08 Discipline

So tonight we're actually going to be looking at an interesting subject. We are going to be talking about church discipline, which is something that is not often practiced. There are very few places on the planet where this is done. And for some of us it's quite hard to process because we come from a lot of different places theologically, and God is a God of love, so how does this fit in with that?

But I think we fail to understand what God's love is like. And so we end up misunderstanding the ways of the King. Discipline is one of the tools that God gives a parent, but also elders within the life of a church to actually grow people up into a healthy, whole body.

The Bible says God uses discipline. In Hebrews, it actually says that God chastises those that He loves as sons. And if you're not being chastised, you're not a true son. Church discipline is really about caring and loving people through, into what God has for them.

I wanna look at this with you. We need to find out what the Bible says, because the Bible is the manual—it's how God tells us to build the church. So even if we are uncomfortable with this, we have to work to understand it.

We want to build the way God wants the church to be built. Before I look at discipline—we've seen in some of the other sessions how Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:2 that he longs to present the church a pure spotless bride to Christ.

Leadership's Role in Spiritual Growth

But that he is worried that somehow they might be led astray from this sincere and pure devotion to Jesus. And so there's this longing in the heart of leadership to present individuals before God on that last day. The forming and shaping of lives is a lot of work.

And a lot of people think church is just a place that you go to listen to teaching. But teaching is only one very minor tool that leaders are supposed to use to develop and shape us in our faith. In 2 Timothy 4:2, we see Paul writing to Timothy and he says, "preach the word."

So there is preaching, "be prepared in season and out of..." and then he says, "correct rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction." So you've got teaching, but you've also got correction, rebuke, and encouragement. Now you start to realize that our job as leaders is not just to explain some theology.

It is actually to help apply the Bible and God's ways into the individual's life. And we really do see this in Matthew 28:20, the Great Commission. Jesus doesn't say this—go and teach everyone everything that I taught you. He says, "...and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

In other words, we don't just teach. We teach to obey. Our role as shepherds isn't just to educate your mind, it's to form your lives, to help you grow and develop in Christlikeness, in maturity, so that you are taught to obey the Lord.

That's a very different thing from just teaching you. It's more than just teaching enjoyable teachings. It's teaching to obey. The key to teach to obey is teaching, it's setting an example; Paul would often write about setting an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, and in doctrine.

The Purpose of Correction and Discipline

At the same time, there is correcting and disciplining, which is really much like a parent would—model, teach, shape and mold and at times bring out the rod or discipline. The reason for that is because we're not yet perfect. We're not actually fully saved yet.

We've been saved and the Bible also says, we are being saved and we will be saved. And so we are on this journey between what Jesus has done on the cross and what has happened through faith—that we've been made right with God through faith and He's forgiven our sin.

But now God is forming His image into us and we are to grow up to be like Him. There's this process that happens of us growing up to become what He's made us on the cross. We're supposed to become holy as He is holy.

The Battle Between Flesh and Spirit

And that is what the Christian life is about. It's growing in holiness until we finally die. And then we finally graduate into glory. We're all like Him. The challenge with us is we're still on the earth and we're not yet fully redeemed. So all of us have got this tension between us, between the part that God has come and written His law into our heart, and the new covenant.

And we want to obey Him and we want to love Him. But there's another part of us, our old self, the flesh, and that part still fights against the Spirit in us. And so every one of us have got this tussle that we've got to put to death—our old man—and allow Jesus to come out and be formed in us.

Obviously, situations can provoke the flesh, that part of you that's not yet surrendered and yielded, and then that's something that God would use to try and teach us to become like Him. So James says it like this, in James 1:14-15. It says, "But each one is tempted when by his own evil desire", do you know that you still have an evil desire?

Sin is still sort of attractive. There is a part of you that'll be drawn by sin's power. So you get tempted when your own evil desires draw you to do something that you shouldn't. Those desires drag you away and entice you to do what you shouldn't do.

The problem is that after the desire has been conceived, it gives birth to sin. So you get drawn to do something—something happens—you're reacting—you can feel anger rising up, and it's dragging you into doing something you shouldn't do. And once that happens, once it's conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death.

So we still have this fight on in us between what Jesus has done for us to save us from death. There is still sin trying to pull us, to ultimately draw us back and even possibly turn away from Christ. This is where the role of the church is important.

Turning from Sin to the Throne of Grace

So we have to teach people how to obey and how to turn away from sin. The Bible says if anyone says he's without sin, he's a liar and the truth is not within him. Because of the new covenant, because of what Jesus has done in our hearts, we shouldn't like sin.

We should want to turn away from it. You'll find you're continually wanting to not sin—that's a sign that you are actually saved. The Bible says, if we do sin, in Hebrews 4:16, "let us then approach the throne of grace." This is if you find yourself in sin, you've fallen down into that little trap and sin has not got you.

And if you don't deal with the sin, it's gonna eventually kill you. So you bring your sin and you come before God even though you fail, but you can come and approach the throne of grace with confidence. In other words, God has paid for that sin on the cross.

So you can approach the throne of grace with confidence, "knowing that you will receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need". In other words, God doesn't punish us when we sin because Jesus was punished, but we can come boldly into His presence saying, "Father, I've messed up. Please forgive me." And God will give us mercy, because of Jesus, and grace to help us. In other words, power. God's literally reaching out into our lives to give us His strength, His power to help us in our weakness, at our time of need.

That's normally the Christian life. We're struggling with sin—as you're walking, you fall, you come to the Lord, "Lord, I'm so sorry, forgive me." He washes, He cleanses, He forgives. But sometimes, if we don't deal with sin, there is an end result. If it stays there too long, if you don't deal with it, it will eventually produce death, is what James tells us.

