The Pattern of Sanctification: Church Discipline
2 Corinthians 13:1-2
This morning we return to our study of 2 Corinthians. In fact, we come to the final chapter of 2 Corinthians and the text for this morning is the first two verses. For those of you who visit with us this morning, we are typically going through a book of the scriptures. We have for several years now been working our way through 2 Corinthians, a great letter from the Apostle Paul to the Christian church in the city of Corinth. We have finally arrived at chapter 13 and we are near the end.
I want to read the first two verses which will be the setting for the message that is on my heart this morning. Paul writes in verse 1, "This is the third time I'm coming to you. Every fact is to be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses. I have previously said when present the second time, and though now absent I say in advance to those who have sinned in the past and to all the rest as well, that if I come again, I will not spare anyone."
This is a very straightforward statement from Paul. It is, in fact, a warning. The key is the last phrase in verse 2, "I will not spare anyone." Paul is pledging to come to Corinth and he is warning them that if he finds sin there he will deal with it firmly.
Now before we look at the text itself I want to kind of get us into the importance of this subject and the importance of the attitude of the Apostle Paul here by sharing with you a perspective that I think exists in the church today. Many people are concerned about the state of the church. The condition of churches today have caused myriad of seminars and conferences and books to be written. There are constant calls for renewal in the church, for better understanding of the culture, for changing the style of the church to fit the style of the nineties, replacing preaching of the Scripture with more interesting methodologies and technologies. All across our country, in fact all around the world there are these efforts being made to reinvent the church. The fear is that the church is not speaking to the time, people are not listening. The church has somehow become irrelevant, it has become obsolete. Self-styled experts are saying that the future of the church is in the balance and the church may not survive in the west if it doesn't become culturally relevant, if it doesn't learn how to package its message better, if it doesn't target felt needs, if it doesn't employ more popular and efficient communication devices than it currently uses.
All of this comes into focus in a new book that's just been out a couple of weeks, it's one of those books that you can pick up and read rather rapidly. I read it fairly rapidly. I couldn't put it down, it just kept compelling me to read. It was sort of like enjoying the pain, actually, it was like there's something redeeming in this self-flagellation that I'm going through and I'm going to carry it all the way to the end. The book pained me deeply, and every page added more to my pain. But I couldn't put it down because I was so startled about what the book was saying. It is a book that calls for the church to do what I just said, reinvent itself. And it says on the cover of the book, "Today's church is incapable of responding to the present moral crisis, it must reinvent itself or face virtual oblivion by mid twenty-first century," end quote.
So the book says that if the church doesn't reinvent itself and put itself in better cultural relevance, it's going to go out of existence in 50 years. That statement alone was overwhelming for me. You mean to tell me that the eternal God who determined in the councils of the trinity before the foundation of the world, before time began who He would redeem and how He would gather His own to Himself and bring them to eternal glory is somehow going to find His whole plan coming unglued in the next 50 years? You mean to tell me that the church which Jesus Christ purchased with His own blood is somehow going to escape His purposes for redemption and atonement? You mean to tell me that the church that Jesus said He would build and the gates of Hades could not prevail against it is somehow going to become victimized by its own ineptness? That is a brash and irresponsible statement to say that if the church doesn't reinvent itself it will face oblivion by the mid twenty-first century. The only thing that could possibly obliterate the church on earth by then would be the end of the age and the return of Jesus Christ in the glorification of the church.
That's a very irresponsible thing to say and the author of the book fearing, and I think he probably genuinely fears that the church might go out of existence, suggests that there are some ways to save the church. And these are the suggestions. Develop cyber churches, virtual churches on the Internet. Secondly, develop house churches which appeal to people because they have low control, low authority and operate without historical tradition...I might add, or theology. Eliminate congregational churches like this for more congenial, less confrontational and more dispassionately interactive forums. Preachers must be replaced by presenters who have no notes and don't hide behind pulpits and who generate a more positive response for their listeners. We must get rid of sermons because one-sided communication is ineffective. And eliminate series and Bible exposition because everybody's attendance is sporadic and people really get irritated coming in and out of series that they can't consistently hear so we need to play to their sporadic attendance. And every sermon should be a unit in itself because most of the folks will miss the next two weeks before they decide to come back.
You say, "Well where did he get those ideas?" They were the result of a survey. If you ask unbelievers outside the church what they want, you can get answers like that. If you ask unbelievers inside the church what they want, you can get answers like that. If you ask believers in the church ignorant of Scripture what they want, you can get answers like that. But if you were to survey biblically literate believers, you wouldn't get answers like that.
