of jeer than the Martian grace for the scope of my transgression.
Greater, farther than my cinch and my transgression.
Let's sing everybody.
Brother Paul, would you please open us up in a word of prayer?
Amen.
If you want to take your hymnals, turn to page number 412.
Page number 412.
Onward Christian soldiers.
Page number 412.
Let's sing everybody.
This time we will have our now.
Of the week is Romans 16 verse 17.
Romans 16 verse 17.
Now I beseech you brethren, mark them which cause division and offense contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them.
That's Romans 16 verse 17.
Service times are 10.30 a.m. on Sundays and with our evening service at 3.30 p.m.
Wednesday evening Bible studies at 6.30 p.m.
Soul winning was yesterday at 10.30 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. today.
I believe yesterday we had three groups and no salvations yesterday.
Which brings us to total salvations for October was for seven.
And so far in November, no, none.
But total for the year for 84 so far this year.
Attendance is down below.
Upcoming events, you know, just for during services today.
I think Jake was nice enough to bring in a turkey.
So, hey, that's a blessing.
So just be thanks for those willing to bring, you know, their tithe.
I mean, that's what he made.
I mean, as a hunter, I mean, that's just tied to the church right there.
Amen.
You know, that's a blessing.
Is not my house full with goods?
Isn't that what God wants?
Amen.
All right.
So coming up, not this Monday, but the following Monday, which I believe is Veterans Day, is also the monthly homeschool day.
So all those homeschoolers that want to bring their families together to do arts, crafts, snacks, and games,
hey, go ahead and reserve a spot with Miss Kylie.
She'll definitely have more details for you.
I heard it was a blessing, the first one, so just something really nice that the church is putting together for all the homeschool children.
November 15th will be the next Cheney Soul-winning event on a Saturday.
It will start at 11 a.m. If you'd like to come down, help knock out that town.
Just let the gets know, and they'll make plans and maps for us, as they usually do.
November 23rd will be the first kids choir practice, and that will be immediately after the morning service.
So getting the kids together to help sing psalms to the Lord for the holidays, just a blessing to us all.
November 30th will be the next men's preaching night, and we're going to mix that with a pie social night.
So basically the Sunday right after Thanksgiving, whether you have some leftovers, you bring in new pies,
you know, just nice fellowship and to hear other men give edification unto the Lord through his word.
Kids, if you'd like to receive a piece of candy this week, you just need to memorize and let Miss Kylie know.
Philippians 4.13, Philippians 4.13, "I can do all things through Christ which strengthen me."
That's the memory verse for the kids this week.
Okay, since I have forgotten so many times before, if you turn to the back of the bulletin, there is birthdays listed here.
I know, news to the person giving the announcements I've heard.
So I apologize for those that have missed.
Josiah Sarr, I wasn't here last Wednesday, was that song? Happy Birthday.
You wouldn't be here on Wednesday, so that would be silly if it wasn't.
But is, I'm being blind, he's right there.
Well, let's go ahead and sing, and also, coming up, oh, and we forgot,
and I don't care, when he gets here, Alejandro will have his song as well,
because he's trying to hide from that.
But, Josiah, us, yes brother, music, awesome, better than my voice.
I thought I was being replaced.
That's it, we're done with your announcements, getting a pro up here.
Alright, so for Josiah, how old are you?
Ten times flies.
Time flies, alright, well, when you're ready.
Thank you so much for coming up and doing this for us.
That, just remember, information down below, rules are all the same.
If you have any prayer requests to add, please let the Thompson's know and they will get it put into the bulletin.
Before that, let's turn to the Lord in prayer.
Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for the beautiful weather it looks like we're having today.
Lord, we just give thanks that we can always come.
If you want to take your Bibles, turn to Psalm number 117.
Psalm number 117.
Thank you, everybody. I apologize. Please pray for the offering.
Everybody, welcome to Shr Foundation Baptist Church. If you could go ahead and take your Bibles and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.
1 Corinthians chapter 5, and as our custom here at Shr Foundation is, we read the entire chapter before the preaching.
1 Corinthians chapter 5, the Bible reads, "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 barely, as absent in the body, but present in the spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and 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 if 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 an 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. Brother Jake, could you please pray for the preaching?
You guys are there in 1 Corinthians chapter number 5. I hope you guys should know pretty well by now.
We're going to focus in on verse number 9 where the Bible says, "I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators."
"And altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or with the extortioners, or with idolaters, for then must needs go out of the world."
"But now have I written unto you not to keep company with 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."
Time out this morning is church discipline. Excuse me, let's pray.
Dear Father God, thank you so much for this wonderful day. Thank you so much for everything you do for us, God.
Thank you so much for everybody that took time out of their weekend to come to church.
I just pray that you would fill me with your Holy Spirit right now, God, and help me to preach and edifying.
Sermon to everybody in this room, and I just pray that you would help me to have a clear train of thought as I preach and help me to deliver the message well that you've put on my heart, God.
I just pray that you would keep me from saying things you don't want me to say and help me to say what you do want me to say very boldly, God.
And I just pray that you would fill us all with your Holy Spirit, and I pray that people would understand this topic more when I'm done with the sermon. Jesus, may I pray? Amen.
Telling my sermon, like I said, again, is church discipline. We're here in 1 Corinthians 5. And before I forget, real quick, I'll say thank you for the donuts and thank you for the turkey that everybody brought.
So I was going to mention this as well. Did we put in the bulletin that we're changing the Thanksgiving to the Tuesday? How did you put that in there? No, not yet. Well, surprise. That's what's going to happen.
So we're going to move the Wednesday service for the week of Thanksgiving to Tuesday, just so everybody has a heads up on that, because we're going to go to visit our parents down in Vancouver.
And so we're going to leave on Wednesday. So it just makes the most sense instead of just having someone else preach or anything like that.
But here in First Corinthians chapter number five, we're going to get into this right away because I got quite a few things to go over.
On Wednesday night, we had quite a few people gone. So I was going to joke and say, I'm just going to re-preach a sermon from Wednesday.
But I'm sure you guys listen on the live stream. And I am just joking when I say that. Hopefully everybody knows that.
I'm a silly, goofy guy sometimes. But on Wednesday, I got lost in the topic of flying monkeys and a bunch of stuff.
And it caused me to kind of not dig into the deepest part of the chapter, which is really the main focus of that chapter is the church discipline.
And I just figured rather than just blasting through that really quickly, which I could have done, I figured I was just going to do a standalone sermon and explain it.
Because this is a very important topic in the Bible. It's a very serious topic when it comes to the church.
And just as an FYI so that we're all on the same page, when I use the phrase church discipline, what we're talking about is being kicked out of church.
Now there's other lesser forms of church discipline where someone could be pulled out of a ministry for some reason or another, but that's not what I'm talking about today.
The church discipline that I'm going to be talking about today is the most severe form which is getting kicked out of the church.
And I'm going to try to stick to calling it church discipline because Brother Jason after the sermon as well informed me because I was using synonyms like excommunication, disfellowship,
but he was like, "Do you know that excommunication is like a Catholic teaching?" And I was like, "I had never heard this before."
