Dealing with Sin in Another

Well, let me have you guys turn in your Bibles to First Timothy chapter one. For those of you that are visiting with us, we're doing a verse by verse study through the book of First Timothy. And as we continue in our study of this book, we come This morning to First Timothy chapter 1 verse 20, and my goal this morning is to try to capture the essence of what verse 20 teaches us and then to back away from this passage and to address a larger issue that we can then see how Paul's action described in verse 20 fits into that larger picture.

And what I want to speak to you guys on based on this text is dealing with sin in another.

In other words, dealing with sin in another person in the church, dealing with sin in other people. I have been attending church since I was a fetus. And my, a number of churches too. My dad was in the Marine Corps, so we moved around every few years from state to state and But every time we would ever move anywhere new, one of the first priorities of my parents was to look for a new church.

And then once they found a new church, they were devoted to being there any time the doors of that church were open. And over the 44 years that I have been attending church, I have seen a lot of sin in other people. I have also seen a lot of sin in me. I have over the length of these years been on the receiving end of many wrongs that have been committed by Christians who are believers in Jesus.

I myself have committed many wrongs that have brought hurt to other believers in the church. I just in my short lifespan have been through two church splits. One of them when I was a kid. That happened all of a sudden.

It had been building and it happened on a Sunday where a punch was thrown in a Sunday evening service. And that evening a vote was taken and my parents were on the losing side of that vote and we left the, the church never to return. It was very painful for my parents and, and others involved in that church. And there was another, what I would categorize as a slow split.

And it was not a sudden thing, but, Over the length of a few years, there were many, many people who ended up leaving the church, but you could, you could actually trace it back to a defining moment that it just seemed like, began a chain of events that led to the departure of a number of people and a lot of bad feelings, along the way. I'm not that smart of a guy, but over the years, being a part of the church and experiencing and seeing these things, I know two things are true.

Number 1, the greatest cause of wrecked lives, broken relationships, and split churches is sin. But I know a second thing is true, and that is that the 2nd greatest cause of wrecked lives, broken relationships, and split churches is wrong responses to sin.

If we're going to be the church that God wants us to be, if we as individuals are going to avoid shipwreck, and if we as a church will avoid the shipwreck that other churches have experienced, then it's important, number one, that we know how to deal with sin in our own lives and abstain from it. And if we commit sin, that we deal with it, confess it, and forsake it. But it is also critically important that we become good at dealing with sin, as we encounter it in other people.

This is very important, it can make or break your life, it can make or break this church.

And fortunately, in verse 20 we're going to see, just a little sliver of this issue, and we'll exposes it verse 20, then we'll back away and deal with the larger picture and then see where verse 20 actually fits in on the subject of dealing with sin in other people. But let me begin reading in verse 18. Paul says to Timothy, this command, I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made. Concerning you that by them you fight the good fight.

Keeping faith and a good conscience. So he says, Timothy, I want you to fight, I want you to fight the good fight. I want you to fight it well. I want you to keep the faith, keep a grip on the gospel.

And I also want you to keep a good conscience. Now, Timothy, that's the way I want you to live. Having said that, though, Paul would say to Timothy, there are people that are not doing what I've just told you to do. In fact, they're doing the opposite.

And Paul begins to describe those people in the middle of verse 19. He says, which some, there's a group of people that Paul has in mind. He says, which some have rejected. Speaking of a good conscience, he's saying some have rejected a good conscience.

They've thrust it aside. This speaks of a violent, aggressive rejection, not just a passive ignoring of a good conscience, and not paying attention to it, but a violent thrusting aside of a good conscience. So there are some individuals that have thrust aside a good conscience, and as a result, they have suffered shipwreck in regard to the faith, or the gospel. In other words, they're at a place right now in their lives where they're not even believing the truth of the gospel.

Paul then in verse 20 names two individuals in this category. He says, among these are Hymeneus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan. Paul says, I've taken an action with regard to these men, and that is that I have handed them over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme. Now Hymeneus and Alexander, what do we know about them?