So who is it that determines the character of the church? You go to the lowest possible source, unbelievers outside the church, unbelievers inside the church, or ignorant believers in the church? What is the hope of the church? Is this really it? If we can just disband congregational churches and develop a virtual church on the Internet, will that solve our problem? Will that dramatically effect the church's ability to confront the moral crisis of our day, as if that somehow was our reason for existence, and it's not. Ours is not a moral agenda, ours is a spiritual one. Would it be better if we had presenters instead of preachers and we got rid of pulpits and got rid of sermon notes and sat on stools, would that be the difference? And just sort of told stories? Would it be better if instead of somebody preparing to preach a sermon and giving forth an exposition of Scripture we had a pooling of everyone's ideas? Would it be better if we never had any continuity in our sermons but had little units week in and week out? Would that really save the church from virtual oblivion? And by the way, are we the ones responsible to save the church from going out of existence? Is that our job?
That's all the result of a survey, you see. That's what people want and what they want is what they should get. That's...that's the basic thesis behind all of that. Now if you ask me what the church needs, I don't need a survey, I just ask the Lord of the church and He's revealed it in His Word. And what the church really needs is more consistent, faithful, clear, theological exposition of the mind of God through the pages of Scripture. What it needs is better preaching, better sermons and I may get in trouble for saying this, fewer small churches with ungifted, untrained, and unskilled preachers. The Word must dominate the church and bear its God-intended power and authority over all who hear.
You see, the only way that the church will ever effectively counter the crisis of our time, moral crisis, spiritual crisis, is when the Word of God is working powerfully in the church, listen to what I say, to produce not information but holiness. There's the operative word, folks. Write that down somewhere. That's the theme of the message this morning. You see, the hope of the church and the impact of the church is all connected to the purity of the church. Holiness is the issue. When Jesus first addressed the church in Matthew 18, the first time He ever said anything related to the church in that great sermon in Matthew 18, the first thing He said about it is this, if somebody is in sin, go to...if he doesn't take two or three witnesses, if he doesn't listen, tell the church. And after the church has pursued him, if he still doesn't repent, throw him out, treat him like an outcast. The first instruction ever gave to the church had to do with sin. In that very first sermon, Jesus said "If you ever lead another believer into sin, you'd be better off if a millstone were put around your neck and you were drowned in the depths of the sea." The Lord of the church is concerned about the purity of the church. He's concerned about the holiness of the church. Sin is the issue to the Lord of the church and it should be the issue for us. But I daresay, you can go from conference to conference to conference and book, to book, to book and this is not the concern today. You won't hear talk about the holiness of the church, the purity of the church.
When I was at Moody this week, I spoke and I basically said to them, "You know, I'm going to preach the sermon I prepared for my own church on Sunday. I kind of tweaked it here and there a little bit, but I said to them what I'm going to say to you because everybody is talking about church growth and how to grow your church and have a successful church and a flourishing ministry and more folks and church growth is a big thing. And I said to them, it may surprise you to hear this but I really believe the single greatest contributor to the impact of our church, to the growth of our church, to the ministries of our church, to the effect of our church, the single greatest factor that exists has existed through the years of Grace Community Church, the single greatest contributor to the influence and the strength and the growth of our church has been, and I paused and it got real quiet, and I said...church discipline. And there was appall over the meeting. Church discipline? That is not normally considered a principle of church growth. Most people would assume if you want to kill the place, do that. Just start poking around in everybody's life and they'll split. Not the people who love righteousness, not the people who hate sin, not the people who want to honor God, not the people who care about obedience, and that's the church, isn't it? That's the true and redeemed church.
It may surprise you to hear this. I believe that ignoring church discipline is the most visible and disastrous failure of the church in our time because what it conveys is we aren't really concerned about...what?...sin. The Lord of the church is concerned about sin. The Apostle Paul was concerned about sin. It left him with a constant unrelenting ache in his heart. The problem with the church is not that it's got bad methodology or bad technology. The problem with the church is its lost its interest in holiness. Its lost its interest in maintaining purity. Churches have become content to be fellowships of independent members with minimal accountability to God and even less to each other. We have today, actually we have an entire generation of pastors and an entire generation of church members who have never experienced church discipline, don't know anything about it. And the first thing the Lord of the church ever said to His church was don't lead another person into sin and if you know someone who is in sin, confront that individual. The Lord of the church cares about the purity of His church. The first act the ascended Christ ever did in His church after He went back to heaven, the first thing Jesus did after sending the Holy Spirit, the first actual act where Christ Himself moved into His church and acted is in Acts 5 and what he did was kill Ananias and Sapphira in order that they might be excised out of the church for their iniquity. The Lord of the church is concerned about the holiness of His church.
