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Church Membership and Discipline - Part 1 · Providence Baptist Church - Sermons

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All right, thank you, Doug. Please take your copy of God's Word and turn to Ephesians chapter 4.
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The cries of our littles brings me joy in a way it has not in a very long time.
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It actually fills me with happiness to have crying in this room.
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So thank you. Glad to have it.
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I'm going to do something this morning that I don't do often for good reason.
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It's done rarely enough, but I think it deserves explanation.
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We most regularly and as a habit exposit a text.
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We take a text, we read it, and explain to you what it means, work to give you application for it.
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This morning we're going to use the text, this text in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 10 through 16,
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as kind of a jumping off point to talk about something broader.
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I'm going to explain to you why I'm doing this, but I just want you to be aware that as a regular thing,
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I know this is not the best way to open up the text and give attention to it.
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From time to time, I think it can be an appropriate thing.
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I hope you'll agree with me by the time we're done this morning.
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So Ephesians chapter 10, chapter, I'm excuse me, Ephesians chapter 4, beginning in verse 10.
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He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things.
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And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry,
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for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
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to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
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so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine,
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by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
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Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
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from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped,
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when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
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Now, this text is from our Bible reading this past week.
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And as I read it, it's a text that I normally read with great joy, right?
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This ecclesiological text, what is the church meant to do?
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What's its high aim?
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I couldn't help but note that the body is to be joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped,
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verse 16, and to lament the reality that we both feel and are in actuality disjointed in this moment.
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Even when we gather in the largest of groups, they still don't have the whole body,
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this local expression of the church gathered together.
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And so I think it'd be good for us to think this morning, as we find ourselves in the midst of the pandemic,
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as there's restrictions being put on the sizes of groups that we can have,
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as we're anticipating this may drag on longer than any of us hoped that it would,
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how should we be thinking in this time?
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And we'll tell you immediately, I do not have the direct and immediate answer for you about solutions for the problem.
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But I think if we'll come back and we'll start with some clear biblical thinking about what the church is,
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it'll help us to think in this time and it'll help us to draw good conclusions moving forward.
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So I want to talk this morning briefly.
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I hope we'll see how quick I can do this about church membership and church discipline.
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And if you've been around here for a while, you've heard about these things,
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you may be going, oh gosh, church membership and church discipline again.
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But all the more in a time like this,
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we need to be really,
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really clear minded about how it is that we are in a fellowship of believers.
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And then how it is that we find ourselves outside of a fellowship of believers, right?
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So why and how do we see people into the life of a local church?
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Why and how do we correct people in the life of a local church?
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And why and how do we see people out of the light of a local church?
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This teaching is, of course, for those of you who are not members of our church
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or are not in the process of becoming a member of our church.
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But not only that, it's also for those who are members of our church, right?
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We need to understand, we need to give careful consideration to the degree of our commitment to the church.
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It's one thing to say that you are committed.
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It's another thing altogether to be committed to a local fellowship, right?
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Those of you who are members of our church also need to be able to make kind and compelling cases to your friends,
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roommates, classmates, coworkers, family who profess to follow Jesus Christ, right?
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That they also ought to be members of a local church, right?
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The church is a great grace to us, right?
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It is the church that Christ died for.
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We ought to treasure it properly if we mean to follow Jesus the way he wants for us to.
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Now, before I can make a convincing case to you of your need of church membership and discipline,
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I must make a case to you what the church is, right?
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We live, after all, in a day of very poor ecclesiology, right?
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This moment is proving that to be so incredibly true, right?
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To begin with, we used the word church to speak of buildings and property.
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Should never be the case.
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But now we're using it of all kinds of meetings online, right?
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So you have multi-site church that's already existed.
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Now you have church at home.
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You have online church.
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All kinds of perversions of the very word and what it means.
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Far too many people for far too long have thought of the local church as a club.
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Far too many people for far too long have thought that to be a member of a local church means that you show up at significant meetings,
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that you pay your dues, and that you believe in the cause of the organization.
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Far too many people for far too long have joined local churches because the church agreed with their political ideology,
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or met some stylistic preference, or offered them an affinity-based friend group,
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or made them feel good about themselves.
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But beloved, the church is not a club.
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It is not a fraternity or sorority.
