We'll be looking tonight at 1 Corinthians chapter 5. I invite you to turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. And this is in connection with what we are working through and what we believe together about the keys of the kingdom. That's Lord's Day 31. Lord's Day 31 tonight, which is found on page 235 in your forms and prayers book that are in front of you. I invite you to please turn there as we have a few things to confess together. And before that, if I can find it, next week we have the privilege of coming to the Lord's table. And examination is important as we've been considering these last weeks in our study of the Lord's Supper. True examination consists that everyone consider their sins an ungodliness, that we would hate our sins and humble ourselves before God and consider the wrath of God against sin is so great that he, rather than leaving it unpunished, has punished it in his beloved son Jesus Christ with the bitter and shameful death of the cross. Second, we should examine our hearts to see whether we believe the sure promise of God that our sins are forgiven only because of the passion and death of Jesus Christ and that the complete righteousness of Christ is imputed and freely given to them as their own indeed completely, as if they had personally satisfied for all their sins and fulfilled all righteousness. And third, let everyone carefully examine their own conscience to see if they are fully determined to show true thankfulness to God in every area of life, to walk sincerely before his face, whether they with full sincerity strive to lay aside all enmity, hatred, and envy, and earnestly resolve from this day forward to live with their neighbor in true love and unity. And that's where we'll back up tonight to finish that and confess to, again, question answer 81 and 82. Actually, I'm going to read those two, and then we'll confess Lord's Day 31. So I'll just read these first two. Who should come to the Lord's table? Those who are displeased with themselves because of their sins, but who nevertheless trust that their sins are pardoned and that their remaining weakness is covered by the suffering and death of Christ, and who also desire more and more to strengthen their faith and to lead a better life. Hypocrites and those who are unrepentant, however, eat and drink judgment on themselves. Should those be admitted to the Lord's Supper who show by what they profess and how they live that they're unbelieving and ungodly? No, that would dishonor God's covenant and bring down God's wrath upon the entire congregation. Therefore, according to the instruction of Christ and his apostles, the Christian church is duty-bound to exclude such people by the official use of the keys of the kingdom until they reform their lives. And now let's answer here these three questions and answers. What are 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 publicly… Sorry, let's start. I'm sorry. I messed that up. It's my fault. Let's start that paragraph over. 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. 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 and loving admonitions, refused to abandon their errors in evil ways, and who, after being reported to the church, that is, to those ordained by the church for that purpose, failed 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. 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Tonight, well, this is a two-part section through this. It's so important. This is the word of the Lord. It's 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've already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing when you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened. For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or of the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he's guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or slender, 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, and there will end the reading of God's Word. Obviously, we have tonight a challenging section in front of us. It's so different from the sort of happy sermon that we received this morning. Those are the ones we all love, and those are the ones we talk about. But this is the difficult stuff that we have to come to in the Christian faith and to take seriously, because this is the Lord's church, his kingdom, his salvation, and he knows best. And we should be no surprised that one of the things that matters a lot to the Lord, is the purity of his people and the purity of his church. In Matthew chapter 18, you know the well-known passage. You know what this passage teaches about the sort of three-stage process for dealing with somebody who falls in unrepentant sin. You think about, or the issue of somebody who sinned against you, and Jesus made it very clear, if your brother sins against you, you have this responsibility to go to him. We often stand back and say, well, I'm going to wait for them. And Jesus said, no, if somebody's sinned against you, I want you to go. And I want you to talk to them about that. And I want you to tell them their fault. You go to them and do that alone. Don't make a big public display of that. I want you, it would be wonderful if you could work that out individually, couldn't you? Obviously, there's a distinction between public and private sins. But this three-stage process is important. He lays before us the obligation that if somebody has offended us or there's sin in someone's life, we should love one another enough to go and say, you