Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Questions of any kind related to probably marriage is best. But I suppose if it's a theological question about head coverings in 1 Corinthians, that's fine. If you do any research on feminism, they typically break it down into three waves. I think wave one would be considered like the woman's suffocate movement, the right to vote. I forget what phase two was. And then the third wave would be like Gloria Steinem types, the Burn the Bra. What we're more used to in the modern day feminism movement would be the third wave. Yeah, so first of all, I sort of put words into Jaco's mouth about anger. He was a Navy SEAL. He's good with anger and fighting.

I was just using him. Because if you ever go onto Twitter, I forget what his handle is. It might be at Jocko. Jocko Willink. Yeah, OK. So he'll do these Q&A on Twitter, and he is master at one-word answers. So that's what I was playing off with the Knower the Good. But yeah, the two parts of that answer would be, I do agree that there is such a thing as righteous anger.

And that's why a few different times sprinkled throughout my notes, I said, selfish anger to, to distinguish it from righteous anger. And also, I'm anticipating there has probably never been a time when I needed to be righteously angry at my wife. So if I was going to be righteously angry, I'd have to be angry at myself for being unrighteously angry at her. So yeah, righteous anger is a thing when somebody else probably is being attacked, but not when it's a personal offense. So I was trying to emphasize the fact that in most of our relationships in here, our spouse is not our enemy. So we wouldn't have any need for the righteous anger with them.

But still acknowledging that there is a place to image God in what he is angry about, which is sin. But that doesn't apply. I probably, I think I may have tried at some point in the past to argue that I was righteously angry about dinner or something, I don't know. But for most of us, that's not what we need to be thinking about. So usually when I'm at home, I don't even really need to bother asking if it's righteous anger or not. It's probably not. Though still acknowledging that there's time. So is that the answer? Are you guys angry at that answer? Or you wanna give a different? No. I have something to say. You can get on our website and I have a sermon there on Ephesians 4.26 that gives a little different flavor.

And there's a question and answer that Sean asked after it. So that's an interesting verse and I give some differing opinions on it. Yeah, to say that there is no such thing as righteous anger that the be angry and do not sin would mean actually don't be angry And don't sin But that's different but that's that's why his message was addressing I would say you pray for faith first of all because The gospel and Instruction in Scripture from cover to cover is not intuitive so it is it is unbelievable with the natural man Natural men want to see results from doing two push-ups. And we know that if death brings life, we know that a victory comes through death, all these sorts of turned on their head principles that the gospel includes, that it is going to take faith for us to be obedient to what God has said.

And then another practical piece would be one of the things I think about when I'm being stupid is Jonathan how would you counsel somebody in your situation? And so you wouldn't tell them yeah, just go ahead and give up because it doesn't really matter You would tell them the way you deal with a pile of dirty dishes is One of the time and next thing you know the pilot dishes are smaller So same thing with you know whether debt you got in the debt one dollar at a time you get out one dollar at a time But if we can be, I mean, it sounds really simplistic, but if we can be principle driven, then we will find a lot of things to keep returning to.

That's right, that's what I'm going for. And that also helps you to keep the long view. So I would say all of those things. Pray for faith, because naturally we don't have it. You know, like washing of the water with a word. Like a rock takes a lot of washings before it becomes round and smooth. Water if you're washing it with water with a view to change it I mean there is an an an assumption of faithfulness in time That that's a that's it seems like implicit in in that passage. So these things just they don't happen overnight Well, yeah, would you guys say the word that came to mind also going back to Shawn's message to his want You have to really start with the right wants I I want a marriage that pleases God.

I'm more interested in what God wants, what God thinks than what I want, and I have to align my want with that, which then necessitates a humility on my part, letting go perhaps of a pride if I find my wife displeasing for some reason, perhaps enough time has gone by that I've given up. I have to surrender those things. I have to say, nope, I just need to continue to apply what I know to be true and right, and believe that God will reward that, God will bless that with the right effort. Obviously, being willing to extend forgiveness if that's necessary. So it really is, it's just a matter of having the heart in the right place and then is it Jaco that says get after it or get after it, just do the next right thing and believe by faith that God will reward that effort.

Yeah, I mean, in the message and book that I mentioned, decluttering your marriage, The illustration is, if you have, the illustration that Wilson uses, if you have let your garage get cluttered for a couple decades, what do you do? Start with a piece that's right in front of you that you can see that's on top. So you don't even at that point really need a big plan. You don't need a Gantt chart or a project management software to figure out how to do it. Nor should you wade to the far back to the bottom to see what's been there, you know, that whole time. Just start with what's immediately right in front of you and deal with that and then as you have time, keep going.

So we are in it for as long as we both shall live. So as long as God gives us days, He'll give us grace and we keep going. I have found, I mean, and again, it's sort of funny and it's sort of just true that we actually have to obey. I mean, that's the thing I don't wanna do. I know, I just, I know too much at this point that I am responsible for, that I have to obey. So, you know, that's why we like that message by George Grant, you know, do the next right thing. Sort of the same idea with the, just pick off that thing that needs to be dealt with and do that, obediently do that right. And think about the blessing that that brings.

I have been thinking about blessing for a year or so. And it's just one of those words. And actually, all of us use the word blessing a number of times in our messages today. It's fantastic. What does blessing mean? Well, on one hand, it doesn't really matter, but we gotta want that more than anything else. And it doesn't always come in the form that we thought. So being tired and my wife being happy is a better blessing than I saved a couple trips through the house from my weary legs, you know, and she is irritated. Or the amount of energy that I give towards our conversation. So I'm going to be expending the energy.

The question is whether it's going to be a three-minute conversation that I'm ready and energetic for or a three hour conversation where I'm trying to dig out of my failure to be ready at the beginning. So like, my, my joy is what, how am I going to spend the energy? But yeah, the simplicity, you know, that's the thing with Jaco's one word answers is, and I don't know if he's a Christian, he there's nothing Christian in the book that we read. Again, if his name was something else, Because actually, extreme ownership is co-authored by Jocko and a guy named Lafe. Well, if my wife had said, well, what would Lafe say? I'd be like, that doesn't mean anything to me. But Jocko is just kind of off the edge and off as a name to be funny, thought provoking. But there's a simplicity there of, you know, I don't want to do the hard thing. What should I do?

Do the hard thing. Yeah. I can't do burpees. What should I do? Burpees. So at least I think maybe for guys, for the ladies, maybe there's a different answer to if I feel like a failure, don't do burpees. But the guys, at least the simplicity of that is helpful. And like we are all, Dave mentioned this in his message, we are talking about this in a Christian context, in a worshiping context. So God doesn't make it one of the conditions that we come in to worship him and get his blessing because we've got everything right. So that's what grace is about. That's why Jesus died for sake of grace and his love to us and that supernatural giving to us, his generosity to us.

So we keep worshiping and we read what he says and we tell him what we need and we thank him for what he's given And like he keeps blessing that sort of simple, consistent obedience. And again, we're doing it in a Christian context because we're forgiven. I can't tell you, maybe it's something that other guys can tell you. I'm not sure I don't know what the Hebrew in there, what that word actually literally means. You may know more than I do.

The connotation of Lord, I mean, I what I was reacting to is I actually know of Christian friends who believe it's proper to refer to, you know, you know, keen husband, keen father. It sounds it it it irritates me only because I think more of Jesus, the servant, who emptied himself. And and so I just just my thing. I just feel like to require some kind of honorific title like King or Lord seems counterintuitive to me to the idea of the servant, the head servant of the family leading. And somebody was mentioning to me during one of the break times that even that idea of that servant leader as a husband doesn't mean like he's then sitting around waiting for everybody else to tell him what to do.

He still has to lead, but that way he leads is by example of serving others. So that's the only point I was trying to make. I don't see anywhere in scriptures where we're told particular titles to use. So does that make sense or not? Yeah. It does sound funny to our modern era, but if somebody felt like they want to use that term and it was used in the right sense, and it didn't cause a puffed up pride in the husband. I don't have any problem with using the term. So. I have a question for Jim. So how do you know if your expectations are completely unrealistic and out of whack? That's the only thing you wanted to ask him?

Your. For starters. Well, one, your spouse will let you know. If you still don't agree with that, then I mean, I would say, you know, go get counsel, get other people and say, this is what I'm, my expectation is this unreasonable, is this crazy? Safety and a multitude of counselors. You know, if 10 people look at you and say you're whacked out, probably ought to tweak your expectation. Of course, scripture is, yeah, if somebody can point to scripture that you're whacked out too, that helps. So I think of like the crushed and beaten down wife and the domineering husband, it's who thinks everything's fantastic and their relationship's amazing.

It's not going to just come up. I mean, that's dysfunctional. That's bad. So then you would hope that there are other observing godly people from the outside to be able to tell them, hey, something ain't right here. Yeah, and it can be tough, especially in that example, if the husband is very domineering and if he's, in essence, threatening the wife, and you better not talk to anybody else. I don't believe a husband has the right or the authority to demand something like that. I and these other guys could disagree if they want, but my advice would be is if a wife really believes her husband is being overbearing, being sinfully overbearing, and he's trying to keep a lid on it and shut it down, she may just have to respectfully say, yeah, I love you, but I need to bring this to the attention of the elders, this is not right.

So a husband can't pull rank or something and protect his own sin by demanding that the wife submit and keep her mouth shut. Yeah, because no human authority is absolute. So, and that's one of the great things about being Calvinist is thinking that Jesus is Lord. No man is Lord in the ultimate sense like that. So there, we always have an appeal to him at least, and potentially to other authorities that he has established.

So no one authority in any given sphere gets to claim ultimate authority and absolute authority and no other authority in any other sphere gets to mention it. So hence the elders have a responsibility in the church sphere and the police have responsibility and authority in the criminal sphere and you know husbands have a certain kind of authority and responsibility in the house sphere. So those are all that they they're not all sealed off from one another. So yeah, if somebody's having problems, they ought to get help with that. It's not about the nail. Have you have you seen that video clip? So later, later on, like when you're online, just search, it's not about the nail. And that that will not really help answer your question, but it's at least funny. Yeah, learning. So even in the first period of 37 where you're living with your wife in an understanding way, it would be different trying to answer that question to somebody who's been married for a week, compared to somebody who's been

married for a year to 10 years and even longer. So presumably if he's studying his wife he's learned more about what she is saying even if she's not saying it. You know like for example the example I gave with my wife of you know she regularly figures out the answer on her own when she is asking me the questions. She just needs somebody to talk to verbally about it and then it's it's more obvious. So I don't know what we would have done prior to the invention of text messaging because like doesn't matter where I am she can process outside of her head and lots of times figure out what she needs because she's communicated it. What I do know is even if I don't know the exact right questions to ask, she gets the vibe of whether I am annoyed or feeling like she's a hindrance because she keeps asking and not being satisfied by what I'm saying back. So like in our case, and and I don't know how it would be for other people, but in our case, I want to just be done with the conversation.

And when I am giving off that vibe, and it makes her feel like she's not worth my time, well then it doesn't, then there is a new issue. And the other one is gonna get fuzzy, it's gonna get less able to be understood what it actually is. So, I mean, in times where there's not big difficulties, you know, you can come up with strategies. So like, remember a couple of days ago when we were having this thing and we couldn't figure out what you were really needing to know, you know? I was thinking maybe we should have you write it down and then come back to it a couple hours later and then see if it's still a thing.

Again, come to agreement on how you're both gonna approach those things, and if you're doing that in a way that says, because I wanna get it figured out. Like, whether you need me to give you an answer, so even saying, okay, do you need me to care, or do you need me to fix?

I mean, but again, you can ask those questions even in an annoyed way that make it unhelpful. But yeah, so you're learning and seeing how she's talking and what's happening for her or ladies with him. Like again, in our relationship, it takes me six to eight months to finally change my mind to agree with something if I'm wrong about it that she has said. about six to eight months.

So she has learned that she should stop expecting to try to get me to change my mind on certain things immediately. So she'll say, I wanna put this on your radar. Because she knows if she can get it into my radar, she's got the gears turning, and now she's just gotta flip the months on the calendar until I'm finally ready. Obviously can't do that with every issue, but she's learned that I'm a slow processor. So she can give me more time and not make it super urgent sounding. I'm likely to do better.

Well, personal sin would be if you, if it would truly, if you believe you would enter into sin in following his leadership, and obviously you would hopefully be able to back that up with scripture, there's probably areas where in some way it'll violate your conscience, but you have to make sure you're just not using, I just don't like your idea, I just disagree, it's really gotta be, no, I really believe this would be, I'd have to confess this to God if I did this. Then you need to put your foot down. You just can't follow him in that regard.

If he's asking you to sign the tax refund that you know he's cheated on. And you're filing jointly, you're both signing it. You say, I just can't sign that. Well, you're my wife's submit. No, I'm not gonna do that. That'd be an example of not following his leadership into personal sin. If you guys aren't communicating well enough that you're in that big a problem, you need to back away up and start talking about managing your finances or something. And it depends on what the nature, like the name of a child. That's a totally opinion, right? So you can go to the Bible, you can come talk to an elder, but it's opinion.

So, you know, Gail and I, we had, my son Christopher Joel is Christopher Joel because I defer to her as opposed to Joel Christopher. And we both talked, we discussed what we liked. I think in those cases, in situations like that, both sides look for an opportunity just to defer, just out of grace, one side or the other. It's like, when we picked Esther for her name, my daughter, all I could think of was old women. And today I can't think of another name but Esther for her. So in those kinds of discussions, it's like, I think the principle of just deferment, kindness, giving preference to one another with honor might apply.

If it's other things like the schooling, I think the example you gave, that's where again I kind of lean on that principle of the safety and the multitude of counselors, get other people you respect into the discussion, hear different viewpoints, ideas, that might then nudge one or the other. And then if it does come down to where you just really can't agree, after you sought to counsel, done your best, in situations like that where there's not clear right answer, then I think there really is. The wife would then ultimately probably need to submit to the husband's leadership and he will have to own if that was a bad decision.

