Well, this will be the last week of the means of grace that we'll look at here today. I have two kind of passages I'll read to kind of get us started. One is just one verse, Acts 2 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship and the breaking of bread and the prayers. And then the second one is from Matthew 16 and 18. It's only one verse each. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And we'll be thinking about this as we go along. So I'm gonna give you a whole litany of things here that I just want you to think about. The first one has to be this. Nine companions thrown together by fate. to find a way to destroy the one ring of power. How about a group of guys tailgating before the game on Saturday? Or three close buddies climbing a 14-er together? How about women in Nepal all gathering by the local stream to wash their clothes? Or a family coming together on Thanksgiving or Christmas? How about a meeting at the local rotary club? What about a foursome taking the long trek across the pond to play St. Andrews? A group of men lining up behind the pigskin to win one for the gipper. Friends hanging out at Starbucks to have a Bible study. Okay, not Starbucks, Ziggy's would be better. How about a youth group going to an Amy Grant concert at Red Rocks? All right, not Amy Grant, how about Stephen Curtis Chapman? He would be better than her these days. How about the close, intimate friendship of David and Jonathan? Or what about a 50-year marriage between a husband and a wife? How about having a potluck after Sunday service? What about a personal relationship with Jesus? And the question is, how many, if any, of these things would you define as fellowship? So as I said, this is gonna be our last week discussing the means of grace, especially thinking about it from a supernatural perspective of Christian warfare, an emphasis that's there in the Bible, but not taken as seriously, I don't think, as it should be, even among those who believe the means of grace are the power of God to save and sanctify people. Although when you think about even what I just said, it seems obviously implicit that the whole point of there being some kind of means that God uses to save and sanctify people, since, Those are themselves great supernatural works of God. Why wouldn't we think about these in this way? Today I want to look at fellowship. We learned in Acts 2 42 that this was a very important thing to the first Christians in Jerusalem. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship. to the breaking of bread and the prayers. So let's try and make some progress at answering my question about which of these things are fellowship and which aren't by looking at the word fellowship. So this is an old 13th century Middle English word that means companionship. It's a compound of fellow, which is a companion or a comrade, and ship, which is the quality or condition of being It's a word that Wycliffe chose to translate the Greek word koinonia, a word that we have seen actually in our study of the means of grace before. Do you remember when? It was when we discussed the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which is called communion, which is koinonia. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation or a communion with the blood of Christ, and the bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? The word participation is koinonia, translated as communion, Eton Young's literal translates it as fellowship. So with that in mind, the answer to my question really depends on what kind of fellowship we have in mind. There is certainly a secular use of the word fellowship. In fact, the root, koinos, can carry the connotation of profane, which is why I say a secular use of the word. Now, when you think of the word profane, you probably think profanity, and so therefore you think something that's unholy. But something that's profane is technically not unholy, it's simply common or secular or belonging to the sphere of the realm of this earth. When the Greeks shared property or other things, they had them in common and hence it was called koinos. It's something accessible and permissible to all. The Jewish usage of the word wasn't a whole lot different from the Greeks. And in fact, the New Testament actually uses koinonia on several occasions to refer to contributions collected in the worship service that will be dispersed to other saints in need. So when you actually take an offering, technically, according to the New Testament, you're doing koinonia. Did you know that? Now, more often, koinonia is a word that adds this common sharing of material goods to a relationship with another person. When you give to the saints in the preceding text, it's based on some kind of intimate fellowship that you have with them, even if you've never met them. Common enterprises like a quest to take the ring of power to the fires of Mount Doom, or legal relations, or business partnerships, these are all koinonia. in the Greek sense. Marriage is probably the most comprehensive form of koinonia, but in the Greek world, actually, friendship was the supreme expression of fellowship, because you have to remember that marriages were often arranged and not really rooted in the kind of love that we think of with a marriage today. One dictionary explains that for Plato, koinonia acquires its greatest systematic significance in friendship and actually forms the basis of soteria, which is the word salvation, which for him was the preservation of individuals in the whole cosmos, including men and the gods. How interesting that friendship, the Greeks thought, would bring salvation. This koinonia has its most intimate moment in offering sacrifices to the gods, where both men and gods eat together at table. And that's the idea, of course, going into the Lord's Supper, hence communion, at the center of the fellowship of the New Testament. Now you can immediately hear then why the New Testament authors chose to use those words to describe the salvific relationship that we have with God, especially in the supper. So here's a few verses to get the point across. 