We know from this passage alone 3 things at least about them. Number 1, they had thrust aside a good conscience. Number 2, they had suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith, meaning at the very least, they weren't believing the gospel anymore. And we learn at the end of verse 20 that apparently they were not just failing to believe the gospel, but they were actually speaking against the gospel.

The word blaspheme just simply means to speak against. It doesn't necessarily mean they were like using profanity, speaking of the name of God, and so forth. It just means they were speaking against the gospel, speaking against Paul, speaking against his ministry, speaking against the truth. And so these men had abandoned a good conscience, suffered shipwreck, weren't believing the gospel, and they're actually speaking against the truth of The gospel.

If you want to know a little more about Hymeneus and Alexander, interestingly enough, their names actually appear again. In 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 16 through 18, Paul mentions Hymeneus once again. We learn even specifically about a particular false doctrine that he was teaching, but we also learned that his talk was spreading like a cancer and it was upsetting the faith of genuine believers. In chapter 4, verse 14, Paul makes reference to a guy.

whom he calls Alexander the coppersmith, which there's a decent chance it's the same Alexander that he's referring to in this passage, who he says in that passage has strayed from the truth and who vigorously was opposing Paul in his ministry. So I'm sure that there's some likelihood that these are the same guys that are being referred to, but just sticking with our passage for this morning, we know at least these three things about Hymeneus and Alexander abandon a good conscience, weren't believing the gospel, and they're actually speaking against the truth of the gospel.

So what does Paul do with regard to them? He's taken an action and he basically says in verse 20, I have handed them over to Satan.

So that they will be taught not to blaspheme. Well, what does it mean to hand someone over to Satan? That sounds really heavy, doesn't it? And it really is.

I'm not going to lighten that up for you at all. When you look at this passage, the language Paul uses, and also, a passage in First Corinthians 5 that I'm going to refer to in just a moment. You can put the pieces together and basically to hand a person over to Satan is to remove them from the church, to excommunicate them from a local congregation of believers. It is to remove that individual out from under.

The protective shelter of the church back into Satan's domain, which is outside of the church, the non-Christian world. And so the devil is the god of this world. He's the king of the kingdom of darkness, which is outside of Of the church and when someone is in the church, they enjoy a degree of protection. Even nonbelievers that hang out with believers in the church, there's a degree of blessing and protection that they can enjoy just by virtue of hanging around people in the church.

but outside of the church is the kingdom of darkness ruled over by the God of this world, to hand someone over to Satan is to remove them out from the church, back into Satan's domain. At the very least, to hand someone over to Satan means that, but it means something in addition to that, as we get clued into in 1 Corinthians 5. In 1 Corinthians 5, many of the story. There was a man who was committing gross immorality, and the immorality that even amongst the Gentiles, it was frowned upon.

And the Corinthian congregation never disciplined this guy. They never booted him out of the church. They never mourned over his sin. Paul calls upon them to take an action with regard to this guy.

And so he says in verse 4, in the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan. So, I'm casting my vote with you in your next time of assembly to deliver this man over to Satan. Now look at what he says next, for the destruction of his flesh, for the destruction of his flesh, that right there alerts us to the fact that it's, it, it's not just excommunication from the church.

It's not just releasing someone back.

In the domain of darkness, which is outside of the church. But it has the idea of releasing an unrepentant sinner in the church, releasing them to Satan, whom they're following anyway, so that Satan can more fully carry out his adversarial and painful intentions with regard to them. It's like, what, you want to follow Satan, be careful what you wish for. We, we will release you.

To this one whom you are following, and the devil is an adversary who knows how to buffet. And to pummel those who are God's creation that he hates by virtue that they bear the image of God. And so when you hand someone over to Satan, you excommunicate them from the church, deliver them back into the domain of darkness outside of the church, so that the evil one can in God's providence and under God's sovereign control, more fully carry out his painful and adversarial intentions regarding them with the goal being that that person will taste the bitter fruit of the error of their way and the choices that they have made and come to their senses and see their sin for what it is, renounce their sin, repent, and come back to the Lord and ultimately be saved.

That's what Paul says in verse 5.

