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Ecclesiology is our theme this
year. Ecclesiology is a study of the
church, seeking to build on our foundation and be a healthy church.
Well, this is our 10th month talking about this, so you may
wonder, are we healthy yet? Are we getting there? Is this
doing something? Well, we hope so. We always want
to be growing, never maintaining. A healthy church is made up of perfect people. Is that right? How would we do? Obviously, that's out of reach. How about this? Can we say a
healthy church is made up of healthy believers? That seems
more attainable. And yet, how many of us are able
to confidently say, I'm a healthy believer. Yep, I qualify. we'll be a healthy church because
we're okay in that department. Well, I hope we are, I trust
we are, but then again, the life of the Christian really is often
characterized by struggles and ups and downs and defeats and
even doubts. And so, you know, maybe it's
a little more accessible if we could say a healthy church is
made up of hopeless sinners because we can identify a little better
with that. And yet, That doesn't quite sound
healthy either, does it? And so how about one more try?
A healthy church is made up of sinners, but sinners who have
been redeemed, saved from sin's penalty, and are humbly helping
one another to grow toward Christlikeness and to reach the lost so that
we might help them be saved and grow toward Christlikeness by
the transforming grace of the Holy Spirit, for the eternal
glory of God the Father. That's better. There's grace
there. There's hope there. And yet there
is a standard there that we're striving toward and walking with
the Lord to try to be in concert with. And it's complex isn't
it there a lot of working parts within that and it can feel messy
at times But fortunately the church is not we have to remember
the church is not a museum for Perfect saints to come together
and congratulate each other on how perfect we are It's a crime
scene Where we're working to identify where sin bred death
and working to make things right. It's a hospital for our spiritual
wounds. It's an oasis for our thirsty
souls. It's a meeting place with God
where we come to bring our gifts and express our corporate worship. The church is a military training
ground where we prepare for the battles of spiritual warfare.
It's a team practice where we come together and push one another
and lean on one another so that we might better accomplish our
calling and our commission. in ways that we could not have
done alone. So we've been really exploring the implications of
the idea of the body of the church, an illustration that comes to
surface several times in the book of Ephesians, that we are,
as an interdependent organism, a corporate entity, if you will. So what this means is that your
spiritual growth and service always benefit the church. That's
really good news. That's how a body works. When
one part does really well, that contributes to the health of
the whole. But the more sobering news is that this means our unconfessed
or unrepentant sin always harms the church. And that's where we're gonna
focus this evening. avoid thinking of the church as if it's separate
from the individual sinners that compose it and have some idea
that the church could remain healthy and be doing okay regardless
of the sin of the individual members as they drift in unconfessed
or unrepentant error. Remember the Old Testament example
in Joshua 7 of Achan's sin, one man's sin that affected the whole
nation. And in some way, it's this way
for us in the church. So we want to talk this evening
about accountability of a healthy church, how, as we saw in some
of our distinctives, that we do answer to God, but we do also
have a responsibility toward each other. for accountability,
to keep one another accountable, and to be accountable to one
another, to thrive as a healthy church. It's crucial that we
form the regular practice of confessing and repenting, because
we're not perfect people, not even always healthy believers. We are, as long as we're on this
earth, though we've been saved by grace, if you've trusted Christ
as Savior, admitted your sin and looked to Jesus' death on
the cross and resurrection from the grave as your basis for forgiveness
and new life, If that's you, we go forward in our struggle
and we still struggle with sin, but we confess, we repent. This begins vertically toward
God. Proverbs 28, 13 says, he that
covers his sins shall not prosper, but he that confesses them and
forsakes them will have mercy. First John 1.9, if we confess
our sins, he's faithful, he's just, he'll forgive us our sins,
he'll cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Bring the sins to him, don't
try to cover them up, don't try to fix them up, don't try to
clean them up, just confess, come to Jesus, and then yes,
he helps us to make it right. But this confession, it does
continue on a horizontal level as we come to each other for
accountability, in part because we have blind spots. Proverbs
21.2 says, every way of a man is right in his own eyes. Part
of the reason we need each other is because I can feel like I'm
doing just fine when I am, in fact, overlooking something very
important or allowing something very detrimental. but we also
confess horizontally because we sin horizontally, we sin toward
each other. In Matthew 5, Jesus explains
that if you come to the altar with a gift and you're worshiping,
you're praying, but you remember that there is a rift between
you and a brother, that it's appropriate to leave that gift,
to leave your worship and to go reconcile. There's confession,
there's accountability, there's reconciliation. So if we're gonna
thrive as a healthy church, We have to combat the hypocritical,
superficial type of Christianity that threatens to dominate our
gatherings. What I mean by that is we can walk in and try to
look right and talk right and smile right and answer right
and really lack any accountability because we're all pretending
to be perfect people. or healthy believers when in
reality we are struggling sinners being transformed by God's grace.
