Speaker 1: 0:01

And for the rest of us. I will invite to stand for the reading of God's Word this morning, from 1 Corinthians, chapter 5, verses 1 through 13. The Word of God reads this way it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not even tolerated among pagans, for a man has his father's wife, and you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you, for, though absent in body, I am present in spirit and, as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened For Christ? Our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all, meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters. Since then, you would need to go out of the world, but now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. This is God's word. Thanks be to God. You may be seated, and may God bless this reading and preaching of his word.

Speaker 1: 2:12

In 2010, iran was working to develop nuclear weapons, and at their Natanz facility they had hundreds of centrifuges that were spinning, that were busy enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels. But then something strange started to happen. Although their monitoring systems reported that everything was functioning normally, their centrifuges were mysteriously failing in ways that were just barely detectable. They were spinning just slightly too fast, for example, enough to not trip up their systems, but just enough to burn themselves out and then become useless, and the malfunction was so subtle that it took the Iranians months to detect. But it was consistent and eventually they realized what was happening, that someone was sabotaging them. That someone was Stuxnet.

Speaker 1: 3:16

Stuxnet was a highly advanced piece of malware. No one has ever formally taken credit for who developed it, but it was reportedly developed by the United States and Israel working in partnership. It was certainly some. It was so advanced it had to have been developed by some government and not just a private citizen. But it used four what are called zero-day exploits in Microsoft Windows, which is another reason why you should be using Apple products. But it used four zero-day exploits in Windows. Most malware has one or two zero-day exploits and Stuxnet had four of them. So a zero-day exploit is like a hidden. It's a hidden vulnerability, it's like a back door that nobody knows about except the intruder, and because it's unknown, once it's discovered, it can take up to 90 days to patch that, which gives the intruder a long and a dangerous head start. So how did it actually get into their system? Well, the method was simple and it was brilliant. Somebody put it on a USB drive and dropped that USB drive in the Natanz parking lot with a certain belief that whoever stumbled upon it would plug it into a computer, wondering what's on this USB drive, which is why you should never plug in a random USB drive into your computer. But someone did that and unknowingly unleashed the most dangerous malware that the world has ever seen.

Speaker 1: 4:52

This story, if you're interested, is told on the HBO documentary Zero Days. It's a fascinating documentary, 2016 documentary, and it marked. It's fascinating not just because of that event, but it marked a new era in global security. Cyber warfare had arrived, we learned at that time. The world learned that a nation could enter into another nation's systems, whether it be their power grid or any other kind of system, and they could lie there silently, hidden for years without anybody ever knowing it, waiting for the perfect time to strike, and by the time that you realize that they're there, it's too late. It's really scary. That's the world that we live in today.

Speaker 1: 5:41

Stuxnet is a modern parable of infection, something that enters secretly and silently and that spreads and waits almost in an unseen way, something that causes invisible damage and something that, once it's discovered, if it's not dealt with urgently, it can completely destroy a system from within. And I bring that up because that's exactly what Paul sees happening in the church in Corinth. From what we've read in our passage this morning, we're in a series in 1 Corinthians. If you are visiting and just joining us, we have been walking through 1 Corinthians. I did not choose this passage for Father's Day, it just happened to land on it. Our series is called Bless this Mess because the Corinthian church was a mess and every local church is a mess.

Speaker 1: 6:38

But in chapter 5 today, paul confronts a serious problem. There is unrepentant public sin that the church is tolerating. The issue is not really so much the sin or the nature of the sin. The issue is the church's tolerance of the sin. That's what this chapter is about, and Paul's warning is clear. He says this kind of sin is an infection. It's devastating and it may go unnoticed for a while, it may seem like it's under control, but if it is left unchecked it will damage not just one person but it will do damage to the whole body.

Speaker 1: 7:18

And so Paul here is calling on the church to act, not harshly but seriously, because church discipline is painful but necessary, and that's really the main point of our sermon this morning. Church discipline is painful but necessary. Why is it necessary. Paul gives us three reasons in this passage why church discipline is necessary. It's necessary for the glory of God, it's necessary for the health of the church and it's necessary for the salvation of the sinner. Those three reasons for the glory of God, for the health of the church and for the salvation of the sinner. So first, church discipline is necessary for the sake of God's glory.