The absence of church discipline, and I mean it's absolutely a foreign thing in churches, the absence of church discipline is a symptom of the moral decline, the theological indifference of the church. It's a symptom, I believe, of a shallow commitment to Scripture. It's not as if the Bible is unclear on the subject, it couldn't be more clear. It is a...it is a lack of reverence for the Lord of the church. It is saying, "Well, I know you're concerned about the holiness of the church, but we're really not. We have other things to be concerned about." Church discipline is not an elective, it is not an option, it is a necessary and integral mark of true Christianity and life in the church. And I say it again. The absence of church discipline is the most glaring evidence of the worldliness of the church and the worldliness of the church is the reason for its impotence. And you can have all of the entertainment and all the hoopla and all the big crowds that you want and not impact the world. It's the purity of the church, it's the holiness of the church that is the cause of its power. The problem is, the church is unholy. Even the idea of confession of sin is outdated in an age of moral relativism and moral ambiguity. The answer is not let's break up the congregation and produce less accountability, let's get down to house churches where we have less authority, less confrontation, more antonymy, more independence. The answer is not let's have more compassion, let's have a kinder, gentler church. Albert Moler who is the president of
Southern Seminary writes, and I quote, "Individuals now claim an enormous zone of personal privacy and moral antonymy. The congregation redefined as a mere voluntary association has no rights to intrude into this space. Many congregations have forfeited any responsibility to confront even the most public sins of their members." He says, "Congregations are consumed with pragmatic methods of church growth and...what he calls...congregational engineering." Most churches just ignore the issues of sin.
Well the Apostle Paul wasn't that way. We're learning at the end of the book here about the faithful pastor's concerns. What is it that concerns a faithful pastor? What is it that concerns Paul? Well he's giving us a summary of that starting in chapter 12 verse 19, running all the way to chapter 13 verse 10. That whole section is a summation of what concerns Paul. And we could sum it up in a word. He's concerned with the spiritual well-being of his flock. That's what he's concerned about. Corinth was a challenge. The city was gross in terms of its wickedness. People who came to Christ in that city were coming out of very immoral backgrounds. They brought some of that garbage into the church. He had to wrote to them 1 Corinthians to confront a long litany of iniquities that they were still engaging in, even though they were in the church and calling themselves believers. Having sorted out those problems in the writing of 1 Corinthians, it wasn't long until false teachers had come and along with false teachers came pride and along with pride came more sin. And Paul could see the subsequent impotence of that unholy situation and the loss of testimony, the lost of evangelistic impact that would follow. Paul knew that the problem in Corinth was not going to be whether they were culturally relevant or not, the false teachers criticized Paul for not having a relevant message, not taking into account the expectations of the Corinthians for what oratory ought to be because of what they were used to. They had criticized Paul because his person, his persona was unimpressive and his speech was contemptible. He was a lousy communicator. He didn't speak in the venue that people were used to hearing. He didn't have all of the personal charm to woo the audience. He had already addressed the issues that he didn't speak with men's wisdom and he didn't come in the wisdom of the world to achieve divine purposes. He already had laid it down that he was going to come and speak the Word of God and he believed the Word of God was the power. And behind that came this conviction and commitment to the fact that the church had to be holy.
And what Paul feared in his church was error and sin. Either one of those destroys the church. Theological error, theological ignorance or iniquity devastates the church. Paul was concerned for his church, as he was deeply agitated no more than for the church in Corinth. I mean, we've gone through this whole letter now for the last couple of years and over and over and over again we saw the agitation of Paul, the depression that he was experiencing, the pain, the anxiety, the fears over the church and always they were connected to sin. He was never concerned that the church might somehow not be culturally relevant. He was never concerned that somehow the church might have oblique methodologies. He was never concerned that the church wasn't up on the latest technology. He was only concerned about the purity of the church, purity of doctrine, purity of life. He was like the Lord of the church, he had the heart of Christ, he was following Christ. He knew what concerned Christ and what concerns Christ is the purity of His church. He has taken a bride, according to Ephesians 5. And we're very familiar with the standards that are given there. It says that he wants to present himself in chapter 5 verse 27, the church having no spot, or wrinkle or any such thing but holy and blameless. That's the kind of church the Lord wants, He wants a chaste virgin. Paul said that's what I want, that's what I want. He said it back in chapter 11 verse 2, "I want to present to Christ a...the church that is a pure virgin. He had Christ's desire for the purity of the church, doctrinal purity, moral purity.
That's what a faithful pastor is consumed for...with. He's consumed with the well-being, the spiritual well-being of his flock. Back in chapter 10 verse 8 he said he was concerned with building them up spiritually. Chapter 12 verse 19, same thing at the end of the verse, "Everything I do is for your building up." Chapter 13 verse 10, at the end, "It's for building you up not tearing you down." He was concerned about their spiritual condition, their spiritual well-being.