Accountability works best when it's voluntary. And so that's
where we want to start. And then we're going to move
to when it's not voluntary and there has to be an intervention.
But it works best if it's voluntary. James 5.16 is we know the second
half of the verse very well that the effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous person has a great impact. It avails much. But the
context of that is in confession of sin horizontally as we confess
our faults to each other, spiritual healing can take place because
prayer makes a big difference. Do you wanna see victory and
progress and growth in your sin struggles? Scripture tells us
that mutual accountability is a vital ingredient, an effectual,
impactful ingredient in that recipe for growth. But I feel
we've just, I don't know, really drifted away from this. And we
can give prayer requests about our jobs and our works and our
health situation and our neighbors going through a trial or something
like that. Obviously we don't come to church and just you know
air out dirty laundry in front of everyone But the smaller the
group the more detail we can give and admit our Weaknesses
and ask each other for prayer and for help But tonight I want
to focus specifically with the rest of our time on the final
expression of that accountability which is not the voluntary level
but the intervention level, what we call church discipline. What
is yeah, so I put accountability of the church in the bulletin
if I put The church discipline in the bulletin. Would you come
back tonight? Hope you don't come or not come based on what's
in the bulletin But we do want to talk about discipline in a
year where we're talking about ecclesiology if you're visiting
tonight I just want you to know this is not what we're all about
but with 52 Sundays in an ecclesiology year it is a topic that is helpful
healthy for us to address and What is church discipline? What
does it look like? What's the purpose of it? Do
we have to go there? Does it do any good? Is it judgy? Is it harmful? And what sins
would necessitate it? Well, I'd invite you to 1 Corinthians
5 in your Bibles, one of the two main passages, though there
are several that show that it is a biblical idea and even a
biblical necessity when a situation requires. We're gonna zoom in
and look at this one example in 1 Corinthians 5 that gives
almost kind of a worst case scenario. And then we'll come up and zoom
back out and say, okay, what do we do with this since we're
not facing something this extreme, but how can we be ready? How
can we be safeguarded? How can we use this in our daily
lives and struggles? I said this is one of two main
passages. We're turning to 1 Corinthians 5. The other main passage will
be on the screen. We've looked at this, other contexts. Matthew 18 is the other, verses
15 through 17, where Jesus says, if your brother shall trespass
against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him
alone. "'If he shall hear thee, thou
hast gained thy brother.'" So notice there's this accountability,
there's this confession that takes place, there's reconciliation,
and it never had to escalate, it stays very private. "'But
if he will not hear thee,' verse 16 says, "'then take with thee
one or two more, "'that in the mouth of two or three witnesses,
"'every word will be established.'" So something that can be witnessed,
that's observable. "'And if he shall neglect to
hear them,' verse 17 says, "'tell it to the church, The church
is where the authority resides for discipline to take place
according to Jesus. But if you neglect to hear the
church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
That's where the discipline of expulsion or being disciplined
out of the church, sometimes called excommunication, is what
Jesus is talking about in verse 17. So when we fail to confess
our faults to each other and to God, and instead we tolerate
sin or we conceal sin or we ignore sin, then the accountability
of the church takes this form. 1 Corinthians 5. It is reported
commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication
as is not so much as named among the Gentiles that one should
have his father's wife And ye are puffed up and have not rather
mourned that he that hath done this deed might be taken away
from among you. For I verily as absent in body
but present in spirit have judged already as though I were present
concerning him that has so done this deed. In the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, in my spirit,
with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one
unto Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit
may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus, your glorying is
not good. Know ye not that a little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out, therefore, the old
leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ, our Passover,
is sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast,
not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and
wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you in an epistle
not to accompany with fornicators, Yet, not altogether with the
fornicators of this world, or with the covetous or extortioners
or with idolaters, for then must ye needs go out of the world.