But I Googled it because I thought it was interesting, but this is what it says on there. It says, "Excommunication is the formal exclusion from a religious community,
most notably the Roman Catholic Church, and involves barring a person from the sacraments and church offices. It is a severe penalty for grave offenses such as heresy,
abortion, denying papal authority, and though it can be reversed upon repentance, as communication can also refer to the exclusion from any group or community."
So, Brother Jason caught me in my Catholic heresy, so thank you for that. I was just trying to be more appealing so Brother Dane would come back, okay?
But when it comes to that, I'll say this as well on that. I was going to, in the vein of repenting, okay? I was going to preach this sermon on Wednesday about church discipline.
I said that in my sermon, but when I really thought about it, I thought it made a lot more sense to go over church discipline on Sunday because that's when the most people are here.
So it would be most applicable to everybody. So I have repented of what I said, so we're going to go through 1 Corinthians 6 on Wednesday night and then today is going to be the church discipline sermon.
And we already had explained that we're not talking about the lesser kind, we're talking about the more severe kind, about kicking out of church.
Where do we get this doctrine from though in the Bible of church discipline, of kicking people out of church?
Because it's important to realize there is no verse that says like church discipline, but you should realize it's just like with the Trinity or with the Rapture.
Where you can find a teaching in the Bible without that specific name being in the text.
And we see this here in 1 Corinthians 5 verse number 11.
Where the Bible says, "But now I have written unto you not to keep company if 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."
So Paul is saying here that if someone is a brother or a sister in Christ and they're committing one of these sins at the church, we're supposed to go and confront them for it.
If they refuse to repent of that sin, they are to be thrown out of the church, they are to be kicked out of the church.
And I made a big point about this on Wednesday, so I'm not going to really rehash it too much.
But very quickly, we're all on the same page of this, I explained on Wednesday that church discipline applies to brothers and sisters in Christ.
Like if some random unsaved person comes in here and they're committing fornication or they're a drunkard, we're not just going to throw them out of the church because they don't know any better.
We're going to try to preach them the gospel and get them saved.
If Paul specifically signals out, or not signals out, but specifies that this is a brother
or sister in Christ that's doing these things, that's the person that should be kicked out
of the church.
But also, number two is, and very well I'll move past as well, that this is 100% biblical.
People are surprised by this because churches just don't do this very often nowadays.
They don't throw people out of church, but this is straight from the Bible itself.
People are like, "This is a cult quality."
It's like, no, this is a biblical quality.
Throwing people out of the church that are committing these certain sins is straight
from the Bible itself.
And at Sure Foundation Baptist Church, we go by what the Bible says.
And if people were going by what the Bible says all the time on this subject, you'd see
more people getting thrown out of church.
But what it is is that people have all these manlogics and these reasons why this shouldn't
apply.
They'll be like, "Well..."
They'll give you that analogy where the church is the doctor and they're the person that's
sick.
It's like, we understand this, but here's the reality.
Paul says right here that there's people that you should throw out of the church when they
refuse to repent of the sins that they are committing.
And I explained how that's not salvation, but we're not going to get into that too much.
Here's the main details I want to point out for this sermon though.
The main point of this sermon that I'm going to go over is this.
Number one, what are the sins that'll get you kicked out of this church?
And number two, what is the point of church discipline?
Why do we kick people out of the church?
Those are the two main subjects I want to cover this morning.
So we'll start with the first one.
Number one is this, sins that'll get you kicked out of church.
This starts off pretty easy because we see a lot of them right in this chapter right
here.
Read that verse one more time in verse number 11, it says, "But now I have written unto
you not to keep company if 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 and one no not to
eat."
So I'm not going to really, I'm going to touch where I think needs to be touched on
these subjects, but I think a lot of them are very self-explanatory.
Like fornication, for example, if you're just going around and sleeping with people when
you're not married, the Bible says that this is fornication, that will get you thrown out
of the church.
That is a sin that you can't allow to just fester in this church.
That's what Paul's directly addressing in 1 Corinthians chapter five, because this is
a sin that can spread to people very easily.
This is a very, very common sin to man.
So Paul's saying you cannot allow this at church, it'll make everybody at the church
start committing this sin, or it'll encourage them at the very least, or it's just the hideous
blot to the church as well.
Then we have covetous, which it could manifest in many forms, but I would think that the
most obvious example would be someone stealing or promising money and then not giving it,
or coveting after someone's wife or their property, like the Bible says in the Ten Commandments.
So those will obviously get you kicked out of the church.
Something I want to bring up with covetous though, about being covetous, is that this
is a commandment that sometimes people take to a weird extent, and I just don't like when
people do that with commandments.
Like, one time, and this is what I'm talking about, in youth group, there was a kid one
time who was talking to me about the sin of covetousness, he was like, "Man, this is probably
the sin that we commit the most as Christians because we're probably just constantly coveting
and coveting and coveting because coveting is just wanting something that you don't have."
I've never taken the definition of covetous to mean that though, and I don't think it
makes sense with what the Bible teaches here, and I really don't like when people do this
with commandments because I think it downplays the uprightness and the justness of God with
Him putting forth His commandments.
When people make commandments impossible, I just don't like that.
People do the same thing with praying without ceasing and with other examples about that,
but coveting is not just wanting something that you don't have.
It's wanting something that's not yours that you can't have or that you could never have
or wanting something in a way that it makes you uncontent or unsatisfied, right?
It's like, for example, just for these things, if I'm like, "Oh man, I want to buy a new
car.
I'm going to go get a new car."
It's like, I'm not coveting by being like, "I want to get a new car," because I can go
out and buy a car.
But if I wanted the nicest of the nice cars, I'm like, "I want to get a Lamborghini, okay?
I don't know what we're going to do with the kids, but I'm going to be driving to touch
a Lamborghini," right?
It's like, that would be covetous because that's not in my price range, and if I was
allowing that to affect me to the point where I'm getting jealous of someone else, that
would be being covetous, or another example, if my wife makes rice and beans for dinner
and then I see someone else's wife on Facebook, they post it, they have some nice T-bone steak,
I'm like, "I want that steak, really bad, I want these rice and beans," right?
That would be coveting, okay?
And again, I bring this up because people do this with quite a few commitments, like
the praying without ceasing.
I've brought that up before, but they'll be like, "If you're not praying 24/7, 365,
you're sinning."
This is not what that verse is actually teaching though.
It's saying that there should never be a time in your life where you're not praying.
Because you cannot literally pray without ceasing.
You can't take that to a literal extreme because you have to sleep for eight hours a day, right?
So unless you're trying to be like, I don't know, you're going to be praying and dreaming
and praying in your dreams and stuff like that, it's not going to happen though.
Or here's another one people do this on as well, I think.
The thought of foolishness, which you can disagree with me on this if you want to, but
sometimes people will act like, in my opinion, that if you just have something pop up in
your brain, that that's automatically sinful.
I just don't believe this though, because there are some things that you can choose
to think about.
You can choose to think about something bad, right, or foolish, but then there's just like,
they call it like intrusive thoughts, thoughts just pop into your brain.
I don't think that that's sinful because you can't control that.
You know what I mean?
Like I don't think like, like if you dwell on that thought though, that would be sinful,
you should move past that.
But just like people, when again, they're making like a commandment almost impossible
to follow.
But I don't like that because something can pop up in your brain and you can push past
it.