The church is made up of believers, not non-believers. And our concern in the church is not to make non-believers happy, but to bring believers to a place of holiness, to bring them to spiritual well-being. And that's what he's saying at the end of this epistle. From 12:19 to 13:10 you have as clear an insight into the faithful pastor's concerns as anywhere in Scripture. He's concerned about issues like repentance, discipline, authority, authenticity, obedience, spiritual perfection. Those are all the issues he deals with. In fact, those six are what we're going to be dealing with...repentance, discipline, authority, authenticity, obedience and perfection. Those are the issues that are on Paul's heart. He's concerned for the sanctification of the church because that connects to the blessing of the church and he wants God's people to be blessed. And he also is concerned with the sanctification of the church because that's connected to the power of the church evangelistically and he wants the community to hear the gospel and to see a living illustration of its power. I really believe that all pastors are held accountable before God for these issues, being concerned about repentance, discipline, authority, authenticity, obedience and perfection of the church in their charge.
Well let me give you a review, the first one. We did this a couple of weeks ago. The faithful pastor is concerned for the repentance of his people. Go back to verse 20 for a minute. You remember he said in verse 20 I'm afraid, he said it again in verse 21? Paul had some deep-seeded fears. What were they? Verse 20 says, "That when I come I may find you not what I wish and maybe found by you to be not what you wish." I'm afraid I'm going to come and you're not going to be where I want you to be spiritually, and that I'm going to have to become to you what you don't want. In other words, I'm going to have to take a firm hand with you. I'm afraid to come and find strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances. Those are sins that refer to...listen...the unity of the church. They assault the unity of the church...strive, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossips, arrogance, disturbances, they all attack the unity of the church. Paul says I'm afraid I'm going to come and find those kinds of sins. Verse 21, "I'm afraid that I'm going to come and I'm going to be shamed, or humiliated and I'm going to mourn because I'm going to find people sinning from the past, not repenting of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced." Those are sins that attack the purity of the church. Attacking the unity of the church, attacking the purity of the church, that's what Paul feared. He feared sin in the church, that's what he feared.
That is the greatest threat to the church. It's not its technology or methodology being obsolete. It's the issue of iniquity in the church. And so it is that the first thing the faithful pastor concerns himself with is the repentance of his people. Verse 21, "I am concerned about those who have sinned in the past-perfect tense, they started sinning in the past and the indication is they may well be continuing, and they have not repented." Sin among believers is of primary importance and occupies his mind continually. He fears sin in the church beyond anything else. And the discovery of sin in the church will bring a shame that humiliates him and a sorrow that causes him to mourn. These are the things that excited the passions of his heart.
Now that brings us to the second thing. We've already discussed the repentance issue. The faithful pastor is concerned not only with the repentance of his people but the discipline of his people...the discipline of his people. Sure he longs for his people to repent, but when they will not to the degree that they refuse to repent, to that degree he will discipline them. It's like a faithful parent. I mean, you would rather see your child obey, you would rather see your child respond appropriately and act and behave in a way that is right and honorable and good, and if they don't I hope you don't just sit in a corner and sulk. I hope you discipline them. That's what the Bible calls for and the same is true in the terms of the shepherding of God's people. The faithful pastor knows that where there is a failure to repent, there must be action taken. When the faithful pastor finds his greatest rears realized and he finds sin in the church, it brings upon him a certain amount of shame because he's humiliated because he's associated with it as the pastor. It brings sadness, his heart is broken and he mourns, but he doesn't wallow in his disappointment morbidly. He doesn't sit in a corner and say, "Wore is me," and feel sorry for himself, nor does he try to find another church down the street where there are fewer sinners, or at least their sin isn't public. He takes action. And that's what he's saying in 13:1 and 2. Having just discussed the issue of non-repentance and the fear that he's going to come and find some sinning against the unity of the church and some sinning against the purity of the church, he says, "When I come," verse 2, the end of the verse, "I will not spare anyone."
The time of grace is over. The time of mercy is over. The time of patience has ended. Back in chapter 1 verse 23, "I call God as witness to my soul that to spare you I came no more to Corinth." You remember he had come the first time to found the church there. He had done that. He came a second time, what was called a sorrowful visit, sad visit because when he came they rebelled against him, somebody took issue with him in public and nobody came to his defense. His heart was broken and he went out of town a broken, distraught man. He said, "I haven't come again, the third time, because I wanted to spare you. I wanted to give you time to repent. I...I&#