know, brother, you know, sister, I know you've done this. And I want you to know I love you. I want to talk to you about this. I want you to know that this is not the path that is the Christian path. We don't do that. We just don't do that anymore. We have avoided that altogether. And it's caused a lot of problems in the life of the kingdom because individually we don't do that. We don't do that often with our children. We don't do that often with our family. It's difficult. I'm not saying it's easy. But it is the calling of Jesus, isn't it? And you just might get what Jesus says. they may say, hey, stop judging me. And then you take somebody else. And then he may say to both of you, stop judging me. And then Jesus says, tell it to the church. If you never think in the New Testament, Jesus didn't value the institutional church, you're wrong. It's right there. Tell it to the office bearers. then take them. And I want you to know that when you do that, that's where the authority lies. That ultimately they have to render a judgment on the matter. And if they refuse to hear the church, then I want you to have them to let them be a heathen and a tax collector. What a statement. When the church makes a ruling on sin, when it gets to that level, and the church has to do that in one of its members, and they refuse to hear that, Jesus says there's a category change that needs to happen. There's a separation that needs to happen. And that separation is really important. You have to make some sort of declaration that such a person is now outside of the fellowship, The koinonia that we talked about this morning. The gospel fellowship that we enjoy. And Jesus said, following that, Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And then the verse that we all very much abuse. It's not the Bible study verse. Wherever two or three are gathered of my church officers to make that decision, I'm with them. I'm with them. I stand with them. Now, that assumes, of course, a good biblical application of discipline. There is abuse. Nobody denies that. We're in a culture of a lot of church abuse that's being exposed. It can be really bad, and I acknowledge that. Tonight, I'm trying to focus on the good way it should be done and the kind of way that the Lord tells us to do it, Meaning that when the church makes a judgment about sin, heaven makes that judgment. That's what Jesus just said. It recognizes that the decision of the church when it's done in truth and by a wisdom and plurality of elders who discern the matter and work with the matter, that decision is something that is recognized by Jesus. And that's the reason that the churches have always believed, at least historically, especially Reformed churches, that discipline is a mark of a true and a faithful church. It's an important issue. And yet there's nothing more hated by society today. Nothing more despised by society today. We are a culture that no longer understands any kind of purpose for discipline. And just look at the consequences. Is this harmony? Are people really treating people with peace? Disciplines absent, you spoil a nation. I'm not talking about church discipline. I'm just saying laws that are meant to curb and stop evil. We're taught today not to make judgments against anyone anymore because of that. Now, the exercise, particularly in the kingdom of God, with discipline is set aside. We felt that pressure, and we have long succumbed to it. Exercising discipline requires making judgments. That's the very end of the section here. Is it not those inside the church whom you are to make a judgment about? Of course you are. Of course you are. God judges those on the outside. We live in a culture that says just be tolerant, show love, and show understanding, and I want to work with that tonight and show you at least the beginnings in this section, the terrible consequences of that. A church that exercises discipline today in any way will be called that, of course, unloving and judgmental, and especially the dreaded word that we all think is the worst word in our vocabulary, excommunication. We don't even use that anymore because it just has so much baggage with it. The mere name evokes disgust. The mere thought of exercising discipline against somebody makes us all recoil? What kind of people do that? Why would you do that? And that brings us to the heart of the issue tonight, which is very simple, according to the Apostle Paul, that discipline is the way of keeping the church pure and protecting the lives of those on the inside as the holy community. And it's God's way of going after wayward sheep. Those are pretty compelling reasons to do it. If you don't think it should be done, think of what's lost. And that's what Paul's going to explain tonight. In the case here, we'll notice here, the first point I'm making is really to just consider briefly, I know it's familiar to you, the case of church discipline that the Apostle Paul presents in 1 Corinthians to show how it ties together with the keys of the kingdom and why this is so important. And I want to explore this difficult passage for a moment to give you an understanding of why it's so important that we would honor the Lord's desire that we do church discipline in situations like this. You'll notice in verse 1 of 1 Corinthians chapter 5 that it says it's actually reported that there's sexual immorality among you. There's a report. A report that's known in the congregation. A report that one of the members is doing something they shouldn't be doing and is