What happens then is sometimes sin is so attractive, so nice, that we don't want to stop doing it. That could be for a number of different reasons, but sin has an allure, a draw, all of its own. And so what happens if someone carries on sinning?

How Sin Hardens and Deceives the Heart

They just keep on keeping on. There's a whole process that starts to happen, if we look at our Bibles. We need to understand this process to understand why discipline comes in. So, the Bible says in Hebrews 3:12-15, it's talking about what sin does and it says, "see to it brothers that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God."

So if your heart starts to get given over to sinfulness eventually something happens to your faith—you get an unbelieving heart. That could eventually cause you turn away from the living God. "But", the writer says, "encourage one another daily, as long as there's call today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness."

So now we realize that sin gives death because it's got this thing in it. It's got this ability to harden our hearts and to cause deception to come to our lives. "So we have come to share," the writer says, "in Christ. If we hold firmly until the end, the confidence we had at first."

In other words, you got saved by grace. You've gotta keep coming back to the grace of God. You've gotta find that confidence in Him. Then if you hold firmly for Jesus till the end, you're gonna be saved. But if you don't deal with sin properly, it comes in and hardens your heart.

It's deceitful and it can actually damage you. So, as it has just been said, "Today, if you hear his voice", if He speaks to you, if God is convicting you of something, "do not harden your hearts as they", Israel, "did in the rebellion."

There's this warning now that we've got to take sin quite seriously. It might not instantly cause us to lose our salvation because we've been covered by the blood of Jesus, but it has got this way of doing something that can eventually kill us.

To discover what the writer tells us sin does: It tells us that it's deceptive. It's got this ability to deceive us. It hides the truth from us. So if you start to allow sin in your life and you don't deal with it, eventually you'll find that a deception will come over your understanding and you'll start justifying yourself or you'll start finding ways around it.

Sin is deceptive. That's why we don't want to go near it. Deception means you don't realize that you're starting to get messed up. You don't see the danger that's coming. You just start to believe that everything's all right. And then it says that this will harden your heart.

And that's a terrible thing. The hardened heart is a place where sin becomes so common in your life that you're not dealing with it. You're not coming to the throne of grace and finding grace in your time of need. Years ago, I used to be a whitewater kayaker.

Understanding Spiritual Calluses through Sin

I love kayaking rivers and going over waterfalls and things like that. Now when you're paddling on a river, it's a lot of fun. The problem is if you haven't paddled in a while, your hands are quite sensitive, they don't have calluses. So, as you're paddling, the paddle's just rubbing a little bit every time and eventually it starts to get a bit uncomfortable.

As you keep paddling and paddling, you're enjoying it so much, eventually you start to find it gets really uncomfortable. You've had a blister form where the paddle is rubbing. And at that point you almost want to get off the river because your hand's getting quite sore, then the blister pops and then it's really sore.

But if you carry on pushing through that, because sometimes the rivers are that much fun and you just ignore it, what eventually will happen is you will develop calluses. And a callus is hardened skin. Your skin has gone past the sensitive stage and now the result of that continual rubbing is a callus.

I remember my hands got so hardened by calluses that I could stick a needle right through those calluses. My hands were hard as tires, you know. My hands had grown hardened by paddling. Now the Bible says this is what sin does to your heart.

It comes and it rubs you and the Holy Spirit speaks to you and says, "Hey, come back to God, come repent of your sin." And if you don't listen to God and you keep carrying on because it's so much fun, that thing starts to become more and more painful.

And eventually there's a bursting and then a callus starts to form and you can't feel anymore. And eventually God is speaking and you can't hear Him. You've actually become calloused. And so the Bible says, these people's hearts have become calloused. And that's what He said to the Jews.

You're not even seeing Me. I'm right in front of you. And you can't see that I'm your Messiah because your hearts have gone calloused because of sin. And that's obviously Matthew 13:15. "This people's heart has become calloused." And remember this. From where does faith come?

Well, the Bible says in Romans 10:10, "For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified." So He's just warned us about a calloused heart. So when faith comes, God works in your heart, doesn't He? He comes and lives in your heart and He writes His law onto your heart—so that you want to obey Him.

Now sin comes and it starts to do something else to your heart. Where God has made your heart alive, sin starts to form a hardened, deceptive callousness. So if you believe in your heart, then you've got to guard your heart, and that's exactly what the Bible says.

In Proverbs 4:23, "Above all else," most important thing you're going to get out of this, "guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." In other words, that's where life springs from. If you don't guard your heart and sin has its way, the callousness comes, eventually your heart grows hardened, which means your faith starts to die.

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. If you've got a callus, you're no longer hearing, so your faith starts to shrivel up and die. So sin doesn't directly kill you, but sin kills your faith slowly if you don't deal with it.

And as your faith starts to die, you actually get to a point where you can have a heart that falls into unbelief and, like the warning in Hebrews, can actually turn away from the living God. And if you've been in the church longer than five years, you will have seen people who have turned away from the living God.

They once were in Him, they rejoiced, they spoke in tongues, they prophesied, they led people to Jesus, but they didn't deal with sin properly. And so sin began to damage their heart. Until the point that they eventually got deceptive. And you'll start to find that they believe false doctrines.

They believe they are secure, and God loves them no matter what they do. Before long you see them out of the church. You see them just not doing anything for the King anymore. They've now turned away from the living God. "And so we have come to share in Christ," the writer says, "if we hold firmly till the end the confidence that we had at first."

How Sin Separates Us from God and Others

Do you see that? So that was a solid little exposition on what sin does in us. So now we bring this to the church. What happens if you see your brother doing that? You see someone starting to give themselves over to sin. Sin can cause you eventually to turn away from God, but it also causes you to turn away from your brothers.