And I don't think that that's you having a foolish thought.
Okay.
That's why they call them like an intrusive thought.
Like it invades your brain when you don't want it to be there in the first place.
I could go on with that, but I'm probably not going to do the next thing that it brings
on is this is idolaters.
Some people that are idolatrous, they should be kicked out of church.
Obviously, I feel like this is not a very common send to America.
If you're going home and rubbing your Buddha statues belly when you go home, that is obviously
just not okay, right?
Or I think a more applicable example of this would probably be people having statues of
God or of Jesus Christ in their house or images of God or Jesus in their house, which I'll
kind of touch on in a little bit in a second.
But I want you guys to go to Acts 17, 29 real quick, Acts 17, verse number 29.
We obviously shouldn't have a false God statue in your house, but you shouldn't have a statue
or an image of Jesus Christ as well from the Bible or of God or of the Holy Spirit or anything
like that.
And we see this from multiple places in the Bible.
Like Acts 17, 29 where the Bible says, "For as much then as we are the offspring of God,
we ought not think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone or graven by
art and man's devices."
The Bible says we can't capture the glory and the majesty and the holiness of God in
our own devices on earth, so we shouldn't do it in the first place.
And also, nobody is seeing the face of God and lives, so how are you going to make an
image of him?
You literally can't make an image of him, so why would you do that?
God doesn't want you to do that.
He specifically says right there that you're not supposed to be doing that as a Christian.
Don't make images of God.
Don't make pictures of Jesus.
We don't have to serve God in that way.
And again, it does a disservice to his glory and it's literally impossible to make like
an accurate image of God because again, nobody's seen his face.
But then this is what the Bible also says in John 4 24.
It says this, God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and
in truth.
How are you going to make a picture of a spirit?
You can't do that, right?
So God doesn't want you to make a picture of him anyway.
So just stay away from those kinds of things.
And also what did that verse say, it says, they that worship him must worship him in spirit
and in truth.
How are we supposed to pray and worship God?
It's not by making an idol and image and bowing down to it or kissing an icon of it.
Our God is much more powerful than that.
You can pray to God, you can bow down and pray to him anywhere and serve him because
our God is powerful enough to hear us from anywhere, okay?
So you don't need to, don't serve God in a way that he doesn't want you to.
Serve him in spirit and in truth, which is what?
Going down and just praying to the God of heaven, not to any item or to any statue or
any figure on this earth.
That's what he wants from you.
Also I bring up that Paul says that when you're serving idols, when you're worshiping idols,
you're actually worshiping devils.
So there's that.
And then an honorable mention as well is that nobody knows what Jesus Christ looked like
because, you know, I could, because for the God, the father and the Holy spirit, you
could say like God's a spirit.
So how are you going to make an image of him?
But well, Jesus was manifest in the flesh, but the thing about that is nobody knows what
he looked like.
So why would we make an image of Jesus and the image of Jesus that's out there right
now is wrong.
They make him white.
They make him have long hair.
They make him look like he's a hippie, like he's some effeminate man.
And that's because people are going past what God wants in serving Jesus Christ.
He wants you to serve him in spirit and in truth.
Going back to first Corinthians, they'll go back to first Corinthians five and we'll
look at the next kind of part on that list.
I would give a little bit of a caveat though, which again, you can disagree with this, but
I think this makes sense.
Someone just having like a picture of Jesus in their house or having like some kind of
little, you know, Jesus statue, like a little like, I wouldn't maybe say statue because
it's a bad conversation, but like a little figurine or something like that.
I don't think that's throughout the church worthy because I think there's a difference
in making us like a graven image.
I think that's its own sin and then there's bowing down and worshiping it, which would
make it idolatry.
That's my own opinion.
You don't have to agree with me, but I don't think that if someone just had like a graven
image per se of Jesus Christ in the house, that means that like you should throw them
out of church.
That's just my opinion.
Where are we at here?
I had you guys, I don't know why I did this.
You guys should have went to Jude one nine.
That's where I meant to have you guys go to, go to Jude one nine.
Just keep your finger there in verse Corinthians five, I guess, Jude one verse number nine.
You guys are going to Jude one verse number nine.
The next thing I'm going to be talking about on this list is railers.
And this is probably the one that people get confused about the most in churches.
But our official position on what railing is, our pastor's position on this, our church's
official position on this, is that a railer is someone that is a false accuser or someone
that is a slanderer, according to the Bible.
And you guys are there in Jude one nine.
Look at what the Bible says again.
It says, "Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about
the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, 'The
Lord rebuked thee.'"
So rather than bringing a false accusation or a slanderous accusation to the devil, Michael
the archangel just says, "The Lord rebuked thee."
Because a lot of times when people get mad, they'll start to falsely accuse someone or
they'll give railing for railing or they'll give evil speech for evil speech.
But the Bible is commending Michael the archangel here and saying, "He didn't do this with the
devil and so we shouldn't do this with people as well."
Because if you were going to do this to anybody, it would be the devil basically, right?
That's kind of the thought he's bringing up, but he's like, "Not even against the devil
did Michael the archangel bring up a railing accusation, but he said, 'The Lord rebuked
thee.'"
There's a couple things I want to touch about this, because obviously if you substitute
false accusation right there, it makes sense with it, or a slanderous accusation, it makes
sense.
Here's what really doesn't make sense to me.
A lot of people will say that railing is just like mean speech, or they'll say it's harsh
speech, but it's like the problem with that is that harsh speech and mean speech is in
the Bible all the time.
So how could you kind of hold it to that standard?
I mean, even in that chapter with Jude, he is ripping on these false prophets in that
chapter or in 2nd Peter as well.
So I just don't think it makes sense to label this as just mean speech or just harsh speech.
Lots of things are harsh in the Bible, lots of things are mean and none of it is railing.
When people say abusive speech, what is abusive speech though?
Like people just throw out these things, okay?
Now as a little bit of a side note to this, in my own personal opinion, again, I said
the church of the physical position, this is different, this is what my own opinion
is, I think railing extends a little bit past just slanderous accusations and false accusations,
but in my belief it is under the umbrella of these things, okay?
And I just bring that up because I think that, like, you can have a different opinion about
that without just thinking that it's mean or harsh speech, okay, because I don't believe
that at all.
It doesn't fall under that umbrella, like mean speech or whatever.
You guys are there in Jude 1-9, where am I going to have you guys go?
Go back to 1 Corinthians 5-11 if you left from that spot, 1 Corinthians 5, number 11.
Here's what I want to bring up about railing though.
People will weaponize railing a lot.
I've seen people do this a lot and I think it's a really cringe thing to do and I think
it's something that we should not be doing as Christians.
And what I mean by that is this, when people will get in an argument sometimes, brother
and brother in Christ, okay, or sister and sister in Christ, they'll just like look to
nitpick little things that they're saying that are like maybe slightly not true or they're
not like, you know, like some little detail that they messed up and then they'll take
it in the back, oh, Raylor, kick him out of the church, they're railing on me, wicked
as hell.
And I think we will do that, you are doing a disservice to what real railing is, okay.
That's not what God is intending here, like this is a big enough sin to get you kicked
out of church, messing up like a little detail in something is not what railing is, in my
opinion, okay.