But again, I would really strongly. There's two times in 37 years of marriage, I've told Gail, this is what I think you need to do. One of those times I asked her permission first if I could tell her what she needed to do. Because she was waffling and she didn't know what to do. So I says, do you want me to tell you what to do? And she says, yes, please. So I told her what to do. So I think the husband pulling rank or whatever and saying, I'm the head of the house. Do it this way. I really do believe that should be a pretty rare occasion. I think more often than not, it should be that mutual. Two people guided by the Holy Spirit, seeking godly counsel, giving preference to one another with honor.

You throw all that into the hopper, and then hopefully you guys can then begin to agree more more on what your decisions are. And some decisions you have a little bit of time. And I know one of the things that I've failed at before is wanting the decision to be easy and not require any additional work from me. Oh yeah, that's how everything in life works. So like, no, on education, we'll read a book. Or you know, okay, we're going to agree to read a page of baby names out of this book every day until we come up with one. You know, so make, and that gets to be fun. So for every page of baby names that we read, we highlight some ones that we like and we eat, you know, Twinkies, because we did it together.

Again, lots of the decisions require work, and that work brings blessing, but we've kind of been propagandized that hard things come easy when they rarely do. So, I'm gonna go ahead and do a quick review of the work. I'm gonna go ahead and do a quick review of the work. I'm gonna go ahead and do a quick review of the work.

In a great book called Fighting for Your Marriage, the authors write, "The two of you didn't marry each other with the goal of having a great conflict management partner" (226). Ha! That is presumably true, though possibly something that some of you should have considered a little more than you did before you said “I do.” For whatever Disney has done to pamper our romantic imaginations, marriage in this post-Genesis 3 world is full of conflict.

My session is about conflict resolution and I am perhaps the world's leading expert about half of that. I am at least the leading expert out of all those who are teaching this session. I know conflict. I create conflict. I am conflict waiting for you as soon as you open the door. My middle name is conflict. There have been occasions when church ladies have talked with Mo and expressed their thoughts about how wonderful it must be for her to be married to me. They assume that we must have just the most delightful time together, sharing the deepest biblical conversations, enjoying wonderful if not idyllic matrimony. To someone just far enough away I often appear so easy going, so sympathetic, so ready to lead. They are so wrong. Mo has always done a supernatural job of respecting me and not letting on how much she’s had to put up with.

As I was saying, I know all about conflict, and, by God's grace, I am excited about the vision of conflict resolution that He has allowed me to see. Sometimes I see relational and familial and spousal peace and harmony as through a telescope, very alluring and yet not within reach. Other times, also by God's grace, He has humbled me and broken me and caused me to want something better than I could have imagined. Mo is a great gift to me, both when she challenges me and when she forgives me. I am thankful to the Lord for His gift to me of her.

So in our almost twenty years of marriage, and twenty-one years of knowing each other, we have made (and still do make) quite a number of messes, and yet we are making less big messes and cleaning up the messes we do make better and more quickly than ever.

Sorting out marital messes is something that a lot of husbands and wives stink at. This is something that a lot of Christian married couples sin at. I’m not driven by statistics, but divorce is as prevalent and, what's worse, more acceptable, as it's ever been in history. The unwillingness of spouses to sort out their conflict has made some of the most miserable people and contributed to our immoral society. The failure to resolve conflict in a godly way has no doubt been the strongest ingredient in the collapse of the family. Our kids see us and they think, Why would I want that?

Dating is not just driven by out of control hormones but by needing to test drive different relationships to see how much garbage this person really gives. Adultolescence is not just a result of parents who are unwilling to train their kids in fruitful responsibility-taking, it is a result of young people watching us (appear to) hate our responsibilities so obviously that they "wisely" avoid responsibilities. The logic is sound even though the premise is faulty. Spouses who don't know how to get along become parents who don't know how to get along who raise raise children who don't know how to get along.

Our marriages are a mess. Our families are a mess. Our churches are a mess. Our society is a mess. All for want of husbands taking responsibility to resolve conflict for Christ's sake.

This is not solvable by bullet points or pithy quotes or marriage "hacks" or tips. Sheesh do I despise the idea of tips. A tip is a “word to the wise,” not something that makes you wise. A tip is a recommendation for those who are already trying and working, not to make it so you don’t have to work. If we have to talk about tips, let’s talk about tips of icebergs, as in, realizing that we are dealing with a massive amount of heart issues under the surface.

That said, some of us are relationally retarded. We all sin, but some of us sin in aggravating ways and then act okay with the distance and isolation we’ve fostered. I know of precious few couples who can say that they had great examples to watch in their own houses growing up. Add to that, we have established patterns in our speech and behavior, and tolerated sin in such a way that we need help. The tandem bicycle of our relationship is only upright because the wheels are buried in the mud, and we’re yelling at each other about why we’re not going anywhere. We might need some big shovels to dig out.

So even though we know a lot, including a lot about what God's Word says about how we're supposed to treat one another, and even though we should just obey, some teaching can provide 1) shared language so that both persons know what is being discussed. That is, for example, the best benefit of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University as far as I'm concerned; it gives spouses common vocabulary. Teaching can also provide 2) an imaginative diagnosis with imaginative treatment. By imaginative I don't mean fictional, I mean out of the rut, outside the cycle you may be stuck in. And teaching can provide 3) renewed hope that conflict can be resolved, that the mess can be sorted out, that because of Christ's work and the Spirit's work a married couple can image the joyful fellowship of the Triune God.

I will come back to this later the talk, but as I've brainstormed for this session for a couple months, I believe that the greatest source of conflict is what we want, and the only way we're going to clean up conflict is to want something better. For real, what do you want in your marriage? What do you want it to look like? What do you want your kids to see? You always do what you most want to do. What does that say about your marriage?

As Rosie O'Donnell’s character told Meg Ryan’s character in "Sleepless in Seattle," "You don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie." Or, wives, you want to be treated like a princess in a Disney musical. Or, husbands, you want to be pampered but left alone when you want to be. Or you want to be seduced by a two-dimensional woman on a screen who only takes your time (and maybe money) but doesn't ask for anything else.

These are extremes, but do you want to be served or do you want to serve? Do you want to be connected or did you just want to get married because it was the only place your parents told you that you could have sex, and now you realize even that was more work than you bargained for?

What we ought to want is intimacy, joy, peace, love. What we ought to want more than anything else is God's blessing.

Conflict is, according to Merriam-Webster, "competitive or opposing action of incompatibles: antagonistic state or action (as of ideas, interests, or persons." Conflict is, according the apostles James, passion at war within, selfish desires that get taken out on those around us (James 4:1-2).

Marriage books, and divorce courts, report the data for the kinds of things that couples say cause conflict. The lists always include things such as: money, children/parenting, sex, in-laws, free time, housework/chores/responsibilities, and careers.

Those are merely representative, even if they are some of the biggies. We know the list could also include disagreements over where the dish towels should be hung, how socks should be folded, and which direction the toilet paper should come off the roll (from over the top, of course). Conflict can come from not understanding, and maximizing, internal and external processing.

In the church, symptoms could also include unclear or immature leadership, as well as weak or inconsistent submission. Christians wives have special, spiritual-sounding complaints against their husbands because of the Bible. Christian husbands have special, spiritual-sounding complaints against their wives because of the Bible. We have verses for why we're fighting, albeit ignoring the other verses that say not to fight.

But receiving a $10,000 dollar check cannot make you sin, nor can a $10,000 unexpected bill. Your in-laws gave you your spouse, isn’t there always a basis for gratitude? Jesus said there is nothing outside a man that can defile him, but sin comes from within (Mark 7:14-23). All of these are surface issues like stain on a board, they highlight the grain that’s already there.

What lurks under the surface that causes conflict?

Guilty conscience. If you have some other sin, whether it is a secret sin you’re desperate to hide or an obvious sin that you refuse to confess as sin, you might cover your sin by attacking. It’s misdirection. Do whatever to make the other person the bad guy. If you're watching porn, if you're hiding financial problems, if you're sneaking around, you are already not unified. Sins are systemic; they can’t be compartmentalized and they will do damage whether they are plain to see or not.

Out of control emotions. If you lack peace, if you feel insecure, you may try to sabotage and/or tear down the strong one. If you can't feel okay, no one should feel okay. Or, if you don't feel okay, why doesn't your spouse empathize and join you in your pain? Maybe your spouse is a clown, but even clowns have the sense to run away from a raging bull.

Un-communicated and/or unfulfilled expectations. It doesn't really matter where your expectations came from, it could be how you grew up, what you've watched, or a previous relationship. You may not even be aware of your own expectations, or you haven't communicated your expectations, or your expectations aren't reasonable. But these expectations are running like a background program in your brain whether or not the app is on the screen. You have expectations about sexual frequency and taboos, about romance, about children and how many and discipline and education and sports and rides and future, about work and who works and how much work, about degree of emotional dependency, about household cleaning and cooking and shopping and laundry, about time together and time with other people, about how to deal with problems, about what forgiveness looks like and how quickly it is granted, about the toilet seat position, about who writes thank you notes, et cetera and ad nauseam. When was the last time you talked with your spouse about these proactively, before the pressure was on?

Doctrine idolatry/Pharisaism. If the only spoke in your worldview wheel is Catechesis, then you will, without doubt, need to be Right, and fight to be right, more than anything else. If God is the big Theology/Bible Test Proctor in the Sky, then Answers must be Correct, and there is only one correct answer. If, on the other hand, things such as Lifestyle and Narrative are important, then you will need to do more than be right.

Bitterly unloved, or angrily disrespected perceptions. These could be connected with expectations, but women want to be cherished and guys want to be respected. If you think your spouse isn't seeing you, and as Christians, if you think your spouse isn't obeying Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3, then that will filter how you hear almost everything they say. You will interpret their comments and conduct negatively. You do not believe the best, which means you are not loving them (1 Corinthians 13:7).

Engaged in no other conflict. This is directed at the men, especially, since they are made to fight. If we will not fight the world and unbelief, we will find enemies at home. "I must conquer." This could also be laziness. It could be cowardice; she’s the only enemy you think you have a chance to beat.

These are tips of the iceberg of conflict, and they are humbling things to acknowledge. But if you don’t want to acknowledge your problems and be humbled, no wonder there is conflict.

There will be opportunities for conflict, and there is likely to be sin in your heart looking for an opportunity to leak out, or explode. What can you do? What must you do?

You can try a variety of things. As a relationally debilitated man, I really was provoked, in a good way, by reading Fighting for Your Marriage. Your mileage may vary. Also, if you’re having issues that you can’t seem to get past, then what you have been doing isn’t working. Why not try something else?

You could agree to give one person “the floor” at a time. It could actually be a piece of carpet or hardwood or linoleum; the authors of Fighting for Your Marriage even reference a “floor” magnet kept on the kitchen fridge. The person who has the floor gets to speak, share his/her concerns or hurts, and the one without the floor can only speak to ask clarifying questions and/or repeat back what the other person said until they agree on what was said. Then the floor goes to the other person and the process is repeated. Maybe the first time you do it for 10 minutes total. Try it. Choose a topic that is on the surface but that is bugging you both. Don’t start with the deepest, longest standing disagreements.

You can schedule a time and place to talk. Make a date, but probably not while you’re on a date. Don’t do it late at night when both of you are exhausted. Don’t do it with the TV on. Don’t do it at the dinner table with 10 minutes to eat before you need to rush out the door for the next event. If you get good at resolution, sure, knock things off whenever you want. But if your car needs a transmission replacement, that’s going to require a day or more in the shop. Go on a walk together. Bring home pizza or take-out so that she doesn’t have to cook that night. Don’t do it when you’re both naked in bed before sex. Don’t demand sex because you just read 1 Corinthians 7 even though you’re livid at your spouse.

You can read a book together, or listen to a sermon together, and stop and talk about things. You probably don’t want to read a (big) book about dealing with conflict, either because who wants to read when you’re mad, or because you’re not mad so why read about it? But there are some serious helps available.

You can get outside help, and you should get outside help if there is no progress, or escalation and threats, or debilitating withdrawal, or more. You can schedule regular check-ups. You can look for positive things to praise your spouse for. You can serve them in little ways. That’s preventative, perhaps, but depending on the rut you’re in, it may be like filling in some of the dirt for the next time the wheel crosses over the same spot of conflict in the road.

Those kinds of things are the tip of the iceberg for what you can do.

There are some other things that you must do, the Bible tells you to. I’m going to tell you two tips, and try to show a little of the iceberg under the surface as well.

Conflict between two people happens because one or both are angry. Anger has different faces and volume levels. Anger has mothers such as bitterness and impatience and selfishness, and anger’s father is always pride. But you must decide that anger is not allowed in you no matter what your spouse does.

Conflict resolution tip: Tolerate anger as much as God does. Which is to say, don’t. The Father killed His Son to pay for your anger. He doesn’t have tolerance for selfish anger. “It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate” (Babin, Extreme Ownership, 54). Just don’t do it.

You are going to have problems to deal with. You are going to have difficult decisions to make. Some of your preferences will be ignored. You will have annoyances to absorb. Why not laugh? Why not hug? Instead of fighting one another, why not fight together?

You must decide that anger is not acceptable. Paul says to kill sin, “put to death what is earthly in you,” and keep putting sin off.

But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. (Colossians 3:8)

If you start to put on the dirty shirt, put it down. Keep putting it down. It doesn’t matter if it was your favorite shirt; it’s soiled with sinful crap. If you get mad, confess it, turn away from it, don’t justify it.

Then put on kindness and gentleness. Put on Christ. Bear with and forgive one another. Put on love which binds everything in harmony.

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:12–15)

This is for Christians in the church body, yes. Are you a Christian? Then this is not optional. And remember what paragraph follows this paragraph in Colossians 3, the one about household responsibilities, starting with wives and husbands (Colossians 3:18-19).

Be self-controlled. Fools vent their emotions, including anger. Fools vent every little irritation.

Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding,

Stop acting like a fool. Stop fighting. Stop being angry. Stop acting like you have to.

Whoever is slow to anger is better

Listen to “Themes in Proverbs #15 - Self Control” (audio/video and sermon notes) by Douglas Wilson, for real.

Self-control carries over everywhere. If you don’t have self-control with what you put into your mouth (eating), why do you think you’ll have self-control with what you let come out of your mouth? If you won’t take steps to exercise, why would you take steps to intimacy?