In 1 John 1:7, we read, "if we live in the light as He's in the light, we have true fellowship and the blood of Jesus covers a multitude of sins." So you'll find as I'm dealing with my sin before the Lord and I can find grace for what I'm doing wrong—He'll wash me and He'll cleanse me and my heart is still fine and I'm fine towards my brothers.

I can share with you because we're all struggling with sin, but as I lose my God relationship, my people relationship follows very soon. And suddenly I don't want to live in the light because I'm feeling you might judge me. So you start to hide, and as soon as you hide, you're no longer living in the light and fellowship.

You'll know your brother and sister is starting to fall into sin when you see them drawing back from fellowship. It's one of the great indicators that sin has taken a hold and you can't see their God relationship, but you can see their people relationship.

When you see someone pulling back, you start to realize, there's probably a sin. Something has crept in and caused them to lose the love that they had at first. Does that make sense? The danger is this. If sin is not dealt with. If that person stays in the church...

The Spiritual Impact of Unrepentant Sin on the Church

Remember the Bible says that we are members of Christ's body. We are joined together, we are one new man. And the Bible says if one part suffers, all the parts suffer because we connect it somehow spiritually. What that means is if a person is walking in unrepentant sin, they potentially break something open over the entire church.

In the Old Testament, there was a man called Achan—God clearly said to Israel as they went into the promised land and fought this one battle—God said, "don't take anything from that city." But this guy saw something he wanted and hid it in his tent.

And Israel went to battle and you would think, it's only one man's sin. And when the nation went to the battle, they lost that battle. They got the snot beaten out of them and they came back to God, to ask, "what's going on? You're supposed to give us victory. Why are we losing the battles now?" And they eventually got before God and began to seek Him. And God said, "There is sin in one of the people in the camp." So they drew lots and find out it's a guy called Achan.

One man's sin caused the whole nation to lose battles, people died. The blessing of God lifted from that. So you start to realize, being a part of a church is quite a big deal because what you do, affects me. What I do, affects you.

Illustration: A Septic Leg and the Necessity of Intervention

So deal with sin quickly. Years ago, when I was a young man, there was a man I greatly admired. He was an apostle, Dudley Daniels. For me he was like the Apostle Paul. He led a group called New Covenant. And I was one of the young leaders in his movement.

And he saw something in my life. He asked me and about 20 other guys to come over to America, to spend about a month with him. And he was going to do training on serving the churches in an apostolic role. I have to confess, I was so excited about that.

It was like Paul the Apostle had asked me if I wanted to do that, so I was super excited. But a few days before we went over to America, we had an event in Hout Bay, which is the other side of Cape Town.

I stayed at a friend's house and I woke up that morning with a little bump on my leg. I first thought it was a mosquito bite. The second day the bump was a little bit bigger, and I thought it was a bit of a weird mosquito bite.

It was a little bit sore, but it wasn't too bad. The third day, and I think it was the day before I was supposed to fly to America, I woke up in the middle of the night, sweating. The blanket or my sheet was touching my leg, and my leg had gone from being uncomfortable to it feeling it was on fire.

Just a sheet was touching the leg and I was in agonizing pain. So I woke up and my leg was burning. I remember this bright red on my leg and it was so sore. I knew something was seriously wrong. So I phoned a doctor in the church; actually, I first phoned a chemist in the church, Morne.

And I said to him, "Morne, I'm going to America tomorrow. Come and look at my leg." And he came in and he said this to me: "You've been bitten by a spider. It's probably the kind of spider that's got a poison that rots your flesh. So you've got septicemia." What happens is the venom that is injected into you causes your cells to rot. That rot was now starting to spread. I was in danger of losing my leg. I could actually die. This is quite serious. I needed to go to hospital.

I thought, "No, I'm going to America tomorrow. I'm not going to hospital." So I phoned a doctor in the church and asked for help. "I've got to go to America tomorrow. I'm not missing it for anything. Come and check my leg." And he came to my house, saw my leg and said, "No, you need to go to hospital. You could lose your leg. Good chance you're going to lose your leg already. It's quite far advanced. Your leg is bad. It's rotting and if we don't stop this rot, it will spread and you'll die from this." I said, "I'm not going to hospital, do it here."

He said, "No, you don't understand, I need to put you out." And I said, "No, I'm not getting put out, I'm going to America tomorrow. So, just inject me here, in my home, you surely can do that, because I know you can't knock me out in my home."

And he said, "No, your leg is so rotten right now that the injection to numb the pain will not work. It's useless. I can't inject you. The only thing I can do is operate without any painkillers." And I remember thinking, "I'm going to America tomorrow. So how bad can it be?" I remember him looking at me and saying, "Are you sure about this?" I said, "Yes." Then it started getting a bit weird—he pulled out a towel and wet it and put it in my mouth. My leg is so sore, honestly, I couldn't touch it.

He pulled out a scalpel and I realized—he's going to cut my leg now. I was sitting on this chair. I have a towel in my mouth and I had two guys holding me. I thought he was going to work gently, but he literally did this. "Okay, ready?" He's got the scalpel in a stab position. He says, "Ready? One, two, three." And he just went into my leg with a scalpel. And I remember this thing just disappearing into my leg and pus and blood just pouring out. I cannot tell you... I couldn't touch my leg. I wanted to vomit from the pain. I remember this ice cold feeling, like I was going to faint.

So he popped it, and I asked, "Is it over?" He says, "No, no, no. I've got to get everything out, because all the junk inside of your leg is potentially going to kill everything else. I have to clean it out." So the next thing he says is, "Okay, I've got to squeeze it." And he goes, "One, two, three." And he was not being gentle. Just start squeezing. He wants everything out. At that point I started to pass out from the pain. I remember wanting to vomit. There was a bucket there. And I'm like... Pregnancy, I'm sorry ladies. You have no idea what I went through.