But now I have written unto you, not to keep company of any man
that is called a brother, be a fornicator, or covetous, or
an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner,
with such in one know not to eat. For what have I to do to
judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them that are
within, but them that are without God judgeth. Therefore, put away
from among yourselves that wicked person. I wanna give just several
observations from what is a case study here that just, as Paul
deals with this under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, really gives
a model, a pattern, several principles that can be drawn from this.
And there's one in just about every verse, and some with two,
some without. So you probably won't keep up if you try to write
these down, but just by kind of piecemealing or mosaics of
several principles that we kind of draw from this, it's gonna
do a lot to round out our picture of the biblical definition of
discipline, the situation that would necessitate it, and the
purpose of it. Why would we do this? Verse one
says it's reported commonly. So here's a situation that was
known. So we see here first that church
discipline addresses sin that is observable. It's a threat
to the church's testimony. It's reported commonly, so this
is known. Jesus said there would be witnesses
of this, something that can be verified The sin in this case, it's an
incestuous relationship. Paul uses the word fornication.
Okay, so from this verse, we're also gonna take the idea that
church discipline addresses sin that is serious, the type of
sin that would be a threat to the church's testimony, yes,
because it's observable, but also to the church's purity,
number two, because it's serious, immorality in this case. The Corinthian church was a proud
church and they were proud even despite this flaw or maybe even
proud of this flaw. That's hard to imagine. So there
are churches today that really advertise and celebrate the embracing
of immoral people in the name of toleration or love. So verse
number two talking about how they were puffed up. When they're
corrected for that shows us that the sin church discipline addresses
sin that is unrepentant. in that number three, it threatens
the offender's faith profession. So if someone says, I'm saved,
they're admitted to church membership, and then they live in a way that
an unbeliever would live, and there's no repentance, no true
repentance, to the degree that you would have to kind of question
that person's faith profession, this is a serious sin. It's an
observable sin, it's a non-repentant sin. Even among the Gentiles, this
was, it's commonly reported something that wasn't even named among
the Gentiles. It seems to be the case that even those outside
the church probably were aware of what was being tolerated here
in Corinth. So one more point here from verse
one is the idea that church discipline is for the offender. It actually
is in the best interest of the one who has done wrong that the
church intervene. But it's also for the church,
It's also ultimately for the Lord, but even at some level,
it's for the world. Because if the world sees gross
sin, sin that is observable, serious, and unrepentant, tolerated,
and even harbored within the church, our testimony is damaged. Why would someone want to come
to a church that has nothing that they don't? It is no different
from they, Rather than being puffed up,
the Corinthian believer should have mourned. That's verse two.