Speaker 1: 8:04

For the sake of the glory of God, paul says in this passage. One of the subtexts here is that there needs to be a real, visible, marketed difference between what he calls insiders and outsiders those inside the church, whom you are to judge, paul says, and those outside the church, who he says I have nothing to do with judging them, god judges them. Inside the church we are to judge, there's supposed to be a difference in some kind of barrier we're going to talk about what he means by that between those who are inside and those who are outside, because he's deeply concerned about the reputation of Christ when those who bear his name, who bear the name of Jesus, live in unrepentant sin in a visible way out in the world and nothing is being done about it. It casts shade on the glory of God, it obscures the glory of God. Look at verses 9 through 13.

Speaker 1: 9:07

Paul says in verse 9, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. And then he's quick to add not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. He could go on and on. Since then you would need to go out of the world. That's verses 9 and 10. So Paul's reminding the Corinthians the world is broken, full of sin, and that's exactly where the church is called to be. We want to be in the midst of the world, in relationship with the culture, in a redemptive way. That's why we're here, in the heart of the city, in Findlay Market. We don't want to be off on an island somewhere. We want to be in the midst of the world. That's where the church is supposed to be. We're not meant to withdraw or avoid people because they're sinful. We're sinful too, but we're supposed to live in the world with compassion and with humility.

Speaker 1: 10:04

But a line gets drawn, however, when someone claims the name of Jesus. When someone claims the name of Jesus, paul says in verse 11, but now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of, et cetera. And then Paul lists several sins and it's by no means exhaustive, he's just talking about unrepentant sin. And then he says not even to eat with such a one. So to bear the name of brother means someone who has made a public profession of faith, someone who has been baptized, who has taken the name of Jesus, who says I'm a Christian, I'm a representative of Jesus, has taken the name of Jesus, who says I'm a Christian, I'm a representative of Jesus, someone who's joined the church. And notice, paul is not talking about someone who struggles with sin, because all of us struggle with sin. All of us sin countless times throughout the week and fail in ways that we know and even in ways that we don't know. We all struggle, know, and even in ways that we don't know. We all struggle. But he's talking about unrepentant, ongoing sin, a lifestyle that contradicts the gospel while still claiming to represent it.

Speaker 1: 11:15

Then Paul draws the boundary line clearly and he says in verse 12, he says what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. And then he quotes from the Old Testament purge the evil person from among you. The responsibility to judge and to hold people accountable is not for outsiders. Paul says that's God's job. We do not judge those who are outside of the church, but inside the church, among those who profess Christ, who claim his name, we're called to hold one another to account, to hold one another accountable in love, with grace, but in a serious way. And here's the idea Paul is saying we are tolerant toward outsiders. We are nonjudgmental. We're welcoming, we pray for them, we bless them. We don't let their lifestyle or their worship of pagan gods get in the way of our relationship with them. We're tolerant toward outsiders. We are accountable toward insiders. Paul creates that distinction, he doesn't create it, he draws attention to it. O are accountable toward insiders. Paul creates that distinction, he doesn't create it, he draws attention to it. Outsiders and insiders we're accountable toward insiders so that God may be rightly glorified.

Speaker 1: 12:37

I'll just give you a parallel illustration. I've said this before but I'll elaborate on this. But at our gym I'm part of a kickboxing gym nobody is allowed to take a fight unless they have been training at that gym for at least a year and unless they go through a fight camp, which is a more rigorous period of training before that event. If they don't do that, they're not allowed. Why? Because when they step into the ring, they're wearing the name of the gym on their shorts says Powell MMA on their shorts, and they represent the gym that they're coming from, and so how they perform says something about the quality of the gym. I mean, if they go out there and they're just like totally gassed and they get knocked out in the first you know five seconds, it's like wow, I'm not training at Powell, you know. Note to self, they represent the gym.

Speaker 1: 13:33

If you claim the name of Jesus and if you belong to a church, whether or not you realize this, it's a serious commitment. But whether or not you realize this, you represent Christ. You're a representative of Christ. He represents us in heaven before the Father, and we represent him here on earth. It's amazing that he's given us that responsibility. We represent Christian faith and you represent your local church. You are a representative of your local church, and how you live speaks to the watching world. It says something about who Jesus is, what it means to be a Christian, what kind of church you're a part of. How you Live speaks volumes.