Like let me give you a good example, say me and brother Ryan are having an argument, I'm
like brother Ryan I saw you leave the church at 9 o'clock yesterday and you were wearing
a white shirt and then if we're beefing he'd be like oh no, no, no, I have the video evidence
that I didn't leave at 9 o'clock, I left at 9.01 actually buddy and by the way as well
I wasn't wearing a white shirt, it's cream, come check the tag on the shirt, it's cream
actually.
That's so silly but that's what people do in arguments with each other, they'll like
bring up these little dumb things and I just think that's a silly thing to be doing as
Christians. Real railing is bringing like a real legitimate slanderous accusation, not
just some little mess up in the details of something okay.
And also when it comes to the subject of railing, there's a couple of things I want you to understand
about this.
Number one is that railing cannot be about something subjective, it can't be something
based on opinion.
What I mean by that is this, if someone came up to me and said, "Brother Remy, last week's
sermon was the best sermon I've ever heard preached," like oh man, thank you very much
right, but then if someone else came up to me and they're like, "Brother Remy, last
week's sermon was the worst sermon I've ever heard preached," okay, I thought it sucked,
okay.
That's rude.
You might catch these hands for saying that, okay, not literally but metaphorically right?
That's like extremely rude, but what it is not is it's not railing, okay.
The reason why is because that is subjective.
It's a matter of opinion.
Someone could really listen to my sermon and be like, "That sermon sucked."
That is within their bounds and within their right to believe that, okay.
Here's the difference though.
What if someone came to me and said, "Remy, that was the worst sermon you've ever preached."
And I think it's because last night you weren't studying for your sermon.
You were just binge watching YouTube all night with no evidence.
Could you consider that railing?
Probably, right?
Because that's like just a straight up slander.
But going on the same part of that analogy, what if someone said that same thing, you
know, but then I had a live stream of myself last night on like Twitch or something like
that, and I was like, staying up binge watching YouTube videos online, okay?
And then they said, that's why I think your sermon sucked.
Could you, would you consider that railing?
Because someone could technically be like, well, technically they don't know that's why
my sermon sucked.
But what I'd submit to you is this, is that when someone has decent evidence, or they
have at least at the very least like circumstantial evidence to bring up a logical, you know,
accusation or assumption, that that would not be considered railing either.
So I just, I just bring this up because I think people get lost in this sometimes and
they just throw this word around without really thinking about the repercussions of it.
But just slipping up one time in your speech is not railing in my opinion, okay?
It's not the railing that's going to get you thrown out of the church, okay?
I just, people get weird with this kind of stuff.
Railing can't be subjective though and you can't say that something's railing when you're
making it, when you're basing an accusation or assumption off of a logical conclusion.
You guys are there in 1 Corinthians 5, verse number 11 though.
Here's another example of just, here's like, I'm going to give you a clear example of railing.
If I just was like, you know, Donald Trump, he's a homosexual.
He's a sodomite.
Okay.
That would just be railing, right?
Because I have no evidence to say that.
Maybe there's some evidence out there.
Okay.
Hopefully not.
Same thing with Joe Biden.
You're like, Joe Biden is this and that.
I don't know.
People, I'm sure now I'm going to get like a bunch of like, oh no, you didn't see this
video.
Just listen, just take the example for what it is.
Okay.
Don't don't nitpick it right now.
Okay.
But in 1 Corinthians 5, verse number 11, we're going to move on to the next thing.
But this is what I want to say, another railing that people will bring against us.
They'll say this about our church, they'll say Church Foundation Baptist Church teaches
that we should just go out and murder members of the LGBTQ community.
We've never said that and we don't believe that.
And I've been on the record many times and I'll say it again, we do not believe that
it is just right to just go out and murder people indiscriminately or just to go out
and murder people because they we think that they've broken some law from the Bible.
We have always taught and we always will teach because this is what the Bible teaches that
someone should be put to death by the government period not vigilante justice anybody that
would go and just you know take the law into their own hands is breaking the Bible they're
sinning because that's not within their authority but also too it's one of the dumbest things
ever because you're going to waste your life executing judgment that's supposed to be
God's judgment he says vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord I will repay you're going to waste
your life in jail for what for nothing because you should be out and preaching the gospel
because that's our fight on this earth it's a spiritual warfare that we engage in so that
would be railing as well here's another thing I want to touch about with railing before
I move on from it is that if you're finding yourself having to nitpick people's words
to make someone a railer you're probably on shaky ground and why I say that is because
like if you take an example of Jesus Christ in the Bible who says go and tell that fox
Herod right or if he says like to the scribes and Pharisees like they're vipers they're
they're snakes right if you're being like really stupid or really literal you could
be like well Jesus is calling him a fox and Herod is clearly a human he's not
literally a fox right but what he's using there is a metaphor you guys
understand what I mean so the reason I bring that up is because people also do
that with when they're mad at someone they'll nitpick their words like that
and they'll start to like go hyper literal and hyper like just like they
go they go weird okay another example is if I say that you're a clown which is
not a good thing to say or it's not a nice thing to say okay using examples
okay said you're a clown you're a bozo so we'll be like actually I'm a carpenter
I'm not a literal clown I mean like I don't paint my face and put a red nose
on my you know face and honk it right but what do I mean when I say that it's
a metaphor right it's like you're saying you're you're dumb right so I just bring
that up because people will nitpick people's words sometimes like that and
it's like you should realize that in our speech words change meaning and when you
throw them out to people sometimes you're not always meaning that they're
literally that thing okay I was kind of a little thought experiment this is what I
like to do I like to think about stuff like that but like I don't know people
just get weird on stuff like this and I think it's it does a disservice to what
real railing is that's my point in bringing this all up next thing on that
list though is a drunkard you guys are there in first Corinthians 511 so what
is a drunkard though it's someone that's continually drunk someone that's always
drinking someone that's like needing alcohol to function in their day-to-day
life like we had I had a co-worker in Vancouver that was such a drunkard and
it was really sad because he's even younger than I was he's such a drunkard
though and couldn't function without without alcohol that he was going to the
store mid shift and buying bottles of alcohol that he could drink at work you
like smell it on his breath he had getting fired I don't know if it was for
that or if it was something adjacent to that but it was like he was such a
drunkard that he couldn't function in his daily life and that is what a
drunkard is okay you should make no mistake about it and and I obviously
wouldn't try to like you know say that drinking alcohol is good we believe
that drinking alcohol you know is not a good thing at this church but someone
drinking one drink of alcohol is not a drunkard we should all understand that
okay that's just clear from the Bible okay and again you I'm not an advocate
for that in any way shape or form but you should just be honest with what the
text says because just like seeing that someone drank like one beer which by
the way I've never had alcohol in my life so whenever I talk about this stuff
it's just like on another like dimension to me I'm like what is alcohol but like
the only thing I've had is Nyquil for as far as alcohol goes but like that is not
a drunkard okay and I'm gonna get I'm not saying that this is a good thing I'm
just saying that this is the reality of what I was saying it says a drunkard
here not just someone who drinks one sip of alcohol and the last thing on that
list is an extortioner so I mean if you're part of the Spokane Mafia like
like why are you coming to this church it's like I came to change my life at
this church man it's like okay like you can change your life but it's like you
can't be extorting people right I mean this is so like I think this would be
more applicable to like the cartel or to like gangs just like that like in
America I mean we do have gangs I guess but it's like not only maybe like the
level of like the cartel or something crazy like that like I don't know if
people really being extorted nowadays maybe I'm sure there is people but at
church I don't know if I've ever seen that before that'd be pretty crazy okay
but all this to say this is that if you're committing any of the sins on
this list you will be confronted for if there's witnesses if there's evidence or