You should have rather mourned. Okay, so from that, number five,
we want to see that church discipline really ought to be a humbling,
sobering, sorrowful necessity. This isn't something we're eager
for. It's not a witch hunt where we're kind of relishing the idea
of being able to intervene in someone else's life or, you know,
going around in an inquisition, trying to figure out what everybody's
doing in private. But verse 2 does say that that
person should be taken away from among the body. So we would say
number six that in worst cases church discipline involves removing
the offender from membership. And I say in worst cases because
remember in Matthew 18. In the best case, all you have
to do is mention it to the person and they repent and it's taken
care of. It doesn't need to go any further. Or maybe with two
or three people there, then they listen to a reason, they repent,
and it doesn't need to go any further. Or the third best case
is it comes to the church and finally the person listens and
repents and it needs to go no further. But the worst case scenario
is when they won't even listen to the church and have to be
removed. When you're gathered together,
verse four, in the name of the Lord, and Paul is there present
in spirit. He's had a lot of influence of
this church in Corinth, and it's the power of Jesus Christ, the
mention at the end of verse four that forms the basis, the authority.
Number seven, we'd say that church discipline is the jurisdiction,
the authority, the responsibility of the congregation. All right,
and it's important that we make that distinction. I hope you're
still with me here, okay? It's the church that does the
disciplining. There's not one person, like a pastor or some
other church leader, that's in charge of saying, oh, you know,
this person needs to be disciplined or so forth. It is the church
that votes someone into membership or vote someone out. There's. An apostolic kind of really a
scriptural authority there. Verse four. This is number eight
church discipline is the exercise of scriptural authority. Paul
writes and says this is what you are to do. He says he's present
there in spirit and even as we have this recorded inspired preserved
scripture from him, there's this apostolic scriptural and ultimately
Christological. It's Jesus that. is here in our
midst and lends us authority to give the church this right
and responsibility. But then verse five says that
this person's being delivered to Satan. And this isn't as churchy and
as kind of warm and unifying sounding as a lot of what we've
been going through in Ephesians. But what we wanna understand
ninthly here from verse five is that church discipline really
is delivering the offender out of the spiritual oversight of
the church and over to the sin that they have chosen. And the
realm of the world, Ephesians tells us chapter one and two
is Satan's realm in a sense. The church is a place of spiritual
watch care, protection, accountability, growth, To be disciplined out
of the church is, ought to be a sobering thing that causes
us to take pause and be here for each other and watch our
lives, our walks, our testimonies, our spiritual well-being. Delivered
to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Wow, it's teaching
that church discipline allows the offender to really suffer
the sting and the consequences and the corruption that comes
from their behavior. And a lot of times that is physical.
And all the times it's spiritual. The person is allowed to taste
God's judgment on some level as a consequence of their sin.
And the church discipline is part of that. And then being
out away from the spiritual watch care and spiritual nourishment
of the context of the church is a sting. There's a taste of,
if that person is a genuine believer, this is the taste of the punishment
that God gives against sin that a believer who's walking with
him ought to always be spared. But verse five ends on a hopeful
note. It's so that the spirit might
be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Okay, so spiritual church
discipline is not to get back at the person. It's not to take
vengeance on them. It's not to make an example of
them. It is actually for their benefit. That one who is doing
wrong needs the church to intervene if that wrong has escalated to
such an observable, serious, and unrepentant level. It is
in that person's best interest that an intervention take place,
and if they won't listen, it's in that church's best interest,
or that individual's best interest that the church has tried so
hard to get their attention and turn them away as a last resort.