Speaker 1: 14:14

Another example and I asked permission to share this. So this is shared with permission. But many of you know Pierre, a young lady in our church. Last year she became a Christian. Last year Jesus invaded her life. She wasn't expecting it, nobody else was expecting it, but he invaded her life, called her to himself and she became a Christian. She was not part of any church at that time and she asked herself she said, okay, now that I'm a Christian church at that time. And she asked herself she said, okay, now that I'm a Christian, do I know anybody that's a Christian, like a real Christian? And even she was even able to discern the difference between there's people who just claim to be a Christian, people who really live it out. And she knew one person, a guy named a young man named Michael, who's also part of our church. I didn't get his permission, sorry, michael Young man named Michael. She says Michael's a real Christian. I'm going to go to his church. And she came here and she has not missed a Sunday since and that's been almost a year. So congratulate her today on a year of being a Christian and praise God for that.

Speaker 1: 15:17

But that's what's at stake. This is what's at stake. If you are a Christian, if you claim the name of Jesus. You are someone's glimpse of who Jesus is, and who knows when those seeds will bear fruit. We can't plan that or prepare for that. We can just, you know, live obedient to the Lord. But that is what's at stake. So what does that mean for us? There's many applications we can make. I'll just make. I think I just have one here. I just have one.

Speaker 1: 15:51

One way to apply this is that church membership being a member of a local church, making a commitment to follow Jesus with a particular people, church membership matters. It is what draws the boundary line between insiders and outsiders. It clarifies who the church is responsible to correct and who we are called to patiently welcome without judgment. So anybody can come and worship with us and journey with us for a long period of time. And if you're not a, if you're not a member of this church, if you've not made a public commitment to follow Jesus with this people, then there's a lot that's messed up in your life that we're going to tolerate for a very long time because you've not claimed the name of Jesus. But when you become a member and when you claim the name of Jesus, of course we still need to be tolerant with one another, but we're going to hold one another to account. We're going to help one another to follow Jesus in the ways that we said that we wanted to. So we do want very messy people to come into the life of this church without shame and fear, so that God can work on them.

Speaker 1: 17:01

But accountability begins with church membership. So if you are not a member of a church here or anywhere, I just want to encourage you to make that a priority. There are going to be seasons in your life where you're between churches. Maybe you've just moved to town, or maybe you're transitioning out of a previous church community and you're taking some time to discern, and that's fine. But you should recognize that it is a strange and irregular thing for a Christian to be without membership in a local church. So I just want to encourage you to make that a priority. Who have you given permission to hold you accountable? That's another way to ask that question. And if you are a member, if you're a member here, remember what you signed up for. Membership is saying I want to follow Jesus with all of my life. Will you help me do it? Will you hold me accountable to that when you became a member here. That's what you were saying and it also means that you're committing to do the same for others.

Speaker 1: 18:06

Notice that in this passage there's the offender in 1 Corinthians 5, but Paul does not rebuke that person. In this passage Paul rebukes the church. The sin is bad, what this guy did is bad, but what's worse is that the church has tolerated it and has done nothing about it. Paul rebukes the church in 1 Corinthians 5. We have to give each other permission to call us to something better and we have to be courageous enough to do it with one another, so that the watching world can get a glimpse of the glory of God, of who God is. So point one church membership is necessary for the glory of God. Point two it's also necessary, or sorry, church discipline is necessary for the glory of God. It is also necessary for the health of the church, because sin damages the whole community. It cannot be tolerated. Because sin damages the whole community. It cannot be tolerated.

Speaker 1: 19:09

So let's look closer at the case that Paul confronts in 1 Corinthians 5. This particular case is a case of sexual immorality Corinthians 5. This particular case is a case of sexual immorality. A man is likely involved in a relationship with his father's wife, likely his stepmother. And there's not a whole lot that we know about it, just these words that we have from Paul. But even the little information that we have tells us several things. First, the sin is public, so this guy is not hiding it. Everybody knows about it. He has likely embraced it.

