got terribly and deathly ill with salmonella. And after weeks of, I was reading the story a long time ago, but I still remember it. After weeks of trying to figure out what was causing it, there was a little crack in the water line to the city and a little bit of animal dung was seeping into the water, into the water supply that it contaminated the whole water supply and made the whole city sick. That's what Paul's saying is happening. When we take sin that's known and unrepentant and let someone continue and say, it's all right, all good, and done nothing to purge the sin, the whole church is polluted in God's eyes. That's the principle here. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. So the actions of this person have corrupted the body. And he says, don't you know you are unleavened? That's such an important point. cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump you are and you are really unleavened for christ our passover lamb has been sacrificed let us celebrate the festival not with old leaven of the leaven of malice and evil but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth did you see what he just did there he grabbed the passover and he grabbed the feast of unleavened bread? And he said, do you know what those mean? Let me, let me root you in that story for a minute. When the Passover happened, what happened? Blood was put on a doorpost to Passover so judgment didn't happen to you and you received forgiveness of your sins. That all anticipated Jesus, didn't it? And then he commanded you right after that in conjunction with that to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Did you know what that Feast of Unleavened Bread meant? It meant that you would be up, and you would leave Egypt, and all that leaven of the past would be left there. You don't bring that back into the community. You're done with that. I brought you out of that. I brought you out of all the idolatry, the sexual immorality. You're free. You're my people. You're a worshiping people. You're a community. So this is he's grabbing it, and he's saying, you're unleavened. You've been covered with the blood of Jesus. Christ is our Passover. So guess what? You've got to leave that stuff behind. He expects us to take our status seriously. Anything brought back in from the former way of life is a threat to our separate status. That's the point. The church, like Israel, was called to go out from their midst and be separate. But Israel wanted to bring back the golden calf, remember? It was the same thing. Paul's answer to their struggles is instructive for us. He's explaining here this call to be separate. They were not to leave the world in that. You know, this is where I think sometimes we get all messed up on separation as Christians. What do we think separation is? I'm going to run to Idaho and be separate from all this stuff. That's in me. That's in me. I'd pick South Dakota now. I like South Dakota. I just like everything about it. That's what we think separate is. Paul's saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not separate. Then you'd have to go out of the world. That's what a lot of people think is separation as Christians. Trying to get out of the world to their own little plot of land so they can escape it all. That's not separate. Learning to be separate in Escondido is really a great thing. That's what he's talking about. How do we be separate where we are? Not trying to find a place of separation and go out of the world. He's going after that. He says, if I were saying that, then you could never talk to any sinners. Then you could go huddle out in Idaho and do whatever you want. but that's not what I'm saying. There's a fellowship. There's a participation in the body of Christ, and I want you to think differently than the world does on this. The world will always be what it is. It operates on its own system, its values, its attractions, its wisdom, and it always stands in opposition to the righteousness of Jesus. So I'm not telling you to go out of the world. I'm not even telling you to shun or avoid your neighbor who's a non-believer who's stuck in some really bad perverse sin, go have dinner with them. You don't have fellowship with them. You don't have this. Go have dinner with them. Why? Because you got a great witness. Who did that? Who sat with the tax collectors and sinners? Jesus. That's what he went to do. he went after. He went after them. He didn't separate out from them. Oh, no, no. He called them to repentance, for sure. He didn't have fellowship, for sure. But this is exactly what Paul is saying here. 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 you need to go out of the world. That's not what he's talking about. Christians are separate from the world, however, insofar as we have refused to join a way of life that stands in opposition to our heavenly citizenship, to who we are as the people of the Lord. Called to be separate from the world by refusing to have fellowship with those who practice a way of life we've been delivered from. What am I talking about? This is where Paul goes into it. I'm writing to you, verse 11, not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he's guilty of sexual morality or greed or an idolater or reviler or drunkard or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. What is he saying? Well, Corinth had allowed into their fellowship someone who claimed to be a believer. Someone who said they're a Christian and yet lived in open sexual morality. That's a far different thing. That's a far different thing. That's like Israel grabbing the golden calf and saying, this is Yahweh who delivered you from out of Egypt. In the same way, the church's refusal to separate from their former way of life had consequences of joining together the church in the world. By doing nothing, they were uniting together again their old life with their new life, trying to. And Paul's saying, listen, where church