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The church is not an organization that puts on events and supports causes,
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and your participation is optional.
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The church is God's people, called together by grace through faith around an event,
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the completed work of Jesus Christ.
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And because God's global church cannot meet under the same roof, this side of heaven,
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we will one day, praise God,
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but because we can't do it now, we gather in local fellowships to worship God in word and deed, right?
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This is the form of church most mentioned in the scriptures,
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talking about the local gathering of believers.
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Jonathan Lehman, editorial director for Nine Marks, said,
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the local church is not a club.
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It's where we Christians go public to declare our highest allegiance.
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It's the outpost or embassy giving a public face to our future nation.
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Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2, verse 9 and 10,
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You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
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a people for his own possession,
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that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
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Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.
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Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
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And so we as a church are meant to be a people, right,
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who represent Jesus' coming kingdom in a strange and foreign land, right?
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And we ought to then gather regularly, as allowed in our current state,
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and declare who is part of that kingdom and who is not a part of that kingdom,
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and to go and recruit people to be a part of that kingdom, right?
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Freely offering God's kindness to them in Christ.
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Martin Lloyd-Jones once said,
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We must cease to think of the church as a gathering of institutions and organizations,
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and we must get back to the notion that we are the people of God.
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A Christianity devoid of life in the local church is found nowhere in the scripture, right?
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New Testament Christians would think so much that happens in our day incredibly odd.
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Even in those cases of frontier mission work,
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the missionaries are commissioned and prayed for by the church,
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the missionaries are starting churches,
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and the missionaries are received back to their sending church to hear the account of God's working.
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Look at Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey.
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They're sent by a church, they start churches,
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they come back to a church, right, to tell of all that God had done.
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Mission without the church is missing.
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The main ingredient, right?
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We gather in order to go, and we go in order to gather.
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Christ died for the church,
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and it is his intention to make himself known through it and by it, right?
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Ecclesiology, the study of the church, is not just some sideline thing for some people.
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All people who belong to Christ ought to be particularly concerned about this beautiful thing that he instituted called the church.
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God intends for the world to be able to look around and say of a people, church,
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and to say of another, not church, right, which frames our concern for church membership and for church discipline, right?
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So, what is church membership?
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Church membership is a formal relationship between a local church and a Christian, right?
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Now here, when I say local church, I mean people, right?
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People who have already made an agreement together to be in a church fellowship together, right?
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Membership adds to that number, right?
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In which the church affirms the Christian's profession of faith and gives oversight of the living of their faith, right?
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Who says to an individual, yes, you're part of the kingdom, right?
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With the confidence we can have, you're part of the kingdom,
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and we want to help you to live as a citizen of that kingdom.
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It is through church membership that we do the one another's of scripture.
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You ready? I'm going to rattle them off.
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Well, not all of them.
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I'm going to rattle off some of them for you quickly.
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Be at peace with one another.
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Mark 9, 50.
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Love one another.
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John 15, 12.
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Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.
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Romans 12, 10.
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Honor one another above yourselves.
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Romans 12, 10.
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Live in harmony with one another.
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Romans 12, 16.
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Accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you.
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Romans 15, 7.
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Instruct one another.
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Romans 15, 14.
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Have equal concern for each other.
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1 Corinthians 12, 25.
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Serve one another in love.
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Galatians 5, 13.
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Be patient.
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Bear with one another in love.
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Ephesians 4, 2.
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Be kind and compassionate to one another.
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Ephesians 4, 32.
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Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
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Ephesians 5, 21.
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Forgive whatever grievances you have against one another.
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Colossians 3, 13.
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Encourage each other.
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1 Thessalonians 4, 18.
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Right?
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None of these things are possible if there aren't others.
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All of that.
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And there's many, many more in the Scripture are meant to be done with others.
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Right?
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People that you have said, these things the Scripture commands of me, as I read those things,
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I have people in mind, specific people that I am supposed to be doing that with and for.
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However, if church membership is not membership in a club, then it must be meaningful membership.
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Right?
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That's why we refer to our membership in this way.
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Right?
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It's meaningful membership.
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You make promises to us and we make promises to you when you join our fellowship.
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Right?
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We're saying we are partnering together.
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We are going to do this difficult task.
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Right?
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Grace filled, but difficult task of following Christ together.
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Right?
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And we recognize that Jesus died for this thing called church.