1 John 1, 3, that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you indeed our fellowship is with the Father. and with His Son, Jesus Christ. Or 1 Corinthians 1.9, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Or here's one in 2 Corinthians 13, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. And of course, we've already seen communion. The cup that we bless, is it not a fellowship in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a fellowship in the body of Christ? So friends, biblically speaking, we have fellowship with the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three persons individually and yet one God. Now there was a dissertation done on this word in the late 70s. It has some interesting things to say in terms of helping us understand what is really meant by the word as the New Testament authors use it. So first, koinonia, as the New Testament sees it, does not originate in man, it originates in God. This is probably the key insight to understanding what we mean when we talk about fellowship from a Christian perspective. It is of supernatural origin. It isn't just getting together to do things. And of course, that makes sense, given that we're all able to actually have fellowship with the living God, which, if you stop and think about it, is a completely mind-blowing idea if there ever was one. Not only can you know about God, but you can have fellowship with God. And yet koinonia does not end with our fellowship with God. Due to the mystical union that we're all in together with Christ, it is not a random coming together of men because they share a common interest. Koinonia is the coming together of those whom God has called into koinonia with himself through his son and him with one another. Now what does this divine initiative, this movement of God towards his called out elect do? Well, it communicates to him, to the person, the divine life, that's a supernatural thing, and transforms him and elevates him into the divine sphere, another supernatural thing. Now these are supernatural, they're metaphysical, they're mystical works that happen through fellowship. Calling man is that initial voice of God creating life from the dead. It's like when Lazarus was called by name by Jesus while he lay dead for several days in his tomb. To be called by name is what God does when he enters into a covenant with you, a covenant of grace. He calls you through his word, brings you to life, and pledges to be with you for the rest of eternity through the merits of his son Jesus being credited to you as you believe in him. And he calls you right this moment to believe that good news, that it's actually true, if you accept it, if you trust it, if you understand what it is. Communicating the divine life is what Calvin would call union with Christ. It's an intimate fellowship, the likes of which can only be thought of through analogies, like a husband and a wife, or a head and a body. They are two, but they're also one. Peter goes so far as to say that God's divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. Think about that language, to become partakers of the divine nature? This is a truly incomprehensible thought. It's one that pagans have long thought possible, but to their own destruction, because they don't think rightly about it. This is not becoming God, like a pantheist believes. This is not the spark of the divine, like the pagans speak about, where we're actually little gods ourselves, who by our inherent nature are a piece of God, or something like that. This is being brought through adoption and calling through new life into the life of God like a branch grafted into a vine becomes one with the vine. The creator-creature distinction always remains and yet somehow God communicates his very life to us through this fellowship. As such, we're also elevated to this divine sphere. Now, the divine sphere can be thought of in many ways. It's the spiritual realm, something we were, by our very nature, made to participate in because we've been given souls, souls that are eternal, souls that are immortal. Life goes on past the death of our body, friends. It is heaven, the place where God resides. It's the invisible kingdom of God through which his attributes are all manifested to creation. And the chief of those attributes is love. As I said earlier, you can show koinonia by responding to others with reciprocity and gifts, helping one another with needs that any of you may have. Offerings in the church are koinonia. However, John speaks about this in terms of faith and love. 1 John 3, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. And a little later, by this it is evident who the children of God are and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. You see how the love of God and love of brother go together? That's koinonia, at the root of both of those. And this is said to be something that comes from the other realm, the ability to do this. It comes from the divine sphere and from God himself. And the world does not know anything about this because it belongs to the realm of the devil. Now in this way, how we behave and act towards one another is a chief element of fellowship. If we say we have fellowship with him, while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. So you can start to hear that fellowship is so much more than just getting together for a common purpose, like a game or a Bible study or a concert or whatever. It's actively acting in love towards one another in personal ways, thanks to being in union with Christ. It's important to understand that our fellowship with God is the basis for how we act with one another. We have both fellowship with God and with one another because God is saving many people together to be one body of