Speaker 1: 19:44

If this news has reached Paul, who is in Ephesus, surely everyone in Corinth knew about this. It was a public sin. Two the sin is ongoing. Sin Two the sin is ongoing. This wasn't a moment of failure, this wasn't. This guy messed up one time in the past and now is living with the guilt of that. It's an active relationship. It's an ongoing pattern. He's actively living in this relationship and the sin is unrepentant. There's no sorrow, there's no struggle. It's not a struggle with sin. He's not struggling with it at all. This is something he has embraced in his life as normal and to be celebrated, so that it's.

Speaker 1: 20:29

Those are important details, because I'm not talking here about you know, aaron has a, you know has a bad day and yells at his wife and then we kick him out of the church. It's not like that. This is a public, ongoing, unrepentant sin. And Paul's message is clear. He says, ongoing, unrepentant, public sin cannot be tolerated. Why? Because it does not just harm that person, that individual, but it damages the whole church. Look at verse 6. He says, as much as we might like to think that sin is containable and that it's manageable which we all delude ourselves into thinking that even sin in our own lives, that if we just give it a little bit of space in our lives, that it'll stay there, that it won't move into other parts of our lives or into other parts of our church, we are sorely mistaken and we are being deceived. And we're deceiving ourselves, because sin always spreads. Wherever it is allowed to live unchallenged, it will always quietly grow like leaven Paul says here like leaven in a lump of dough.

Speaker 1: 21:51

In professional cycling do we have any cyclists in here or any professional cyclists in here? In professional cycling, like in an event like the Tour de France, riders are not racing as individuals. It's a team race. They ride in teams and they ride in a tightly packed unit called a peloton. So if you have the workout machine, this is where that word comes from. It's a unit of cyclists. And here's how the peloton works. One rider called the puller takes the lead position and he absorbs the wind resistance and he has to work the hardest, but he creates a slipstream of wind for the rest of the people in the team to ride in, and behind him his teammates draft. They're riding in his wake and it's easier for them, they're saving energy, they're gaining speed and then and they rotate eventually, eventually, another rider will ride up to the lead and he'll start to pull and then the others will have an easier time and they'll follow him. But in order for that to work, the team has to be tight, they have to be disciplined, they have to be synchronized, they have to be moving as one unit, and I mean that they have. They've got to be really tight, like they're going 30 miles an hour at least, and they're wheel to wheel, inches apart, elbow to elbow. And if one rider drifts out of line you may have seen videos of this, but it gets catastrophic If he gets distracted or careless or just veers a little off course, he is liable to take the whole team with him. The whole peloton will be taken out.

Speaker 1: 23:30

And that's what Paul is saying about the church. He's saying in the church we're not riding solo, as much as we might like to think that we are, we're not. We move together. We're not riding solo, as much as we might like to think that we are. We're not. We move together. We're growing together. We suffer together. And when any one of us falls into unrepentant sin, and if the rest of us say nothing or the rest of us allow it to happen or let it happen, it's not just the harm of the person that's at stake, but the whole formation can be damaged by that. So just to make a sort of a positive application of this point, think about that Peloton illustration.

Speaker 1: 24:09

In the church we need to pull for one another. We need to be pulling for one another. Not all of us are going to be equally strong in the Spirit all the time, and that's part of the reason why we're part of a church. Sometimes God ordains it that way where you know you might be struggling for a season, but someone else in the church or a close friend is doing well spiritually. Not all of us are going to be equally strong in the Spirit all the time, but when the Spirit is at work in your life, when you are feeling energized, when you're feeling the joy of the gospel, when you're walking in repentance and joy and clarity of mind, pull. Pull for others in the church. Create a wake for others to ride in. Lead the way in humility and worship and in faith and in prayer, in humility and worship and in faith and in prayer. And when you're tired, when you're discouraged or dry spiritually or struggling, fall back into somebody else's draft. Somebody else that is in your church community that's just more in tune than you are at the moment. Who is pulling for you and encouraging you in repentance? And when you're moving at all steam ahead, who are you pulling for? That's how we move forward together.

Speaker 1: 25:25

This is what the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 10. He says let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Not neglecting to meet together that's key but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. So you pull for me and I'll pull for you, and together let's make sure that no one gets hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. That's what we're supposed to do for one another. So church discipline is necessary for the glory of God, but also for the health of the church. And finally, we see that it is necessary for the salvation of the sinner, for the salvation of the one who is of the offender. Without discipline we will never change. Without discipline we will never change. Church discipline is necessary again, not only for the glory of God and not only for the health of the church, but also for the good of the person who is caught in sin. Church discipline is necessary to help them.