Then finally he finishes and I'm, I'm honestly on the edge of consciousness, I'm not exaggerating, I'm on the edge of consciousness. And I thought it was all done. He says, "I've just got one more thing to do." And he pulls out this monster syringe, you know, the kind that you inject horses with. He boils the kettle and he puts boiling water into the syringe, to cauterize the wound inside. He injects it in and he goes, "Ready? One, two, three." And he injected what was more than a cup of boiling water inside my leg.

And I did pass out. I was out. And I remember sort of waking up as they dragged me downstairs. I woke up the next morning and I flew to America. He had managed to clean it out. The thing that got me was this: Man, I didn't think that thing was serious, but I nearly lost my leg and I could have died. I wouldn't go through that again.

Dealing with Sin as Yeast in the Body of Christ

It was torture. This is what a little bit of sin can do if we don't deal with it. The Bible actually says in 1 Corinthians 5:6, "a little bit of yeast works through the whole batch of dough." It's talking specifically about the church.

One person's sin is like yeast in bread. It works its way through and it begins to infect everyone. And so if one person walks in sin, it's as though that starts to happen and rot starts to set into the body. And if that rot is not dealt with, eventually they'll kill the whole church.

In 1 Corinthians 11:30, Paul actually says, "That is why many among you are weak and ill and some of you have died." They're not dealing with sin. That's why some of you are getting sick and some of you are dying. In other words, what happened to my leg starts to happen to the church.

Sin is deadly. We don't mess around with it. We need to fix it. And so what do we do if you see your brother sinning? How do we begin to walk through helping a brother out? Because the Bible says that we are actually responsible partly for our brothers.

Our Responsibility to Bring Back the Wandering

And so in James 5:19-20, we read, "My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth"—in other words, you turning away from the Lord. Why? Because of sin. "And someone should bring him back. Remember this, whoever turns a sinner from the error of his ways will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins."

So we have this responsibility to care for one another. And if we see a brother going into sin and turning away from the truth, we must go after them and try and draw them back. And if we bring them back, we save them from death and the blood of Jesus then can cover their sins and they can come back into the redeemed.

But if they carry on down that road, their hearts might get hardened and they might turn from Christ. They might not even be found in Him because they didn't persevere to the end. You with me? I don't think we realize how important this is.

Personal Testimony: Guarding the Heart Against the Love of Money

From when I got saved, I was pretty much flat out for Jesus. But there was one time that I came very close to slipping away and it was actually orientated around—you're gonna laugh now, but—Emsie, my wife, got this ridiculous job opportunity.

Suddenly she was able to earn a lot of money. And I remember getting really excited about that, but the Bible says that money is a dangerous thing if we don't guard it. It was the first time we had money and I started falling in love with stuff.

I wanted things. I remember driving down the road and I'd be noticing motorbikes, and I wanted one. And this thing got too important for me. And I started finding that over a period of time, my heart started going cold for church and cold for the Kingdom.

I still went to church, but that fire was gone and I was just on to slip away. And I'll never forget, church felt like it was more of a commitment now. It wasn't as nice as it was. And I was in church one Sunday and a guest preacher was there, a young man, and he was talking about King David.

He was talking about how King David goes up onto the roof and he looks down one day, and he's this king that God loves, and he looks down and he sees a beautiful woman, Bathsheba, bathing, and he wants her. And so he ends up explaining how David gives in to sin.

He falls in sin with this woman and murders her husband and everything goes wrong until eventually he repents. This preacher then stops in the middle of his preach and points at me and says, "You." I thought, this is unusual. He said, "You with the long hair and the blue shirt."

He said, "You, God's showing me that you are like a David. And God says, 'I called you. I put My Spirit upon you. I've called you to be one who will build My house. But like David, you've been tempted by the world.'" I promise you in that moment it felt like God put His finger on my forehead.

And he said this, "As Bathsheba came to sift David, so the world has come to sift you, and God says, 'Have I not called you? Have I not put My Spirit upon you? Turn your heart back to Me.'" And the fear of God came over me when I realized in that moment, it was like I was deceived by sin's deceitfulness.

But in that moment, I knew, like I knew, like I knew that I needed to turn back. And that man's preach turned my life around. I don't know what would have happened if he had not confronted me in my sin? I don't know what David would have done if the prophet Nathan didn't come to him and confront him in his sin.

Restoring a Brother Through Biblical Correction

And so we have this duty to come when we see a brother in sin, to come and try and restore them and bring them back to God. And this is what we see in Matthew 18:15-17. It says, "If your brother sins, Go and show him his fault in private.

If he listens to you, you've won your brother over. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them," so now this is escalating.

Go on your own. If they won't listen, you bring some others. If they won't listen to them, then you tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen to even the church, "Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector."

The Practical Steps of Matthew 18

So now we start to see Jesus teaching about how discipline will start to happen in His house. And the first thing is this, if you see someone sinning, go to them. Don't tell others about it, just go to the person. Say, "Hey man, I'm worried about you.

Are you all right? I'm noticing this." And if he listens to you, like James says, you won him over. He repents and he's covered, it's sorted, it's done and dusted. The blood of Jesus covers a multitude of sins. But if he doesn't listen to you and says, "Well, I like this, I don't feel like it is sin" or, "who are you to judge?"

Whatever he's going to throw at you. Then you need to bring another brother with you. Because every matter in the church must be established by two or more witnesses. If he won't listen to those, then I would suggest in that scenario, we'd normally bring an elder with you.

In other words, you need to say, "Hey guys, are you aware that Joe is doing this? And I just, you need to be aware of it." Then go together, because we need to make sure that we're doing this as best as we can.