Some of us default to anger, and we’ve established patterns. We’ve taught the other person how to be nervous around us. We’ve taught them to expect a fight and to come with defensive counter-measures activated. We’ve taught them to try to guess when and how hot we’ll be. We’ve shown our spouse how to handle it when something we don’t like happens.

If you get mad at your wife because she’s mad at you, she should get to say, “Well if it’s so easy not to get mad, show me how it’s done.” You’re standing in the rain yelling at her for holding her umbrella wrong while you’re under a broken gutter.

Walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26). The works of the flesh include enmity, strife, and fits of anger. Hate anger, and hate what anger leaves in its wake. Kill anger in every possible place it could grow: driving/traffic, trials, parenting. Trying to resolve conflict when you’re angry is like trying to sculpt an ice cube with a bulldozer.

Here’s another helpful image to consider: should I ever be angry at my spouse? NO.

Maybe you’re thinking to yourself, “I’m not angry.” Okay, so on the scale there is apathy, avoidance, annoyance, anger, and aggression/abuse. None of them are godly.

It does not matter what you say, how you treat the other person demonstrates what you really want.

As I said at the beginning, we want more than just fighting less, or resolving conflict more quickly. Those are good, and good steps, and they are still not the ultimate goal. We’re not making anyone jealous because we can pass a piece of carpet back and forth when talking about a hot button issue.

The chief end of marriage is to glorify God by reflecting Him in enjoying the glad intimacy of your relationship.

Want blessing.

This desire reminds us that what we want is outside of our final control; we are dependent on God. But this is a desire that He desires and a dependency He requires. It also reminds us that wanting God’s blessing means that only Christ covers sin for blessing, we can’t ignore sin and get His blessing.

You always do what you most want to do. If your wants are weak, pray that God would give you desires that match His desires. He created marriage to illustrate the blessed union between the Church and His Son. God’s been working to make marriages great for 6,000 years.

When you think about this desire, remember that He blesses obedience. He blesses those who confess their sins, who are poor in spirit, who hunger and thirst for righteousness. He blesses those who lay down their pride, who are humble and sacrificial. He blesses those who don’t try to bypass His law for blessing. In other words, you can’t sin, in any way, especially in anger, and expect that He is going to make your marriage joyful.

God blesses short accounts. If you are not confessing your sin against your spouse to your spouse, that is, saying the same thing about your behavior as God does, naming how you disobeyed His Word and owning that you meant to disobey, and asking your spouse to forgive you based on Christ’s completed work on the cross, then you will not ever resolve your conflict. You may forget about an incident, and time will move on, like layers of sediment hardening and blocking up the flow of fellowship.

Want blessing. Desire it. Meditate on it. Pray for it, personally and together. Pursue it. Worship God every week.

When you see signs of blessing, give thanks.

He can, by grace, fix your hearts and your relationship. He can sort out years of mess and sinful patterns and hurtful consequences. It will not be easy. It will not be changed overnight. This is not about immediate comfort. This is about maturity, it is about love that dies for the other. It will be blessed.

It’s not complicated. “Authority flows to those who take responsibility” (Douglas Wilson, For a Glory and a Covering, 43)). “There is no one else to blame,” “The leader must own everything in his or her world” (Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership). You must take “maximum responsibility for [your own emotional being and destiny rather than blaming others or the context” (Friedman, A Failure of Nerve, 183). The whole point of my talk at last year’s seminar is that there are no conditions limiting your obedience to God’s commands. There are no exceptions. No “if only”s.

Your spouse is not your enemy. Husbands, she is not your adversary. There’s not a good time to yell at her, “You daughter of Eve!" You are not just a team, you are one.

God thinks marriage is glorious. It is not better to be alone and believe you’re right.

Deal with your conflict in a way that makes Jews, and the world, jealous. This is part of a blessed life. Then your marriage will be and bring a blessing, to your kids, to your neighbors.

What is the matter with Christians? We really ought to know better, but we give so much ammunition to the unbelievers around us by acting just like them, or by putting our trust in them to fix our problems. It’s one thing to have stones thrown through the windows of your bus. It’s another thing to leave a pile of rocks sitting next to the bus. It should not surprise us that Christians get so much criticism; we paint targets on our backs.

In 1 Corinthians 6 Paul tackles yet another serious problem among the saints in Corinth. In the first four chapters the apostle confronted the church for dividing up according to their favorite teacher. They behaved this way because they failed to apply the word of the cross and instead they associated according to the same crowd-gathering rhetorical standards as the world.

Then in chapter 5 Paul confronted their unholy tolerance of allowing a professing believer and member of the church to remain in ongoing and gross sin with his step-mother. They should have judged the man and removed him from among them, yet they were busy boasting about their spiritual maturity. This was a specific and flagrant case of unrepentant sin that required action.

Now at the beginning of chapter 6 Paul addresses a specific and apparently acceptable practice among some of the Corinthians. It didn't require church discipline, but it did require them to act differently. Some in the church were taking others in the church to court over relatively small matters, and they were looking for resolution from unrighteous and unbelieving judges. It was foolish to expect justice from these unjust courts, and it was foolish not to consider how it affected their witness to the world. It’s as if their promotional slogan was: “Believe in Christ, join our church, you can sue people over petty things just like before!"

Through a series of seriously sarcastic questions Paul points out how wrong their grasping disputes are.

His concern about these lawsuits has three parts in verses 1-11. First he deals with how wrong it is to go before the unrighteous in verses 1-6, then he deals with how wrong it is to treat family like this in verses 7-8, and then he deals with how wrong it is to trust the unrighteous and why we ought not behave like them in verses 9-11. We're going to look at the first two points this morning.

The ESV makes verses 1-8 a paragraph, and that's fine. But there is an observable set of bookends in verse 1 (κρίνεσθαι ἐπὶ τῶν ἀδίκων) and verse 6 (κρίνεται…ἐπὶ ἀπίστων), as both verses include the verb "go to law" and "before" either "the unrighteous" or the "unbelievers."

While the original manuscripts did not have punctuation, the standard Greek text punctuates seven rhetorical questions in these first six verses.

The cheek of the Corinthians is on display again, but not the kind of cheek that could get slapped. When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? This could be anyone, one of you, and maybe a common occurrence to have a grievance, but Paul doesn’t seem to have a particular case in mind as he did with the incest in chapter 5.

The word grievance refers to something that is the matter, a dispute, and here it flares into a lawsuit. Based on the following verses, the grievances here are "trivial cases" (verse 2), "matters pertaining to this life" (verse 3), which are "ordinary matters" (NET). These are squabbles in the category of civil law, not criminal law, and are the kinds of tiffs that belong in small claims court, something you might see on Judge Judy. God appoints governmental authorities to avenge wrongdoing, even to the point of capital punishment (Romans 13:1-4), but these are “He said, she said; Mine! No, mine!” contentions.

These disputes could have been about inheritance (a man in a crowd asked Jesus this kind of question at least once, and Jesus responded about covetousness, see Luke 12:13-21), or about property, or about breach of contract, or about a poor service or product, or something similar. The one thing these have in common is money. When men live together these problems are bound to arise, so what to do about it?

The Corinthians were using the secular courts, going before the unrighteous. These men are renamed in verse 6 as the unbelievers, repeated in verse 9, and contrasted with the saints. Christians did not fill many judge's benches in first century Roman Empire. Christianity did not even flavor the law much in first century Roman Empire. Most of the historical records describe judges pronouncing in favor of the highest briber, or ruling to invest in the highest social capital, and usually both. We'd think that just wanting justice would be a right expectation, and we'd be wrong.

The Corinthian Christians were presumptuous for daring to take fellow Christians before the unrighteous. It could only have been grasping for their own benefit, beating down the opponent, certainly not in order to unify the body.

There are another three questions that demonstrate the inconsistency of trusting those who are committed to another set of standards than the saints.

Or do you now know that the saints will judge the world? Paul just said that saints have nothing to do with judging those outside the church (5:12), but that was a different kind of judging and a different time of judging. Verse 2 is a future judging, and along with the angels mentioned in verse 3, this refers to end time judging. Jesus told His disciples that they would reign with Him (see Matthew 19:28). When He comes to judge, we who are in Him will also judge.

That's going to be a big deal. And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Knowing what we know about the context in Corinth, we may not follow Paul's expected answer. In other words, based on how they were behaving the Corinthians were incompetent. But they should have been. The argument remains, from the greater to the lesser, that universal and eternal judgment takes more ability than local and temporal judgment of trivial cases, the "smallest matters" (KJV).

On the last day believers will judge unbelievers and angels. Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life? Which angels? All of them? The apostate ones? Even if we're not sure, Paul must have included this in his teaching while among them because it's another do you not know, which he always uses for things they should remember. Perhaps he's referring to Daniel 7:22, and I think I'd argue that this is the angels who rebelled. It doesn't change the point that if Christ aims to mediate His rule through us, how come we can't figure out who gets mom's jewelry?

This is a repetition of verse 1 and the conclusion of the argument. So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? At this point Paul isn't saying that every grievance is wrong by default, but that it doesn't make any sense for believers to take those grievances before those who despise the church, who take opportunity to oppress the poor and lowly, "who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called" (see James 2:5-7).

Earlier Paul told them that he wasn't trying to shame them (4:14). Now he is.I say this to your shame. They should be humiliated. They were grasping for honor, and they were grasping for honor from the wrong people by the wrong standards. They weren't outdoing one another in showing honor, they were just trying to outdo one another with a judge's help.

Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? This is thick sarcasm; “has it come to this?” (Thiselton). They considered themselves the wise. They boasted about it. And yet they couldn't figure out how to solve these small problems between one another?

It is not that he is calling for a permanent court to be set up in the church. Instead, he calls for constructive intervention to save a situation which threatened the church’s unity and reputation. (Ciampa & Rosner)

Augustine, 350 or so years later, referred to how burdensome these duties had become in his role as a bishop. At least the church in his day took the apostle’s criticism seriously.

1 Corinthians 6:5 isn’t a mandate to set up a Christian court system inside the church, but an informal trellis is not necessarily wrong. Also, the church, doesn't “bear the sword" like the secular government does, so her discipline of the unrepentant is different than punishment by the State. The church is not supposed to resolve criminal cases. There is no "why not rather be murdered" ethic.

Rather than self-interest there should have been submission.

Verses 1-6 have a opening and closing comment, but verses 7-8 push the point further. The problem is not just where the Christians take their lawsuits, the problem is that they are having so many grasping disputes with each other in the first place.

It's not good. To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. The word defeat is the opposite of nike, victory. This is loss, a lose-lose situation, #FAIL. Lawsuits like these demonstrate a man seeking something for himself, not his neighbor. He is grasping for his benefit, his profit, his “rights.” There is no good outcome in a situation such as that; everybody loses. With church members like this, who needs secular courts?

The Christian ethic is different. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? Why not? Because one is out to defend oneself at all costs. Jesus' teaching went the other way. Turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39). Go two miles instead of only one (Matthew 5:41). Lend, not expecting in return (Luke 6:34-35). These are interpersonal problems, and there are times when letting yourself be taken advantage of is the more Christian way. Instead of worrying over money or status, remember that you will inherit the kingdom.

It wasn't that they were merely responding poorly, they were initiating. But you yourselves wrong and defraud--even your own brothers! The family feuds were especially ugly.

As for us, we typically don’t take other Christians to court, but we do an awful lot of complaining. Sometimes those complaints go to the world wide web. Are Christians grumbling because they are grasping for the honor of the one they’re grumbling about? Not usually.

The next paragraph also belongs with these first eight verses in chapter 6, but we'll look at it next Lord's Day.

It would be interesting to hear Paul's thoughts about our public courts that have been built on Christian foundations. I am not saying that our courts are Christian, but the effect of God’s Word and the gospel in Western governments and on our civil laws, even in criminal proceedings, is unmistakable. The penalty for bribery, the principle of being innocent until proven guilty, judgements based on evidence and eye-witnesses rather than social standing, these are Christian principles. There have been some places where the church's influence would be impossible to isolate away from these public verdicts. What if Christians were judges? What if Jesus was honored, not merely as the Head of State, but as the Lord of all, at the beginning of every trial, and evidence and verdicts were given for the sake of His name?

I do not ask that as a post-millennial who believes that Christians will make the world more and more righteous in order for Jesus to return, I ask as someone who believes that we can and should behave Christianly everywhere as representatives of Jesus. To a Christian who said, "I don't want to be a part of that corrupt system" I'd say, why not be a judge in Jesus’ name? Why not be a lawyer? Why not be a legislator?

One of the reasons our culture’s standards of justice has collapsed is because the church is not involved enough, and I’d argue that from 1 Corinthians 6. We should judge, and it should be the right people in the right context for the right reasons. Christians are going to judge the world and angels, and Christians are brothers. We ought to think more about how we treat one another, and the whole church ought to be more involved in addressing grasping attitudes and behavior, as well as honoring justice. It isn't that everyday, ordinary matters don't matter, it's that they ought to be easy (or at least easier) compared to the greater issues.

What is wrong with Christians that we defraud each other, and that we can't figure out how to deal with defrauding one another without also ruining our witness in the world? It is a shame to love ourselves so much.

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Let's pray father we come to you today as we study first John as a corporate group help us to understand the Heart of John as he wrote this to his people in times when there were all kinds of false teachers and all kinds of crazy stuff going on and It did occur to me today as Even in the first century it was nuts and they didn't have the written word. And now we have it and have 2,000 years of men who studied and reinforced your word and yet all the craziness is still here with false teachers and all kinds of bad examples. So help us to be able to take this as a reinforcement to our faith and let it chastise us where it needs to be and let us encourage it where it needs to be also.

So we thank you for these things, amen. So it's been interesting as we've looked at a book, each one of us, and then going through a whole chapter at a time. I appreciate this. I watched a guy teach total books of the Bible every Sunday one time. and it was really informative because a lot of times we get way down in the weeds and we forget the bigger message of what the book is telling us. So just to rehearse that in John the first chapter, he's telling everybody what he saw and heard, the apostolic witness to Christ, and that all of us have fellowship with Christ and with one another supernaturally. And then he uses that term in chapter two, that my little children.