I've decided to deliver such a one to Satan, for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day. of the Lord Jesus. So even this step is as heavy as it sounds, is redemptive. So coming back to verse 20, Paul says regarding Hymeneus and Alexander, I have taken this step, and no doubt he made this decision and took the step in conjunction with the congregation, the Ephesian congregation where Timothy was, and Paul's basically saying, I, along with the congregation, the assembly have made this decision, excommunicated Hymeneus and Alexander from the church, and released them.

to the Satan whom they are following anyway, and I've done this in order that they will be taught. In other words, my intention is redemptive in order that they will learn something, and that is learn not to blaspheme and speak against the gospel nor the messengers of the gospel, that they will not speak against sound doctrine and ultimately perhaps they'll go even beyond that and learn to believe the truth and embrace Christ as their Lord and Savior, all right. So that is my exposition of verse 20.

We are done expositing this verse, but rather than closing in prayer, we're going to back away from verse 20 and address the larger issue of what we do when we see such sin in the lives of other people in the church.

How do we go about responding to that? if all you had was verse 20, you would think, all right, I know how to deal with sinning brothers. I hand them over to Satan. So And as a parent, your children are acting up and you're like, you be careful, or I'm going to hand you over to Satan.

And we might think, I guess this is just the way we deal with it, and it's got a redemptive purpose. It's so that they'll learn something. So let's just do this every time we see a brother in sin. Well, you need to back away a little bit and actually look at the larger view of this subject.

And when you do, you'll actually observe that there are 5 steps to dealing with, someone in the church that is an unrepentant sin, the step that Paul takes and describes in verse 20 is step 5. It is the last step of that process. And we would be remiss if we looked at this in verse 20 and did not take some time to just walk through the larger picture of the steps that are involved in dealing with a brother or sister. that we see is involved in unrepentant sin.

So how many of people in this church, That sin. Just raise your hand. OK. so this is very practical.

All right? And we need to become good at this. In all seriousness, if you're not good at this, you can split this church. I don't want you to do that.

You can, you can wreck your own life and the lives of other people. You can devastate people if you handle this in the wrong way. So let's take some time to look at these 5 steps. Step number 1.

is examine yourself, you see sin in the life of a brother or sister. And by the way, most of the sin we see in other people, not all, but most of it is, we see that sin when we're actually experiencing that sin firsthand. In other words, they're sinning against us, not always. But when you experience sin at the hands of someone in the church, or you just observe them.

Engaging in sin without repentance, the first step of responding to that is to examine yourself. I think people are way too hasty to run to Matthew 18. I see sin in that person. Matthew 18, I go to that brother and confront him.

what, we'll get to Matthew 18. But that's step 2. Step one is, you examine yourself before you go talking to that brother or sister. Please do that.

Jesus would tell you, hey, before you go to Matthew 18, swing by Matthew 7, and hear this instruction. Matthew 7:3, Jesus says, why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, and behold, the log is in your own eye. You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Guys, Jesus is trying to be funny here. He's trying to instruct, but he wants you to laugh at this. This is a ridiculous picture. imagine someone that's got a huge log in their eye, walking around with a log, everyone sees it.

All right, it's, it's very obvious. And that person comes up to you and says, what, I've been watching you, brother, and You got, you got a speck in your eye. And I feel like God has put me in your life to help remove that speck. I am God's gift to you.

That would be ridiculous, right? That's the picture that Jesus is painting, and he says, You hypocrite, don't go to your brother with the log in your eye. First take the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Jesus doesn't say, you hypocrite.

How dare you look at sin and other people and want to deal with sin and other people when you yourself have a log in your own eye. You just deal with your own sin, period. That's not what he says. You first deal with your own sin, then you can see clearly to actually be a help.

He's saying it's good to want to help your brother with sin that you see in his life, but first deal with your own sin. Now, we don't have time to elaborate on everything in this verse. Let me just make a couple points. It intrigues me that Jesus does not say, how can you say to your brother, let me help take the speck out of your own eye, when you have a speck in your own eye?