Because we're trying to save a man's or a woman's soul. And if they won't listen, then it goes from a private thing to a public thing. "Bring it to the whole church." And we'll look at that in a bit of detail later. If they won't listen to the whole church, treat them as you would a Gentile and a tax collector.

Restoring Sinners Gently and Avoiding Infection

Okay, so let's look at this. Go to your brother privately. If you see someone sin, don't talk about it to others, go to him and tell him you're worried about him. Galatians 6:1, "If someone's caught in a sin, you who are spiritual, restore him gently, but watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.

Carry each other's burdens." Realize this, sin is a dangerous thing. If his sin has already taken hold in him, he's going to start justifying why he's in this position and blaming others. See, he might say, "well, I'm here because no one in the church loves."

And what's happened now is, sin is actually starting to deceive him. And so now he's starting to vomit. He's starting to infect the body. So you're trying to restore him, and suddenly you also think, maybe there's a problem in the church. Now the infection's jumped to you.

So be careful, because you yourself might get caught in what he's falling into. Once sin's there, you've got to be very careful. It's dangerous. In fact, the Bible says we should even hate clothing stained by corrupted flesh. Sin is so powerful that I don't want to touch the sinner's clothes.

When Private Sin Becomes Public Concern

But I want to restore my brother. So I do it gently. I need to say this, if someone sins in the church and they repent, it's dealt with privately because it's covered, it's dealt with. Unless let's say a young girl falls sexually and she falls pregnant; she can find forgiveness, but the challenge is she's pregnant.

It's going to be a little bit weird if every Sunday she is a little bit bigger, and no one's talking about what's going on. So in scenarios like that, while her sin should be kept private, now the church needs to know because we need to help her take care of that child.

Because she's a single mom. Even though she's messed up, we're going to love her as a family. And we're going to treat that child like it's perfect. It's going to grow up in a family with us. So we need to know that. So there are times that a private sin might become a public thing, and it's not here to discipline or punish.

It's just so that we can care properly. Another scenario would be, I've been in more than one occasion where people have come and confessed they're pedophiles. They struggle with children, but now they're saved and they're in the church. But they've got this weak area in their lives.

We've had guys get up and share with the church. We have to be able to help and care for that person, too. If anyone's judging you, remember you also sinners. But then be wise. Don't let them do kids ministry, because he struggles in this area.

Don't let him babysit your kids. And so the church needs to know for his protection and for ours. Not that we ever think we are better than him, but that we can make sure, as a brother, that we love him. And cocoon him and protect him as best as we can from his own evil desires.

Public Rebukes for Leaders and Elders

Make sense? There's one scenario where it's not private. Always. And that's where it's a leader, where it's an elder. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 5:20, "Those elders who sin ought to be rebuked publicly, so that others may take warning." Because we carry a public office, if one of us as elders sin, it's immediately public.

You'll see that in the Bible, Peter sins and Paul publicly calls him out, you know, in Galatians. When an elder sins, he is to be rebuked publicly. So when one of our elders sins, you'll see they'll get up and they will confess their sin.

And sometimes that might mean it might even be a disqualifying sin for a while. They might have to step out of leadership to fix or to heal that part of them that's broken. Does that make sense? The heart is always to heal. It's not to punish.

But remember, an elder has to be temperate and whole, and if this is revealing something that he hasn't got victory in, that will spill over into the church. So he needs to be taken out of that position, kind of like a person that's damaged in a sports field or maybe rugby or soccer, pulled aside, healed so that he can be put back, ideally, to actually play.

Handling the Unrepentant: Like a Tax Collector or Gentile

Does that make sense? But let's say the person doesn't repent. If the person doesn't repent, we take another brother along, and now it starts to become public. It ends off with Jesus saying, treat him as you would a tax collector or a gentile.

Now, this is a Jew speaking to Jews. Is it Jesus? I know we like to think Jesus hung out with tax collectors, but to the Jewish mindset, a tax collector who worked for Rome, was a traitor to his country and a Gentile was unclean.

So even when I went to Israel a few years ago, I had this moment at the Wailing Wall. Many of you have seen the Wailing Wall and there's devout Jews crying out because they can't get to the Holy of Holies anymore because the Muslims have taken the Temple Mount.

So they stand there crying. And I remember being at the Wailing Wall and watching their devotion. And then I went to the toilets and I was washing my hands when a Jewish man, proper Jewish man, walks in and he starts to wash his hands and he looks across and he sees me and he realizes I'm a Gentile.

Then he actually gasped. I'm standing there and he literally gasped, like I had leprosy. He was about to touch the tap and he reached out to rather take a jug that was standing there. He's not going to touch the tap because the Gentile might've touched that tap.

If I touch the tap, I make it unclean. If he touches the tap, he has to go through this elaborate system of trying to get his sins forgiven because I've corrupted him by my sinfulness. And so he washes his hands with the jug because he was scared that he might touch something that I've touched.

Handing Over to Satan for Redemptive Discipline

When Jesus says, treat him as you would a tax collector or a Gentile, He's talking about hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. Sin is deadly. Don't mess with it. And we see this played out beautifully in 1 Corinthians 5:4-5, Paul actually, again, we want every matter to be stamped by two more witnesses.

So we dig into this in the Bible. Paul says this, "when you are assembled," now this is a church discipline case. He's actually giving us textbook. He's doing it. So this guy that he's talking about is having sex with his father's new wife.

So son, his father's probably remarried and the boy is having sex with his new mom and the church is not doing anything about it. So Paul writes and he says, you've got to fix this. And this is how you do it. It's obviously unrepentant.