Speaker 1: 26:31

Look at what Paul says in verse 5. He says you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Such a strange verse, because it just seems like these two polar opposite concepts in that one verse deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit might be saved. That's fascinating. What's going on there?

Speaker 1: 26:56

The phrase deliver him to Satan refers to what we would call excommunication, and it means removing someone from the visible fellowship of the church, no longer recognizing them as a member, no longer welcoming them to the Lord's table, no longer regarding them as a fellow believer, but removing them from among you. But notice the goal of why we would do this. Paul says it's not punishment, it's not vengeance, we're not trying to get back at him because he harmed us. It is so that his flesh may be destroyed and his spirit saved in the day of the Lord. In other words, it's not about harming somebody, it's not about cutting somebody off. It's about doing everything that we can do to call them back, doing the most that we can do to call them back to repentance. So what does this mean? Well, paul is saying sometimes the most loving thing that the church can do, or that we can do, is to let someone experience the full consequences of their choices. Sometimes, the most loving thing that we can do is to let someone experience the full consequences of their choices to stop shielding them from the natural fallout of their sin.

Speaker 1: 28:15

The good news about sin and unrepentant sin is that it's unsustainable and that it's self-defeating. And that's good, because what that means is that it never leads to lasting joy. Even though we get deluded into thinking that we can find it there, it never leads to that. It always breaks down. So when someone is handed over to their sin okay, this is what you want to pursue pursue it. When someone's handed over to that, they will eventually find themselves at the end of it Like the prodigal son in Luke 15, when his luck ran out in the foreign land and he came to himself and he remembered how good he had it with his father and he returned home. That is the heart of church discipline. That's why we would practice church discipline. It's not about rejecting somebody or shunning someone, but it's about redemptive exposure, exposing them to the path that they want to go down until they reach the end of it, even in the most severe discipline, which would be excommunication. The hope is that the person will realize the emptiness of their sin, that they will remember the goodness of the gospel and how good they had it with God, and that they would come back home.

Speaker 1: 29:38

There's a guy named Oz Perlman and he is an ultra-marathon runner, which I I never aspire to be, but he runs two to three marathons a year and is always training for it. And in order to train he runs dozens of miles every day. And when asked why he does that because that's a great question why would anyone subject themselves to that, to so much pain and discipline he had a fascinating answer. He said this is why I do it. He said that when you push yourself and when you do hard things, like when you wake up in the morning and you run 10 miles and that's the first thing that you do in your day. Everything else in your day is much easier because you've already done the hardest thing that you're going to do all day, or you've already done the hardest thing that you're going to do all day, or you've already done the hardest thing that you're going to do all week. Everything else in life becomes easier because now, the little trials that we face throughout the day, the little frustrations they're never going to be as difficult as the 10 miles that I pushed myself to run this morning. So there's a paradox there, this fascinating paradox, that if you do hard things in life, everything else in life will become easier. But if you avoid doing hard things and if you never push yourself, everything else in your life will start to feel overwhelming and it'll become harder because you never actually push yourself to do anything truly difficult. Why do I bring that up?

Speaker 1: 31:14

I bring that up because sometimes people do not grow spiritually or emotionally because they have never had to face difficulty. Sometimes people don't grow because they've never had to face any consequences or any difficulties. They have been protected from consequences. People around them have always absorbed the cost of their dysfunction. They've always softened the fall or made life easy and, as a result, certain people never mature. They remain stuck in the same habits and the same dysfunctions year after year.

Speaker 1: 31:51

And that's where church discipline comes in and can be so helpful. When we tolerate unrepentant sin in the midst of the church community, when we do nothing, when we don't say anything, when we just let it happen and let it unfold, we are not loving that person, we are enabling them and we are allowing them to stay in their dysfunction, disconnected from consequences and disconnected from reality. So if a person refuses to acknowledge their sin and to repent, the most loving thing that the church can do is to let them feel the weight of their choices so that down the road, lord willing, they can see this isn't working and something needs to change. Church discipline is one of those hard things that leads to necessary growth, and it's not because we want to hurt somebody, but it's because we want to see them healed and they're never going to change if they never have to face anything difficult.