which Christ is the head. It's not just about you. The fellowship of saints is to encourage us in our sojourn, to build us up, to advance us in the kingdom, to become ambassadors, and to be a means of advancing the gospel, especially as the world sees your love for one another, like John says. If we do not want to act in love towards one another, it therefore follows that the love of God is not in us. And this means that we've not been grafted into the vine. It means that we do not have fellowship with God, but we're still of the world, and we're held captive to the devil. And so that brings me to a transition in my sermon, because we cannot only talk about fellowship today. You can't do it. We must also discuss its complement and its opposite, which is church discipline. Now this might sound funny or even wrong. Church discipline has always been regarded as a means of grace by Reformed people, just like fellowship has. Parsons writes in Table Talk Magazine, the means that God has appointed for our spiritual nourishment and growth and grace are what we call the ordinary means of grace, namely the word, prayer, and the sacraments of baptism and the supper, and necessarily joined to these, the church's discipline and care of souls. Wayne Grudem says, because church discipline is a means by which the purity of the church is advanced and holiness of life is encouraged, we certainly should count it as a means of grace. Now, as I read those, did you hear what church discipline is for? What do you think it's for? Ask yourself that question. Have you ever even thought about it? I wonder if it's gonna be what we'll talk about here. Paul Washer rightly says, in the minds of many, the mere mention of church discipline evokes images of legalism, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, lovelessness and cruelty. Oftentimes, it's rebutted with other scriptures, taken out of context. Judge not that you be judged, lest you be judged. Or he who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone. If we do not understand what church discipline is and what it's for, then this will be our default, a knee-jerk reaction to the term. He continues, these negative opinions and rebuttals can often be traced to three distinct sources. Past instances in which church discipline has been practiced in an unbiblical manner, a blatant ignorance of scriptures, or anti-biblical, carnal, and worldly opinions regarding what it means to truly love and demonstrate spiritual concern for someone else. Ignorance of scripture is the obvious one, as it is easily seen in how these passages are badly taken out of context. It's easily remedied if the church would actually bother to teach on this subject. But this isn't a popular thing to talk about for obvious multiple reasons. But I think in helping you think rightly about the subject, it can easily sway you to understand how it's both important and a vital means of grace to the church. But that's going to take a little bit of unpacking. So to me, while there are sadly few churches that even bother practicing church discipline in our day, Some that have abused it badly, even in our circles, acting neither biblically nor in love. Of course, that puts a very sour taste in people's mouths. But the question is, should you therefore throw the baby out with the bathwater? Jesus commanded us to carry out church discipline. And the New Testament letters often bear witness that this was practiced by the apostles and is commanded to be continued until Jesus returns. But to understand this, we need to move slowly. The first thing to say is to explain how church discipline is the complement to fellowship. Well, how could that be? Think about it. Church discipline is at its root the dis-fellowshipping of a person from various aspects of the Christian fellowship. So that can include, first and foremost, the protecting of the sacraments from blasphemy. Church discipline is there to keep the sacraments pure in a way equivalent to God killing Nadab and Abihu for offering strange fire, although we don't kill anyone in church discipline. Rather, what we do is we hand them over to Satan, something that needs much more unpacking, as it's also not well understood, particularly as a supernatural activity. To get at this, I want you to hear question 92 of the Orthodox Catechism that I've gone to a couple times in this series. It's the last question that deals with the Lord's Supper. It says, you told us, but now, that those who in the confession of life declare themselves to be infidels, profane and ungodly, should by the keys of the kingdom of heaven be driven from this supper. What are the keys of the kingdom of heaven? A, preaching the gospel and ecclesiastical discipline. B, by which heaven is open to the believers and is shut against unbelievers. So I want you to notice something here. One opens the doors to heaven, the other shuts them. The two proof texts used in the catechism are both in Matthew And they're the only two places in the entire New Testament that speak about binding and loosing. And I read them at the beginning of this sermon. The first comes in right after that famous statement of Peter at the foot of Mount Hermon, at the entrance of the cave of Pan. He said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus responds, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, and I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Well, we oftentimes stop reading there, but let's keep going, because Jesus isn't finished. He says, I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Now while we're focusing on the end of this today, it cannot go unnoticed that this comes in the context of Christ's church. You see that? In Reformed theology, we speak of the church as both invisible and visible. The London Baptist Confession says, the Catholic or universal church, which with respect to the internal work of the spirit and truth of grace may be called