You're being turned over to this sin, but the hope is that that
sting would bring them back, would show them the end of their
error, would allow them to taste enough of that corruption that
they want to be away from it and back into fellowship so that
there might be a redemptive, reconciling outcome, the salvation
of that person's soul. their spirit might be saved,
verse five says, in the day of the Lord Jesus. This is for their
ultimate spiritual benefit. For someone to continue in sin
and believe that they can remain in good standing in the church
is actually very dangerous for that person's soul. Okay, so
it's healthy for us to know that church discipline is a biblical,
Resort when we get way off track. It's that's helpful for us to
know that to know that that guardrail is there It's not healthy to
have the idea well I can go kind of off the reservation and so
wild oats for a season and Come back to the church and they'll
have me back and it'd be as if nothing happened That's really
dangerous to think that way church discipline is here so that we
can know there are boundaries, their expectations. God calls
us out to be holy and that needs to be maintained. Number 12, a little leaven, verse
six says, leavens the whole lump. Church discipline preserves the
walk of the vulnerable. The 11 illustration is the idea
that it's not exactly yeast, but it's kind of like yeast where
just a little bit affects the whole ball of dough. So it is, if sin is tolerated
in the church, just that little bit of sinful influence can be
cancerous and contagious and start to affect and infect those
around the sinner, those in contact with the unrepentant sinner. So the vulnerable person, can
look at someone whose sin, whose gross sin is being tolerated
and say, well, I guess there aren't really guardrails, so
I guess I could live that way too and nothing really bad would
happen. But when church discipline takes place, now that vulnerable
person sees, wow, there actually are measures in place that would
seek to keep us on the right track. 1 Timothy 5, 20, them
that sin, rebuke before all that others also may fear. When church
discipline takes place, it ought to be a benefit to the church
body to see, wow, I don't want that to be me. Lord, I need your
grace. Keep me, bring me to the right
path. Keep me on that right path. Ignoring
or tolerating sin emboldens the wayward. publicly rebuking sin
when necessary warns the wayward. It's preserving the walk of the
vulnerable. So then verse seven says what ought to be done is
that that old leaven ought to be purged. Okay, so it's clear
by this point, number 13, that church discipline protects the
purity of the church. Something that's there is not
supposed to be and needs to be purged out. And then some sins are listed.
We wonder what sins would necessitate disciplinary action. And fornication
is mentioned. Verse 11, covetousness is mentioned. That's interesting. A person
whose life is characterized by greed, that's an observable,
serious, and if it's unrepentant, disciplinable sin. An idolater,
a railer, someone whose speech is characteristically harmful,
a drunkard, an extortioner, someone who's swindling others. So one reason for the state of
the health of the church in our country is I think that sin has
really been tolerated. in a lot of church bodies, even
Harvard. Remember the indictment in Revelation 2 against the church
in Thyatira. They suffered that woman Jezebel
who caused God's people to stumble into immorality and taught lies
and claimed to be a prophetess. The whole church is held responsible
for that compromiser's continued influence to be tolerated in
the church. The church as a whole is responsible
accountability wise when sin is taking place. This kind of
sin that threatens the purity, the testimony, the. The the faith
profession of the offender. It has a responsibility. Jesus says I have a few things
against you because you suffer that woman Jezebel. Jesus. actually takes issue with the
kind of church that would not practice discipline when it's
necessary. It's a mark of an unhealthy church. Know not to eat with such a one,
verse 11 says. So point 14 is church discipline
restricts fellowship with the offender. Okay, this doesn't
mean that the person is to be shunned, ignored, act like they're
invisible, or that you are rude to them, vicious to them, vindictive
toward them. It means a fellowship has to
be restricted. So you can't just go out for dinner and act like
nothing happened. We still pray for that wayward
brother or sister. We still love them. We seek to
bring them back. But that's the nature of our
relationship now, is one that seeks to bring them back, not
one that is open fellowship. 2 Thessalonians 3 helps with
this. Verses 14 and 15. If any man
obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, have no company
with him, that he may be ashamed. yet count him not as an enemy,
but admonish him as a brother. Okay, so how do we have no company
with someone and yet admonish them as a brother? Okay, the
difference is that we're not going to see them as an enemy. We can't see them as a brother
in close fellowship. We see them as someone who needs
to be admonished. So our relationship with that person who has strayed
from the Lord, strayed from the church, or been disciplined from
the church is one of admonishment. We want to bring them back in. 15th is from verse 12. This is
concerning them that are within not them that are without so
church discipline is for members of the congregation All right,
so we ought to remember that we don't have any business kind
of confronting our unsaved neighbors or co-workers if they behave
like unsaved coworkers and neighbors. Our goal toward them is not to
seek to turn them from immorality or hatred or substance abuse
or vulgarity or things like this. We just want to share the gospel
with them, you know, try to point them toward Christ. But when
it comes to the fellow believer, well there our responsibility
is to try to address the immoral behavior, hatred or vulgarity
or those sins. We don't have an accountability
where one-on-one you're accountable to me. But we have an accountability
where one on the rest of us, you're accountable to the church.