sexually immoral. And notice here how he goes on to describe that. He goes on and says, it's the kind that is not even tolerated among pagans. For a man has his father's wife. Really shocking. You can kind of feel the apostles' agony here in the way it's described. It's sort of just the shocking, perverse nature of the sin, which really isn't shocking in our day. Any of this could happen. But it's shocking for Paul that the church knows it and doesn't seem to want to do anything about it. The sin was really rather clear. A man in the life of the congregation was involved in gross sexual immorality with his father's wife. Most likely it was not his biological mother, by the way it's stated, but it seems to be a clear case of some kind of incest that's involved in the church. And the law of God had, if you think about the principles of the law of God, there are certain things that even in nature we know. He's kind of appealing to that. The Gentiles in a sort of natural law written on the heart know this is wrong. But God had even expressed it in the Old Testament that this was wrong. Leviticus 20. The man who lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness. Both of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. Oh, God exercised church discipline on this. You shall, then he said, put away. Here's the principle tonight. It's really important. You shall put away the evil from among you. The principle here was that in the life of the congregation, the holy gathering, there was to be a purging out of the known sin. And the congregation had to see that and know that. That's the very end of this in verse 13 of our text tonight. God judges those outside, purge the evil person from among you. So there's the principle. There needed to be a cleansing in the life of the congregation. And that fits the whole principle that we studied here with the Lord's Supper about the Lord's displeasure on a congregation that doesn't take sin seriously. You think of the sin of Achan, maybe, where his sin polluted Israel, and they didn't do anything about it. And once they did, then the camp was cleansed. The people were cleansed. So this is an important leadership issue. In order to purify the congregation, God commanded that in the Old Testament that the people, when the discipline was enacted, when these sins happened, there were certain sins that required even the extreme measure of death. They were so polluting. All the congregation was to give a verbal amen to it. No mother or father or somebody stood on the outside and said, I just don't agree with that. That's bad in the Old Testament. You didn't do that. God was clear. He took sin this seriously. Put away the evil among you. Put it away. This is in Deuteronomy 27. Cursed is the one who lies with his father's wife because he's uncovered his father's bed and all the people shall say amen. See, it was a collective engagement in the purging. So in other words, the law said the principle of discipline that people were to support the leadership in these very difficult decisions. But the Old Testament law that the apostles expected the New Covenant church to understand in the principles is that sin still had to be removed from the camp. That's the principle here. Obviously, in the New Covenant, there wasn't stoning. We're not in a theocracy. It's the principle Paul's working with. It's the principle that Paul cares about. Here's what shocked Paul. Was this unclear in the life of the congregation that this was going on? No, there are certain sins. You say, well, it's just messy. I don't, we don't have all the details. We don't have all the facts. You don't know. And it's difficult to know. Those are complex scenarios, aren't they? Seems to me, though, that's not the case here. This was sheer neglect in the life of the church. to refuse to discipline a situation they absolutely knew was wrong. It wasn't a gray area. And that's why Paul's appalled. That's why Paul's shocked. Because even according to the Greco-Roman standard, this sin wasn't even named among the Gentiles. That's how sort of radical this was. They knew, and there were laws against it in the Gentile world. So what was happening? I think it was a mindset in the life of the church. The real disgust of the apostle is, why are you doing nothing about this? Let's get to motivations for a minute. Why are you avoiding this? It's a lot more difficult when things are clear, but this is clear. Everyone knew this was wrong. It wasn't a theological debate. And this leads you to the compromise here of church discipline in Corinth. He says in verse 2, and you who you are arrogant. That's quite a charge, isn't it? Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from you. I'm struck by that. Where does arrogance show up? In the life of a child. Where does pride come out in somebody? In their siding with a sinner against God. And they're standing with the one who's clearly sinned against God and refusing to stand with the Lord. How arrogant. How arrogant. Paul is speaking here of us fearing people. rather than God. In other words, something happened in the life of the church. You know, you think of these situations. Leaders are faced with a choice. What is often the first concern of the leadership? The sin of the person? If they're godly leadership. Their status before God? The sin they've committed? Or, I don't want to touch that. You know who the parent is? You know who the grandparent is? You know the consequences in the life of the church if we do that? These are the things we struggle with. I think this was Paul's point in chapter 6. Don't be deceived on this matter. Here's what's at stake. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor homosexuals, nor adulterers, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. That's a heavy list, and we stand back and say, well, we're all sinners. Of course you're all sinners. There's a big difference between fighting against sin, repenting of sin, and justifying sin. big difference, and this is what Paul's addressing here. Someone in the life of the church practicing these things, Paul's saying you can't be deceived. See how easy it is to be deceived on this stuff today? God will overlook it. God doesn't mind, and this is what Paul's dealing with. So the question is, is what does Paul call the church in Corinth to do with somebody practicing sin. I emphasize again, living in unrepentant, daily, leave me alone, I'm doing nothing wrong kind of lifestyle in sin that's hardened their heart. Somebody in the church, somebody who's made a profession, somebody who knows the truth and has departed from the truth and says that. What do we do? What is God calling the church to do? And this comes a challenge. We all agree that there are wrongs until it faces us. Godly leadership, principle leadership, is called to act on the truth of it, realizing that whatever consequences there are from the decision, that's part of leadership. That's part of fearing God and letting the results fall to him. We don't want our church to be viewed like that in the community. Do you care what your church is viewed like before God? So you have this sort of choice, a biblical basis for discipline or often social pressures and social ones and pragmatism and what good will this do anyways? We've never seen anyone repent. I have. I've actually seen it. I'll get back to that. It was most likely for social reasons that the church in Corinth did nothing. He's male. Male-dominated society. got away with everything at that time. Sexual immorality, much easier than on the women, right? As is still true today. The women were disregarded. It's probably well known. Probably influential. One pastor said, these kind of people are dangerous to offend in a society in which any form of discipline is considered unloving. The pressures are all the worse. I have a million examples to use. I'll stay as far down the path as when I was an intern, far away from here. I sat in a church council as an intern years ago, and I remember the situation. A man, a well-known, respected man in the church, turned, and he forbid his wife and children to come to church anymore. And this went on indefinitely. Somebody said, well, what are we going to do about that? He's not letting. His wife wants to come. And I raised my hand. This is the intern who should have probably just shut up. I said, in what case would we ever church discipline? No answer. This is just situations that are difficult. You can save yourselves, you think, a lot of problems by avoiding the hard things to do in life. It's easy to do that. It's easy to avoid talking to our children when they've sinned. It's easy to stay away from it. You're doing them no favors. Corinth was ignoring the problem. And here's the problem. Everyone in the church thought, oh, guess it doesn't matter. Guess it doesn't matter, you know. If so-and-so over there can do that, I can do it. This is a real problem. The fear of the Lord is absent in a place. Paul was horrified by this, this relaxed attitude. And here's the irony. For all the claim of love in our culture, what does he say they're not doing? Mourning for the person. Shouldn't you rather be mourning? And their lack of mourning, their lack of care, showed it's not really about love. Not really about love. We have made sin no big deal. And Paul says, this is the call. Make a judgment about it. You have the word of God. He's told you what's true and right. This case is very clear. for indeed verse 3 he says though I'm absent in the body I'm present in the spirit and as if present I've 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 now listen to this his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. That's a surprising interjection, isn't it? Surprising interjection. Paul says down in verse 12, you're really not judging those on the outside. Matter of fact, this is Rosario Butterfield's big complaint against the church today is that, you know, we can go and sit with our homosexual friend who doesn't believe and have dinner. but we can't sit with the homosexual person or the adulterer or anyone who says they're a believer and says they're a Christian and act like that's okay. That's wrong. The world's given over. That's why we're here. But for the Christian to sit around with somebody who says they're a Christian and lives a total lie, That's hypocrisy to put your rubber stamp on that. That's what he says. So he says, put away the evil. The church and the elders have to be able to discern and judge what is Christian behavior and what isn't Christian behavior. And listen to what he says here in this call. When you're gathered together with my spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Here's what he's saying. When you come together, and I love what our Heidelberg says tonight. Did you notice how much patience was given in this? Those who, though called Christians, profess unchristian teachings, or live unchristian lives, and who after repeated personal and loving admonitions refuse to abandon their errors and