Transcription
We are doing Grow Train in advance. This is a discipleship ministry of the church for those that um, either you don't have to have been saved for very long to be part of it, but you do have to be desiring to go deeper and further with the Lord. Um, it's uh, we are addressing things, I would say, with a little more intensity than we we have uh, maybe on a Sunday. We're getting kind of in the weeds, if you will, just kind of getting into some things and hidden issues that need to be hit for the church at large, but really also specifically for One Life Church.
What I'm trying to do, kind of just so you know my approach and where I'm coming from, uh, what I'm trying to do is as as the pastor of the church for 15 years now, you know, I've I've seen things, I observe things, some things get overlooked and we go, "Well, we'll deal with that later or this." And in this class, what I'm trying to do is say, "Hey, here are the things where I see that has tripped people up. It's where I see people stagnating. It's where I see people plateauing in their growth. And if we don't get over these hurdles, we're not going to grow." Uh, some of it is areas of immaturity in our thinking and in our knowledge that needs to change.
So, we've talked a lot about the church. We're going to actually continue talking about the church some tonight. So, I I I say on Wednesday nights, I'm not really preaching because uh, when I think about a sermon, sometimes I think about something that could maybe just inspire or educate, but that's not really what we're doing on Wednesday night. Of course, that's happening, but it's not the major purpose of it. The major change is for us to be discipled. The major point of it is for us to grow, to literally train and and and then advance and to be equipped with what God has for us. So, it's it's critical that you come on Wednesday nights with that mindset. It's critical that you come with that mindset of, "I am here to change. I am here to be challenged. I am here to be discipled." Amen. Amen.
So, tonight we're going to go back to church connection. Many of you have seen the uh discipleship graph. We kind of look at it uh every week just as a reference point. But there are five things in that discipleship graph that we talk about. Five areas of discipleship that we're trying to grow in and we're trying to make advancement in. Um, one of those is church connection. And then at the bottom you'll see the lifestyle and conduct. I I don't know. I maybe should have called that one holiness, but it just really is about our personal behavior and aligning it with scripture. Tonight, we're going to be in that church and lifestyle category together. We're going to what we're going to talk about is going to greatly impact both of those.
Now, I want to be honest with you upfront that I have never been part of a church that has taught what I'm going to teach you tonight. Um, I have heard it taught like online from from other other places, but from my faith tradition and the way I have grown in the churches that I've been on staff at, um, I've obviously read the the scriptures many times through and I've seen this idea and I've seen the scriptures on this topic, but I have never been in a church that has ever taught on this on this subject. But I the more I read the scripture, the more critical that I understand it is. And I understand why it's there. And you're going to understand when we get into it why I say that. But what we're going to talk about is something that I have heard referred to that this is not necessarily a scriptural term because the scripture doesn't really have a term for it exactly, but what I've heard referred to as church discipline. And what it largely has to do with is how do you deal with sin in the church? Particularly how do you deal with people who are sinning in the church? How do you deal with people who are sinning in the church? Continuing to get more specific when they will not repent and they will not change. What steps should be taken? How should that be handled? How should the body and the leadership react and respond to that?
Now, here's why I think this is critical for us uh tonight. This is critical because it's going to give you a clear understanding of how God views sin. It's going to give us a clear understanding of how serious sin is in the body. Because this is what I've kind of noticed when it comes to sin in the church. That most people would rather just not talk about it. They'd rather sweep it under the rug, pretend like it's not happening, not address it, not confront it, just kind of love everybody, be merciful with everybody. And the issue is is that that's not how scripture sees it. Scripture has a different mindset. And here is how the church should and has to deal with sin in our lives. You will be confronted about it either through just a a sermon, right? Just preaching. It'll go anywhere from that to maybe a person coming to you, a friend, a leader coming to you. But here here's the only options when it comes to sin: repent and change or be removed from the body. That's how scripture looks at it.
