Antioch Odessa
Church Discipline
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  • One of the great realities of every local body of Christ like Antioch Church, is that we have pastors and elders that are here to help you, listen to you, and give you wise council from God’s Word. You can come to talk to us about difficult topics like we are going to address today, or even as you are reading in your personal quiet time. I know when I was a young man I had a lot of questions and I could go to my pastor with any question and he was always there to help and listen. As the Lord lays questions on your heart about Him or things in His Word, please know that we as Elders have had years to learn and study, and we desire to help you as you are growing in your faith. Call the church office and we can set a time to meet with you.
    My point here is that you love your own children enough, so you want to talk to them about the tough subjects that will come up and not avoid them. We too don’t want to avoid difficult questions that our church family may have, and would love to visit with you about what God is teaching you. Just know that we are here to help you love Jesus more and faithfully follow Him.
    Throughout the New Testament we learn much about what the church of Christ is too look like. Peter gives us a few details.
    1 Peter 2:9 ESV
    9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
    Even Paul proclaims something similar in first and second Corinthians.
    2 Corinthians 6:16 ESV
    16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
    1 Corinthians 3:9 ESV
    9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
    The church is too look different and act different than those who are of the world or unbelievers. As a body of believers we come together each Lord’s day to sing about God, to pray to God, to give offerings to Him, to greet one another, to hear God’s word taught, to confess our sin, and to participate in taking the bread and the juice together as we remember Christ’s sacrifice for us. But why do we do these things?
    In Robert Robinson’s famous hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing’ he helps us to see that he was prone to wander away from the Lord and even to get away from meeting with other believers because of sin. We too can have the tendency if not careful to wander away from following Jesus. If people wander away from Jesus we need godly friends, godly men , women, and church leaders to help people to see their sin and follow the Lord.
    In our text this morning we see a very serious situation that happened within the church at Corinth with an individual who had made a public profession that he was a believer, but was now caught up in a gross sin. Incest. We live in a time where we are seeing more and more of this behavior and yet so often we are seeing churches who either condone this behavior of certain sins and see nothing wrong with it or just sweep it under the carpet because they don’t want to offend someone.
    Over the past few years our society has become more and more tolerant of certain sinful behaviors and I would say so has the church. Back in 2013 the Disney movie “Frozen” came out. In this particular movie the character Elsa boldly sang these words, “No right, no wrong, or rules for me, I’m free. “Let it Go.” The LGBTQ plus movement has pushed the moral decline even further down the road with statements that God is loving of everyone, every person, gender, and sexual preference. Their mindset is if you don’t let me be who I think I am and love whom I want to love, your are bigoted, homophobic, intolerant, and hateful.
    So the question I want to address this morning is it right to call out sinful behavior? Is it loving to discipline those who have professed Jesus as their Savior and are walking in habitual sin? It is loving to practice church discipline? The biblical answer to this is yes.
    Let’s begin with Scripture and see what God’s Word says about love. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 13.
    1 Corinthians 13:4–5 ESV
    4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
    This is a good start, but we must continue reading.
    1 Corinthians 13:6–7 ESV
    6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
    Love does not and cannot rejoice in something that the Bible clearly says is sinful. Our love for God should lead us to obedience, because obeying God is a sign of our love for Him. When people who claim to love Jesus walk away from Him by living in sinful ways, we as believers, and ultimately the church should say I care enough to correct my brother or sister by saying NO! God is love, so you must stop living in sin and return to God and follow Him.
    Turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Over the past several weeks in my study for this message I realized that there was no way to get through all of this in one week. So we will take our time and spent two weeks addressing this message of how are we to biblically help those involved in sinful things. There are several key observations that we must address. I will take time to point out to major areas this week and two next Sunday. Here is the first observation.
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    1. Overlooking sin is not loving but dangerous.

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    1. Pasar por alto el pecado no es amoroso, sino peligroso.

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    1 Corinthians 5:1–2 ESV
    1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
    We must not neglect church discipline. Often times the question comes up, why is church discipline needed? Here in chapter 5 Paul shares with us a sad story of a young man who was caught up in a scandalous sin. Paul is very quick to not only call out this sinful situation but he is also quick to point out the churches tolerant attitude toward the sin. Paul shows this church the seriousness of this complacency and teaches them how churches are to handle those who are involved in habitual sinful things through church discipline.
    There are several things that should stand out to us here about this situation. First of all, this sin was well known. It was not hidden. Paul says that it has been reported among you that there is sexual immorality among you. This serious sin had been broadcast far and wide and was ruining the good reputation of the church. The second thing is that this sin was revolting. Paul shares with us that this sin was so awful that it wasn’t even tolerated among the pagan people of the time. In other words, even the unbelieving pagan people would be shocked at this type of sexual immorality. This Greek word sexual immorality is (porneia) where we get our English word for pornography. Apparently this father was still married to this woman since Paul refers to her as his father’s wife. The other shocking thing that stands out here is that this sin was ongoing. This sin was happening right before their eyes. The church knew all about this and yet did nothing at all about it. What Paul helps them to understand here is that the church is sinning by avoiding corrective church discipline. As church leaders and even people within the church we are called to lovingly go to the person and ask them if what they are doing is true. We are then to lovingly point out what God’s Word says about the matter and show them why the sin is wrong, so that they may repent and be reconciled.
    Paul tells this church that they have become arrogant about this situation. This means literally that they were puffed up. They had taken on a destructive view of God’s grace. In others words because people have salvation in Jesus they can live however they desire knowing that Jesus will forgive them. Paul says plainly here you guys should be mourning over this as someone might mourn at a funeral over the loss of a loved one. The loss here of course is not of someone’s life but the church’s purity. Paul reminded the church at Rome about this.
    Romans 6:1–2 ESV
    1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
    The Corinthian church had an arrogant and puffed up view of God’s grace which showed that they were tolerating gross behavior and gross sin. Long before Paul addressed this serious issue they should have removed this sinful person from the church. This would have shown others how awful these sinful acts are and how much they cared about the purity of the church so that the sinner would repent and eventually be restored. Paul realized that someone must take a stand and even though he was not there in person he must address this dangerous situation.
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    2. Confronting sin is not optional but essential.