"When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I'm with you in spirit", because Paul can't be with them, but he's with them in spirit, "and the power of our Lord Jesus is present. Hand this man over to Satan so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord."

What is he saying? He says this is now public. We've mentioned Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians 5. It's now become a public thing. This guy's unrepentant. Hand this man over to Satan. Effectively what you're doing is you're saying we are now taking him out of the protection of the church, where God says, "I command my angels concerning you."

And we're taking that with the government of heaven off of him. And we're literally saying, because of your sin and not repenting, God is going to discipline you. But how He's going to do it is He's going to lift protection from you. So we, the church, will literally in this sense, hand this man over to Satan.

He's saying he's not listening to God, go for it. And the angels and all the things that protect him step back and he's on his own before the devil. Now the devil wants to kill and destroy. So what happens is hell breaks out against that man.

The point of this note is not to destroy the man, it's to save the man. You want his sinful nature destroyed, but the spirit saved in the day of the Lord. So the hope is this, that it'll become so horrible in the devil's territory, that he'll remember the good things that he had in God's house.

And like the prodigal son, eating the pig slop, even the slaves in my father's house live better than I'm living. So he will turn back to God and find the Father waiting with open arms and the church waiting with open arms to draw him back.

But he has to turn away from that sinful nature. That must be destroyed so that he can come back to Father's house and his spirit saved in the day of the Lord. In other words, if he doesn't repent or turn back to the Lord, he's in danger now of not being saved on the day of the Lord, which is exactly what we read in Hebrews just now, that he could turn away from the living God.

The Goal of Redemptive Separation

You see that? So it is redemptive and we must realize it's always redemptive. How does that work? I want us to find out a little bit more about how we respond upon the unrepentant sinner. In 1 Corinthians 5:9-13, Paul gives us this long list of sins, and I want to just break them down quickly.

"I've written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people." Sexual immorality is something that needs to be repented of. If it's in the church, it's going to destroy the church. So we don't associate with them; that principle comes from Matthew 18—go once, twice. Come on, turn from your sin. If they won't change you have to discipline them.

Then he says I'm not talking about the people of the world; they're obviously immoral and the greedy and the swindlers and the idolaters, cause then you'd have to leave the world. Remember they're not in the house of God. They are going to do those things.

So we don't judge the world, but when it comes to God's house, we care for our brothers. "And so now I'm writing that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother, but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer," they're gossiping, "a drunkard or even a swindler. With such a man, do not even eat."

Biblical Mandates for Church Discipline

So we start to see sins and then we start to see the response of the church. Hand them over to Satan. We'll look at a few others quickly. Romans 16:17. Listen to this one. "I urge you brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you've learned, keep away from them."

So now we learn, when people are teaching false doctrines, or they're being divisive, they're turning brothers against brothers. "Have you heard about that guy, what he did?" They slander and gossip and cause division; we actually must keep away from those people. We need to discipline them. Titus 3:10: "Warn a divisive person once, then warn them a second time, after that have nothing to do with them."

You see this over and over again coming through. And I'm losing you guys, so let me land this. Interesting. I'll give you one more and then we'll move on. In 2 John 1:10-11, John says, "if anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching," solid teaching, or they bring bad teaching, "do not take him into your house or welcome him. Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work."

Bad teaching destroys. Did you think of sin as this dangerous? Well, it's a question I'd love to ask, because I think we just kind of get used to it. But sin kills. The Corinthian church's people are dying in that church because sin is not being dealt with.

This is a very serious thing and something that the church needs to take heed of and learn from. And so again, the heart is always to bring repentance. So you hand them over to Satan so that their sinful nature will be destroyed and their spirit safe on the day of the Lord.

The Goal of Repentance and Restoration

Then what happens is—what happens when the person comes to their senses—they come back and they say, "Okay, I've messed up." Years ago I had to discipline my own sister at one point out of the church. She was sexually immoral, a married woman, had an affair and another affair, and I remember actually putting her out of the church.

She's repentant. God's done an amazing work. Her husband is actually leading one of our congregations today. But I remember one specific scenario that I'd love to tell you. And it was a young lady who—she said I could share her story. She came into the church and got saved in our church.

She was very, very broken. She had been abused and really had a struggle to understand her sense of worth and value. So what she learned to do in the world before she was saved was she had sex with any guy that would give her attention.

Sometimes it would be even three guys a day. Any guy that gave attention, she would sleep with because she felt that this was her way of building up her broken self-image. Then she got saved and she was so broken in sin, because sin destroys us, it breaks us out of the image of God, that she struggled with this thing.

A Case Study in Sin and Grace

And I remember so often coming to me and saying, "Andrew, I've fallen again." It was like once a day at one point, but she kept coming and saying, "I have fallen again. Can God forgive me? I don't want to do it." And we walked her through forgiveness and finding grace in your time of need and covered this and never made it public.

And then she began to find help. And over time she began to fall once every three days and then once a week. And it was like, "Yay, once a week, woohoo!" Because for her, this was huge. For some of us, it'd be like, "What?"

But for her, this was God slowly fixing and healing her. She actually did quite well. She was starting to go possibly even a month. Then one Sunday she brought a friend to church, a guy; he actually got saved. I led him to the Lord that night.

And she took him home and slept with him. Being the church that we are, we found out quite soon. And I called her and I said, "What's happening?" and she said, "This is not sin." Remember sin is deceitful. "This is not sin because we love each other and we're going to get married.

So because we're going to get married, God blesses us." And I said, "No, the Bible says that's not how it works. The Bible's clear. You're deceiving yourself." And she said, "I'm not deceived. Don't put this on me. I'm free and Jesus loves me."

And I said, "You're sinning. You've got to turn back. Please." And she wouldn't. I remember just pleading with her and eventually just saying, "On Sunday night, if you don't repent, I have to put you out the church. We have to do this. So on Sunday night, I'm going to wait for you at the church.