And he does that a lot in this. And we should take great comfort in that. He was probably, certainly in his late 80s, maybe early 90s when he's writing this. And it's not like he didn't have a super easy life. Guys out there working it. And he knew that these people felt insecure out and about. So he's writing them, giving them tests to know that they could know their salvation. We'll get into that in chapter five. And then it goes along of not loving the world. Don't get sidetracked. And that you have stages to your Christian life that you can be a child and then a father and then like a grandfather and you can have those things.

And it doesn't matter whether you get saved late in life early just because you're 50 and got saved. All right, you can be in that little child state for a while and then grow out of it. And then talking about don't love the world, after that, don't let the world carry you away, and that there are a lot of anti-Christ coming. And Sean pointed out to me, last time when I was doing this, I did the little phrases for the verses and then launched off on my thing. I think that went well, but in the one thing, I forgot to mention the ones of the people that were anti-Christ amongst them and then they went away from them.

So I wanna kinda retreat back to that and I see it kind of as a God thing because as we've been going through church discipline and things over the last couple weeks, that verse fits right into that and what we're talking about. And the verse I'm talking about is in 1 John 2, to 18 through 19 and it says, children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that anti-Christ is coming, so many anti-Christs have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. Now obviously we've seen a lot of anti-Christs and they're still coming. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they'd been of us, they would have continued with us.

But they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us. I forgot to lean on verse 19 so I can do that now. So they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. I mean, he speaks so plainly. Then that answers the question of people that come into a congregation and they fade away and people try to pursue them and all that kind of stuff. And they realize they can't endure the fellowship of true fellowship if they're trying to fake it. You can't fake it over a period of time. You can do well for a while, but over a period of time it doesn't work out.

And so to know that God's in charge, he goes, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us. Now that's sad when that's somebody that you love and that they did that, but it's also comforting to know that God will purify his body. And in 1 John 3, we're going to find a whole thing that I do lean on, and if you've heard me ever pray, I use a lot of the idea that comes up in 1 John 3. So now we'll go to I John 3 because I did want to cover that base before we got there. So the first thing I'm going to do is read it and I'll read it in the ESV.

And as I'm reading it, a lot of you really know it well, I noticed because I don't have an ESV Bible that I've worked with, but I noticed, because my computer can print out the thing, that the he's and the him's and that kind of thing are not capitalized. And I thought it was interesting as I was reading, knowing that I, like the NASB is in my head. So when you come across those things, note which he is God or Christ and which he is us or a believer type person. It's kind of interesting to see how many times they'd have to capitalize things in this. So it says in 1 John chapter three, see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are.

The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and that we will be, and what we will be, has not yet appeared, but we know that when He appears, We shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared to take away sins and in him there is no sin. No one abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you.

Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. For the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared and was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning for God's seed abides in him. and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this, it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother, for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

We should not be like Cain who was of the evil one one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous. Do not be surprised brothers that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out from death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but indeed in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God. And whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He has commanded us. And whoever keeps His commandments abides in Him and He in them. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

So that's quite a bit of stuff in one chapter. It's amazing that in 1 John you can just study a chapter and put that in your heart and you will be, if you really delve into the depths of it, you will be secure in your belief in him. The things always to remember is that the present active vindicative is used all the time. So it's the habitual habit of sinning. He's not talking about sinless perfectionism. That's one of the things that first John has drawn certain Methodist preachers and stuff to get into sinless perfection, where they say, you can't be a Christian if you sin, So therefore, at a certain stage of your life, he will sin no more.

That is straight from the pit, okay? Don't go there. But people have taken it that way because of the literalness of this writing like this and not understanding that he's talking about habitual sin. Because in other places in the same books, he says, if you say you have no sin, you're a liar. Oh, well, that's a problem. So how do I become sinlessly perfected if I stand up and tell that, and I guess I just skip over that verse when I teach those things. So don't let that wear you down. It's the idea that he's dialing you in and every time you peel away that onion, you get better and better, and then every time you peel the onion, you find out how wicked you are and then you take that one over.

And that's just the way life is. So the first section I wanna do, and Randall now get us right, is 1 John 3, 1 through 3, that we will be like him. Now the thing is, let's first understand that if we're going to be like him, does that mean we are going to be him? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're not going to become God. You're not gonna become a little God, as some of the health and wealth people preach from this verse. You are going to become more and more like him as you go through your Christian life. He is conforming you to the image of his son. And if he doesn't get done with you here, he'll get done with you on the way to heaven, okay?

So, but the idea is you should see you're not the same person you were 10 years ago, or a year ago, or even a day ago, if this is the day of your salvation. You will be a different person. And he will keep sanding those corners. Some people he does it quick, other people he takes his time. He's God, he gets to do what he wants. So that we should be called the children of God and so we are. So the people on the outside, and we sang that song, even this morning we sang those verses, should see that we are different. Why do you do that? What are you doing that for? And the reason why the world doesn't know us is that it did not know him.

You're a stranger in a strange land. You are the alien if you're a believer. So beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. So we're not perfect. We're still grinding through. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him. And because we shall see him as he is, and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. So the idea is that as we progress in the Christian life, you realize, oh my goodness, I'm seeing this more and more. And as you read your Bible or study or listen to sermons, you're gonna go, huh, yeah, I know that. That's right, that guy's preaching the right stuff.

Now, he may be giving you a little flavor of something that's different than what you saw, but the basic message needs to stay the same. Hence all the discussion in 1 John about the Antichrist. Because a lot of people don't have their good theological guard up when they're listening to a lot of people. And God's spirit will give you that, even if you don't know if the guy's teaching you wrong or not, you'll just go, that doesn't sound right. I need to take a note about that, I need to study that. Those are good things, that's what's happening. And the body life continually does that. And that's what discipleship does, That's what life to life, life on life, living does for people, is why do you do that?

You shouldn't be doing that, you know, and why not, you know, I can do that, and on it goes. So those are those sanding blocks that are making you more and more like him. And it's a promise here that he will do this to you. So that's good news, all right? So then in verse four, that's the next slide, He says, and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Now, we don't get to be as pure as God, but we are purifying ourselves one step at a time. I'm better at that than I used to be. Now I'm not doing it three times a day, I'm only doing it two times a day. And man, sometimes I even go two or three days before I get mad or whatever the situation is.

That's the progress in the Christian life. That's just how it goes. Then in the next paragraph, he knows you're gonna ask that question. So in verse four, he says, everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. So you know, oh my goodness, I'm breaking that habit down, but I am not practicing this continually, So therefore I am making progress. But when I do sin, that's why I feel so bad because I'm practicing what the devil wants me to do, but we already know we're of him, we're not of the devil, so we can get victory over that.

Then he reminds us in verse five through six, the principle of in him, okay? So in verse five it says, you know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin, and no one abides in him, keeps on sinning, and no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. So the idea is that as we know that he appeared to take away the sin, and in him there is no sin, no one abides in him who keeps on sinning, and no one keeps on sitting as either seen him or known him. So the idea, if we know him, we will have the ability not to do those things and to have that ability, he's going to expand on that next.

Because he knows what you're thinking, how can I do that? So then he gets back to the grandfather kind of, you know, recommendation to everybody, little children. That's a term of endearment, you know, my beloved, that kind of thing. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil's been sinning from the beginning. So, in 3.7, do not be deceived. Just calm down, take a deep breath and realize you don't need to get all torqued up that, oh, I can't get over this sin. just take it, you know, keep walking, keep one foot in front of the other.

So, and the purpose of the whole thing is that to practice righteousness and therefore you will do those things. So whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. This is 3-8. So, as you practice this, you realize, I can't be doing this, this is wrong. So at that point, that's the Holy Spirit speaking to you, stop doing that. It's very simple, it's like the old Bob Newhart thing with the counseling, you know. Well, I really hate doing that. And then the joke is, he just looks at him and said, well, stop doing that. And that's, basically that's what it gets down to. Am I going to do this or am I not? And you do make those choices.

And when you're hard heartedly making that choice to do that, you're in bad shape. You need to get on your knees and ask for forgiveness and repent and do the opposite, right? So it's all just black and white, every verse, every part of it. And the hang up is don't think, if I do that sin, now I've done the mortal sin and I gotta have the priest come and take care of that from me. Don't go down that trail either.

So at this point we're at eight, whoever makes a practice sinning of the devil. Then in nine, that he gives us a little hint here, then in verse nine, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. So what do we think that seed is? What is implanted in us as we become believers? I believe he's talking about the Holy Spirit. As God's Spirit gets in you and starts to change you in those increments, it does make you a different person and it gives you the ability to calm down and assess those things and move ahead.

So in John 3.10, after that, he said no one, 3.10 because no one is boarder gone and then God seed abides in him. And the next thing, he goes to the next level of you're of God and in his family. By this, it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. So basically, you gotta make a choice. You're either of Satan or you're of God. There's no middle ground. There's no in the middle, you know? And this is a hard teaching. A lot of people don't like that. A lot of people sway away from that.

Oh, well, it's just your flesh and all of that kind of thing. He's just a fleshly Christian, and he's having a hard time and all of that kind of thing. It's not that way. If you're practicing those things, and you're okay with it, you're not in God's family. Now, you can be practicing those things and be convicted and be in a bad spot and still be in God's family, but your guilt and your conviction will bring you to repentance. So there's a process here that needs to go on, and it's not as black and white as, okay, I saw you do that, now I know you're not of him. You need to be patient and wise as a brother and the Lord to love them and talk to them about it.

But as you talk to them about things and you see them dialing up the hard outer shell and getting matter and matter instead of saying, you know what, I need to think about that, then you got a problem. But if that person is going, yeah, I know it's tough and I'm trying to figure out a way and all that kind of stuff, then you come alongside and you can help them. But if they just blow you off, then you gotta, you make a decision. Because as you hang with those people that are that bitter and that against it, when you're bringing them truth, you're actually assigning them to a hotter hell.

Now I've said this several times up here, but when you are counseling with people and they wanna keep rejecting the truth and you wanna like argue them into the kingdom, one of the ways you can stop the silly discussions is do you realize that I believe what's in this word of God and that if I give you these truths and I keep giving you more of these truths, I'm actually assigning you to a hotter help than you would go before I gave you those truths. And usually that sobers up the discussion with people. And I've had people say, well, if that's the way it is, I don't wanna hear anymore. And other people have said, wow, never heard that before.

That's kind of, I don't wanna do that. And they're the softer heart and they wanna understand that more. So all of that are degrees and ways you can use some of these truths to the good. And then he moves on in 310 that, well, we already did that, we're children of God and not of the devil. And then we go to 11 through 12. And it's interesting, John, remember in the book of John, in the beginning was the word. And what he does is he retreats right back to Genesis and he talks about one of the first really bad family situations. After he said, you're in the family of God. For this is the message that you've heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous. He didn't like the way it was going down, so he killed him. That's bad, that's really bad. But he reduces it back to that simple illustration right from the beginning of the book. And the other thing that's always interesting to me is that the people that are being preached to, they didn't have Bibles, okay? All these people, the Bibles at this time, You either had the Hebrew text or the Septuagint and that was it. And a couple letters maybe from different guys.

But they had these people preaching and by God's Spirit they knew these things and they could retreat back to these stories which they had been raised in, that they had been raised in to keep reinforcing these truths. So these people, their blood was, you know, as they say, bib-lean, because those stories were part of their whole society. In our society today, most people don't know the Bible stories. I mean, it's fascinating when you get out there and you say, well, do you know this Bible story or that Bible story? When I was a kid, pretty much everybody knew kind of the Bible stories. Nowadays, it's, a lot of people are totally ignorant.

They don't have any comprehension of what's in here, other than stuff they hear on TV, I don't believe in a flood, and oh, Jesus is God, but there's a lot of gods and that kind of stuff. So it's fascinating. But these people knew these stories, and he uses them to reinforce the teaching of them as they go along. So then we move on to the Genesis thing, and he's brought them back to that. And then he starts talking about in 13 through 15 that brothers, okay? So he's called us little children, and then he makes it evident the children of God, who they are, going back to Genesis. And then he cranks it up a notch, and then do not be surprised, brothers, okay, so now we become brothers with him, that the world hates you.

We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Our community and treatment of each other should be an incredible example to people. And you see that all over the place when you, especially going to visit in the hospital and the nurses that are believers or doctors that are believers, the difference atmosphere that happens as soon as they realize, oh, you're there to spiritually talk to these people and they let their guard down. And so it's a whole different atmosphere than working when they're not, you know? So anyway, so that the world hates you. But when another brother sees that, they like you, you know, and they work on it.

So whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And that's pretty extreme. But, you know, the issue is if you hate your brother, his soul is being murdered anyway. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Now, does this mean that if he's not a brother, that I can hate him? No, no, no, no, no, don't do that. If he's not a brother, then I can just treat him like trash. No, it's another human being that maybe God has on his great role and you are that instrument bring the gospel to him. So in no way, shape or form should you, you know, come unglued on those people.

So then we have in 16 through 17 that our standard needs to be his standard. So that by this, by what he's going to describe now, we know love, that he laid down his life for us and that we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's good and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, How does God's love abide in him?

Now, this gets tricky because how many people out there have needs? There's so much need that, you know, what do you do with that need? And how do I go serve everybody's need? I mean, there's probably thousands of people that are dying of starvation right now on the planet. Am I supposed to go and serve all of those needs right now?

Well, he's talking within the household of God and he's talking about brothers, first and foremost. And if we have, he's blessed us with something and we know a brother that needs something and we can help, then we should help. Now, do we just help indiscriminately? If I tell you, you know what, I really need a Rolls Royce or I need a Mercedes Benz, I'm not satisfied with my Hyundai, I need that. And you people need to serve my needs because we're brothers. No, no, no, no. That's not what's being talked about here. The idea of what most of us need and what basically in our civilization what people need is spiritual help.