That we, if he would have said that we would have thought, well, that makes sense. He has a speck. I have a speck. I should take care of my speck before I help my brother with his speck.

But Jesus describes my sin as a log. And my brother's as a speck. Why does he do that? Why does he speak generically, and tell you that your sin is a log, and your brother's sin is a speck?

Why does he do that? I think the reason he does that is not to say that, hey, your brother's sin is not as big of a deal to God as your sin is. That's not his point, right? But what he's saying is, in your perspective, you should see your sin as bigger than the sin of your brother's.

You should see your sin as a bigger deal than the deal that you make about your brother's sin. This is so contrary to the way our natural tendency is. I've been in counseling situations where there's been a relationship conflict, and the two people sitting in my office are doing a wonderful job of confessing the sins of the other person. And when they confess the other person's sins, there is passion there, man, they see that as a big deal.

But when they are pressed on their own sin, they were like, well, yeah, I messed up. And, of course, everyone's a sinner. They just lack the passion when they speak about their own sin. And it comes across to me that on a scale of 1 to 10, their sin is maybe a 2 or a 3, but this other person's sin is a 10.

All right. And Jesus is saying, you need to flip that around. You need to be passionate about and view your sin on a scale of 1 to 10, you need to see your sin as a 10, and your brother's as something that is smaller. why Jesus wants you to make a bigger deal out of your sin than the sin of your brother?

It's actually a grace from him to teach you this, because if you do that, it's going to humble you, right? and it'll make you humble in the way that you approach your brother. but also, Guys, listen to this, to the degree that you understand the magnitude of your sin, to that exact degree, you experience God's grace. And to the degree that you experience God's grace, you have that much grace to give to another person.

Does that make sense? So if, for example, I see my sin as a 10, And my brother's sin that I'm going to go talk to as a 2, and I'm experiencing God's grace on the level of a 10 to match the magnitude of my sin. And I've got all this grace from God that I'm experiencing. Well, then, of course, I've got plenty of grace to give to my brother for his sin that may have even been against me.

But if my sin is just a 2, according to my perspective, Then I will only experience God's grace to that degree. So I'm experiencing God's grace on the level of a 2. And now I'm going to go trotting over to this brother who sinned on the level of a 10, and I got to somehow figure out a way to give grace to him. And what, I find that I can't, I don't have enough grace to give him because I'm not experiencing God's grace to that degree.

But we honestly need to train ourselves to make a big deal out of our sin, so that we can then make a big deal out of God's grace and be overflowing with the experience of His grace. So that when we then go to our brother, who may have even sinned against us, we have bounteous portions of grace to impart. Jesus says, you take the log, you take that big sin out of your own life, your own eye, then you will actually be able to see clearly, to take the speck out of your brother's eyes.

So before you go to your brother to confront him, examine yourself.

Let me help you with this real quick, examine your own life for sin. Especially any similar sins. I found in my own life that the sins of other people that irritate me the most are the sins that I am the most guilty of. And if you examine yourself, you probably find that the same is true.

Examine your own life for sin, maybe similar sins are in a totally different area. But are you living in obedience to God? Also, examine yourself for any contributing failures. Maybe it's in a marriage relationship, your spouse has done something that is clearly biblically wrong.

And you're like, Man, I got to go talk to this my spouse, and I got to confront him. Well, before you do, Examine and see whether or not you have sinned in any way. that has contributed to the failure of your spouse. And if you see that you have, that doesn't excuse your spouse.

But it merely gives you an understanding. And if you do take the time to examine yourself in this way, then when you actually do go to your brother or sister or your spouse to confront them, you actually start off by saying, hey, the Lord has shown me some failures, and I want to confess these to you. a husband may come to me and say, Pastor, we need to discipline my wife out of the church. She's got a complaining spirit.

And I've confronted her about it and she just won't, she won't do anything about it. She won't change. Well, what does she say when she's complaining? Well, she's complaining about me.

Well, what is she saying when she complains about you? And have you stopped to think that yes, your wife may be wrong in the way she's going about it. But have you examined any contributions on your part to causing your wife to stumble in this way? So There's value in doing this.