evil ways, and who, after being reported to the church, that is, those ordained by the church for that purpose, fail to respond, such persons the church excludes from the Christian community. This is what Paul's describing here in this particular passage. What he's saying is, it's too much at risk. This is polluting the body in God's eyes. and here's what you do. When you have to exercise discipline, here's what it looks like. You invoke the name of Jesus and his power. He's with you, Matthew. Remember we looked at. Do it in the name of Jesus. When someone's sitting today, the first thing they say is, Jesus isn't judging me. And when the church makes this determination, Jesus is saying, do it in my name. Jesus is on the side of his office bearers who've done their job and care and love. What does he say? When you're gathered together, when you've discerned the facts, and you determine that someone's living in unrepentant sin, explain it to the congregation, and deliver them to Satan for the destruction of their flesh. What in the world does that mean? Here's what Paul's saying. Make a public declaration that they're now separated from you. It's a whole, there's a separation that's taken place from the holy community, the covenant community. And they're put back into the world. That's their status now. You've made a status declaration where the principalities and the powers hold sway over people. Make a separation that they're suspended from the church's privileges of the Lord's Supper and what belong to the gospel koinonia that we talked about this morning. It's so beautiful. And guess what might happen? They might wake up because they felt this. Remember the prodigal and the pigsty? He runs from his father's house, goes and lives an adulterous, squanderous life, and one day he's sitting eating the slop from the pigs and he came to himself. And what did he realize when he came to himself? I'm separate from my father. What am I doing here? I've wrecked my life. I'm living in riotous living. Everything that my parents taught me, my father taught me. I'm going home. You know what the Lord's saying here? That's the way to wake them up. It's the most merciful and loving thing you could do to someone who's so hard in their sin. See, our whole mentality of discipline just has to change, and it's so difficult. This is how the Lord says, I leave the 99 and go get them. This is how I show my patience and love through the church's act of discipline. We think if we do that, we're going to drive them harder away. We think if we do that, we'll lose the person. We think if I say something, they're done, and I'm going to lose them. They're lost. That's why we do this. and you see mercy is written all over this passage isn't it sort of a mystery here? Deliver someone there so that they'll realize their alienation and say I need to go back or be warm be well fed we don't want to offend you what do we do? And the Lord is saying, this is how, when a church honors that, how do you know I won't soften that heart right then and there? You know what happened in this case? 2 Corinthians. The punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for such a man. So that on the contrary, you ought rather to forgive and comfort him lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow. Therefore, I urge you, reaffirm your love to him. I think you can make the case from that. He came home. You know what the apostle said? Put him right back up and reaffirm him. I knew a man who would give you his testimony, ran away and ruined his life, ruined his marriage, and riotous living. Did everything terrible. His father was a pastor. The church did the hard work of excommunicating him. And one day he came back and he stood up on that stage with tears in his eyes and he says, I repent. And they threw their arms around him. Do we have confidence in the means God uses. Next time we'll look more at the consequences of the neglect. It'll be painful at times. It'll be hard. People can run to other churches today and avoid the whole process. But I say this with all sincerity of heart. We always do it in love, never in anger. The goal is always, we love you, come home, come home. It's far worse thing to neglect it. Jesus is merciful and compassionate and slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness. That's why he put discipline in place. That's why we have it. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for helping us through this difficult subject tonight. It's so hard for us, we confess. We're all sinners. We all have strayed. And we ask, O Lord, that you'd be merciful to us. That's why when you tell us, especially as leaders, when we go after someone to do it with the spirit of gentleness, lest we are overtaken in the sin. And yet it doesn't, Lord, prevent us or excuse us because we're sinners from going after your sheep who wander from the fold. Change our heart on this. Help us to understand it's an act, Lord, in the day of salvation of trying to bring restoration and give the congregation an understanding as the leadership has to do these things, Understanding why it's necessary, how you love to keep your church pure, and how it brings fear on the whole body, and how sheep are won back. Forgive us, Lord, for the neglect of this at times, and be merciful to us. And may we all guard our lives from sin, for to him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall. Thank you, O Lord, for upholding us in grace. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you.