discipline comes in is a separation from anyone named a brother or sister who lives in a manner inconsistent with that new identity. The Lord says there has to be some kind of separation made. The intimacy, the care, the participation, the table, all that we enjoy together as the body of Christ is not shared and not experienced and not open to somebody who says, I will live and do whatever I want, but don't say, I can be a Christian and do whatever I want to do. Sorry, that's where Paul's drawing the line. So what does that application look like for the church and for us as Christians? Well, for the church, that separation is accomplished by actually going through the act of church discipline. By casting the man back into the world, there would be, with great prayer, and that's what we need to do more after discipline, with great prayer, that the Lord would return such a one. And here's the beauty of what happened to that man in 1 Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians, he repented. And Paul says, put your arm around him. Put your arm around him. Receive him back. it's your brother. He's repented. Well, how are Christians to deal with this situation in the life of the church? Would the Christians in Corinth still cross paths with this man now they put out into the world? What were they to do with him? How were they to treat him? I think a lot of times We think it means just shun them at all costs. Well, Jesus said, treat them as a tax collector and a sinner. How do you treat a tax collector and a sinner? You don't rubber stamp the sin, but you recognize that they need the gospel and that they need forgiveness. And so we're willing to give that message to them, aren't we? We're willing to tell them the truth. We're not willing to act like everything's just fine. There is a separation that way. But the principle is fascinating that he says, we don't command those lives on the outside. Understand that? That's what he says at the end here. What have I to do with judging outsiders? The world is what it is. The world's going to behave and do what it does. But in the kingdom of God, in the church, There is a way of behavior that we expect. And there has to be a kind of separation that's healthy and right and clear and yet still with the goal of love to bring them back. Understand? That's important. Still with the goal of love to bring them back. It may be you seeing the person and putting your arm around them and saying, we miss you. How are you doing these days? What are you doing these days? and talking about repentance, talking about faith, talking about how the Lord's delivered you, showing that we still care about them. Of course, that doesn't mean when Paul says separate shun in that way that we typically do. But it does not mean, hey, we're having the supper. Hey, you're living with so-and-so. Come on in, sleep in my house. It's all good. It's not all good. Those are important things we have to say. And that's the difference. So Paul is helping us with this tonight so that we would be a people separate to the Lord. I have to admit, I know in our culture when we talk about discipline, I was watching a movie the other day and I was appalled how it presented Christians. It presented Christians as all these settlers of the West and as they're traveling, they're sitting high and they're in a proud tone and they're saying, Lord, may we cleanse off the land, all this drunkenness and revelry. Well, the movies may depict us that way, but that's not how the scriptures tell us to live. I hate that Christianity is often depicted that we're standing over everyone self-righteously in judgment over the whole world with no real message of hope. That's not how we're supposed to be. But we don't turn a blind eye to sin, because God doesn't. We remember the goal, prodigal, to the prodigal son, come home, come home. When that prodigal again was in the pigsty and he had wasted his life in a moral living and he had done everything he shouldn't have done, everything that the older son in the house was angry about, when he woke up and came to himself, he said, what am I doing? I'm going to come back to my heavenly father. The father is presented in that parable as picking up his giant robe in shame and running to that son. Running to that son. That should be how we are with those who've turned away from the truth. When they come home, we run to receive them. And we kill the fatted calf for them. And we have a grand celebration for this son or daughter who was lost has been found. That's what church disciplines intended to accomplish. You understand that? I close with this word tonight. Therefore, go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will welcome you. I'll be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me. says the Lord Almighty. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for giving us instruction and help on this difficult subject. We realize how much we need your help to do this, not to come across pompously and arrogantly, for we all have our own sins. And if we had sin in our lives that was left unchecked and we went running right in it, we would be the one talked about here tonight. So we remember that. But pray tonight, for all of those Lord who've turned away from the truth who know the truth and have rejected the truth would you work in their lives and hearts yes through church discipline yes through the lives of us as friends and parents to return your wandering sheep that's what we pray for and that you would bless this in this day and that we would have a great appreciation for our new identity as a holy community and that it would cause all of us to fear and to look at our lives and see what sins we're flirting with and playing with that we could easily fall into much deeper to repent of those sins and to remember who we are as a separate holy people to the Lord. Thank you, O Lord, for helping us tonight with this subject. In Jesus' name, amen.