And the individuals of the church can be the ones to instigate
that accountability as we watch over each other. But it's interesting,
the language Paul uses in verses 11 through 13, talking about,
well, I'm certainly not talking about judging those that are
without. Let God deal with that. But the implication is, yes,
we are to judge those that are within. Now, it's not, Again, something where we're
going around looking under every bush, you know, trying to find
out each other's wrongs. When something comes to the surface
that's observable and serious and unrepentant, we owe it to
one another to step in. Okay. Tracking with all of this
you're kind of making sense. We're making a mosaic to get
a picture of you out here I kind of see what what the discipline
accomplishes what its goal is it is to protect the purity of
the church. It's to preserve the walk of
the vulnerable and it really is for the Offenders good to
get their attention and really allow them to suffer a sting
but the hope is to bring them back Um, this is not a intervention
message. We praise the Lord. Okay. We're
not dealing with the first Corinthians five situation in our church
body and let's pray. We never do. Okay. That can be
a one takeaway from this is, um, pray that the Lord protects
us from ever needing to get into this, that hopefully message
like this will can be preventative instead of interventive and pray
for each other. Lord, I pray for my brothers
and sisters in my church for their testimony that this week,
that as they face temptation, that you would keep them pure,
that as some of them are up against something that threatens to draw
them away, Lord, protect. It ought to be our intercession
for each other. Okay, so if it's not interventive and we're not
facing this, and we hope never to, okay, what do I do with this? Well, let's look at some other
takeaways. First, we can remember that Christ
marks the church for holy living. Walk worthy of the vocation you're
called, but with which you're called. That's our focus in Ephesians
as we come back to that here soon. Sin is a killer. The devil's looking, lurking,
waiting to devour. Sin lies at the door. Our testimony, our purity, don't
ever say, well, I could never do any kind of one of these sins
that you're talking about. No, we're at most risk when that's
our attitude, but we're always at risk apart from the grace
of God. So remember, there is a standard, there's a holiness
that we're marked off to represent God's glory through our conduct,
both as individuals and as a church. How about this takeaway? Let's
normalize corporate accountability and de-normalize this superficial
spirituality. Let's stop coming to church and
pretend that everything's fine in our spiritual lives and that
we're experiencing all wins and we don't have any struggles.
And it is okay around a small group table setting to share
a personal prayer request regarding a sin struggle, not explicit
details that would cause someone else to have wrong kinds of thoughts
or ideas, but Certainly as we confess our faults to one another,
we can pray to one another so that we can be healed. Third
takeaway, be willing to receive gentle correction, humble enough
to receive accountability from a fellow church member. And then
along with that, be willing to provide where necessary, gentle
correction or accountability to a fellow church member. Next takeaway, be humble, admitting
your own faults, and assuming the best before ever addressing
the faults of others. Remember what Jesus says, notice
the beam in your own eye instead of looking for a speck in someone
else's. Galatians 6.1, brethren, if a
man be overtaken in a fault, ye that are spiritual, restore
such a one in the spirit of You know what it is, a spirit of
meekness, you know, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. And what you're struggling with,
I've struggled too, or I could struggle with tomorrow, but let's
work on it together. If every time I send the church
member showed up at my house, that's all we'd ever do. Okay.
So this is not, this isn't that kind of microscope. We're, again, talking about sins
that are observable, serious, and unrepentant. So, oh, well,
she was rude to me. Well, that's not a matter for
confrontation in church discipline. That's a matter for love covers
a multitude of sins, so get over that. We're a body. This is a
church family. Pray for them, be kind, turn the other cheek,
and move on. Next takeaway, be open enough about your struggles
that the accountability of the church serves as a real safeguard.