Also examine yourself to ensure that you are in gospel mode. My sin's a big deal. God's grace is an even bigger deal. I'm walking in His grace, experiencing his forgiveness.

If you're in gospel mode in this way, you're going to go to your brother with humility, and with much grace to give, and with the same patience that God has displayed towards you. And then lastly, examine yourself as to the manner of your approach. It is not enough to just say, I went to my brother. You have to think about the manner in which you go to your brother, and how you speak to that brother, how you address the issue, what tone that you address it with to make sure that it's characterized by love and by humility and by grace, as well as a commitment to holiness and the truth.

There have been situations where Some even in the church has erred in some way and someone else in the church has gone to that brother or sister and just vented on them in a completely non-constructive way, just unleashed this fury of anger on them, and then walked away. Then they walked away. That's not Matthew 18. Think about the manner of your approach.

Examine yourself in order to ensure that you are approaching your brother in the right way. Having done that, you can then move on to step 2, and that is you actually approach your brother, and Jesus says you do so privately. And Matthew 18:15, Jesus says, if your brother sins. Now, if you're reading that, and you got saved yesterday, and you're just coming to Cornerstone for the first time, this ought to alert you to the fact that you're going to experience times where you're genuine brothers in Christ sin.

And if that happens, and when that happens, Jesus says go and show him his fault in private. you do this instead of, Jesus doesn't say if your brother sins, then Then wash your hands of him and be done with him, then give up on him. If your brother sins, show disgust at the sins that he has committed, be disgusted with him, abandon him. Or it'd be interesting if Jesus said, If your brother sins, go and talk to other people about the sin that your brother has committed.

In fact, that's how some people read this passage. They read it and apparently they take it to mean that if my brother sins, I can go to other people and I can talk to other people about what this brother has done, but that's not what Jesus. says, and it guys, I've checked the Greek on this. He says if your brother sins, you go and you show him his fault in private.

Also, Jesus doesn't say if your brother sins, call your pastor and have your pastor go talk to him. I've actually had that happen. I've received emails, phone calls. I've had people show up at my office telling me, alerting me.

And a loving way of the sin of another person in the church and saying you need to go talk to them. And I'm like, have you confronted them? Have you talked to them at all? No, I haven't.

I had one person say, that's your job. And I said, that's your job. And Jesus says, no, that's your job. You go and you show him his fault in private.

I like the way he words this. If your brother sins, go and show him his fault, implied in this is a lot of times we, we do things and we don't even know that what we're doing is wrong. And we need people to come to us and show us the fault. All right.

I should speak equally to husbands and wives here. But let me pick on the wives. wives, if your husband messes up, Go to him and show him. His fault.

Sometimes we're, we could be really dense as men, and we do things and we don't know necessarily what we've done, and we've not thought it through. And, and yet we notice that something's wrong with you. Clearly, there's something wrong. And it's like, well, what's the matter?

And so, well, what's the matter? Well, what have I done? You should know. And so you're not only ticked at your husband for what he's done, but you're doubly angry because he's so dumb, he doesn't know what he did.

Show them his fault, love him enough to go to him and say, honey, and just speak clearly to your husband, tell him what he did, show him his fault, rather than acting in a way that communicates that he did something wrong, but you leave him to guess and read your mind over what that might be. And look what else he says. Did I get an amen? Was that a woman that sent him in?

Great, great. That makes my day. Look what else he says. Go and show him his fault in private.

And I want you to feel the grace of this. literally, the idea is go and show him his fault alone. Just you don't talk to anyone else. You go to your brother and talk to him alone.

Don't go talking to other people. Go to him privately. And the way I want you all to read this is, I want you to see the grace of this. I want you to imagine Jesus, standing right next to you with his arm around you, and he's speaking to the rest of us.

And he says to everyone else around you, he says, hey, if so and so sins, Come To him or her. Show him or her their fault and do it alone. What I want you to feel the sensation of hearing Jesus speak to your brothers and sisters in that way. Isn't that a grace?