Most of them don't need the hamburgers. They're sitting there with their little sign on the side of the road. They're making more money getting the food from the, or the money from the people passing by. Back in the day when I first got saved, we'd hire those people and bring them into our place of business and I'd say, I'd start them off and the dirtiest job we had was washing parts that were all greasy and stuff. But you had big rubber gloves and everything and so it was great. But they'd work about an hour and they'd say, I don't wanna do this. I can make way more money out there begging on the street than I can make sitting here and then just leave.

So they weren't interested in actually bettering themselves. They're running a scam. So you have to be wise about these things. But within the congregation, we have to be wise too, because like I said, you know, I start telling you I need a silk suit and I can't have that and I want this and that. That's crazy stuff. So with wisdom, we have to apply these truths. So then we move on in 16 through, or no, we just did that. 18 through 23, he then starts spreading it out to the bigger world. Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and truth, and in truth. So let your talk display your walk, right?

If you say one thing and do another, gee, that's a hypocrite, right? So don't do that. And it's back to the golden rule. and to others what you would have them do to you. If you think it's good to talk to somebody, you're in a situation and you wish somebody would have told you before you made the mistake. It's a good thing if you see somebody going down that road to come alongside them and say, hey man, you don't wanna do that, that's a bad thing. If you know things that are happening to another family or something, and you have the ability to talk to that family, to give them fair warning, that's a good thing.

Now, do you button everybody's business? Not necessarily, and you have to be wise about what you know and all of that kind of stuff before you go going into it. But you need to be a part of that family as those people are a part of that family. And I think it's really fascinating. I think we really demonstrate this well in our little church. It's that life-to-life exchange that we have And it's a lot of times it's just stupid stuff and people are doing things and they don't even know it's offensive to somebody else or whatever. And you come up and you listen and then the person might tell you why they're doing that and they go, oh, I didn't even know that, that's interesting, I'll think about that.

So all of that just to relax you and let you be that person, those people. And then by this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before Him. So as you do those things, it reassures both parties in the situation. When you're discipling somebody, my favorite thing is, you learn more than they do, giving them a truth, because what you're doing is reinforcing the truth that you're passing on. And when you do that, you realize, oh man, this is way bigger than just this little action. It's what that action produces after it grows and it has growth in that other person that you're telling it about.

For whatever our heart can, for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and he knows everything. So when you feel, I don't know if I should be doing this, pray about it. And if God convicts you about it, change it. And sometimes you'll have guilt over something. Guilt is not necessarily bad. Maybe you should be guilty about some things. Sometimes though, you can have that needle tilted way over in the guilt thing and you're running around being guilty and whipping yourself, oh, woe is me and I'm a worthless worm and all of that. You're not taking advantage of the power that lives within you.

Galatians 2, 20 says it's not you who lives but it's Christ who lives in you. That's the way to live the Christian life. Walking one foot in front of the other, walking in the spirit. and he's gonna close this chapter with that truth also. So that whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and he knows everything. He just reinforces God's omniscient, so don't think you're sneaking these things in on him. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God. So you have confidence if you're not being condemned in your heart to live your life. And whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep His commandments and do what pleases Him.

There we go, we're walking one foot in front of the other, we're living our life out. And this is the commandment that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as He has commanded us. That sums it up all the time, right? If you believe what Christ did for us, He died for our sins and there are many, and each the tiniest sin is enough to condemn you, How can we ever thank him and all of that? You can get sidetracked into that. You can't, and he knows you can't do anything to please him, but he does want one thing, and what is that? He wants our worship. He wants our allegiance to him.

He wants us to worship him. He's a jellison, all-consuming God that wants our worship. And that's why when we, as our congregation come together, I mean, you can worship every day, all day long, individually, and I think people should do that. You should see your work as a act of worship. You should see washing the dishes as an act of worship, all those kind of things. But when we come together and worship, there's a special thing going on, and we talk about it a lot, and then ending with communion like that, we're recognizing what he did. And we know there is no way we can repay him. So we do that in gratitude with a happy heart and come out more filled up than beaten down.

And that's where it's really amazing how many times churches, you come out after communion and you're going, oh, I forgot that one and oh, I forgot this and now I'm not worthy and all of that. When we're here to strengthen and realize what he's done for us and live that over and over out. So we go out powerful, that's why we have a charge. Once we've done this, we've confessed our sin, we've been reinforced with the word, now we have a charge to go out and actually change the world we live in. That's huge. So the last verse, and he says that, whoever keeps his commandments and abides in him, and he in them, and by this we know that he abides in us, and the spirit whom he has given us, by the spirit whom he has given us.

There it is. Walk in the spirit. That is what the Christian life is. Just keep one foot in front of the other, keep going, and as those things come up, confess them, you know, retreat, move, move ahead. And as you dial that along, you will become more happy and more happy, and you know, you'll make people nuts with why you can keep smiling when things go wrong. And keep in mind, things are gonna go wrong because he continually is proving how he's in charge. We're not. If you think you got everything wired and you got it all dialed in, look out. It's not gonna happen that way. He's going to show you, well, I had this plan.

You guys have done a real good job, but what I was doing was preparing you for this. And you went, I don't really wanna do that. And he goes, that's right. You know, keep trucking. So to sum it up, I think that the amazing part in this chapter that hits me up all the time is the idea that he will conform us to his son's image. I heard that, I can't remember the guy's last name, but it was Eric, and he was from Scotland, and it was a shepherds' conference back in the early 90s at Grace Community. And he leaned on that verse and spoke for like 45 minutes, you know, doing all kinds of stuff. but his main point was, you will be conformed.

And I thought to myself sitting there, I said, man, that guy's really hammering this and it does seem to say that. And you realize that that is what God is doing to us. He is making us what we should be before sin came into the world, which is a miracle. I mean, he's taking us from death to life all the time. And that's a big supernatural thing that, you know, We get lost in, oh, I've got cancer and I'm gonna die, or I broke my leg, or my kid's being mean, I don't know what to do. And in the big scheme of things, it's amazing how God has reached down and opened our eyes to who he is and what's going on. And it just makes your life that much better.

So basically that's pretty much first John three. And just as a look ahead, chapter four is good, but chapter five is really an interesting chapter. And if you guys are reading ahead in the scheme of things, read about the textual problems in chapter five, and then of course the famous verse that you see all the NASB things, that you may know who you are. And I think this, 1 John is just a genius, simple book. And I think that's why the guy that gave me the gospel told me to read it, you know, and I stalled around and gave that out the last time I spoke. But if you just read 1 John and think about it and don't get spun out that, you know, sinless perfectionism and realize that it's these present active and indicative things, it's a habit of life that you need to have, it will really give you a lot of joy and give you a nice, clear, clean answer for a lot of people.

I have people come to me all the time, and I got this problem with that. And usually my reply is, yeah, I got that same problem. And they go, what? You know, you're been with the Lord for 20 years or whatever, and you're supposed to be a pastor and you went to a seminary, you did this and you did that. Now, we're all people. We all got the same instincts. but when we're walking in the spirit, we can give aid and comfort and really respond. And when everybody's jogging along, I mean, I give this out all the time, Shawn's quote, people say, well, how is it with all those families and everybody living in the house, it's really good if we're all walking in the spirit.

If one of us gets out of whack, not so good anymore. But when we're all tracking and walking in the spirit, it's a joy. And so, you know, that's kind of like it is here. If our body's moving together and we're all doing right in our, you know, walking with the spirit, things are great. And then if somebody stumbles, we pick them up and bring them back in, you know. So that's it. My cold medicine and my cold has finally gotten to me. So let's pray and then go home and practice these things. things, yes, my little children. I guess I can say that, yeah. Yeah, there's some of you. Some of you couldn't be my kids, but some of you, most of you could.

Okay. All right. Father, thank you for this time together. I thank you for your word and how you inspired John to write these simple things in his gospel and then in these little letters and how clear they are and how convicting they can be when we have the wrong attitude, but how comforting they can be as in the spirit, we look at them and understand the passion he had, help us to have that kind of passion and give us the strength to do these things as I know you will. And we thank you for your son, for he is the only one that could have made the payment for us. So we thank you for him, Jesus Christ. And it's his, in his name we pray, amen.

Proper worship precedes proper expectations for relationships. Men do not know why they should treat one another in a particular way apart from knowing what God is like and how He treats His people. God is holy; He is patient but He does not wink at sin. He takes our sin so seriously that He sent His Son to die on the cross in place of all those who would ever believe. His mercy is a just mercy; He is both gracious and righteous. He loves relationship; the three Persons of the Trinity have always known eternal fellowship. But He will not buy relationship at the expense of truth. It is through our worship of Him and receiving of His Word that we know our priorities and practices for individual and corporate relationships.

How many misapplications of church discipline have occurred in church history? How many failures to discipline have soft churches neglected in history? How many cases of overextended discipline have harsh churches imposed? Not all leaders are godly, not all the godly are leaders, and not all godly leaders make all good decisions. This keeps us humble, fearing the Lord, and that is the only way to wisdom anyway.

The last couple weeks we've considered Paul's instruction about discipline in the church from 1 Corinthians 5. A number of things are very clear from that chapter, but it seemed appropriate to take another message to address some as of yet uncovered application and some additional passages on the subject.

Let's start by acknowledging that we live in a world of sin and that those inside the church sin, too. We cannot wish ourselves into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe where no one sins. And one of the first things we can and should do is cover sin. “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). Sometimes it’s a sin to be offended. Sometimes we need tell Sister Bitter-heart, “Get over it.”

And sometimes we can’t cover it. The sin is a pattern, it’s public, it’s personal in a way that you can’t shake. Let's also remember that even when sin must be dealt with, what we want is repentance and reconciliation, not retaliation and retribution. Whether or not a position of leadership can be restored is another related issue, but as regards individuals, we want them gained, not lost.

Jesus uses terminology about gaining in Matthew 18. The opposite of gaining is losing, and the loss is one of trust and joy and fellowship. Comparing it with Paul's vocabulary in 1 Corinthians 5, when a man is removed and delivered to Satan and purged from the church, the congregation may gain health in one way but the so-called brother is lost.

As I said, we want our brother gained. "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother" (Matthew 18:13). The next few verses describe what should happen if the brother doesn't listen at first, but the implication is that if he starts listening at any stage, we gain our brother back. Paul describes the desired result of handing him over to Satan as the salvation of his soul. This is gain.

But brothers are not always gained, and certainly not gained quickly, and sometimes the gain seems impossible. None of that, though, changes the goal.

In between the loss and the possible gain things can be somewhat confusing, and in some cases downright brutal. We love our brother, and sometimes that "brother" is a spouse, a son or daughter, a used-to-be-closest kind of friend. While we pray and pursue and wait and want fellowship restored through forgiveness, what are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to think? What is our attitude supposed to be?

These are important questions, sometimes difficult to answer as well as heavy to apply. Remember, though, that it is more destructive not to try.

Who does discipline concern? It is not about "outsiders" as Paul designated them. Outsiders are those who do not even claim to be Christians, those who do not profess to believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. To outsiders we speak wisely as with speech seasoned with salt (Colossians 4:5-6). We give reasons for the hope that is in us with gentleness and respect and a good conscience (1 Peter 3:14-16). We tell them that there is salvation in no other name than in Christ (Acts 4:12).

When it comes to discipline, though, it is the "insiders" we're concerned about. It is those inside that we judge. We are told, by outsiders and by some insiders, that because we are Christians we can't judge. We get Jesus quoted at us: "Judge not." But that is not all that Jesus said about judging (see Matthew 7:1-5), and when it comes to those inside, Paul affirms that we do indeed judge, and it’s obvious. “Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?” (1 Corinthians 5:12) To make a judgment is not to be judgmental, as in, characterized by being merciless or arbitrary. Proud men often make poor judgments, but the problem comes from the motivation and/or the manner of judgement, not from practice of judgment itself.

We have the "church," the assembled body of Christ, the "congregation" as Jesus' use of ekklesia probably means in Matthew 18:17. In the church we have repenting sinners, unrepenting sinners, and a kind of unrepenting sinner known as a heretic.

In Matthew 18 a brother is sinning against another brother, and the sinned against goes to talk to the sinning against. If the offender repents, hallelujah, amen. If the offender won't repent, he gets more opportunities and more admonishing to repent from an increasing circle of brothers. At some point, not specified by a certain amount of time or conversations, he has maintained unrepentance for so long that he cannot stay in the fellowship. Likewise the man who had his father's wife had plenty of opportunities to give up his sin and wouldn't.

The church then sees this insider as a "so-called brother." He “bears the name of brother,” he says he's a Christian, but he's trying to define what Christian means, when God defines a Christian as one who repents when he sins. When you sin and say you didn't, you are a liar (1 John 1:8-10), and when you keep lying the church can no longer affirm that you're a Christian because you aren't acting like it regardless of your vocabulary. Jesus gave His authority to the church to make such affirmations about a man's forgiven status (Matthew 18:18-20; John 20:23, 1 Corinthians 5:4-5).

A more specific kind of un-repenter is the heretic, the one who believes something contrary to generally accepted teaching, the kinds of beliefs that would keep someone else, if they believed what was said, from being saved. This heresy could be about the nature of God, often about the nature of Jesus Himself, or about the gospel, as in saved by faith plus, whatever the additional factor du jour is. The church is, and Christians are, to get distance from these men who can’t keep their mouth shut about false things.

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. (Romans 16:17)

As for a person who stirs up division (αἱρετικός, heretictos), after warning him once, then twice, have nothing to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned. (Titus 3:10-11)

See also 2 John 10, 3 John 10. The point is, watch out among the assembly.

When is discipline required? In Matthew 18 Jesus describes four stages. 1) Personal confrontation of the sinning brother in private (verse 15), 2) personal confrontation of the sinning brother with witnesses in private (verse 16), 3) public announcement to the whole church for their confrontation of the sinning brother (verse 17), and then 4) declaration that the sinning brother is no longer welcome among them and intent to evangelize the “brother” (verse 17). As I mentioned earlier, there is no mandatory amount of time but there is a proper progression.

In the case of heresy, there are only three stages, two stages of warning (“after warning him once and then twice”) and the final stage of removal (“have nothing more to do with him”) (Titus 3:10).