I'm afraid a lot of times accountability is just kind of a theoretical
idea, but you're so guarded with your struggles, or you're so
unapproachable with your kind of front that you put on, or
you're so good at making it look like everything is all right
that the accountability is never gonna do you any good. If you could fool your doctor
into thinking that you're healthy, would that be in your best interest?
No, we never do that. If you could fool your church
into thinking you're spiritually healthy, it's not helping you. If the church's accountability
is no real safeguard to you, you're not being vulnerable or
open enough. Recognize that your spiritual
integrity strengthens the church's purity and impact. While your
sin harms it, yes, as you face temptations this week, the purity
and impact of the church is influenced by your conduct. And mine. Abstain from partaking of the
Lord's table if there is an issue of observable, serious, unrepentant
sin. Paul will warn us in this epistle
not to partake in an unworthy manner. Last time we observed the Lord's
Table together, we noted how as much as it is communion with
God, it is also communion with his body, our fellow believers.
Just as baptism is the initial sign of the covenant, the Lord's
Table is the ongoing sign of the covenant. And I am saying
in my partaking to all those around me that I am pursuing
closeness with God. I am not tolerating observable,
unrepentant, serious sin. It is a testimony issue. And
if that's not you, it is a sin against the church body and against
God to partake in an unworthy manner. And you might wonder
how this is connected. I'm not just hacking this on
because we're observing communion tonight. It's actually an organic
connection that Paul brings up here in verses seven and eight.
Purge out therefore the old leaven that you may be a new lump as
you are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover
is sacrifice for us. The Lord's Table is the New Testament
church equivalent of the Old Testament Israel's observance
of Passover, verse 8. Therefore let us keep the feast.
Well, how do we as a church keep the feast of Passover? It's through
communion, partaking of the bread and juice that represent the
body and blood of Christ. Neither with the leaven of malice
and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity
and truth. It's just a little bit cryptic
for us, maybe we haven't worked through this before, but what
Paul is saying is the bread, let's take the bread, the bread
is the unleavened bread, it's that part of the Passover feast,
it's part of our Lord's Table observance. Jesus says what as
he breaks it? This is my body. The bread. Is. Jesus Christ. Is the church. Right, because the church is
his body. And when the Old Covenant Jew
was preparing to celebrate Passover with this unleavened bread, there
was this serious de-leavening, not just of that bread, but of
the whole house. There was this ransacking of
the house to make sure no leaven was anywhere in sight because
under no circumstances could there be leaven in this bread.
What's the big deal? It's just bread, right? No. This
picture is the body of Jesus. So carefully, Guarding its purity
is of utmost importance. No leaven allowed. When the lamb
was given, it must be what? No blemish found, not a spot
or an imperfection. Why? Because this pictures Jesus
in whom is no guile, no iniquity, And this is why we practice church
discipline. Because even as the bread is
Jesus, body is the church. In the church, no unrepentant
sin can be tolerated. Because we, like that bread,
like that lamb, are to picture Christ. And so as we partake
of these elements this evening, we proclaim to one another that
we are part of this covenant. That we are spiritually sustained
by the body and blood of Christ even as someone is physically
sustained by food and drink. That we are in fellowship with
a body of members with whom we are mutually accountable. that
we are seeking to, even as we remember Christ's sacrifice,
live as those who died with him, rose with him, and the lives
we now live. We don't live to the flesh. We
don't live to fornication. We don't live to extortion. We don't live to covetousness.
We live by the faith of Christ Jesus, who died and gave himself
for us. So let's pray, we'll sing a hymn,
and we'll observe the Lord's table this evening.
Accountability of a Healthy Church
Series Healthy Church: Ecclesiology
| Sermon ID | 10923221292203 |
| Duration | 41:55 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 1 Corinthians 5 |
| Language | English |
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