If If Milton sends Come to him Show him is full alone. Keep it private. So that's the second step, actually approach your brother and do so privately, keeping the circle of knowledge, we learn in Scripture that love covers a multitude of sins, and yes, it deals with it, with, going to that person privately, but it covers it with regard. It blinds it from everyone else's eyes at this stage of the process, who doesn't need to know.

And in grace you go to that person privately. You say, what if they don't respond and Acknowledge that they've sinned and forsake their sin, when I go to them privately. Well, that's where step 3 comes in, and that is you bring one or two others with you. You bring one or two other people with you.

You again, you don't go calling the church and letting everybody know and asking for prayer. I just need to call my 12 friends and tell them about what this person's done, just so they can pray for me as I am thinking about how to confront them. No, you tell one or two others, and then you bring them. With you.

Again, I want you to feel the grace of this. Jesus says, he's got his arm around you, and he says, everyone else, if, if this person is sinning, come show him his fault. and do so privately. And if they don't listen to you, if Milton does not listen to you, and he totally blows you off, and it's a disastrous meeting, it doesn't go well, Bring another person or two and come back to them.

That's the grace here is just amazing. And he says, bring one or two others with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. At this point they blow you off. You go to them alone.

And they blow you off, you still are patient, gracious. You keep the circle of knowledge as narrow as possible, and you go to them with just one or two others and make another effort at it. You say, Well, what if I do that? And there have been times in our church history where this has happened.

2 or 3 people have gone to a brother at this stage and confronted them, and they've refused to repent. What do we do then? Well, this is step 4. And that is that you take the matter to the church.

Jesus says, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. Now, what does it mean to tell it to the church? does it mean that, I've confronted them privately, I've brought another person or two with me, they've still not repented. So tomorrow morning, I'm going to get up first thing in the morning, and I'm going to pull out the church directory and start with the A's, go all the way through the Z's, and I'm going to call everyone in the church and notify the church of the sin of this person.

Do you think that's what Jesus is really saying here? It can't be what he is saying. When you piece it together with 2 Thessalonians, it's evident that when Jesus says, tell it to the church, that the prudent thing to do is to tell it to the leaders of the church, go to the elders of the church. who have been called to shepherd the church and notify them.

And when you do, tell them the steps that you've taken and how that's been rebuffed, and it's not gone well, and you're now calling the elders into engagement in this situation. The elders will then And this is happening here at Cornerstone. The elders will get involved with you. We will go to that person.

We will confront that person and try to see if we can influence them towards repentance. If they disregard the elders' instruction in the matter, then there's a second phase of step 4, and we learn about this in 2 Thessalonians of how Paul handled. people in the church that were disregarding his instruction as a spiritual leader. And the equivalent would be as a, as a pastor or an elder in the church.

And here's essentially what the elders would do that if we get involved in a situation on this level, the person still refuses to repent, we would make an announcement to the church and we would actually read this passage, which we've done before. Paul says, now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life, and not according to the tradition, which you received from us. If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, 2 Thessalonians was amongst other things, a corrective letter of confrontation regarding theological error in the church and even ethical, behavioral error.

In the lives of certain people.

And Paul is saying, if there's anyone who does not obey the corrective instruction, the confrontation that we've delivered in this letter, take special note of that person. Do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. At this stage of the process, we as elders would give the name of that person.

who's an unrepentant sin. And we would take special note of him. We would encourage you as a body not to associate with that person, except to the degree that you associate with them in order to admonish them, to forsake their sin and walk in obedience. And we would also instruct you, as we've done before, don't regard this person as an enemy.

Admonish him lovingly as a brother, even at this stage of the process. God would say you're not allowed to view this person as a nonbeliever. Admonish him. As a brother, and so that announcement is made and the person, has people in the church going to this individual and trying to help them to show, see, his or her fault, and yet this person refuses to listen to the church.

What is the next step? Well, the next step is this. that is to let him be excommunicated from the church. This is the step that Paul describes, in 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 20.