In 1 Corinthians there are basically only two stages: 1) obvious and flagrant sin, in their case sin that even the Gentiles didn't tolerate and 2) removal. In Matthew the sin was not "well known," it was private and damage was more contained at least initially. In Corinth the damage was already being done to the entire lump both in terms of their internal health and their external testimony.

What does discipline look like at this point? The church declares that she cannot say for certain what the spiritual condition is of the unrepentant person.

When a person becomes a member of the church he professes faith in Christ, often in the identifying waters of baptism. He says he's with Christ, he commits to being with Christ's body. The church, with the authority given to her by the Head, affirms the man's testimony, hearing his confession and seeing his obedience, including repentance when he sins and faithfulness to assemble in worship with God's people. The church does not make anyone a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, but the membership process does attest to it. “He’s one of us.”

When that man sins and refuses to make it right, when he continues in a pattern of sexual immorality (including adultery and divorce and incest and others), greed, idolatry, drunkenness, or cheating (see 1 Corinthians 5:11 for the representative list), then the church must judge and remove the unrepenting man. “He is not acting like one of us. We cannot avow his forgiveness.”

This is not an individual call, as in one brother judging a so-called brother, though there is a principle of application that may extend between individuals. But “church” discipline is a public, formal declaration by the church.

Where are the results of discipline visible? The effects of the judgment are public and from house to house. The announcement should be public, “when you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus” (1 Corinthians 5:4); again, it must be a work of the church, not a pastor or even the elders. The leaders do not make this decision, and they ought not manipulate or expect their flock to follow them just because they say so. If it is discipline, so be it. If it is hard feelings, tough luck.

A public announcement means that the person is not welcome to think that everything is okay. They may come to church—though they probably won't want to—but they may not come to the Lord’s Table. They have intentionally not repented from sins for which Christ died, sins that they have been confronted about. If they eat, they are eating and drinking judgment on themselves, and Paul says some are weak and ill and have died because of it (1 Corinthians 5:30).

Then there is Paul's statement about not even eating with such a so-called brother (1 Corinthians 5:11). The elders spent a good amount of time talking about this last week, and I know at least one of the L2L groups did as well. This is where the rubber meets the road. We want to be honest with the text and also not creating rules for ourselves.

The eating is more than communion, and it also seems to be more than just church potlucks. It applies to both of those settings, of course, but beyond them, into our homes.

You do not need to get up and leave a restaurant, or Starbucks, or a Coffee Klatch with the Mayor (since there are coffee and cookies) if a disciplined man comes in. You also do not need to shun him, as if he didn't exist or as if he could taint you by his handshake. But you also shouldn't invite him over to your table, laugh it up for old time's sake, then pay his bill. Talk to him, ask how he's doing, tell him that you're praying for him to repent.

What about if the disciplined person is in your biological or legal family? What if the disciplined person is your spouse? Can you never eat with them? This certainly takes wisdom, and it seems that this is an instance where it’s important to recognize the responsibilities in the family sphere as compared to the responsibilities in the church sphere. If you are in one of these situations, you are already in a difficult place. It ought to be a burden, and no fun. Things are not okay, and you cannot act like things are okay. At the same time, you can still be kind and strong, speak truth in love, and spend time with them in such a way as they understand that they need to repent.

What if the so-called brother changes his profession? Then can we have them over to dinner? Does it change if a divorced man says he was never really married? “I had my fingers crossed when I said ‘I do.’” No, the formal and public affirmation matters, the vow cannot be unmade. Christians don’t get to relax because a so-called brother says not to bother calling him a brother anymore.

In these situations you are already past the point where there won't be any pain. Things are inescapably brutal when you love the hard-hearted. This is not how can you make it go away, this is how can keep the destruction from spreading?

So, do not eat together at the Lord's Table, at the church potluck table, or even at the family table without clarity.

Why do we do all of this? I already mentioned this at the beginning, but it bears repeating.

First, we desire the holy health of the church. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. That principle applies to sin, but in context it also applies to the sin of unholy tolerance. Unrepentance is leaven, so is unjudgment.

Second, we desire the salvation of the brother's soul and his reconciliation to the church. This is not separate from the first level. If the church tolerates destructive sin in her midst, why wouldn't the sinner tolerate his own destructive sin? A holy and healthy church, in other words, a different kind of life, is the draw back to the sinner.

Third, we desire the honoring of God's name in the world. One of the ironies in Corinth seems to be that the church was worried about her testimony, so she wouldn’t hang out with worldly sinners while at the same time tolerating “Christian” sinners. That undermines the witness first.

When the world sees something different in the church, and when the world sees the sinner giving up unholiness for the health of holiness, such testimony makes a significant impact. This is gain.

How should we do this? We are already doing it, and have disciplined a few so-called brothers from our body.

As the elders talked about it, we desire to add a couple procedural pieces to keep the gravity of our responsibility before ourselves and the body. So, when a so-called brother has reached the third stage, wherein we tell it to the church, and typically a smaller group within the church are directly in contact with the brother, the elders will add the discipline to our twice-monthly agendas, and an elder will pray for the person by name at least once a month during the corporate supplication on a Sunday morning. The goal is to keep the person before us without also rubbing it in. When the unrepentant man has reached the fourth stage and is removed, we will mention him at least once yearly, on the same day as our family meeting in January. These measures don't guarantee anything, they are an intentional effort to care for those who are in Satan's hands.

A couple things as we finish.

First, because you don't see that anything is happening with a sinner doesn't mean that nothing is. And also, if you think something should be, do something, and feel free to ask about it. That is a thousand times more helpful than complaining.

Second, God's forgiveness is full and unbelievable. When Jesus finished instructing His disciples about the stages of discipline, Peter asked how many times he had to forgive his brother. Jesus' famous answer was seventy times seven, but then he chased that formula with a parable about an unforgiving servant. We had a debt that could not be paid. We want forgiveness for our people, we want to affirm their status as forgiven people, and we want the fellowship that comes through God's grace of forgiveness.

The church is really an amazing organism by God's grace, and she is also full of problems. The church has so many responsibilities by God's design, and one of those responsibilities is realizing what she is called not to do. The church is a fundamentally new group made up of those who used to be something else who need to become what they are. I'm not trying to be tricky with words, but God's glory in the church takes His wisdom both in the showing and in the protecting.

The church in Corinth needed such wisdom. To get this wisdom they needed rebuke and reminders. Paul corrected them and commanded them about division (chapters 1-4) and now about tolerance of sin in their midst (chapter 5). The next section (chapter 6) will address their greed and their impurity.

It is not a sign of grace or kindness or love or forward thinking to allow an identified member of the church to continue in sin. At the start of chapter 5 Paul refers to a man in the church who has his father's wife, a relationship that even first century Roman and Greek culture didn't approve of. The believers allowed it to continue and were, at the same time, arrogant about their spiritual maturity. They were boasting about their spotless reputation from a sewer ditch.

What they should have done already, which Paul affirms from a distance, is to have "him who has done this be removed" (verse 2). With the authority of the Lord Jesus they were "to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord" (verse 5). The man wasn't in a pattern of repenting and relapsing and repenting, he was apparently unwilling to give up his sin. This was bad for him, and it was bad for the church.

In verses 6-13 Paul reminds the Corinthians of the principle of holiness in the church (verses 6-8) and adds a proviso about where the church's jurisdiction ends (verses 9-13).

The previous paragraph aimed at application to a particular situation. In the rest of the chapter, starting in verse 6, Paul lifts up the house of discipline and pours a concrete principle underneath.

Paul calls out the Corinthians as proud people, puffed up, "arrogant" (verse 2). Your boasting is not good. Earlier in the letter he offered the right way to boast, quoted from Jeremiah, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:31). Whatever spiritual words they might have been using, the Corinthians were not boasting in the Lord. If they had been boasting in the Lord and in the word of the cross, they would not have maintained an arrogant air amidst sin that Christ died on the cross to forgive and cleanse.

The principle was something they knew, or should have known. Do you not know, a question that Paul asks about ten times in the letter, always comes before he lets them have it about how they're not acting in accord with truth. Then Paul states the principle itself, an axiom observable without special revelation: a little leaven leavens the whole lump. This is obvious. What are they thinking?

“ ‘Leaven’ is not quite the same as yeast. In ancient times, instead of yeast, a piece of dough was held over from one week’s baking to the next. By then it was fermenting, and so could cause fermentation in the new lot of dough, causing it to rise in the heat. This was a useful practice, but not hygienic, since dirt and disease could be passed on from week to week.” (C.L. Mitton’s commentary on The Gospel of Mark quoted in Thiselton).

A tiny bit of leaven, just a little, spread through all the bread like a tiny drop of poison spoils all the glass of water. The result is disproportionate; things that ruin are often so.

They should connect this truth with the congregation. Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump. For the Israelites, there was one week every year when they had to start their bread making over, during the Passover feast (see Exodus 12:14-20). In preparation for Passover the family would hunt for and remove any and every amount of leaven found. There was to be no leaven in the house for a week. When the next batch of bread was baked, none of the (possibly contaminated, moldy or foul) previous rising agents were used. It was new. So we are made new in Christ. There is a “fresh start” (Thiselton).

Applied to the church, this is an imperative based on reality. They were to live like who they were. Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. They had been made new in Christ; for Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. It’s possible that Paul was writing this letter in the springtime near Passover, so the feast was on his mind. The leaven analogy applies regardless.

We are no longer slaves to an unholy master, and together we are a new lump. This is the unleavened imperative: you are unleavened so live unleavened.

What does it look like to live unleavened? First, it looks like holiness and not tolerating gross sin. But that's not all. The unleavened life also looks like a festival.

Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

There are some key ingredients in this verse.

We might have anticipated for Paul to call the old leaven "sexual immorality" or at least something such as "lust" based on the situation at hand. It's broader than that. As a lump there should be no malice, as in mean-spirited or vicious attitudes toward one another. This sort of ill-will can be found in record keeping of wrongs, or score keeping of who is doing or not doing whatever, a wrong kind of competitiveness and/or complaining spirit toward others. Evil is a general term, but in context has the emphasis of lacking social values. It is failure to love. It is selfish way that ruins relationships. And it is the old way, as when we were “passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another" (Titus 3:3). This is not the lump we are.

Instead there ought to be sincerity, defined in one Greek dictionary as "being free of dissimulation" (BAGD), and dissimulation means "concealing one's thoughts or feelings." The opposite of sincerity is pretense, posturing, duplicity, lying. And of course sincerity goes with truth, what is actually the case.

Most significant is that this is not a description of a one-week-only festival, this is a description of our corporate life together. Our Christian lives are to be festivals of holy humility and honesty, and this is a celebration. Even when we confront unholiness, we are doing it not because our shoes are too tight or because we are annoyed or because we want to feel better about our self-righteousness. When we deal with unholiness it is because, in Christ, we are free of the old leaven.

A proviso is a condition attached, here not to an agreement but to the argument Paul has made. Keeping leaven out of the lump requires knowing which lump we're talking about.

First Corinthians is not the first letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians, it is the first one that is inspired and therefore received as Scripture. He had written to them before and that letter included specifics instructions that they failed to apply to their current situation.

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, which could have affected a lot of their relationships since Corinth was so perverse. But, whether it was intentional or ignorant, the Corinthians misunderstood the instruction because Paul meant something more specific: not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolators, since then you would need to go out of the world. He will specify the jurisdiction of the church in verses 12-13, but the point is that Christians live in a world of sinners, and that is okay in one way. Christians do not need to build compounds to get away. Holiness does not depend on being on the opposite side of the street. In a world of sinners, we know and interact with sinners, and that is okay. In the world are people who get sex wrong, and money wrong, and even God wrong. Also, God made sex and makes rich and created men as worshippers, the world offers a warped version. As Christians we see the gifts for what they are, and we should be proactive to enjoy them as to the Lord, and we don't need to freak out that those who are spiritual enemies of God act like it.

When it comes to "delivering to Satan," we aren't delivering to Satan those who are still his. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolator, reviler, drunkard, or swindler--not even to eat with such a one. This is quite a list, but it all depends on identifying anyone who bears the name of brother or the "so-called brother" (NASB), “anyone who claims to be a brother” (NIV). Here is the professing Christian, one recognized by the church as part of the lump. That man or woman has a higher standard: to live the unleavened life.

Paul lists six sins of separation. It is not an exhaustive list, it represents the kinds of issues the Corinthians were facing. A case of sexual immorality is what got the discussion going. Greed is what got them taking each other to court which is the next subject Paul tackles. The final four are identifiable persons, those who don't love God or their neighbor, violating both tables of the 10 Commandments (Lenski). To be identified as these things means a constant practice and an unwillingness to repent. These are the sorts of disciplinable offenses, and they require evidence, not estimations of someone’s heart. “[Paul] does not mention any but what fall under the knowledge of men. For inward impiety, and anything that is secret, does not fall within the judgment of the Church” (Calvin).

The church's response should be not even to each with such a one. This applies to the Lord’s Table (so, excommunication), but it can’t only apply to that table. The man has already been removed. This eating in verse 11 is a social eating. The unleavened life of celebration in Christ's deliverance cannot be shared with those who are not living unleavened lives, with those not living in deliverance from sin. This does not mean that no communication whatsoever can happen, and what our interaction should look like requires some follow-up next week. We do not need to act as if the disciplined man doesn't exist. The disciplined man can't spoil our sanctification once disciplined out, but we likewise make it clear to him that we do not share unleavened gladness with him.

There is an inside and an outside, and the church must mind her business.

For what have I do with judging outsiders? Answer: nothing like this. Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? Answer: yes. “[T]o become part of the Christian community is explicitly to place oneself under the discipline of a Christian lifestyle” (Thiselton).

God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you." This does not mean that the church has nothing to say to those outside. In fact, the church must say, "Come in! Come and worship God the Father through Jesus Christ His Son!” She must say "Repent and believe!" She must tell those who are dead in their transgressions and sins to turn to Christ, to confess Him as Lord and believe in their hearts that God raised Him from the dead. The church preaches the word of the cross.

But we do not expect them to live the unleavened imperative. The imperative for them is: Believe, and we expect that obedience will grow from the new life of faith. The church is not the boss of the world, though the church is a voice of truth to the world, and Christians ought to live in the world acknowledging the Lordship of Christ.