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    2. Enfrentar el pecado no es opcional, sino esencial.

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    1 Corinthians 5:3–5 ESV
    3 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. 4 When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 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.
    It can be easy to ignore church discipline when we care more about pleasing men than God.
    Paul’s words here give a strong rebuke to the sexual sin that was happening in the church and the proud mindset of the Corinthians. Clearly the leaders within the church were not dealing with this situation and showing discipline when it was clearly needed. This is why Paul makes the statement that he does about pronouncing judgment. Paul realized that for the good of this man caught in the sinful act of sexual immorality and the purity of the church someone needed to take a stand and say enough is enough!
    As this church comes together or meets together Paul gives some specifics on how to discipline this individual. I think it is important here to keep in mind that this authority to discipline is given to the leaders in the church like Paul was from the Lord. This is not something that church leaders look forward to do, but at times it will happen. This is why we must pray for our church leaders. By coming together in the name of the Lord Jesus, they were to show discipline by being obedient to what God commands. We see a great example of this when someone is caught up in sin. The gospel of Matthew really helps us to see how we do this. Matthew 18.
    Matthew 18:15–17 ESV
    15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, 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.
    As we see here in Matthew there are times where church discipline can be dealt with more privately or one on one. Second, there may be times were even several church leaders have to address this. However, there may come times where the whole church will need to come together like what we see here. At this point in the sinful relationship, this was out in the open and from all acounts it looked like the church not only knew about this, but that the members had not seen anything wrong about it. In verse 6 Paul says your boasting is not good.
    The church now was to deliver this person over to Satan. You may be here today and think this seems very harsh, but what exactly does this mean? The church was to excommunicate this sinning person from the church. They were too officially remove this person from being a member of the church because they were no longer regarded as a brother or sister in Christ. This is also meant that they would no longer take part in the blessings of the Lord’s supper and would not receive benevolent help from the church. By doing this the unrepentant sinner was turned over to Satan to suffer greatly. The destruction of the flesh could indicate that unless this man repented of his sin he would eventually suffer physical death because of the destructive sinful lifestyle or as a result of God’s own hand of discipline against unrepentant believers. He would go to heaven of course, but he would go before he should have gone. To protect His church, the Lord would take him early. This is the severe case of church discipline. The other side too delivering this individual over to Satan was that his spirit would be saved in the day of the Lord. The goal of harsh discipline was restoration. That his spirit would be saved
    The whole point of church discipline is to spiritually restore a fallen brother or sister and therefore to help strengthen the church. When someone in the church is spoken to and rebuked and they turn from their sin they will be forgiven. The goal is to help people who have sinned to come back into the fellowship of the church, not angrily leave and go down the road and repeat the same thing. The goal is not to get rid of people or throw them out of the church even though this may happen if they are confronted with their sin, and not repent of it or seeing anything wrong with what they are doing.
    The point here is that we are to discipline them so that they might see their sin and turn from it. It is not to even embarrass people or to exercise authority over people in an unbiblical way. The goal should be to always restore sinning believers so that they may live holy and pure lives for Jesus and to restore them back to good and healthy relationships within the church.
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    Conclusion: Paul reminds us here that putting off church discipline or not seeing the seriousness of discipline is nothing new. In a day and age where many churches don’t even see the importance of church membership or church discipline God’s word shows us otherwise.
    Pastor Alistair Begg was right when he said, “Church discipline brings glory to God as his people obey his word.”
    We live in a time where most people today see God as a gentle father figure who loves people so much that He would never think of judging anybody for anything. With this type of view of God we are shown a loving and yet tolerant church that embraces all people regardless of their beliefs and practices. We must not overlook sin because this is dangerous. I hear many people say today I don’t care how someone lives because that is between them and God. We should just get along and love each other. This of course is a direct lie from Satan. Think about it this way. If you have a young child who gets into the garage and reaches for a poison container, you don’t say, hey that is very dangerous, but I’m going to be loving and let my child decide what he or she wants to do. NO! NO! NO! We would all quickly grab the container out of their hands and not worry at all about hurting their feelings. There are times in the church where we must commit ourselves to doing what is right, even when it is unpopular.
    It is essential to confront sin as I have already stated. Of course there are clear guidelines that the Lord gives us to help do this in a loving and gentle manner as Matthew 18 has shown us. For the sake of the church’s health and the sinner’s restoration we must practice loving discipline.
    Please here me today loved ones. This is a great time today to take a look at your own life and see if there is any secret sin that needs to be confessed or that could blow up into a sinful scandal. Today is the day to turn away from your sin and ask the Lord to forgive you. Repent from sin and save yourself the humiliation of discipline, either from the Lord or from His people.
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    (Close in Prayer)

      • 1 Peter 2:9ESV

      • 2 Corinthians 6:16ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 3:9ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 13:4–5ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 13:6–7ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 5:1–2ESV

      • Romans 6:1–2ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 5:3–5ESV

      • Matthew 18:15–17ESV

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Antioch Odessa
acc.it@antiochchristian.org
432-366-5617
http://www.antiochchristian.org
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