Jesus says in verse 17, if he refuses to listen, To them, tell it to the church. If he refuses to listen to the church, then let him be to you as a Gentile and as a tax collector. He's excommunicated from the church. He's viewed as a nonbeliever, and he is delivered out from the church over to Satan.

this is essentially what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5. He says, I've decided to deliver such a one over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved. Even at this stage, we still see grace, that the goal and sending them out and handing them over to Satan is ultimately that God might use that to lead them. To repentance and that the day may come when they are standing before God saved on Judgment Day.

Well, having walked through this, let me wrap this up by addressing just a few quick questions. Number 1, you may be wondering, especially if you're new here, has Cornerstone ever practiced church discipline, like what we've described? My answer is yes, hundreds and thousands of times. And I say it that way because church discipline is not just the last stage.

Church discipline is you going to your spouse and showing them a fault. Church discipline is, is a brother going to another brother and confronting them over sin that might be in that brother's life. And when you define discipline, A church discipline in that way that does happen hundreds of thousands of times. In fact, it should be happening virtually all the time.

I know it's happened at Cornerstone hundreds and thousands of times because I've been involved in many of them in confronting a brother or sister regarding sin that is in their life. I also know it's happened many times because over the 17 years I've been here, I have been church disciplined. the stage of discipline in Matthew 18, where a brother goes to another brother and confronts them about sin. I've had that happen to me here at Cornerstone.

That's church discipline. That's one of the stages of church discipline. And I've been on the receiving end of that a handful of times. So I know it happens many times.

In fact, just this past week was approached by A brother and Made more keenly aware of a wrong that I had done and the hurt that I had caused. And confessed my sin to, Ultimately 5 people in this church body for the wrong that I had done. That's, that's church discipline. And that's the thing that we all need the freedom to do, both you the freedom to do that towards other people and giving people the freedom to do that to you.

In fact, just to let, if you become a covenant member of Cornerstone, amongst other things, a part of what it means to become a covenant member of Cornerstone, a part of the message you're conveying is you're telling everyone, I give you permission to practice Matthew 18 in my life. I give you permission to come to me and confront me about sin. That is in my life. And I'm committing myself to do the same towards you.

So has Cornerstone ever practiced church discipline? Yes, when you define it in the way I've just defined it, it's happening all the time. But you might say, well, you're being coy here. Has Cornerstone ever excommunicated anybody because of unrepentant sin?

And the answer to that is yes. There's been a handful of times that things have escalated to that point, and we have announced the sin of that member to the congregation. We've removed them from the membership of Cornerstone and have essentially handed them over to Satan. The last question is, has such discipline ever been successful?

And I want us to think carefully about what that question really means. Has such discipline been successful? The answer is yes, it is always successful. Every single time we've ever done it, it has always been successful in one sense.

The reason you take this step as a church body is not just for the sake of the person you're disciplining in the hopes that they'll taste of the fruit of their own way and be brought to repentance. You also take that step to remove the leaven of sin out from the local assembly. You do it for the protection of other people that are in. the body.

So even if a person refuses to repent, and we remove them from the membership and excommunicate them and hand them over to Satan in the sense in which I've described, even if they never repent, the act was successful in purging this church body of the corrupting influence of sin, such as that, that would be tolerated in our midst. That's what Paul warns the Corinthians about. But you might say, well, what when I say, has it been successful is, have you ever disciplined someone at this stage out of the church and they've ended up repenting of their sin and coming back?

And the answer to that is yes.

There's been one case where we have done this and A number of actually a few years later this individual decided to follow God and obey His word and the counsel that they were given. They broke off an immoral relationship and they ended up returning back to the Lord and they contacted us and told us what God had done in their lives and in their life, and they asked if we could lift the discipline, and we had an evening service here where we, had a great time doing that and fellowship with this individual has ever since been wonderfully restored.

So that's, that's been successful on both of these levels, and we can rejoice in that. As we close, can I give you a caution, guys?

When you're practicing these steps, especially Matthew 18, take the time to exhaust each step before moving in, moving on. In fact, I've been calling these steps throughout this message. I think I would prefer that they be called stages., if you see a brother in sin, please don't, don't get a couple of believers in the church, load them up in the car with you, and tell them we're going over to this brother's house. I'm going to confront him about sin.