When it comes to those inside we must love the holiness of God enough to Purge the evil person from among you, a quote from Deuteronomy which is found six times in Deuteronomy (13:5; 17:7; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21; 24:7). A little leaven leavens the whole lump. The congregation is commanded to exclude the so-called brother, and purge is an emphatic form of “remove” in verse 2.

We’ll take one more Lord's Day to consider church discipline, looking to Jesus' instructions about dealing with a sinning brother in Matthew 18 and also addressing some ways to misapply 1 Corinthians 5, in both directions, being too soft or too hard.

There is, though, clear truth about how we are to live. We live according to the unleavened imperative. We really are unleavened, and so we live together as celebrating a festival and the tone is of sincerity and truth.

The unleavened life of the assembly means that what professing Christians do in the “privacy” of their homes is the church’s business. The standard is much higher than mere consent between adults.

A holy people are fire, and fire does not fear cultural smoke.

The Lord is serious about holiness, His own and His people’s. Christ died and rose again, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to satisfy God’s standard to to sanctify, that is, to make holy, a people for Himself. Each and every individual believer has been forgiven for his unholiness and has also been given everything necessary for life and godliness. Christians are saints; they are the holy ones.

In saying that the Lord takes seriously the holiness of His people, we must not limit this to individual members, it also applies to the group. The Lord takes seriously the holiness of the church, of the temple. "For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple" (1 Corinthians 3:17). Holiness must be considered on both levels, that of believers and that of the whole body.

The church in Corinth had some problems. Actually, they had a lot of problems. Starting in chapter 5 Paul addresses some of their shameless problems: incest, greed-driven lawsuits, and prostitution. It wasn't merely that these things were present but being addressed with patience and persistence. These things were accepted with an arrogant apathy. I don't believe there is evidence to argue that the Corinthians celebrated such unholiness among them (which does not say much for many churches in our day who do celebrate it), but the Corinthians had an unholy, sinful tolerance for unholy living among them. At the start of chapter 5, instead of addressing the professing Christian man in sin, Paul admonishes the congregation to humble themselves and pursue purity.

Unless we think Paul needed a running start before dealing with such serious subjects as in chapters 5 and 6 (again, the issues of sexual immorality, lawsuits against one another in public courts, and additional sexual immorality), it's worth considering the order of Paul's letter. Paul spent the first four chapters confronting the pride of preachers and the petty divisions among the people. Was he easing them into this more personal confrontation?

The lack of transition between the end of chapter 4 and the beginning of chapter 5 suggests that, while he is changing subjects in one way, in another way he's continuing to expose the problems rooted in the same soil. They valued and pursued acceptance from those outside the church, from those in the world; how could this not lead to acceptance of worldly behavior inside the church?

And how could positioning for power and superficial manipulation among some of the teachers not encourage positioning for power and superficial accommodation among some of the flock? The leaders weren't pursuing holiness, why would the followers care about it? If the leaders were busy building loyalty to their personal brands, how were they building the unity and sanctity of the church? The sinful relationship Paul confronts in chapter 5 is bad, but their sinful boasting was already not good (see 1 Corinthians 5:6).

So the question and threat from chapter 3 still apply. "Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple" (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). In the world we live in, a world full of sin and sinners, destruction is inescapable. Sinners will be destroyed by God's judgment, or the church will be destroyed by sinners, or the church will discipline the sinners so that the sinner’s flesh will be destroyed. Patience is one thing, but inaction results in destruction; there is no rest from vigilance in this battle. The seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman are still in conflict. Unholy tolerance in the church will corrupt the church.

Chapter 5 brings us to the subject of church discipline. The word "discipline" isn't found in the chapter, but it is a fitting word that summarizes the process and goal. My take is that there are more churches that do not practice this corporate obedience than churches that do, and there are more that don't practice discipline than those who do tyrannically. Failure to discipline is an unholy tolerance, and failure to discipline according to God's Word is also unholy, though that's not the problem among the Corinthians (and again, it's an existing but minority problem today).

Here is a call to love purity and to hold holy tolerance but never unholy tolerance.

Without much of a transition from his admonishment in the previous paragraph (4:14-21), Paul refers to another report of a second problem (the first report was about quarreling among the brothers in 1:11). This problem is likewise prominent and also obscene.

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated among the pagans, for a man has his father's wife. Paul's tone is almost one of disbelief. He's heard something that one wouldn't expect to hear about a church for a couple reasons. There is sexual immorality, a translation of the word porneia which is a word that includes all sorts of unholy, sexual practice. Before naming the subcategory, Paul heightens the shock by saying it is a kind of impurity not tolerated among the pagans. By itself this doesn't prove what is moral, but it does prick at pride. Pagans translates a word for Gentiles, of the more barbaric, uncivilized kind. Even they don't think this sort of behavior is decent, and all they have is nature and history to know what normal is. It is the "ew" factor; no Greek boy wanted to be Oedipus when he grew up. It doesn't make it wicked, but the cultural distaste should have made it distasteful. The Corinthians wanted cultural acceptance, and yet the culture didn't accept this.

The problem is a man has his father's wife. The man isn't named. In fact, the man isn’t the main issue; the Corinthians' toleration of the man is the primary problem. As for the man, this is incest with his stepmother, using terms established in the Old Testament law (cf. Leviticus 18:8). Where the father is, we don't know. Why the man "has" his stepmother, we don't know either. It could have been for financial reasons, such as family assets and inheritance. It could have been for sexual/romantic reasons. The woman is not targeted by Paul, which means she must not have professed belief in Christ.

They were arrogant, they should have been mournful and diligent.

And you are arrogant! This is a defining problem for them, and it’s why they hadn’t acted. Paul has already addressed their puffed-up-edness multiple times in the letter (4:6, 18-19), and here it is again. They are probably not arrogant because of the immorality, as if promoting this relationship to demonstrate how enlightened they were; their unbelieving culture thought it was gross. They were arrogant despite the immorality, thinking themselves to be great but deceived about their true condition.

Rather than being so high on themselves, ought you not rather to mourn? This is different than being angry, righteously or otherwise. They ought to have been humbled by one of their own choosing sin over holiness, and they ought to have been busy calling him to repent rather than allowing it to continue.

Such mourning would have led to action. Let him who has done this be removed from among you. There is no further investigation required because the sin is public; everyone knows. The discipline process in Matthew 18:15-20 takes a few stages because the sin is being confronted personally and privately for as long as the sin is private. But this foul relationship has been exposed and no one has done anything about it. They ought to have the man removed, and multiple verses throughout the chapter will explain this even more. “Execution [is replaced] with excommunication” (Ciampa & Rosner).

There was flagrant sin within the church and the church's tolerance of the sinner was sinful.

The reality is that the congregation's apathy toward unholiness was unholy and they were not to wait any longer in removing the man from the congregation. Verses 3-5 are one sentence in Greek that show a couple things about the process.

The process is public, corporate, and representative.

Verses 3 and 4 are the set up for the process, providing a number of qualifications. It starts with Paul's connection to the congregation. For though I am absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. There is no doubt in Paul's mind about the situation or the sentence. He is present in spirit, not in a metaphysical way, but in a systemic way. He is the one who laid the foundation. He is not just a teacher but a father to them. They are connected, and this unholiness pains Paul, and they cannot ignore his judgment on the matter.

When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, when they are at a formal gathering of the church, and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, so this is a corporate judgment, not just Paul's personal vendetta. Discipline is not up to an apostle, let alone one pastor. The whole church is affected, the whole church bears responsibility. And the church represents the Lord Jesus. It is for His sake and in His name that the discipline must take place. He is the one who requires this removal, and the church fails to honor Him by failing to deal with the unholy.

There are two purposes, one immediate and one ultimate. The goal of the discipline is the destruction of the sinners fleshiness for sake of repentance and restoration.

In the name of Jesus you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Christians are those who have been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Christ. Christians are those redeemed out from their slavery to the father of lies to become sons of the Father of truth. But this man is not living according to truth, which would be confession and repentance. Because he is unwilling to repent he must be put out from under the church's protection and handed over to Satan’s power, which Satan unwittingly uses for God’s purposes.

The destruction of the flesh is not the death penalty. The "flesh" in this case is fleshiness, it is the “sinful nature,” it is is the lusts of the flesh, it is the “the sin-bent self characterized by self-sufficiency that wages war against God” (Garland), that is not humbled before the word of the cross. That fleshiness needs to be ruined, which is a kindness to him.

The clause that follows, for the destruction of the flesh, is made use of for the purpose of softening; for Paul’s meaning is not that the person who is chastised is given over to Satan to be utterly ruined, or so as to be given up to the devil in perpetual bondage, but that it is a temporary condemnation, and not only so, but of such a nature as will be salutary. (Calvin)

This destruction is salutary, as in, something unpleasant producing good effects. The destruction it is not the desired end-state. The prayer is that the destruction of the flesh would work so that his spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord. The ultimate goal is a return to the Lord. If he is saved, being removed from the fellowship of the church should make him miserable. He will learn through indulging in his lusts how empty and demeaning those lusts are to one's soul. It is called church discipline, but in some ways it is the devil's discipline, with Satan the unwilling teacher. I suppose Satan’s School of Sanctification is similar to the Schick Shadel approach; an aversion tactic where the overload of the substance and negative associations make a man sick of it.

There is much more to say about this discipline. Next week we'll see the Principle (verses 6-8) and the Proviso (verses 9-13).

In our day tolerance has become a god, and to refuse worship to Tolerance has become the target of the severest intolerance. In the church, something must give. Either the church is destroyed by the corrupting presence of flagrant evil or the flesh is destroyed, either by the Spirit in sanctification or by Satan in a pit of gross misery.

Sin is easily overlooked in a context of pettiness and positioning, especially when it’s among the preachers, and it is tolerated in a context of culture pleasing. We won’t be holy if we aren’t holy.

Church discipline is for the church as much, if not more than, for the individual. So, church, love God, fear the Lord, hate evil, especially in pride and perverted speech and impurity (see Proverbs 8:13). Pay attention. See things, especially the visible ones. Say something. Don’t destroy the temple or let it be destroyed.

And if you want to be dumb, be prepared to be confronted. There is no right to sin in public and be ignored. Even if it isn’t flagrant and gross, it is still destructive.

In order of testimonies:

Nowhere in the New Testament are Christians commanded to sing when they congregate. This isn’t a sermon about how singing doesn’t matter, but I still love pointing out that observation to us “Bible people.” There are examples of singing and there are discussions about singing, but the closest to an imperative is in James 5 concerning happy Christians. "Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise" (James 5:13). Note, though, that is an individual not a corporate response.

It's reasonable to believe that singing didn't require a command because singing was assumed. Men and women and children sing. It seems to be part of our image-bearing disposition. We like music and melody and rhythm. The first believers in the New Testament were Jewish believers, and Jews were singers. They were commanded over and over again in the Psalms to sing and praise and make a joyful noise. A song with a certain tune and learned lyrics allows and moves the whole assembly to worship in gladness. These early church worshippers were tuned to worship in song and would have no reason to stop.

The observation that NT saints regularly sang still isn't as binding as an imperative for the church to sing; it’s an assumption. But perhaps even more consequential than a command, a culture of singing is an argument of light in a world of darkness. Stated differently, full-hearted, melodious, Spiritual singing is (at least one way of) standing against the schemes of the devil.

We've been considering our liturgy for the last few Sundays. Our worship is a service of sacrifices; we offer ourselves in Christ's offering to the Father. Christ Himself fulfilled the Old Testament sacrifices such as the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offering, and our confession, consecration, and communion remind us of what He fulfilled. In a similar way, the pattern of our liturgy reminds us of the pattern of the gospel. God calls men everywhere to worship Him, to repent and receive forgiveness for their sins, to devote their lives in obedience to Him, to share fellowship with Him and each other, and to represent Him in their work. Every Sunday, from start to finish, we are learning again what God wants with us.

God's Word is an explicit part of all the pieces of our service. Prayer is an explicit part of all the pieces of our service except for the commissioning, though the pronouncement of blessing is a prayerful expectation for God to give His blessing. Another element that is part of all the pieces of our service except for the commissioning is worship in song. I addressed singing as part of our liturgical opportunity in the message “Sing and Shout” in 2012 and it has been on my heart to address it again.

Some people talk as if singing is worship, not recognizing that prayer and preaching and communion are also ways that we worship. Some people choose what church to attend based on the singing, usually with more concern about the style of songs (or the type of instrumentation) and less about the participation (or lack thereof) of the congregation. Some people apparently would rather listen to a (good or entertaining) performance of singing rather than sing themselves. Some people are at the heights of their theological discerning powers during singing, using their eagle-eyes to spot the next heretical line (which powers are not always so vigilantly applied elsewhere in their week). Some sing loudly though they don't know what they're doing, some know exactly what they're doing but wouldn't ever sing loudly. Some don't like certain instruments, some don't like certain beats, some don't like certain arrangements, some don't like anything, everyone has preferences.

More than that, everyone has personal responsibility to sing, to sing with their whole hearts, and to sing together. Singing is not only one of the best uses of our time together in corporate worship, it is one of the best uses of our time on earth. Singing is wise, singing is spiritual, singing is the standard in the kingdom of Christ and God.

There is a lot of talk about songs and singing in Ephesians 5:19. All by itself, though, there is no main verb in the verse. All the action in verse 19 is secondary, all the verbs are participles, all of it is a result, albeit a necessary result, of obeying the command in verse 18.

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.

There is a parallel passage in Colossians 3:16 where the results are similar but the command is to "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." In Ephesians 5 it is necessary for us to be dominated by the Spirit. Just as wine takes over one's perspective, the Spirit takes over and the result is not extreme indulgence in bodily pleasures but having a lyrical life.

The first result is how we talk: addressing one another, having conversations (so not just in the shower or in your car all by yourself), where we edify each other with song lyrics. Psalms would have been understood as psalms from the book of Psalms. Hymns and spiritual songs are hard to pin down. Paul couldn't have had in mind our hymnbooks or song slides. But all are yours, right? If every preacher is yours (1 Corinthians 3:21, 22), then isn't every praise song? That doesn't mean they are all equal in every way, but it does mean that our default should be thankfulness and fat songbooks rather than disagreeableness and thin songbooks.