something that shows it or you admit it with your own mouth you will be
confronted for it and if you're a saved Christian you will be asked to quit
doing that thing you'll be asked to repent of that sin to stop doing it and
if you don't if you say no I'm not leaving the mob that's my family okay
you're gonna get thrown out of the church okay that is what the Bible is
teaching here unless you're a good mobster that's not a story people right
okay okay go to Matthew 18 verse number 15 though I've listed kind of like a lot
of things that you can be kicked out for right there and that is a big chunk of
them but this is not an all-inclusive list because there is more sins that can
get you kicked out of the church and we see one here in Matthew 18 verse number
15 the Bible says moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee go
and tell him his fault between thee and him alone if he shall hear thee thou
has gained thy brother two things I want to bring about this is that number one
is that most people don't actually do this verse what these verses are teaching
right here in Matthew 18 because we kind of I don't know this is just our
culture if it's every culture all time because you know there's no new thing
under the Sun people are just very passive aggressive and they'd rather
than you know fixing their issues with someone they'll just go and tell
everybody else at the church what's going on so that they can get them on
their side for like an argument okay this is carnal though this breaks down
the unity of churches is not what you be doing the Bible says here if you want to
you're free to go and confront someone when they've offended you when they've
done you wrong but it should between be between you and them alone firstly is
what the Bible says but notice what that says there it says alone so if you're
gonna go confront someone was the Bible teaching here that you take them off to
the side and you deal with them apart from everybody else okay this should
just be common sense because here's the thing about this number one no we don't
want visitors seeing people arguing in front of church that's cringe that's not
seemingly that's not what's gonna promote a good image for our church
number two is that when you confront someone in public it's just awkward it's
awkward for everybody and you're really not gonna solve the situation because
most time when you make a situation awkward like that nobody's gonna they're
gonna be focused on everybody else looking at them instead of what you're
even actually talking to them about right but also number three is that if
you want to actually fix an issue with someone when you confront them they're
way more likely to hear you if you're alone instead of in front of everybody
else right this is common sense when I go and take and correct people I'm not
gonna do it for the whole church though there's a time and place for that
because it does say like David sin review before all it's not what he's
talking about right here though but when I'm gonna go confront someone
initially it's gonna be in private it's gonna be in loan and the reason why
fourthly is because this is what Jesus Christ said to do you're supposed to go
to that person alone is what the Bible teaches so if you want to go confront
someone you are within your balance as a Christian do that but do what the Bible
says in this situation not just whatever you want to do okay but if they go and
talk to them alone and they don't hear you what do you do look at verse number
16 it says but if he will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that
in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established so if you
go to someone privately you try to confront them for whatever they did you
wrong whatever they offended you in and they don't hear you you grab one or two
more people and then you tell them your side of the story and then you go and
confront that person with those witnesses or with the one witness and in
that situation the witnesses are gonna judge who's right and wrong and say hey
because you might bring that to someone and the witness might be like dude you're
out to lunch on this like what are you talking about right here or they might
be like hey you have a solid case let's go and confront this and deal with this
issue and I would just plan as well that this should probably be a serious
offense not just like hey your kid stole my pencil like oh Matthew 18 bring him
before the church right this should probably be about something that's a
pretty big deal not just willy-nilly but you're supposed to go to them with the
witnesses and if the witness is judged that the person that you're accusing is
wrong then they should listen to what the two witnesses judge in this
situation but what if they don't what they say I don't care what these people
say I don't I'm gonna do whatever I want but what verse number 17 says it says
and if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the church but if he
neglect to hear the church let him be unto thee as a heathen man and as a
publican so once you deal with the two witnesses so you go alone first then
with witnesses and if they don't hear those two first reproofs then you bring
it before the church and the church is gonna make a judgment on this but in
this context what I believe this is talking about is the leadership of the
church and I'm gonna explain to you why I believe that but just know if you have
a situation like this where you bring two witnesses to someone they judge they
don't hear you you should bring it to either me or you should bring it to our
pastor pastor Thompson in Vancouver that's what we believe and the person
that refuses to hear the church should be thrown out of the church and they
should be treated as a heathen as a publican. Now I know that there's people
that would push back and say well this first actually didn't say church
leadership though it said the church which is true okay this is true but
here's what I wanted to say this I thought really hard about this and I've
studied a lot about this because this is a topic that's a little bit confusing
but I think when you take a step back and look at how the Bible deals with
judgment issues and with leadership issues it is very clear that this is
talking about the leadership that's appointed by the church okay why do I say
that number one if you go back to when Israel is first formed who is the who is
the head honcho who is the leader of Israel when they first form Moses is
right Moses is the one who makes the judgment calls he appoints people under
them to hear matters that are not as big but and in that situation in this
analogy that I would use for you that would be the pastor appointing like
deacons or like different church workers to handle different little minor things
okay but if a matter was too hard for them they took it to Moses and Moses
had the final say in the decision he had the final judgment on that matter
okay then from Moses to Samuel that's how it was and then from Saul to
Zedekiah again you have what one man making the judgment maybe they had
people under them but you have the one man the king that is making the final
judgment call in that situation okay then we get all the way up to the
scribes and Pharisees time which is here in Matthew 18 but when Jesus is
referring to the church right here you should just realize that this isn't
quite the church that we would be familiar with okay because at this time
when he's writing this is a still technically Old Testament even though
it's found in the new right they're meeting in temples right they're meeting
the temple they're meeting in the synagogue they're not just meeting in
random and in like a church building proper how we would do nowadays okay but
I bring that up because when Jesus is bringing this up if they had an issue
back in this time did they just bring the whole congregation together to judge
a situation to get someone to another church no they did not who had the power
to throw people out of the temple out of the synagogues at the time of Jesus
Christ in Matthew 18 right here the scribes and Pharisees and the high
priest was the head honcho of all of these things right this is what Bible
teaches go to Matthew 23 verse number one real quick Matthew 23 verse number
one Matthew 23 verse number one again I wouldn't just lightly say this without
doing some kind of proper research in this and you can disagree with me on
this but I just would I find it hard to find a position that makes sense if
you're just talking about your brain things before the whole literal church
and having like a courtroom session okay and you guys are there in Matthew 23 look what it says
it says then spake Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples saying the
scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses seat they have the authority of Moses is what
Jesus Christ says here all their support whatsoever they bid you observe that
observe and do but do you not have to their works for they say and do not what
is one of the powers that the scribes and Pharisees clearly had from the Bible
they had the right to throw people out of the temple at the synagogue they did
If you look at John 9, you see with the blind man, his parents were even too afraid to speak for him because they knew that they would get thrown out of the church by the scribes and Pharisees, which obviously isn't a good thing right there, but that is the example that we see in the Bible. That's what we see from the Bible. But nowadays, in the New Testament, who sits in Moses' seat? Who has the authority of the church nowadays? In the New Testament, it is the pastor of the church. It is the elders of the church that they have multiple, right? It would be the ordained leadership of the church. And what I would submit to you,
from these verses is this, is that when the pastor speaks, he speaks on the authority on the behalf of the church.