Now, there's a lot of caveats, a lot of explanation that needs to go into that. Uh, you've got new believers that are coming in that are growing in their understanding of sin. So, that's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about someone who is struggling with their sin and they hate their sin and they want to change and they want to repent. We're not talking about that. What we're going to see is what happens when sin is in the church and that sin is confronted. That sin is approached. It is dealt with at multiple layers and multiple levels, but the end result still continues to be uh maybe defiance or not changing or being unrepentant. Then at a certain point, how does that have to be dealt with according to scripture? Okay.
So, again, this might be new for you, but again, this is we're we're trying to align our minds with the scripture, right? We've talked about alignment a lot in Grow Train in Advance. And what we're trying to do is align our thinking with the word of God, not our tradition, not what we've seen, what we thought was normal. We want to align it with the word of God. Amen.
Now, my goal for you tonight, first of all, is to realize how valuable the church is to Jesus Christ. This is one of the things you're going to see in this sermon. Number two, I want you to see how privileged that you are to be part of that church and also that it is a privilege and not a right to be a part of the body of Christ. It is a privilege. It is not a right to be part of the body. And there are ways that you qualify to be part of the body. And those standards are laid out for us in scripture. And then number four, I want you to realize the seriousness of sin in the body of Christ. There's there's no realm in the scripture where sin is just simply tolerated in the church. And again, I know this might be new for some people because there's just it's almost like we grow up going to church thinking, well, there's sin, everybody's got sin, you know? I mean, there's sin. Oh, we hear this about sister so and so. Oh, this about oh yeah, this is all hypocrisy, all that. According to scripture, if this is being done right, when there is residing sin found in a person's life, they would be pastured and discipled and challenged through that until either they are healed and restored of that or they end up not being part of the body as a result of that sin.
So we're going to start in Revelations chapter 2, verse 12. And in Revelations 2, we get seven letters to seven churches written by Jesus. And so this is Jesus speaking straight to the churches. And he's basically giving them congratulations on some things that they've done well. And then he's giving them rebuke on some things that they've done wrong. And I want to look at two particular churches. The first one is the uh Pergamum church. Verse 12, it says, "And to the angel of the church in Pergamum." Now that word angel uh, most theologians believe that this is just this is referring to the pastor or leadership of the church because the word for angel is messenger and also nowhere else in scripture do we ever see angels being held accountable for the actions of a church; that that just wouldn't make sense with anything else we read in scripture. So the word for angel is messenger. There are other places in scripture where it's translated as messenger. And I think this one should have been translated as messenger, but basically says to the messenger of the church in Pergamum, write this: The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword. So first he gives them where they're doing well. He says, "I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness who was killed among you where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you. You have some there talking about in the church. You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam." You got to know the Old Testament story of this to understand it, what he means there. But he says, "Who holds the teaching of Balaam who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore repent. If not I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth."
Now, first of all, ju this is Jesus Christ, the head of the church. He's writing a letter and he's saying, "I've got this against you." He said, and and tonight our purpose is not to get into who the Nicolaitans were or the teaching of Balaam or any of that pro. But the issue is it was false teaching. And the reason why he's correcting it is he's saying, "You haven't done anything to stop this from happening. And so you are responsible for it." That's why he says, "I have a few things against you. You're doing good, but here's what I have against you: You have not addressed things in the church that are hurting the body, that are leading my people astray. And as the leadership of the church, you have to handle these things. You can't just passively watch them happen. You can't just passively watch and go, 'Oh, well, you know, everyone, this person's teaching, we don't want to confront them because they're influential in the church or, oh, they give a lot of money or people like them or they have a big crowd or whatever of that.'" He says, "Yeah, you may do it for all of those reasons, but Jesus, the head of the church, is looking at you saying, 'This should have been handled.' And it wasn't. It wasn't handled."