You stay in the driveway. I'll let how it goes. I'm going to confront him privately. If it doesn't go well, I'm going to call you guys in and we're going to do step 2.

And so you go in and you confront the brother, and it just is disastrous. It doesn't go well. And so you pick up your cell phone and say, come on in. And they come in, you do step two, and it doesn't go well, then either.

And so then you're calling the elders right away. Come on, get engaged. We need you here. Don't do that.

Have the grace and the patience that Paul talks about when he speaks to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2 reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience. what, it's biblically OK to do this first step in Matthew 18, to do that 5678 times before you move to the second step. If you go to someone privately and it doesn't go well, give it some time. Go back to them privately.

How many times has someone ever confronted you about some sin, and it went wonderfully well. Your spouse comes to you and says, Man, here's what I see in your life, and it's sin. How many times has it happened that you're like, Oh, thank you so much. You are such a gift from God to me.

How would I know of these sins were it not for you to be used of God to show me the error of my way? Thank you very much for this. How many times has that happened? No hands.

All right, it rarely ever goes well. So be patient. If it doesn't go well, give it some time, reapproach them. It's OK to do that first stage several times and fully exhaust that before you then move on to the next stage.

And even then, exhaust that, let your ministry to that sinning brother be characterized by great patience. As you deal with them about the sin, That is in their life. You might say, Pastor Milton, I've, I don't want to be involved in this person's life anymore, because I've already practiced Matthew 18 and it didn't work. what, do it again.

Do it again. I'm glad God doesn't just do deal with us one time. And it doesn't go well. And he says, I'm done.

I'm done. Here's the evidence. I've already done this step with you and it didn't work. So I'm never going to do it again.

I'm glad that God doesn't do that with us. Let us be like God, let us be imitators of him and take as long as it needs and be patient, but at the same time speaking the truth, being committed to holiness, and speaking the truth and love. Let me ask you to bow your heads this morning. We're going to be taking up an offering here in just a minute, and we would encourage you to give as the Lord leads., there's a comment card in your bulletin.

We would encourage you to fill that out if you want to do so, and any prayer requests, praise items, maybe a response to the message, you're welcome to fill that out and put that in the offering bag as it goes by in just a minute. We'll take those prayer requests and pray over them as we always do in our staff meeting on Tuesday. And we'll put it on the church prayer sheet if you would like for us to do so. Let's, let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Lord, I I feel conflicting emotions right now. I am, I'm grateful to you for the specific counsel you give and just dealing with. with sin in other people, Lord and just showing us how to go about dealing with that in a way that's biblical, that's effective, that that is constructive. So I'm grateful for that, Lord.

I'm also amazed at the grace of all of this, that you would tell us to be this patient with, with one another to allow things to go to these several stages before someone is finally ejected from the church. And then even after that, that we still pray and we still hope for the salvation of that person. You are a holy God, but a God of grace. whose grace never ends.

This grace never ends. Lord, I'm also concerned, Over the potential Of what could happen in this church body if we decide to let sin run amok, number one and number two, if we respond to sin and others wrongly. Help us to love one another, Lord, to love holiness, and also to love you and love each other enough to go and help. And if it doesn't go well, it'll go back and To be examining ourselves and our approach and Approaching one another with humility and with grace and with love.

We do not deserve, Lord, the 27 years of peace that this church has enjoyed without any split in any way, shape or form, but we know that could end tomorrow. We just thank you for it. But we know, Lord, that inside of each one of us is the potential to split this church right down the middle. In inside of me is all that's necessary to split this church.

Down the middle So help us to say no to that remnant of sin within us. Say yes to righteousness and yes to love and to grace. To holiness And to engagement in each other's lives constructively. Helping one another with these issues.

Thank you for your word, Lord. Thank you for this opportunity to give of these offerings to you. We give them to you, Lord, thankful for what you've given to us, and we ask that you bless this offering for the furtherance of your kingdom purposes on this earth. We give these offerings to you in Jesus' name.

Amen.