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And he gave it to us that we don't go rogue in this, but we do it with one another.
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Right?
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We need each other in this.
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The church is a wonderful grace to us in following Jesus Christ.
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So, I hope you get some sense of the importance of it.
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But where is church membership found in the Bible?
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The Bible speaks of us being members of one another in Ephesians 4, 25, Romans 12, 5, and 1 Corinthians 12, 25.
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Although each of these texts speaks to our unity as a local fellowship and not necessarily the formal relationship called membership.
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In order to note the formal relationship, we must draw conclusions from elsewhere.
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Right?
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So, I hope that the following six places will be satisfactory.
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Right?
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And I'm already, I feel apologetic already that you're not looking at Ephesians 4.
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You can flip these if you'd like to or jot notes and look at them later.
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And I know that I'm moving very quickly this morning.
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But here we go.
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Ready for six places that membership is found in the Bible?
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First, Matthew chapter 18, verse 15 through 17, which we're going to look at this text again momentarily in more detail.
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It says,
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If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault.
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If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you.
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If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.
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And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
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So, Jesus was saying in Matthew chapter 18, if a brother is unwilling to repent of sin, then no longer consider him a brother.
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There's a process for that that we call church discipline.
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But that's what I want you to see at this moment from that text.
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Next, the ability to exclude someone from the church presupposes that it's known who belongs to the church.
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Right?
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If I'm to go to a brother, how am I to know that they're a brother unless somehow we've included them as a brother to be, right?
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Hopefully not, but maybe excluded at a later time.
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Right?
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So, you see it there.
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Matthew chapter 18, verse 15 through 17.
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Second, Acts chapter 5, verse 12 and 13.
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Luke records,
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So, people faced the decision of whether or not they would join with the group of people, right?
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They wouldn't.
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The text tells us that some would not.
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But they had to decide, would they be counted amongst these people that were gathering in Solomon's portico, right?
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The text calls them them, right?
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This joining is more public and definite than an informal association.
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You see that in Acts chapter 5, verse 12 and 13.
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Third, in 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 9 through 12.
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Paul gives Timothy instructions for enrolling widows on the list of those receiving support from the church.
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He says,
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Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than 60 years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works.
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And while this isn't conclusive evidence for formal church membership,
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it's tough to imagine that the church of Ephesus would have kept a list of widows,
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but would not have any formal means of identifying everyone who belonged to the church, right?
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He's writing to a church in order for them to establish those widows within the church
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who should be receiving the benefit of the financial means of the church and who should not, right?
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I just imagine them taking out their parchment list and putting asterisks next to the widows that receive this kind of care, right?
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Fourth, 1 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 12 and 13.
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Paul writes,
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For what have I to do with judging outsiders?
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Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?
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God judges those outside.
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So Paul called upon the Corinthian church to judge those who were inside the church, not those who were outside.
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They were responsible for the testimony of those who belonged to the church, not those who didn't.
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This passage makes no sense that the Corinthian church did not have some public formal means by which people identified themselves with the church.
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The Corinthian church would have picked up his letter and gone,
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But who?
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Who's he talking about?
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We have no way of knowing, right?
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Clearly they understood what it meant to not judge those outside, but to judge those inside, right?
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The people who randomly show up on any given Sunday and we never see them again?
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No.
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Those who were counted amongst the church.
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Fifth, 2 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 6.
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Paul writes concerning a man the Corinthian church had excommunicated.
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He says,
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For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough.
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So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow, right?
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Much to say about that text.
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We could get into it with discipline.
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But the thing I want you to see is this man's exclusion from the church was a punishment by the majority, right?
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And you cannot have a majority unless you have a definite set of people from which a majority is constituted, right?
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You have to be able to do the math to figure out if it's a majority or not a majority in order to establish such a thing, right?
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That's the fifth.
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Sixth.
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This is the last one.
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This is my go-to.
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That's why I saved it for last.
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Hebrews 13, 7 and then verse 17.
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So 13, 7 and then 13, 17.
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The writer from Hebrews says,
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Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.
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Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.
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And then verse 17.
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Obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who have to give an account.
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Scripture repeatedly commands Christians to submit to their leaders, right?
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Here's some wonderful examples of that here.