The second result is how we sing: singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. A person who is filled with the Spirit is a singing person. "Making melody" could be translated "psalming" (ψάλλοντες). The Lord is the audience, and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth sings.

The third result of being filled with the Spirit is giving thanks always and for everything (verse 20) and the fourth result is submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ (verse 21), which cannot be disconnected from corporate responsibilities, like singing.

All of this is well and fine. Good even. But it is the context of the paragraph, and the frame of the chapter, that makes a Spirit-filled lyrical life so urgent and potent. We can work our way out from verses 18-19.

The will of God is for us to sing as Spirit-filled sons of God. Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is (verse 17). What is the Lord's will? Don't we (claim to) want to know exactly this? What does the Lord want with me? His will is found in His Word, and in all of His Word, but there is not a wall between verse 17 and verse 18. His will is for us to be so Spirit-filled so that we spill over in song at one another and for the Lord.

This is His will, and this is wisdom. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil (verses 15-16). Here is the lifestyle, the "walk," for Christians. Redeem the time, be smart with it, because the world is a dark place. These "evil days" are not introduced here, they've been the subject for most of the chapter. Sexual immorality and impurity and envious greed are all around (verse 3, and all mentioned again in verse 5). Those who practice these things are sons of disobedience (verse 6) and have “no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God” (verse 5). This is darkness, not light (verse 8), and it is unfruitful darkness (verse 11). We're to "take no part" in them.

What are we supposed to do? When we live in a culture of darkness and ignorance and wastefulness, what makes us stand out? We give thanks (verse 4) and sing!

Work through it again. The days are evil, so walk wisely and make the best use of time by doing the Lord's will which is being filled with His Spirit and singing! We counter the culture of darkness with a culture of singing.

Culture comes from worship. Henry Van Til was a theology professor who stressed that all cultures are externalized religion. Even our word "culture" is connected with the Latin word cultus which refers to the things and systems associated with worship. A Christian culture is a singing culture, and that will annoy the culture of unbelief and rebellion and death, or perhaps be used by God to attract unbelievers to Christ. Grendel and the Grinch hated the happy singing. We've got to sing in such a way to make others hate it.

Sometimes we're the ones who act like we hate it, or we hate certain parts of it, or certain songs, or don't like the expectation to sing now; "What if my heart isn't ready?" We have more excuses than there are verses of "Just As I Am."

We have been laboring very intentionally to cultivate a culture of singing; before we had a “noisy little worshippers training room” we’ve been trying to train noisy big worshippers. This is a deep-rooted desire for the elders in general, it is true for Jonathan in particular, it is true for myself as I think about the entirety of our liturgy. When TEC started I was leading singing a cappella off of lyrics printed on the back of the bulletin for a couple months. When one of the men offered to help lead some musicians to lead us all in singing I was excited. I also said we needed to do some work to figure out how to get the whole assembly better. Through reading and listening to lectures and thinking about the purpose of liturgy to meet with God and not just to get ready for the sermon, it seemed that we needed a lot of work.

The all-church choir practices have been great toward this end. Many of you have gladly struggled to learn parts and learn songs and learn Psalms, and not all of them are easy.

Not everything we sing is each person's preference either (could it ever be in a Trinitarian world?). And what should we do when that happens? How should we respond when we don't "like" a particular song, or a line in a song, or how the song is played? Or, drums, ever?

What is the way of the Spirit and what is the way of the world? When reading Ephesians 5 does it sound as if the Spirit-filled person is more fussy or more accommodating? What does "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ" have to do with it?

I have not led singing in some time. I occasionally request a particular song to go along with a sermon, and I talk with Jonathan about certain principles and particulars every once in a while. But I do not choose the songs or manage who plays which instrument or that we have instruments or how the sound is equalized. And I do not always prefer how it goes.

And I hope you could never tell when that is the case, not because I'm faking, but because when it's time to sing it's time to sing to the Lord with all my heart. The singing is one of the few parts during a Sunday morning service when I have the opportunity to gladly submit myself to the leading of others, not because I don't have responsibility but because of reverence for Christ. If I don't "like" something, and if I can remember after the service, I might bring it up. There are songs we don't sing anymore, and there are other songs we keep singing because Jonathan has made a good case for them.

For most of us, our temptation will be not be drunkenness in the Spirit but dry boredom. We will be lulled to sleep by our theological footnoting rather than singing and making melody to the Lord with our hearts.

Don't wait to worship until things are right in the world. Make a joyful noise because the days are evil! This is counter cultural, establishing a Christ-honoring lyrical life. How great is our God, sing with me how great is our God, and all will see how great, how great, is our God.

Praise him with trumpet sound;

A few years ago I read the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. He wrote in AD 731 (which, by the way, is the year-counting system Bede himself developed and popularized) when the gospel was spreading to many nations, but also during a time when people did not have their own copies of God's Word. An additional complicating factor was that many people did not live in or even near a city, yet parishes were assigned to pastors for them to shepherd all the folks living in a certain district. The goals that the pastors had for their people are both astonishing, and not that surprising after thinking about it. Since they might not see all their flock on a weekly basis, they would try to visit the families and took to catechizing them. But without books to share or CDs to leave, Bede recorded that the pastors simply wanted their people to know the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer. That is not much equipment for Christian discipleship.

I grew up in a good church, but it wasn't deep. We certainly had access to more than Christians in the Middle Ages. We cared about the Bible, we believed that Jesus was the only way to be saved and that salvation was by faith, not works. But we didn't use the word "theology," we used "devotional" materials. We didn't study verse by verse through books of the Bible, though there was typically a verse the sermon was based on. After I thought God was calling me to be a pastor the summer before my senior year of high school, and a year after I had started college and studying for the pastorate, I got really excited about theology (systematic, and especially Calvinistic) as well as sequential exposition. I started buying fat books about the Bible, even reading through commentaries for fun. I started borrowing cassette tapes and tracking preachers and writers that were explaining truth. My life was being transformed by this information. I hit a multi-year growth spurt in my understanding of who God is and what discipleship is about. And, I totally stopped too early. It wasn't that I stopped learning, but I stopped at learning.

I know I am not the only one with a similar experience because I know many of your testimonies. Some of you came out of Charismatic churches where listening to the Spirit’s personal messages was more important than the Bible, or at least as important. You came to love the objective, fixed, dependable truth able to be read and not stuck in someone’s head. Many of you have come from "weak" churches, even if you didn’t know it at the time, where there were genuine Christians and Christian teaching but also a fear among the leaders that people can't handle too much teaching. Then you found that there were some churches where the sermon was an hour! Heaven on earth!

For hungry people this is like a full table. But what if you could have all the food on the table yet no one else around it? Starving is bad, so is isolation. And, at least in the experience for many of us, the kind of food became more important than the fellowship the food enabled. Professional chefs made the food and brought it to the table, but they didn’t really associate with the guests. Food is better than no food, but fellowship around food is better.

When it comes to our meeting together as a church on Sunday mornings, what do we expect here? What does God want with us here? These are liturgy questions. These are questions that concern what is said and how it is said and in what order it is said.

We are gathering around truth for more than gathering truth. We are assembling for more than continuing the tradition of assembling. We meet, according to the truth of God's Word, for fellowship with the Father in the Son by the Spirit and with one another. There is communication from God to us (reading His Word, preaching His Word) and communication from us to God (praying, singing). But it is not asynchronous, meaning, it is not that God sends a message regardless of whether we care/receive it or not. God wants us to understand the truth so that we relate to Him in real-time.

I am teaching on liturgy to double down on our problems, our errors, and our immaturities. I’m trying to pick on someone with our own sins. We can be wrong explicitly and implicitly, and we, or at least I know I, have been wrong both ways. That's what I'm confronting, not so that we think ourselves to be better than others but so that we are better than we were.

Last week we considered that the Old Testament sacrifices dealt with man's disconnection from God. Each individual offering dealt with a different part and they worked together in sequence. The sin offering covered the guilt of the worshippers, the burnt offering represented the devotion of the worshippers, the peace offering became a shared meal between God and the worshippers. The sacrifices progressed to shared peace; peace was the point. We don’t offer animal sacrifices anymore. We believe that Jesus fulfilled all the sacrifices. But that provides us with an understanding of what is happening in Jesus not a reason to ignore the outline. He atoned for our sin. He set us apart for His Father. He is food and drink for us; there is “good news of peace through Jesus Christ” (Acts 10:36), “He Himself is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14).

This progression of worship in the Old Testament is also the progression of worship in the gospel message. The liturgy we follow week by week says something. The pattern of worship preaches the word as the word is preached. There are five parts, five emphasis of relationship.

The first part of the news of the gospel is that we are not our own. This part of our worship is a direct confrontation to Darwinism, to materialism, to atheism in any form. This part of the gospel depends on Genesis 1: God IS and His creation owes everything to Him. “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!” (Psalm 150:6) It's why it’s been said that Genesis 1:1 is the most offensive verse in the Bible. According to Romans 1:18-20 every man knows the truth of Genesis 1:1 even if he’s never heard of the Bible.

The call to worship hangs on this self-evident relationship between Creator and His creatures; the spoken call makes it explicit. The Creator does not let anyone off the hook for this responsibility. There are numerous parts of Scripture that announce such a call because this is a regular thing God does; different words make the same point. This is not only how we start our service of worship, this is the beginning of the gospel. The good news begins with God-given life that must be lived for God.

Not many days into human history the first creature failed to live for God (Genesis 3). Adam disobeyed His Maker and set all his descendants in the path of death (1 Corinthians 15:21). We are born sinners and we sin. In Adam we all enter the world guilty, and because of Adam we all disobey God's law (Romans 5:12). God is righteous and He must deal with sin. We need forgiveness, but the only way that God can forgive sin is by blood (“without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” Hebrews 9:22).

This is the crux of the gospel. On the cross Jesus paid for sin, the righteous for the unrighteous (2 Corinthians 5:21). By such substitutionary atonement God could be just and the justifier of those who believe (Romans 3:26). Every Lord's Day we remember this truth, and we also repent from our sin. As believers we practice the discipline of confession, confessing our need for forgiveness and confessing our faith in Christ for it (1 John 1:9).

When we sin we know what to do: we acknowledge it and turn from it. And when we confess as Christians, what is restored? Not a clean account; justification has already been declared, and it is a once-for—all-time verdict. What is restored is fellowship. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Every service this good news of reconciliation is preached and preached in practice.

The gospel does more than make converts, the call of the gospel makes disciples. We are forgiven in Christ, restored to fellowship, so that we may live in a certain way.

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:4–5)

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. (1 Peter 4:1–2)

By the mercies of God, the good news of justification by faith alone, we are living sacrifices. We learn the will of God so that we can do the will of God.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1–2)

Because He thinks it's a good idea, we do not covert to Christ and go immediately to heaven. We convert to a lifetime of putting off sin and putting on Christ (Colossians 3:5-17). We convert to a lifetime of learning obedience, of offering ourselves to Him. This is the Great Commission, baptizing and teaching to observe all that He commanded (Matthew 28:19-20). The longest part of our service is the consecration part, and it sets the pattern for, what is for most of us, the longest part of our Christian lives.

The Bible does not state how often the church should celebrate communion, but there is good reason to think that the early church did it regularly if not weekly. Of course it is possible to take communion lightly by doing it often. But that doesn't stop churches from collecting an offering every week. That doesn't stop preachers from preaching sermons every week.

Familiarity breeds contempt, perhaps, but discipline does not automatically make something heartless, especially if the discipline is for our hearts. Besides, the previous parts of the service are just as possible to take for granted. We should be taking all of it with gratitude. True thanksgiving is always fresh. Thanksgiving is alive; thanksgiving isn’t thanksgiving if it is dead.

Communion is the high point in our service, the point toward which the others aim and climb. God calls us to fellowship with Him in worship. God forgives our sin so that we can fellowship with Him. God speaks to us in His Word and hears our prayers in fellowship. And then God invites us to actually eat and drink with Him. By faith we receive food for our faith. God is glad with us in His Son.

I have said this before and I am not tired of reminding us of it. Our service does not end with a call to repentance, a.k.a., an altar call. The whole service is an altar call. This is a meeting of God's sacrifices (Romans 12:1; 1 Peter 2:4-5). Unbelievers might attend, but they do not need a special “evangelistic” message. The whole service preaches the gospel. They need to see the believers worshipping God as we considered a couple weeks ago (in 1 Corinthians 14:24-25).

The service of worship is not intended to be a constant salvation check-up. The service of worship is not a gospel gauntlet for your faith. Paul did tell the Corinthians to examine themselves “to see whether you are in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5), and there is time for that, but being “all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election” (2 Peter 1:10) is not an exercise in doubt. We are not trying to make sure that you know that you are saved again, we are telling you that in Christ you are blessed. And because you are in Christ you have work to do. You are His representatives, He has chosen you for that task.

So many services that I've attended in the past lead to the call to salvation rather than the commissioning of salvation. It's almost as if Sunday takes everyone back to zero-faith again. “Do you really believe? Are you sure? Are you really sure? I’m not sure.” Let's all start over again, and then possibly build up growth and strength by next Sunday before conviction knocks it down again.

The commissioning also announces that we are not supposed to stay here. God calls us here, He blesses us here, and then He wants us to leave and go back to work. Worship and work are not in competition; it is right to see them in complement. Yes, worship is a kind of working service, and work is a kind of service of worship, but the assembly in worship on the Lord's Day and the flock scattered to work the other six days is how God established our weeks. The blessing of worship makes us long for God's presence in heaven, but it should not make us dualists who only value one part of what God values.

Our liturgy is not quite a wordless book, but there is a message in addition to words. There is a pattern of our worship that pictures the gospel just as the sky above proclaims God's handiwork without words. We are:

These elements of our relationship with the Triune God are taught through the liturgical opportunity and not only with explicit sentences. By grace, thirty years from now our kids will know in their bones that Christians are more than students.

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. (Mark 8:34–35)

Come and die and live. We learn this word of the cross by declaration and by pattern week by week.