Speaker 1: 32:58

This is one of those sermons where you might think, oh, this is really interesting information and I hope we never have to use it and, you know, maybe I'll dog ear this and years later, if we ever have to deal with a case in our own church, we can go back and listen to it. But the truth is this that there are cases, severe cases of discipline, like what we find in 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul has entered the situation 10 steps down the road and it's already deteriorated to such a terrible point. That's a severe case and there are. That does happen. But each and every one of us needs discipline to grow and to change. All of us need discipline and the point that I'm making in point three is that without discipline we will never change. Sometimes that's church discipline, but all of us need discipline For all of us. Without discipline we will never change, and each one of us will be disciplined by the Lord.

Speaker 1: 34:03

Listen to Hebrews 12. Again, hebrews 12, 6, it says the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son or daughter whom he receives. Every child of God will participate in discipline. We will all be disciplined by God and I always define discipline for my kids like this. When I'm meeting it out as imperfectly as I do, I say it's a little bit of pain now, meant to save you from a lot of pain later. Henry, harvey, lucy, june, I'm giving you a little bit of pain now, in whatever form that might be, whether it's taking away something good or dishing out something painful. I'm giving you a little bit of pain now because you have to stop doing this, because if you keep doing this down the road you're gonna get fired from your job and we're trying to save you from a lot of pain later. That's what discipline is. It's never done out of anger. In our sin as parents, we often lash out and discipline out of anger, but real godly discipline is and discipline out of anger, but real godly discipline is not done out of anger. It's always done out of love and without discipline we will never change.

Speaker 1: 35:20

For us, sometimes that discipline is self-discipline, like fasting or spiritual disciplines. Fasting is a great example of something that we do that's hard, where we push ourselves to do it, but it makes everything else in life easier. If you can say no to a cheeseburger, you know fasting from food. Or let's be inclusive about this If you can say no to carrots or vegetables, which are good, then you can certainly say no to sin, which is bad, right. So fasting is one of those hard things that we do that makes other things, like resisting temptation, easier. So sometimes it's self-discipline.

Speaker 1: 36:07

Sometimes the discipline that we receive is divine discipline. It's directly from the hand of God, like painful circumstances that God sends into our lives because he loves us too much to let us live without him. He loves us too much to let us be prayerless and faithless, prayerless and faithless. And so he will send some kind of thorn into your life in order to discipline you. And sometimes the discipline is church discipline because we've failed to discipline ourselves. God's discipline is not getting through to us, and so sometimes we need church discipline. We need one another, we need brothers and sisters in Christ calling us to something better, because they love us too much to let us ruin our lives. However it comes to us, we all need it and we will all get it, because our God is a loving Father, a good Father, who loves us, even discipline. So maybe you're in the midst of it right now. We don't have any ongoing church discipline cases in our, but maybe you're being disciplined by the Lord right now, or maybe you're disciplining yourself right now.

Speaker 1: 37:22

Remember this, whether it's now or later, even discipline has good news at the bottom of it, because all of the anger that we deserve because of our sin is not in the discipline. It's not there. It got taken away, it got put somewhere else. It got put on a cross when Jesus took the anger of God toward our sin and took it to the cross and absorbed it in his death and it was buried in a tomb and it's gone. So none of God's anger is in that discipline. God's not angry with you. He loves you and because he loves you, he's going to discipline you.

Speaker 1: 37:59

And whether it's self-discipline or divine discipline or church discipline, don't be discouraged. Let that discipline have its intended effect that we would ultimately be healed, that what is out of joint would be healed properly and that we would share in his holiness. To that end, let us pray Our Father, you are good, you love us more than we understand, more than we can know. The love that we experience for our own children is just even a small glimpse of the love that you have for us. You have adopted us as your children. You've brought us into your family. You have given us all grace.

Speaker 1: 38:56

And there's no anger, but there's lots of love and there's lots of discipline that we need in order to change in ways that are necessary to become people who resemble your son, jesus Christ. So we pray that you would prepare us for that. We pray that you would help us not be discouraged when we're facing that. We pray, god, that you would help us to be more self-disciplined and more proactive in our seeking you and in our growth, so that we would not need further measures and we know that we will. We know that we do and that that happens but help us to grow in our self-discipline so that the rest of life could be joyful and easy, as we are yoked together with Jesus, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. We thank you in his name and for his sake, amen.