He represents the church when he makes a judgment in a situation, okay?
Because this is what I want you to, this is what I, the reason I bring this all up is this,
is because people get this idea from these verses that like we should literally be holding like court sessions.
It's like, okay everybody, let's, this is Judge Judy Baptist's edition, okay?
So we're gonna have case 266, Hanson versus Getz, okay?
Brother Paul, all rise by the way and Brother Paul bring up your witnesses
and then Brother Ryan bring up your witnesses
and then we're gonna have a cross examination up here.
This is nonsense though, that's not what the Bible's teaching right here.
This is not what we would do and we'd spend more time in church holding court
than you would actually be like preaching if this was the case, right?
This is not what we see from the Bible though, like we don't see this happening.
We see one man making the judgment, the final judgment on these situations
and so what I would submit to you nowadays, this is the reality,
that the pastor of the church and his leadership that he's ordained
would judge these kinds of matters
and the decision that they make on the matter is the decision of the church.
I think that makes sense with what you see from the system in the Bible
and I think that makes sense with what we see in real life as well,
which I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself,
but I would just say the pastor speaks on behalf of the church, okay?
It's like this, I said this earlier in the sermon,
when I said our position as a church on, you know, railing I said,
or another example, our position as a church on divorce or remarriage is XYZ, right?
When I say that, I mean it is the church's position, right?
But why is it the church's position?
Because that's what the pastor of the church has set in charge, right?
That's the reality of things.
And this makes sense even in, again I said like in our nowadays system,
because in the United States we have a similar system to this.
We don't just have a democracy.
And by the way, that's what I wanted to bring up.
You never see just a democracy in the Bible.
This is just like a man-made thing that we do.
We don't see just like a democracy where they're electing the head leader in the Bible.
It's always God that's choosing the leaders and he chooses one leader every time.
Because, maybe I shouldn't overstep myself, but I just say this.
In America we do the same thing.
When you vote for the president, are you really voting for the president?
You're not.
What do you vote?
You're voting to tell your elector, your representative,
the one who sits in Congress what you want to happen.
And then he actually is the one who makes the decision on behalf of who?
Washington State.
So I think it's the same thing with the pastor.
If you take that analogy and say this, your vote in this analogy though is this.
You get to choose what church you go to.
But then once you choose that church, your pastor is the representative for the beliefs and the doctrines of the church.
And he is the one who represents Sure Foundation Baptist Church.
He's the one who speaks for Sure Foundation Baptist Church.
I think this is what makes sense from the Bible.
Because here's what doesn't make sense.
You're going to have like a court session and then things are not done decently in order.
Because how are you even going to manage something like that?
And then you're going to have a situation like this where you have like one bozo that should be kicked out of the church.
But then you have like three large families that make up like 51% of the church.
And they're like actually pastor you suck. We're going to go with this guy instead.
You can just kick rocks out of your own church.
We run the church now. It's actually the church members that run the church now.
It's not what you see in the Bible ever. That's never the example you see.
You always see a man appointed by God that makes the decisions for the whole congregation,
for the whole church, for the whole church. This is the reality of things.
And again if you disagree, you can disagree because that verse doesn't lay that out exactly one for one.
But I just don't understand how you can make a system that is decently in order
when you're running church like a democracy like that. It doesn't make sense.
America doesn't even run under democracy. It's a representative democracy, right?
Representative democracy? Republic, there we go, right?
Republican? No.
Go to Hebrews 13 verse number 7. Hebrews 13 verse number 7.
Because just having the situation where like the pastor wants to throw someone out of the church
for breaking something from the Bible and then like the church members are going to hold him hostage.
That's not, again, you don't see this in any area of life in government, but also just in anything.
It's like, it's the husband that's the head of the household. It's the boss that's the head of the servants.
It's always one person, okay, that is leading these things. It's not just like a democracy in any other form of life.
So I don't know why it would be that way in church. I think it would be bizarre. I think it would be weird.
It would cause disorder and chaos, okay?
Hebrews 13, verse number seven, the Bible says right here, it says, "Remember them which have the rule over you,
who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation."
The pastor is not just like a passerby of the church, he's just kind of like, "I just get up here and it's just like,
I don't have any authority, we're just kind of all equal."
It says, "Obey them that have the rule over you right here," right?
It says, in verse 17 as well, it says, "Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves,
for they watch for your souls, that they may give account, that they may do it with joy and not with grief,
for that is unprofitable for you."
Go to Romans 16, verse number 17.
Romans 16, verse number 17, I've kind of made my point on that.
This is again, I do believe that I did a call or a pacifist is what I do believe that he believes for the most part.
Maybe like a little bit of differences or something like that.
But for the most part, I think this makes sense.
And this just makes sense when you see the customs of other churches as well.
Like when, like maybe I'm just mistaken, but like are there other Baptist churches out there that are holding like Judge Judy court sessions
where they're like, all rise, and like they got the gavel, silent, oh what do they say?
What do they, not silence, order in the court, yeah.
Good night on space and what in the world is that?
You guys are going to Romans 16 verse number 17.
One thing I'm going to skip just for time's sake, because we are running short on time,
is that in 2nd Thessalonians there's another thing you can get kicked out of church for,
which is someone being a bum at the church is just mooching off of people that's refusing to work,
and notice refusing to work, not just that they can't work because they're disabled, right?
That person, the Bible says that you should mark and avoid them,
and it uses the same exact language as 1 Corinthians 5 as well.
But here in Romans 16 verse 17 we have the kind of last proper mention of getting kicked out of the church, if you will.
Romans 16, 17 says this, "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them.
For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly,
and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple."
So this is the last kind of thing that I'll focus on for things that can get you kicked out of this church in Romans 16.
He says if you're causing divisions, if you're causing offenses contrary to the doctrine that we believe is the church, you should be marked and avoided, okay?
And I mean, obviously, like, 'cause there's different levels of heresy on this, 'cause I've talked about before, like, little minor things are not the biggest deal.
If you disagree with who the two witnesses are in Revelation, you're not getting bounced out of the church for that, okay?
But on a bigger doctrine, you can get bounced out.
Like, if someone was in here, like, a major heresy but maybe not damnable, if you're saying, like, "Yeah, it's all good if we pray to Mary," if you're just, like, teaching that to other people
and you're like, "Oh, yeah, you should be praying to Mary," as a matter of fact, take a hike, Jack, right?
But a damnable heresy, 'cause that's -- maybe I'll explain this -- I'm gonna talk about that, 'cause you guys would be like, "Praying to Mary?"
Okay, I'll talk about it at the church, though, just for time's sake, but a damnable heresy, though, would be this.
If someone was going around teaching like, "Oh, yeah, Jesus isn't really God, by the way," or if someone's like, "Oh, yeah, by the way, it takes circumcision and keeping the law of Moses to get to heaven,"
a damnable heresy, they would be thrown out of the church for that, and we should treat them the same way they told us in Matthew 18 as a heathen and as a publican.
