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Eugene Prewitt

Church Discipline

Our Father in heaven, I ask this morning as we look at your Holy Bible, that you'd allow us to see what is there, to understand it truly.

I told you yesterday, well it wasn't yesterday, it was the day before, that we would talk about church discipline in our next worship.

And I'd like you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 5.

1 Corinthians 5 is where you find the most full treatment of how to deal with open sin in the church anywhere in the Scripture.

1st Corinthians chapter 5 we'll begin reading in verse 1.

It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you.

Is it clear from the beginning that we're talking about open sin?

How open is the sin that we're dealing with in this chapter?

It looks like that it is a matter of gossip, hither and yon.

And such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that 1 should have his father's wife.

And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that has done this thing might be taken away from the midst of you." Our first observation I'd like to make, or maybe second if we've already made 1, is that 1 Corinthians is not written to elders.

And what was the church, what would have been an appropriate response in the part of the church towards having someone like this in their midst?

It doesn't say they should have been angry or they should have been ticked or they should have been indignant, but they should have realized that to have someone like this as part of their church hinders their work to the community, slows down the blessing of God towards them and through them.

In fact it mitigates and militates against It mitigates their power and militates against everything they're trying to do.

At the end of verse 2 it says, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.

The question that the Corinthians might have had, which was clarified in the next book, was, does that mean, among you, so that we don't come near his person?

Or, among you, so that he's not part of our number.

Is there a difference between those 2 ideas?

There is, and this difference has been highlighted before this in the Bible.

For example, there were 12 disciples, and they were near Jesus, and then there were others that were near them and squishing around them all the time.

Did the fact that the others were squishing near them make them 1 of the 12?

And a man when 1 of those 12 died they wanted to remake up the number.

What I'm trying to show by the 12 disciples is that proximity is not the same thing as membership.

And though you could be 1 of Christ's disciples and stay with him and listen to him and hear him, if you if you weren't ordained as 1 of the 12 then you just weren't 1 of them.

You can come to church, listen at church, be blessed by church, But if you're not part of the church, you're not part of the church.

And I'm suggesting to you that that is definitely the intention of verse 2 where it says, from among you.

If you want to find it and we don't get there, it's in 2 Corinthians chapter 2.

That is, he's not to be part of your number.

Verse 3, For verily, for I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this thing." Now here comes the idea, who is the 1 who decides whether this man needs to be disfellowshipped?

You could think from looking at verse 3 that the elder himself decides and you should know that there are many elders by that I mean pastors who feel that they have a right to disfellowship people.

I don't say it's most, I think most have been better trained than that, but there are individuals who feel that way, and can you see how they might get that from this verse?

Paul's the 1 who's judged already, but look at the next verse.

In the name of our Lord Jesus when you are gathered together and my spirit with when you are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus if I could say it simply verse 4 says that it's the whole church together including Paul and he just puts in his absentee vote before they have the meeting let me say it again Paul's not going to be at the meeting, but does he want his voice to be heard?

He does and he says I vote for disfellowshipping But does he say that you don't need to come together then since I already voted it He says you need to come together with my vote and together this is a decision that is made.

But if we ask the question is this the decision of 1 man?

It's answered so thoroughly in 2 Corinthians.

Keep a finger here or something like that so we can come back and look at 2nd Corinthians chapter 2.

2nd Corinthians chapter 2 and we're looking at verse 5 but if any man has caused grief he has not grieved me but in part in other words if anyone is is offended the church it's not the elder that's offended particularly or personally it's not a personal issue that I might not overcharge you all sufficient to such a man is this punishment listen which was inflicted was it say of many Who was responsible for the disfellowshipping and the fornicator?

Paul had an absentee vote as the elder who had established the church, but he didn't have the only decision-making power.

He said here that it wasn't a personal issue, it was the punishment for many, but it looks like the church went a bit too far.

So that contrary wise you ought rather to forgive him, lest perhaps such a 1 should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.

Wherefore I beseech you that you would confirm your love toward him." Now some people could misunderstand that passage and say, alright, you've disfellowshipped him and now let him back in.

If you are walking outside in the city and a man stops right in front of you suddenly and you bump into him and he says, oh, I'm sorry.

Maybe that's not even serious enough to be an illustration.

But the fact that you forgive him, does it make him part of your church?

Forgiveness never has made people part of the church.

But does it make a difference whether or not you forgive him or hold a grudge against him?

What Paul has indicated is that church discipline is not a matter of vendetta.

Church discipline is not a way to get even with the man who messed up our reputation.

That at the same time we discipline, it's a very opportune time to confirm love and forgive.

This is a worship and not a class period, so we're going to look at just 1 more passage and be done.

Turn back in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 7, 5, 1 Corinthians 5.

We skipped verse 5, which really indicates that discipline is for the purpose of saving the lost person.

The motive in the discipline action, every time Paul mentions it, is this.

Lost people are easier to save outside the church than inside of it.

Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

Purge out therefore the old leaven, that you may be a new lump.

That purging out the old leaven in 1st Corinthians 5 is not purging out your own personal sins.

The lump is not the lump of clay that you're made out of.

And a little bit of open sin in the church contaminates the entire body.

So that before the church takes part in communion it ought to purge out the open sinners so that communion is the communion of consecrated persons or at least apparently consecrated persons and not of open sinners And we'll talk a little bit more about this tomorrow.

Our Father in heaven, As we become active members of churches, I ask that you would teach us our part in this process of maintaining the integrity and purity of your church and loving and forgiving sinners.

We're dependent on you to find a way to save those that are in open sin for your own sake.

And we ask for that gift in the name of Jesus.

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Church Discipline

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