Outside. I'm going to stand at the door. If you come to your senses before then, please come and I'll be waiting." I stood there that Sunday, at the door, waiting, hoping and praying that she would come, and she just never did. We started the meeting fifteen minutes late and I had to walk up in front of the church and bring the situation to the church.

Malcolm, you were actually there I think. She was a sister, man; we'd fought so hard for her. It felt like we had lost a daughter; we've lost someone that we fought for for over a year now and she's gone. We were weeping because we'd all fought and prayed so much for her.

And she was gone. And we treated her like a pagan or tax collector; she was gone, until she repents. A year later—I remember well, because I hate doing dishes and I was doing dishes and we had a double-story house. I remember looking down in our driveway and I saw her car pull in.

I ran downstairs and she climbed out of the car and she looked like she had aged fifty years. Her hair had fallen out. She just looked a mess. She said, "Please lift this discipline off of me. From the day you disciplined me, my life has fallen apart.

Everything has gone wrong. I just can't stay where I am anymore." Your sinful nature destroyed, but your spirit's saved in the day of the Lord. She said, "Take this from me." And I asked, "Are you repentant? Do you realize what you've done is wrong?

That God loves you and He wants to bring you back." And she said, "Yes, I know I've sinned. I know I've done wrong. And I've broken up with this guy. It's not worked out. Can Jesus take me back?" "Of course, the throne of grace is open."

And she said, "I'm too embarrassed to come back to church." I said, "You don't understand the church, because we all sin and no one can judge you for what you've done. If you repent, it's as though you've never sinned, please come." And she came that Sunday night and I'll never forget getting up in front of the church.

It was so small, maybe a hundred people at that time. She was there and I remember saying, "Guys, this is what's happened." And the church just got up and ran and embraced her as a sister that had come home. She was standing there crying.

We were crying because the lost sheep had come home, she had turned back to the Lord, and had turned her life around. Funny enough, somehow in that process broke her sinful nature, and she broke free from sexual addiction. She was set free in that place, I saw her the other day, I think she's in our Edgemead congregation right now.

Reaffirming Love for the Repentant Sinner

That was a life changing moment for her. This is discipline to restore the sinner. Paul writes about the same thing in 2 Corinthians 2:5-8. Because what happens is the guy that disciplined, that young man that I mentioned in 1 Corinthians, repents.

And so Paul writes and he says, "if anyone has caused grief", and that's what we'd felt, we'd all felt the grief, "he has not so much grieved me as he's grieved all of you." It hurts when someone we love has to be cut off.

"...not to put it too severely." And then he says, "the punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him". In other words, he's been through the process of discipline. Now, instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him. So that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

"I urge you therefore to reaffirm your love for him." When this person comes back their sin is forgiven. No one can look down at you for what you've done because if God forgets and removes our sin as far as the east or the west, so does the church.

And so we embrace that person, reaffirm our love and bring them back into the fellowship because now they're the lost sheep that's come home. The prodigal son that's returned to the Father and the church embraces them. And so this is one of the tools that God gives the church.

God Disciplines Those He Loves

And it's so important that the church does it God's way. We did a study a number of years ago and there was a time when this was so hard to do because no one does it. We looked like a cult because we did it.

I mean, it's so clear, but no one does this. I remember people would realize they're sinning and they would just leave JoshGen and go to another church. And I remember going, thinking, you know what, I'm so tired of looking like a cult leader.

And we just thought, okay, it's gone. One day I was in worship and the Lord spoke to me and I didn't know I was doing anything wrong. I just thought, I escaped that one, because I don't want to look like a bad guy.

And while I'm worshiping the Lord said to me, "You're not like Me, son." I asked, "What do you mean, Lord?" He said, "I discipline those that I love." Then I realized I was a coward. I realized it was too hard to do that.

I realized I was scared of what people think as a leader if I did what God asked me to do. And so I had not shepherded the sheep properly. I hadn't done what God had asked me to do. In that moment I repented and said, "Lord, forgive me."

And I had to bring it, and say, "Guys, we've sinned." We've taken the easy route. And we did a little survey—Mike Davies did this and I might have my facts slightly wrong, but it's something down this line—those that left the church quietly on their own, none of them have repented and been restored.

The Effectiveness of Godly Discipline

But of those that we've disciplined, as much as 80% have returned to the Lord and are back in fellowship. God's ways might seem difficult for us, but God is wise in how He builds. And so as the community, you will see this played out because sin is inevitable.

There is sin around us. We're a large church. And so when this happens, firstly, if you're the one that's happening to, turn back to God because God doesn't want to lose you. He loves you. Because He loves you He will discipline you. He wants you with Him forever in heaven.

So, when you see this happening, you now have a theological understanding to recognize when it happens, to understand the ways of the Lord and work this out in such a way that the community can see that person restored. When we disciplined my sister she was out for a year.

We didn't see her for a year and she's my little sister, and I love her dearly. She said this when she came back, "Andrew, if you as a family didn't cut me off, I would have carried on in sin. But I remembered what we had as a family.

I remember the love. I remembered what I had amongst the believers. And because they cut me off, I started longing for that so much that I longed for that more than I longed for my sin." And she repented and turned back to the Lord.

And today she and her husband are serving, they're leading one of our congregations. God disciplines whom He loves and so must we as His people. I share this with you and those that are watching so that we can make sure that we build our churches based on God's ways, the Bible way, even if we look weird, it's so clear.

Being Radical with Sin in Our Own Lives

How do we not do it God's way? Amen. Amen. May I ask you a question? Yeah. I think for many of us the idea of being addicted to sex and having sex with each other, some of these more extreme situations, we think, oh, that's not me, that's so far removed.