And according to 1 Corinthians 5, you're not even supposed to eat with that person, is what it says.
You're supposed to have no fellowship with them.
You're supposed to mark them, which means point them out, and then you're supposed to avoid them,
which means this, they're not allowed to come back to the church.
We have broken fellowship with them, and until they repent, they will stay outside the church.
And the Bible says you're not even supposed to eat with them, so you should avoid them as well
when the pastor makes that decision to kick someone out.
This segues kind of nicely though into the last few things I want to bring up about this,
about sins they'll get you kicked out of church. Number one is this, there are some people that get kicked out of church
and there is no hope for restoration from them. Once they get kicked out, they're not coming back, okay?
And one of the most clear examples of this would be someone that is just a reprobate,
someone that's a hater of God, someone that's like a pedophile. They're going to be kicked out of church
and they will not be allowed to come back to the church. But also, you see these verses right here
when it says that when someone's causing divisions, contrary to the doctrine that you've learned
and they're teaching things that are like damnable heresies, Paul is saying they don't serve
our Lord Jesus Christ, they serve their own bellies. And what I would take from that is this,
is that if someone is found out to be a false prophet, or they're found out to be a wolf,
someone that's twice dead, that's a reprobate, that's without hope of salvation,
that person would be kicked out of the church, and they would never be allowed to come back into the church.
And again, we're talking about big, because I would make this caveat.
You can get kicked out for teaching some dumb doctrine.
Like if someone was going around teaching, like, "Hey, it's not a sin to not get that ties."
Like, who cares? Like, just do, I mean, it's optional.
I have a feeling, knowing my dad, that if someone was going around teaching that,
you would get booted from the church for teaching that, okay?
It's not damnable, but it's dumb. But if they repented of that,
they could become, they could come back into the church, right?
But if someone had been here for like 10 years and they know what the true gospel is,
and then all of a sudden they start just whispering to people and being like,
"Maybe we should listen to the pope. Maybe we do need circumstances to get saved.
Maybe you could lose your salvation. Maybe we do need to keep the law to be saved."
That person would be kicked out and they would not be allowed to come back.
Because this is what people don't understand.
That person's not just confused at that point.
It's not like they're just like, "Oh, I just mixed up faith and being at work."
So I mean, it happens to the best of us.
Someone who knows the true gospel like that and then purposely perverts it,
the Bible says that they're a false prophet, they're a child of the devil,
and we're not going to let those kind of people come to our church.
So if someone is doing something like that, they're going to be kicked out,
and they're not going to be allowed to come back into the church.
And again, this manifests as false prophets with these false teachings,
but it also manifests as people that are like pedophiles
and people that are haters of God and things like this.
They will be kicked out of church and they will not be allowed to come back
because we're going to protect the people of this church.
That is the goal for this church to protect the children,
protect the people of this church just in general.
Go to 2 Corinthians 2, verse number one.
This is the last place I'll have you guys turn.
2 Corinthians 2, verse number one.
The last place I'll have you guys turn to.
I've listed a lot of things that can get you kicked out of church so far in this sermon,
but I will just be upfront with you and I'll tell you this.
I do not believe that even all the verses that we've gone over
is an inclusive list of everything that can get you kicked out of church.
I think that the... I would say this.
I think that the pastor has discretion to kick people out of the church
for things not directly named in the Bible.
And you could disagree with that, but you'd be silly to,
because here's the reality of things.
You already agreed with me when I just said that if someone's a pedophile,
they should be kicked out and not allowed into the church.
Show me the chapter and verse that says that.
Show me the chapter and verse that says if someone's a pedophile,
someone's a reprobate, they're not allowed to come back in the church.
You should throw them out and not let them come back in.
There's never a verse that says that. This is why I bring this up, because that's what the Spirit of the Law teaches you, that's what we extrapolate from other principles in the Bible to come to that conclusion, okay?
And so when it comes to this, I bring this up because I've seen people that will get thrown out of the church and then that person will say, "Under what grounds do you have to throw me out? Under what verse? Under what authority do you have to throw me out of the church?"
Here's why, they're the pastor of the church, they're the leader of the church, they're the one that you're supposed to submit to so they can throw you out of the church.
Now, if someone was just being crazy, just throwing me about willy-nilly, I mean, I don't know if that would ever happen, but if it did, that'd be a whole different subject.
But I'm just going to say this, I've seen pastors do this in an attempt to protect the church and then people, they get all like, "Well, show me the exact verse that shows where this situation would get you kicked out of the church."
Show me the exact situation where a pedophile gets kicked out of the church from the Bible.
Show me that. If you can't prove that, then you have to admit that there are things outside of what's directly listed from the laws of the Bible that would get someone kicked out of church.
But here's the news flash. The Bible doesn't list out every single thing that you could be kicked out of the church for because the reality of things is that it would never end if that was the case.
I've talked about the spirit of the law before, but this is true. If the Bible had to nitpick and point out every single little thing that could cause someone to get kicked out of the church, the Bible would never end.
We'd still be reading it. I'm still on my first time through, brother. Well, I'm working to get in there, right?
The Bible and the law expects us to go with what the spirit of verses are teaching even when it's not directly in the letter of them.
And again, I've talked about that before and I've proved that before, but I bring this up because of this.
For another good example of something that will get you kicked out of this church is that if you're trying to rip people out of church,
if you're trying to pull people from church or you're trying to split the church,
you will be thrown out of this church and you will not be allowed to come back in, unless you repent and say, "I'm sorry for doing that."
And the reason for that, someone would be like, "Show me the chapter and verse that says that. Show me the chapter and verse that says that."
But I would just submit to you this, logically, if I went to any Baptist church around here, any Baptist church,
if I went to the church, I said, "Hey," to the members, "This pastor sucks. Come to my church instead.
Why are you going to come to this church? Come to my church instead."
Ten out of ten churches are going to throw me out of the church for doing that.
For what verse? Where's the verse that says that in the Bible?
There is no verse, but it's just common sense sometimes. It's the spirit of what Romans 16 is saying.
That if someone's splitting the church, if they're causing offenses in the church, they're going to be thrown out.
You don't need a chapter and verse for every little dinky situation because the Bible would never end if that's what we require.
The Bible expects us to take the spirit of what this verse is saying and what the spirit of this verse is saying
is that if someone's trying to rip someone out of church, if they're trying to split a church,
that's not a good person and they should be thrown out of the church.
It doesn't specifically say that in the line right there, but I would just expect that that's common sense.
Or else every Baptist church supposedly in America would be sinning in that scenario, which is nonsense.
People intuitively know this, but like this is what you understand.
I just wish Christians would understand this more that you can't allow the letter of what the law says to blind you to its overarching spiritual meaning.
That's why I wish people would grasp more because they lose this in the Bible and they play games like how the Pharisees played games in the Bible.
And they're like, if it doesn't exactly say this, then we're not going to follow it. Nonsense.
And when you take the analogy of the pastor, I mean, what is a pastor? It's a shepherd, right?
He's guarding the sheep. When you take that analogy that he's protecting the church from wolves,
it makes sense that if someone's trying to come into the flock and rip people out, that they would be thrown out of the church.
I don't have a chapter or verse to show you this, but I just would hope that you'd agree with that if you had a brain in your head.