invisible. It consists of all the whole number of the elect that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one under Christ, the head thereof. And he is the spouse of the body, the fullness of him that fills all in all. And then it says this in the next paragraph, all persons throughout the world professing the faith of the gospel and obedience unto God by Christ according to it, not destroying their own profession by any errors averting the foundation, or unholiness of conversation, are and may be called visible saints, and of such ought all particular congregations to be constituted." Now quite honestly, evangelicals talk about the invisible church all the time. But the New Testament rarely uses the word church to refer to the invisible church, although it does once or twice. The vast majority of times that it talks about church, it's talking about local congregations formally constituted with elders and deacons who oversee the spiritual and physical needs of a local embodied group of believers who are gathering in a physical place and time to worship God. And while Jesus is certainly gathering a vast army of saints from all over the world whom we might call invisible, the New Testament is abundantly clear that the way he grows his church is locally in this visible way. And this is vital to both fellowship and to discipline. To return to Matthew 16 in the catechism, Jesus is telling Peter that through this rock, that is, through his Petrine declaration of faith in Christ, the Son of God, there on Mount Hermon, that Jesus will build his church. This will take place positively through the preaching of the gospel, which opens heavens, the heaven to believers, and negatively through church discipline, which shuts heaven against unbelievers. This is the meaning of binding and loosing as being the keys of heaven. Hendrickson explains it. The one who has the keys of the kingdom of heaven determines who should be admitted and who must be refused admission. That the apostle as a group exercised this right is clear from the entire book of Acts. All did this on an equal basis. There was no boss or superintendent. He's poking at the idea that Peter was the pope or something. Nevertheless, as it's already been shown, the influence of Peter was outstanding. By means of the preaching of the gospel, he was opening the doors to some and closing them to others. Commenting further on discipline, question 93 of the catechism asks, how is the kingdom of heaven open and shut by the preaching of the gospel? And the answer is, when by the commandment of Christ it is publicly declared to all and every one of the faithful that all their sins are pardoned them of God for the merit of Christ, so often as they embrace by a lively faith the promise of the gospel, but contrarily is denounced to all infidels and hypocrites that so long as the wrath of God does abide on them, as they perish in their wickedness according to which testimony of the gospel, God will judge them as well as in this life and the life to come. And then the next question asks, how is the kingdom of heaven open and shut by ecclesiastical discipline? And the answer is when according to the commandments of Christ, they who in name are Christians, but in their doctrine and life show themselves aliens from Christ. after they've been some time admonished, will not depart from their errors, heresies, or wickedness, are made known to the church, and if neither then they obey the church's admonition, they are by the same church kept from the sacrament and shut out by the authority received from Christ from the congregation or church and by God himself out of the kingdom of heaven. So this takes me to the parallel in Matthew 18. It's a passage that gets at the heart of the commandment of Jesus to carry out church discipline. This is where he tells us to do it. It's a parallel because this is what it says in verse 19. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you bind on earth will be loosed in heaven. It's exactly what he told Peter. But I want you to know two things about this verse in Matthew 18. First, the you in Matthew 16 is singular. Jesus is talking to Peter, but here the you is plural. He's talking to everyone who's in charge of such matters in a church context. Second, it says whatever, not whoever. And as such, it refers to beliefs and actions, not directly to people. The church disciplines a person who claims to be a Christian by forbidding certain actions and beliefs, but not by itself damning somebody to hell. How many times has that been done in church history? Friend, that's God's business. Matthew gives a process that is all too often ignored. It begins with the individuals that have a problem. If you, your singular brother, sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. That's how this thing starts off. Now far too often, this has been my experience, people who have a gripe or a grudge immediately go and tattle off into the pastor and expect him to get involved first. That's the coward's way out. The answer from any sane leader should always be first, well have you told this person and tried to deal with it yourself? If he listens to you, you've gained your brother, Jesus says. Second step, but if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. Now this has deep Old Testament context. as the two or three witnesses is found in Deuteronomy in several places, which deal with disciplining Israelites who have violated some law and then possibly cutting them off from the assembly and the nation. The witnesses are not witnesses to the crime, but they are those who are to pass impartial judgment. They're like a jury. And as such, they should not have a conflict of interest, and it makes sense that at least some of them be officers in a church. Step three, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. Now this would not only be the pastor, but to the entire congregation. Along the way, it needs to be pointed out, the goal here is never punitive, but always seeking repentance and reconciliation. Jesus says if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And for good measure, Jesus concludes this way. Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where there are two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among you. Now, how many of you have heard that used over the years? Probably not in the context that it's found, actually. Curiously, this is not a proof text for fellowship and just getting together at Starbucks. Rather, the context is church discipline and the two or three are those who have just been called to witness and intercede in the problem. The idea is very clearly that they have decided, along with the church, that the person needs to be cast out, and God will be among them. That's the promise, which will, in a fascinating way, actually increase real fellowship, because discipline and fellowship go hand in hand. Now at this point, I want to bring up the question of what even is discipline? Maybe you aren't thinking rightly about this. It comes from a Latin word, disciplina, which is instruction given teaching, learning, and knowledge. That's what discipline is. In other words, discipline is simply the setting straight of the mind. A disciplined person is one who has learned to control their passions, one whose life is in order, one who's not given over to whims and outbursts, one who is on a steady course, not a lazy person or a procrastinator. As you can see from this, at the core of the word then is not punishment for the sake of punishment. It's not revenge, retribution, reckoning, or retaliation. That's not what church discipline is. Nevertheless, punishment can be involved. The word as an old English word meant penitential chastisement for the sake of correction. Listen to what Hebrews says. It is for discipline you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? This is in line with Deuteronomy, know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. And after walking for 40 years in the wilderness as a punishment for their faithlessness, it says, and consider today, since I'm not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it, consider the discipline of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm. And yes, they were not allowed to enter the promised land. That was the punishment, but God also provided for them every day, gave them manna, water in the desert. Their shoes did not wear out. He gave them everything they needed in the midst of their trials and tribulations as they're being disciplined because these were his children. He was their father and he loved them. Unfortunately, the world knows little of this, even from a common sense perspective these days many times. Many parents do not discipline their children at all, but they actually encourage them in their rebellion and they think that's love. They do not withhold things in order to discipline them. They give them everything they want. We've created an entire culture of entitled, spoiled brats who do not know the right hand from their left. and it's become dangerous and even deadly. An already confused and psychologically messed up parent thinks their little boy should actually be a girl because he plays with dolls, so they go and give them hormone blockers and cut off his genitals. This is a dead-end street of a society that hates and spurns discipline, right and wrong, correction and being set straight. And it is not loving to do this. In fact, it is deeply hateful and hurtful. The world has the entire idea of discipline exactly backwards, and it has confused it with a kind of death penalty. That's not what church discipline is. Think about this. Jesus says, treat them as a Gentile or a tax collector. Say, okay, that means treat them like the scum of the earth. Well, maybe if you're a Pharisee. But friend, it's Jesus who said this. How did he treat Gentiles and tax collectors? Well, he before them, he ate them, he hung out with them, he taught them. You might say, well, that seems contrary to disciplining them. How can you cast someone out of the congregation and yet still do those kinds of things? How is that discipline? Well, this gets at the root of what church discipline is and is for. It is here for the protection of the sheep. the purity of the body, of God's worship, and of the sacraments, and most of all, of God's holy name. It is not here to finally pronounce an eternal condemnation upon someone's head, though it is to be a warning to an unrepentant person, as we're gonna see in a great example in 1 Corinthians 5. So let's look briefly at this passage. 1 Corinthians 5, this is found in the most messed up of all the churches in the New Testament. Paul tells us at this point in his letter that it's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that's not even tolerated by the pagans. So what was going on? Well, it's actually quite astonishing. A man has his father's wife, meaning he's sleeping apparently with his stepmother. Not only this, the church is bragging about it. He says, and you are arrogant, ought you not to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. Notice that he says, for though absent in the body, I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. Remember how people have used this phrase of Jesus, judge not lest you be judged, and they take it so badly out of context. Jesus isn't saying don't ever tell someone that what they're doing is wrong. He is saying beware of being a hypocrite, judging them while you do the very same thing, having a double standard, one for you and one for everyone else, kind of like America's elite politicians have for themselves and everyone else. No, Paul says he has actually judged this person. In fact, a little later, he says, isn't not those inside the church whom you are to judge? This is why it is called church discipline. God judges those