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The only way to do that is by publicly committing to be members of their flock and saying, in effect,
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I commit to listening to your teaching, following your direction, and submitting to your leadership.
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There is no way to obey the scriptural commands to submit to your leaders if you never actually submit to them by joining a local church.
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So I would say to somebody who's not a member of a church, who are your leaders?
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And if that person said to me, you, I'd go, nope.
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I will not give an account for your soul.
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I will give an account for everything that I teach.
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I will give an account for the way that I treat you.
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Of course, those things, right?
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But as your leader, I disagree, right?
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I have a list in the front of my Bible right now of people that I am accountable for.
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And I take that very, that's a weighty, weighty thing.
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If you are a member of our church, I am committed to you.
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I hope you to me and to one another.
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Scripture also tells leaders, right?
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We're going to have to be accountable for those that we lead, right?
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And how are we to know if we don't have some form of membership, right?
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How are we to know who we're going to be accountable to and for?
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Now, who should join a local church?
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Simple answer.
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Anyone who is a disciple of Jesus Christ.
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If you profess to know Christ, you should be part of a local church.
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John 17, verse 20 through 23.
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It's Jesus' high priestly prayer.
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He says,
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Jesus established the truth.
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To publicly declare those who belong to him in order to give the world a display of the good news about himself.
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Don't think you can do this by yourself, right?
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This is the thing meant for the church to be doing.
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Jesus wants the world to know who belongs to him and who doesn't.
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And how is the world to know who belongs to him and who doesn't?
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They are to see which people publicly identify themselves with his people in the visible public institution he established for this very purpose.
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They're to look at the members of his church.
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And if some people claim to be part of the universal church, even though they belong to no local church, they reject Jesus' plan for them and for his church.
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It's a flat rejection of it.
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Jesus intends for his people to be marked out as visible public people, a group gathered together, which means joining together in local churches.
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So how do you join a local church?
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Of course, it depends broadly.
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We could talk at length about simple versus complex Christian societies.
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We have a process.
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I think healthy churches in America will have some kind of process because where we are in a complex Christian society, if someone says, I am a follower of Jesus Christ, they can mean all sorts of things, right?
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They could be a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness or a Seventh-day Adventist, or they could simply mean my grandma was a follower of Jesus Christ, right?
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Therefore, I must be because I was born into her family, right?
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There's a lot of things that that could mean, and so we have a process, and again, I think any healthy church will, just to establish, what do we mean when we say that?
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I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ.
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Who is this Jesus Christ that you're talking about, right?
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It's either a Jesus of the Bible or a Jesus of your own making or some false teacher's making.
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So there are processes for that.
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I'll spare you our process because I think most of you are already very aware of that process.
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So this is how we find people in the church, right?
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We go through a process of welcoming people who profess faith in Jesus Christ, saying to them, we're going to commit to you to help you follow Jesus faithfully.
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And the ordinance that's connected to this, everybody know, is baptism, right?
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We are a credo-baptist, and the ordinance that's tied to membership is baptism.
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Second, let's talk a little bit about church discipline.
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What is church discipline?
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Some people get really uncomfortable when they hear the word discipline because it sounds harsh to them, right?
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Whether through just a misunderstanding of the very word or possibly because of childhood hurts who weren't raised in a home where discipline was done appropriately,
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the word discipline is largely in our culture distasteful, right?
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It sounds like, whoa, whoa, you're trying to take my autonomy from me?
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Mm-hmm.
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Yep, that's what's happening.
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For your good in a loving, kind way, this is what churches are meant to do.
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The word discipline can be synonymous with the word train, right?
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To be trained.
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So when someone is disciplined, they are being trained, right?
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Our Ephesians 4 text talks about us growing up into Christ so that we're not children any longer,
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tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, right?
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This doesn't happen unless you're trained to be discerning, right?
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To have maturity.
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In a broad sense, discipline is everything the church does to help its member pursue holiness and fight sin.
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Preaching, teaching, prayer, corporate worship, accountability relationships, and godly oversight by elders are all forms of discipline.
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Some have called this formative discipline.
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The narrower sense of the term church discipline has been called corrective discipline,
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and it is this narrower sense that I want to consider a bit further this morning.
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So that's what we're talking about, this narrower sense.
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Church discipline is the church's act of confronting a church member's sin and calling them to repent,
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which, if the person does not repent, will lead to excluding them from membership in the church, right?