But for many of us, we have these little areas of compromise and sin in our lives. We think it's not hurting anyone and everyone does it. But sin incrementally increases. No one starts off, like... hundred percent. You must realize sin is deadly. Sin gives birth to sin, gives birth to death.

You've got to be radical with sin. When you become aware of something in your life that's not what the Lord wants, you need to bring that to God. Even sometimes confess your sins one to another. The Bible says because there is a sense of a breakthrough that can come and people can walk with you and hold you to account.

Sin kills, make no mistake. Sin kills, and little sins very quickly have a deceptive nature. So every time you do that, something's happening in your heart, and you'll start to find you're not hearing God's voice anymore. Your faith is starting to die. You've lost your excitement for the things of God.

Those are all signs of sins working its way evilly into your heart, causing deception and hardness of heart. So deal with sin radically. Sin kills and we need to bring it before the Lord. I know that if I sin, I'm not cut off from God immediately, but if I carry on sinning, something starts to happen to me inside.

And at some point I can turn away from Him because sin has now hardened me to that extent. So don't play with it because it is deadly and it will destroy you. And not only that, but it will affect us, because Achan's sin stopped the whole nation from walking in the favor and the blessing of God.

Accountability and the Danger of Compromise

We are accountable one to another as members of Christ's body, and we must realize that we are more connected than we realize. So deal with sin. Watching porn is sexual immorality. Deal with it. Deal with gossip and slander. Deal with a loose tongue.

Deal with all those things that destroy the house of God. Deal with bitterness and anger. Deal with those things. Idolatry even. He says, when you're loving something more than you love the Lord, deal with those things. Because if you don't, they have the potential to destroy your faith, and ultimately destroy you as well.

The Idol of Confidentiality and Hidden Sin

So deal with it very, very strongly. One of the conversations we've been having at the moment is something that the world is bringing into the church. It is the idolizing of confidentiality and that it creates a safe space. I'll conceal it. I'll come to a friend and say, I did this.

And it's not really confessing, it's actually just me getting it off my chest. But you have to keep it quiet. And so confidentiality comes in, but it's actually cultivating like a greenhouse effect for sin and compromise. I'll tell you a true story on that, because we do like to cover our sin.

We are ashamed. But remember, there's no shame in the house of God. We confess our sins freely one to another. A few years ago there was a pastor in the city, he wasn't connected to us, but he led a whole network of churches.

He called me one day and said, "Could I speak to you?" So I had a meal with him and I didn't know what it was about. Somewhere during the meal he said, "I know you guys do churches, but we don't know how it works in our movement.

How does it work? Because I've got this friend and he's sleeping with a woman in this one church and I don't know how to deal with it." And as he said it to me, the Holy Spirit said to me, it's him. He's talking about himself.

And so I said to this man, "You're talking about yourself." He looked at me and said this, and it was so fast I didn't catch what he said. "Don't tell anyone." And then he started confessing and he just blurted it out. So he told me the story.

The Consequences of Deceit and Spiritual Abuse

He would go up the coast. There was a woman. He led this ministry that was a national ministry. And he would go up the coast and stay with friends of theirs who were also in ministry. And when the husband would go out, he would sleep with the guy's wife and he had kept it quiet.

She had started trying to confess what was happening to her husband and this guy had denied it. So her husband and the church felt that she was trying to undermine this man's ministry. He was actually saying, "They're trying to undermine my ministry." So her husband and the church began to turn on her, when she was trying to confess her sin.

So he finishes this and I say, "You need to go and sort that out. I know you said don't tell anyone, but there's no confidentiality. You need to go and sort that out, because if you don't go and sort it out, I'm going to go and sort it out."

You've got a woman who they were trying to get into a mental home, because they were saying she was lying and she was a deceiver. He said he would sort it out. Now, he's not in our movement and we're not connected. I phoned him a while later to ask how things were going.

He said, "No, no. I've pulled my leadership and they all know, and it's all sorted out. So it's all great." But then I find out that this couple is actually in a friend of mine's church, and this guy phones me and he's not telling me the situation from his side.

He's saying, "This woman's lying. His guy's ministry..." And they're about to discipline this woman for confessing what she's done. I say, "This was supposed to be dealt with. I'm sorry. I didn't know that she was in your church." And I began to explain to him.

God’s Judgment and the Call to Radical Repentance

This guy just began to deny everything. So he's trying to cover his sin—sin of deceitfulness. A few weeks after that I was driving back from a weekend. It was Sunday night. We had church on Sunday night and I was driving back to church.

We were driving past Somerset West and I got a phone call and a friend of mine was phoning me and said, "Pray." No one knew about the situation except the pastor. Then I get this phone call—this man who's fallen, who's lying in ministry has hurt himself in an accident.

They've managed to resuscitate him, pray for him. He's fighting for his life. So I put down the phone and instantly I began to pray and I felt the Lord say this to me, "Don't pray for him, I'm taking him." And I said, "Babes, I started to pray and I feel like God says I mustn't pray for him, God's going to take him."

And he had actually been resuscitated at that time, but then I got a phone call about probably 20 minutes later, he died. I believe God took that man, God judged that man, because he was doing damage to the house of God. The Bible says if you destroy the temple, God will destroy you.

God took that man, because He didn't deal with his sin, he covered it. And I, so again, I would say deal with your sin because it's a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. You can come to Him and find grace in your time of need, but if you fall into His hands in sin, you don't want to be there.

He is merciful and just and loves to forgive. But if you trample the Son of God under your feet and you carry on in sin, woe to you. And so we need to deal with these things carefully. It's a life lesson for us that we need to make sure we do well.

Amen.