outside, but we are to purge the evil among us that is there to be cast out of the assembly, no longer to be treated by us as if they are Christians. A little more from Paul and then I'll comment. He says, you are to deliver this man to Satan for of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Now this is a difficult verse to even understand. What we can say for certain without even studying it is that the goal is to see this man saved, not damned. Church discipline has salvation, not damnation as its goal. But what does it mean to deliver him to Satan? Well, this refers to the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of which each of us was born into. Ephesians 2.1, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that's now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we are all once lived. You see, what happened is God took us out of Satan's kingdom and brought us into the glorious kingdom of his beloved son. The person back over to Satan is therefore to remove him from the grace. Those things we've been discussing, which are for our salvation and our sanctification, out from them in the kingdom. And this needs a little detour. Many people in our day seem perfectly happy executing church discipline on themselves. church. They don't want to go to church. They remove themselves from the means of grace on purpose for whatever some good they think. It's an ultimate irony, tremendous contradiction, and people do not understand what they're doing. There's a softer version of this, which is to go to church, but not really to be involved in it, but especially in a mutual, agreed-upon way. When we first began our church as Good Reform Baptists, we had church membership be something that we put into the Constitution. A lot of churches these days don't even have membership at all. We had some who didn't think formal membership was biblical. After all, all Christians are, in some sense, automatically members of the universal church when they are converted. In some ways, we considered this a debatable matter, because it's not. The Constitutions and formal memberships, the exact same way we do today. membership for those who are regular attenders. And here in our Constitution, we expect regular attenders will frequent other meetings, participate in areas, participate in regular contribution and offerings and so on. Looming question that I softly want to challenge those of you who are not formal members on. If Jesus commanded church discipline, which he did, If this takes place in the context of the local visible church, which take place, how can a church discipline someone who isn't actually a member? How can one be cast out of something from which they were never in in the first place? Maybe that's possible, but it's difficult to see how. And this is why we have long argued that some kind of formal covenantal agreement should take place with all people who want to call that local church their home. The point of this agreement is always first and foremost for the mutual fellowship, as we have defined it, with one another in the context of other members and biblical leadership that greatly desires to help the body come to maturity in Christ. Like any agreement or covenant, it places a bond between parties that's deeper than just getting up and going to a building on Sunday. It makes the commitment more serious and earnest. It seeks something from both sides of the relationship. You're making promises to one another. On the part of the member, saying that they are going to hold the leadership accountable to acting and leading like they should. And as members, they hold the power to help see that happen. They also are entering into an agreement to help preserve the purity of the local congregation when others are up for membership. And that's why you vote on it together. They're also telling the leadership that they want to be disciplined in a biblical way if they should get out of line. The point of all this is for our ultimate salvation. And for the life of me, I don't know why churches want to talk about this because it's entirely A thought has occurred to me as I've been preaching this, maybe one of the reasons why is because we've redefined what church even is, and we filled it with a bunch of people who aren't Christians in the first place, and called it seeker-sensitive. That's not what church is, it's for Christians. That's the only way you can do any of this, friends. So let's return to 1 Corinthians 5 and Matthew 18. to cast someone out of the congregation is not to allow them to talk about themselves, at least around this group of Christians, if they are a Christian. thereby taking the Lord's name in vain. They're not acting like their profession, and this is a great contradiction. It is telling them that this is not what God's people do. We are not to be recalcitrant in a state of hardened, unrepentant arrogance, but rather we're to be constantly repenting of our sins, humble and desiring forgiveness from God and one another, knowing we always fall short of his glory. In handing them over to Satan, they are therefore being taken away from the means of grace, put back into Satan's realm, and left to the darkness of their sin, where they might contemplate how lonely and black and dark the world truly is. Then as soon as repentance returns, the person is to be brought back. This is why you don't discipline people who are in a constant state of repentance. If you did that, we would all have to be kicked out of the church. This is people who won't repent of their sin. And as soon as they do, they're to be brought back in and extended the right hand of fellowship. And the discipline is to be removed. Some have made the case that the man in 1 Corinthians 5 actually repented. And we read about it in 2 Corinthians 2. It's worth hearing the whole story. It says, now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely, to all of you. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his design. So let's just think about this for a minute. The problem we have is that Paul seems to have written a letter between 1st and 2nd Corinthians to this church. And since we don't have that letter, we don't know if there's yet another man discussed in that letter as needing to be placed under discipline. Some think that the man here has caused Paul pain personally, meaning it was a personal grievance. I don't think that that necessarily follows. By the fact that Paul started this church at Corinth, this man's offense would have been deeply hurtful to Paul, because it meant that he did not listen to anything he told him about how Christians are supposed to live in light of the gospel. So let's assume it's the same guy we just read about in chapter five. I think it's instructive that this means the Corinthians not only did place the man under discipline, but I think it means they were also very harsh about it. In fact, we could probably say they didn't do it as biblically as they could have. Indeed, they do not seem to understand the fullness of what they were even doing. Now, how so? Well, it says he clearly had become repentant to the point of excessive sorrow, and yet the Corinthians were refusing to forgive him and to reaffirm their love for him. This is what he was trying to tell them in the first letter about why they were to do it in the first place. But amazingly, they have been outwitted by Satan up to now when it was he who was supposed to have been handed over to Satan. What irony that is. Satan actually tricked the church. And this guy came to his senses. So Paul says, forgive him and bring him back so that Satan will not outwit you in the good you will wish to do but are failing to fully do. Now hopefully in this short discussion of discipline, you can see how the point is actually to restore a person to fellowship. It does it by taking the means of grace so seriously that it understands the power of casting someone out of the congregation and away from the means of grace. I don't think she would mind if I told you, but our church has practiced discipline only twice. I'll just tell you about one of them. There was a young woman in our church who had committed adultery, and there was no repentance. After much struggle and heartache, we finally put her under discipline, and the church voted, and we cast her out. She was not welcome to come and take the supper with us anymore, and in fact, she would not return to this church for 10 years, even though her father was one of our elders. It was a very, very tough situation. But then, in God's very hard providence, Her oldest daughter's husband committed suicide and the girl is the one who found the body. And this woman came back to our church in 2023 for only two Sundays. And with time now a factor, I just felt overwhelmingly convicted to talk to her about what had happened and how we all very much wanted to see her restored. And immediately she began to break down and cry and said she wanted that too and she knows she was wrong and that she repents of what she did. it was a most welcome fellowship restored. A week later, because she was still here, the church removed her discipline in her presence, and only a few weeks ago, we were able to give her a substantial check to help her in yet another dark providence as her entire house was destroyed in the hurricane in October of 2024 in Florida, even though you think that that only hurt people in North Carolina. The point of all this is to put a final cap on the means of grace. Christians, these are precious gifts God has given to his people. They are sanctification. They are ordinary because they're just talking and singing and reading and praying and covenanting and bonding together and sometimes doing hard things. but they're also extraordinary because they involve powers that we cannot see. Realms of both darkness and light that are in a battle for our souls and a God who is both omnipotent and benevolent to make sure that he wins this battle for us. All he asks is that we attend as his children to the means of grace through his church by faith. that we trust him and his promises in the gospel entirely, that we believe him when he says he works all things for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purposes. He has given you such extraordinary means of grace. Make certain that you spend your life attending them until he brings you safely to your heavenly home. Let's pray together. Lord, I would ask that you would kind of seal this series in our hearts, even as you seal the gospel in our hearts to the means of grace. Do it because this is the proclamation of your word. It is a means of grace. Do it because we're talking about the means of grace. Help us to see how important these means are for us and that you give them for our benefit and for our well-being. I don't think that we really can understand what is before us because they are truly so ordinary and yet they are packed with extraordinary, supernatural power that we don't talk about enough. But that any Christian who's been a Christian for any amount of time in the local church knows that yes, indeed, you do work through these things. And I would pray that you would convict us where we need to be convicted, where we're falling short of our thinking on them and that you would comfort us with the means of grace where we need to be comforted because we continue to be sinners and we need the means of grace. It's grace that you give to us in these things. Thank you for our local congregation that we're able to have this discussion. at all, that we're able to do it in a place of fairly good health, I think. And we're able to hear these things in a way that hopefully you will use for each of us for our benefit, whether it's for sanctifying us or even bringing someone to salvation for the first time. I would ask you would do this for all of us in Christ's name. Amen.