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That's where it heads.
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That's its eventuality.
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Remember, church membership affirms the Christian's profession of faith and gives oversight of the living of their faith.
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So discipline is the way we press people on in holiness,
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and if they show themselves not to be Christian, it's the way the church removes that confidence from them.
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It says, we once were, but we no longer are confident that you're a Christ follower,
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and we do this for the good of their soul.
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Matthew chapter 16.
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I'm going to read you a big section here, so why don't you turn there with me.
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Matthew chapter 16, beginning in verse 13.
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Hang on tight.
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I'm going to move quick.
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I'm going to land the plane soon, so stick with me.
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Beginning in verse 13, Matthew 16.
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Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples,
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who do people say that the Son of Man is?
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And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
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He said to them, but who do you say that I am?
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Right?
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And Peter, who always bumbles his answers, nails it this time.
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Right?
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Verse 16, he says,
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Now, the rock that he is referring to is not Peter.
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He's referring to the truth that Peter has just proclaimed.
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Jesus is the Christ.
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Verse 19,
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I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,
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and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
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and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
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Right?
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So Jesus says that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church,
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and then tells Peter,
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he'll give him the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
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What in the world is he talking about?
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What is this binding and loosing that he's referring to here?
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That is so ignored in the American church.
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This is a significant moment in the mystery of Jesus.
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Because of the gracious work of the Father in the life of Peter,
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he gets the answer right.
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You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
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And Jesus says,
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On that truth, I'm going to build my church.
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Right?
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It's going to go forth militant,
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and it will be victorious.
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And I'm giving to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
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We've got to understand that.
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Right?
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We've got to know our part.
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Jesus has just declared his church is going to be victorious.
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Right?
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It's going to be militant,
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but it's going to be victorious.
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The gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
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How?
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What do we do?
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What's our part?
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What's our responsibility in that?
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If you go just a couple of chapters later with me to Matthew chapter 18,
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we get a picture of what we're meant to do.
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Beginning in verse 15.
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I read a little bit of this to you previously.
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I read through verse 17.
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We're going to go a verse further right now.
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So again, here, beginning in verse 15,
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if your brother sins against you,
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go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.
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If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.
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But if he does not listen,
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take one or two others along with you
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that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
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If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.
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If he refuses to listen even to the church,
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let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
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Right?
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I read an abridged version of that earlier for the sake of time.
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But you see, here's this process that's being walked out.
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Right?
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To help someone live in holiness,
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we're meant to bring this corrective discipline to them.
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And then, verse 18.
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Jesus says,
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Truly I say to you,
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whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.
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And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
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That sounds very familiar, doesn't it?
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Wield the keys of the kingdom.
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Binding and loosing.
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Declaring who is in the church and who's not in the church.
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Right?
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Through this process that he outlines for us in Matthew chapter 18.
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And it's a four-step process, if you note carefully.
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Number one, if your brother sins against you,
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go tell him his fault between you and him alone.
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If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.
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I've said to you all repeatedly
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that our church is constantly doing this kind of discipline.
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We ought to be all the time.
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Right?
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All of us need help.
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If no one's coming to you in this way
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and you're not going to anybody in this way,
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then you're really not following Jesus together.
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You're going to need people to help you identify those blind areas of sin in your life.
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I need this.
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Right?
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People come to me this way.
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Right?
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And I'm not so sure that what you said was good and appropriate.
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You're probably right.
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I think my motivation was wrong in that.
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And I confess that.
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Right?
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Repent.
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Right?
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That we might continue to follow Jesus well together.
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Step two, if he doesn't listen,
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take one or two others along with you
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that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
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This also happens more regularly than I wish it would in the life of our church.
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But it does happen.
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Right?
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I get looped in on these things sometimes.
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Like, could you come help me?
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This person is not hearing the case that I'm making to them from the scripture.
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Would you help in this process?
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Right?
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I'm very thankful that we see the very, very, very rare third and fourth step.
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And often, sadly, that's because people will remove themselves from membership
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when they realize that we actually take sin seriously in the church.
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That we actually take the scripture seriously.
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And there are, in fact, some black and white issues in the scripture.
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And we point them out to people.
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People, from time to time, have removed themselves from membership.