If you had some IQ in your head, you'd understand what I was saying right there.
Go to 2 Corinthians 2 verse 1 if you guys aren't there. 2 Corinthians 2 verse number 1.
So again, I bring that up to say this, that I think that there are things in the Bible,
that are not directly listed in the Bible that would get you thrown out of the church.
Like, for example, if someone just came into this church and was like,
I'll give you a funny example actually, we had a guy in Vancouver that was coming to the church
and he was saying amen, he was into the sermon, but he was like dropping F bombs on his amen when he was in the church.
He was like, F yeah preacher, like legitimately this is happening.
He was like, F yeah, that's right preacher.
And they came over to him and they were like, dude, you gotta stop doing that, okay?
And he was like, okay, okay, okay, and then he like did it again.
He was like, F yeah preacher, can I like whisper it in his breath though?
Like, can I get one more in?
And then they went through and they were like, hey bro, you gotta go.
You gotta get out of here.
Under what verse can they kick this guy out though?
I mean, there's no verse that says if someone's dropping F bombs in a service, they can kick him out.
Nonsense.
Second Corinthians 2, verse number one.
I make a big point about that, but I would just hope it would get you to wrap your head around that idea.
I want to be clear on what I say, but the Bible says that the law is a school master for us.
It guides us until we have faith, right?
And that's not to say that you can just write a bunch of things in the Bible or anything like that.
But it is to say that God expects you because you have the Holy Spirit that leads you into all truth,
that you'll be able to discern things that aren't directly in the ink of the Bible.
And if you don't take the Bible by the spirit of what it's saying, you will get the wrong interpretation.
And I showed you that before about like when it says like if the ox gore man, it doesn't list off every single animal in the animal kingdom there.
You just take that and you're like, that applies to all animals. That's the spirit of the law in that verse, okay?
Second Corinthians 2 verse 1, we're going to end this pretty soon. Just read these verses.
It says, "But I determined with myself that I would not come again to you in heaviness."
If you need some context, this is after the man in First Corinthians had been kicked out of the church for committing fornication.
And now he's repented of this. He's gotten right. He's quit doing this sin.
And now Paul's saying, "Hey, welcome this guy back into the church." We'll see this in these verses.
It says, "For if I make you sorry, who is he then that maketh me glad but the same which is made sorry by me?
And I wrote this same unto you, lest when I came I should have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice,
having confidence in you all that my joy is the joy of you all. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart
I wrote unto you with many tears, not that you should be greed, but that you might know the love which I have abundantly more unto you."
And again, I gave you that context there that they actually, this guy that was committing fornication with his father's wife,
which is craziness, okay, but he repents of this because they throw him out of the church and he's scared of being destroyed by the devil, obviously.
And then they, in following this letter, I'm not going to go through it all for time's sake, but he says, "Welcome this guy back in to the church."
Now that he's repented, welcome him back in.
And I'm bringing this up because I just want you to understand, I've been talking about what gets you kicked out of church, but now I want to tell you, and very briefly, why do we kick you out of church?
It's for this reason. It's in the hopes that when you kick these people out of church, they would realize that they're being wicked and that they're sinning against God, and they would repent and turn from that, and they'd come back into the fellowship of the church.
Again, this is not for salvation. We've explained this before, but this is not for salvation. This is just to be restored back into the church. This is the goal of church discipline, as long as it doesn't fall on that other one, right?
Because we're talking about things that you get kicked out for not being welcomed back in. If you're a false prophet, if you're teaching that Jesus Christ is not really God and he's actually a woman or something crazy like that, you'd be thrown out and never allowed back in.
But with a person who's committing a sin that's just common, like fornication, they are supposed to be welcomed back in if they repent of this sin.
And so I would just bring up this because people would be like, "Why would you do this?"
It's not to embarrass this person, I mean that's part of it, but that's not like the whole purpose, not to just bring shame to this person,
not to just rake him over the coals, to make him a public example to everybody, to just like laugh in his face or to mock him.
It's in hopes that he would turn from what he's doing and repent and get right and start coming to church again and get that sin out of his life.
The second reason as well is because of this, because the Bible said in 1 Corinthians 5, "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."
You just can't allow these kinds of people to stay in the church or they'll infect everybody else, is what the Bible teaches.
And I used that analogy last time as well, that it's like kicking people out of church is just like spanking your kids.
Like you hate to do it, like they make you spank them sometimes and you're like, "I just want to hug you and cuddle you and give you kisses.
That's all that I want from your little cute self." And they're just like defying you and they just won't listen to you.
You're like, "Now I have to spank you. Now I have to punish you." Right?
Same thing with churches. We don't want to kick you out of church.
We want this church to grow and be thriving and we want as many people are willing to come and believe on Jesus Christ
and that want to obey by these rules. We want them in the church.
And if they have to get kicked out, it's not because we hate them or that we just want to humiliate them.
It's because we need them to be on the right track so they don't infect the rest of the lump, is what Paul is teaching us here.
So kind of with all that being said, we talked about a lot of stuff, but I would just close it in this.
There's many things that will get you kicked out of the church, so if you're doing these things, just stop doing them.
And I don't know if I put that caveat on as well that I did on Wednesday that if you are trying to quit one of these sins,
like if you work with any of these sins, we're not just going to throw you out on the handle where you're just like, oh get out, just throw them out.
We are, if someone's working on trying to quit one of these sins, more specifically probably like fornication or being a drunkard,
it's not just like we catch you one time and you're out, it's someone who's refusing to repent of their sin.
That's what you should understand from these passages.
And we'll have grace with people, but you have to be honest, you have to be actually working to get rid of this out of your life.
And I talked about, you know, bringing things before the church.
I again believe that's talking about church leadership because the pastor speaks on behalf of the church.
I think that that makes sense with everything else that we see in the Bible.
And the last thing I was bringing up is people that, you know, are causing divisions.
Obviously, if someone's bringing divisions because of doctrine, they're going to get thrown out of the church.
But if someone, if you take the spirit of that verse, is just dividing the church in general and trying to rip people out of church,
you're also going to get thrown out.
Because just common sense would tell you that you're not going to allow someone to rip apart the flock and just like pull people out of church.
That's really weird.
I would get thrown out of any Baptist church for trying to do that.
And so I just think it would be common sense.
But again, with all this being said, let's pray.
Dear God, thank you so much for this wonderful day.
Thank you so much for everything you do for us, God.
I just pray that you would help us, God, to be a glorious church for you.
To be a church that's without spot, without blemish.
And that we could make you proud and that we could preach doctrine and love our neighbor as you'd want us to, God.
And I just pray that you would help us, God, to always put you first in our life.
And I just pray that we would take the Bible for what it says on these issues, God.
And that I just pray that if anybody was struggling with any of these sins in this church,
that they would get this right in their life.
And I just pray that you would help them to overcome the things that they struggle with.
And I just pray that you'd help nobody to fall into this snare if they're not into this.
And that you would keep us on the right track for you.
In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
We're going to turn to page number 63.
Page number 63.
What a day that will be.
Page number 63.
Singing everybody by the Rhine.
Would you please close us a word of prayer?
For this church teaching in your body.
Blessed church.
I pray, God, that you will bless the fellowship
and the soul in me.
In Jesus' name, Amen.