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And we haven't gone on to these further steps.
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But we have also had to do so.
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So the third step is, if you refuse to listen to them, tell it to the church.
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Who?
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We've got to have in mind, who is the church?
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Right?
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When this is said.
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Certainly, Jesus is not talking about the universal church in this moment.
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Right?
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How could that be possible?
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He's talking about a local expression.
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A group of people who have covenanted together to walk in holiness for the glory of God.
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This is who you're to bring it to.
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And then the fourth and final step.
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If he refused to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a Catholic.
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That is outside of the fellowship of God's people.
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Right?
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So there's four steps that we walk through.
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And this is this action of binding and loosing.
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And it is a thing that we are meant to do.
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The church is supposed to be about this work.
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Right?
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For the glory of God and the good of people.
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So let's talk a little bit about what the aims of church discipline are.
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I want you guys, if you're not familiar with this, although I know most of you are, but just a refresher.
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Why do we do church discipline?
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Why is it important in the life of a church?
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First, church discipline is aimed at the good of the person disciplined.
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The discipline warns a person of the danger of sin and calls him or her to repentance.
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Right?
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It's for their good.
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We want them to know that there's a danger ahead.
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Second, church discipline is aimed at the good of other Christians.
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As the church speaks and acts against sin, the whole congregation sees the serious nature of sin and its consequences.
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Right?
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We are warned as others are warned.
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Right?
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Smart people learn from other people's mistakes and don't make all those mistakes themselves.
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I hope that you're smart people.
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I think you are.
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Third, church discipline is aimed at the good of the church as a whole.
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Church discipline keeps the local body pure by protecting it from moral decay.
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It also addresses sin that could potentially lead to strife and conflict in the church.
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Fourth, church discipline is aimed at the good of non-Christians.
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Hear this carefully.
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It's aimed at the good of non-Christians.
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It powerfully protects our corporate witness and evangelism.
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Because people notice when there is a whole community of believers whose lives are different from the world.
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This is good for unbelieving people to see holiness in the church.
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Not perfect holiness to be sure.
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Right?
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But heading off in that direction.
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Trending in that way.
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And it helps to produce a community of changed people.
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A community that gives hope to non-Christians.
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That people really can change.
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And then fifth, church discipline is aimed at the glory of God.
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Christians are called to be holy.
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Not for our own reputation.
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But for God's.
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Our lives are meant to display God's character in the world.
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And we want him to look magnificent.
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One important part of that is the responsibility to address sin in the church that would bring dishonor to his great name.
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So, membership and discipline.
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The ordinance tied to discipline?
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The Lord's Supper.
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We welcome people to the table.
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Or we exclude them from the table.
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This is this regular re-upping of our commitment to one another.
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Right?
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We say to each other,
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You are welcome here.
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The thing that Jesus did for you.
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We're calling together to commemorate.
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Right?
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It applies.
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It applies to us.
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As we gather together and take the Lord's meal.
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So, in conclusion,
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Jesus Christ died for the church.
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And it is his good purpose that we should follow his good instruction as individuals.
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And as individuals gathered in local churches.
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It is for our benefit and for his glory that we are about the work of biblical church membership and church discipline.
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Both have been neglected and abused.
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So, join me in praying that our churches will continue to care well for souls, both within and without the church, to the praise of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
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And join me in praying that, particularly in this time.
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We are disjointed.
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And it seemed that we would be disjointed for a very brief amount of time.
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I think I approached the entire canceling of our regular gatherings with a bit of pessimism.
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I think most people were a lot more optimistic than I was.
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But we have passed the date that I thought we would get to.
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We've come to a place where I went, oh, this is still going on?
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Rather in reality or just in perception, right, wherever you are on the spectrum of things, right, it is still going on.
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And I don't know what it's going to look like exactly for our church to be disjointed, not able to do membership, welcoming people in, baptism, or the Lord's Supper.
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How do we do this, right?
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Can we do fourth step discipline, third and fourth step discipline, as we currently are?
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I don't think that we can, but maybe some of you are more creative than I am.
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So at the very least, we need to be thinking clear.
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We need to have really, really clear minds, right, for what the church is and isn't in such a strange time.
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So I hope that you'll join me in praying continually for this.
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And I hope that you'll join me in praying now as we pray together.
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So please join me in prayer.