Let's read about the second church. Revelations 2:18 says, "And to the angel or messenger of the church in Thyatira, write this: The words of the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first." So, a lot of good there. "But I have this against you that you tolerate." Everybody say tolerate. That's different than dealing with. Right? That's different than confronting and taking care of. "You tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sick bed, and those who commit adultery with her, I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead, and all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works."
Can you first of all see that Jesus cares about things in the church? I mean, he cares if there's false teaching. He cares if there is sin. He's not just aloof. I know he may not be showing up and writing us letters like this, but every time I read these letters, what I end up thinking about is, man, if Jesus could write One Life a letter, how would it read? I think there's some good things he would tell us. I worry about these parts that that he might have against us. You know, you you worry about that, right? You read that and you go, "Man, if if Jesus could write us a church, write us a letter, where would we fall?" There were two churches out of the seven that didn't get any uh rebuke. So, maybe we'd fall in there. I hope so. I'm trying hard. I hope I know you're trying hard. Um, but that's, you know, I don't lead this church based on what what I want or what I lead this church based on what I think Jesus wants. And there have been many uncomfortable situations we've had to deal with, things we've had to address, conversations we've had to have that are not pleasant. I would much rather tolerate it or sweep it under the rug or not deal with it because who who likes confrontation? Who likes people get who likes making a bet? Nobody. Some of those things you can see why they happen. It'd be just easier to avoid it and not ruffle feathers. But I these words always stick in my mind where Jesus said, "I have this against you." Basically what he's saying is you were weak. I put you in as leader and you're not leading. You're tolerating. It's your job to handle these things and so you have to handle them. And that has driven me as a pastor. I don't think that we've been perfect at it. But we have tried to address these things when I believe the Holy Spirit has led us. And that's another part of this, you know, even even this with Jezebel. It says, "I gave her time to repent." So it doesn't mean you're going around like with a you know, a magnifying glass inspecting every go like the first little sign of sin, "Hey, repent or you're out." You know, it's not quite like that. There's there's discipleship. There's a lot of things to consider. A lot of things to consider. How how long has a person been saved? How much do they know and understand? What is their level of spiritual maturity? How many times has this been addressed? What is their attitude? Do they have a repentant heart? A lot of these things, you know, and understand by the Holy Spirit as you're trying to apply the word, you know, in in their life.
So, as we read these letters, and we're going to read a lot of scripture tonight. As we read these letters and the entire New Testament, we will discover that there are really two things that Jesus expects the leadership of the church to deal with. Number one is false teaching. Number one is false teaching. This is why at One Life we are very particular about who teaches anything. Um, I I've been to churches where it just seemed like anybody and everybody can teach. You know, you got it doesn't matter. That's that's not how we do it here because there's a lot of false teaching that is addressed in the body of Christ over and over and over again. And so for a person to teach the Bible, first of all, says that they're going to be held to a higher standard. They have to have a thorough knowledge, thorough knowledge of the word of God. It has to be accurate. There can't be any anything false there that that's being taught. And so Paul deals with this. Number one, false teaching cannot allow any false or incorrect or inaccurate teaching in the body. Teaching is the primary method that Jesus communicates to his church. It's the primary way that the body at large that he communicates, "Hey, here's how we need to change. Here's how we need to grow. Here's where we're growing," is through the preaching of the word of God. And so false teaching on the other hand can destroy people's lives. I've seen it. Many of you have seen it. I've seen people get a hold of false teaching. And and most of the time false teaching is 98% correct. By the way, the largest part of it is correct, but it's that 2% that's twisting it just enough to where it it it it brings death into a person's life. So number one is false teaching that has to be dealt with. And then number two is sin. Sin has to be dealt with in the church.
Let's read 1 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 1. We're going to go through this example. I'm going to show you all the p. I don't know if we'll get to them all tonight, but we're going to go through uh, if we can, the majority of New Testament passages that deal with this issue of what we're calling church discipline. 1 Corinthians 5:1 Paul writes to the church, he says, "It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you." So you see this is like shocking to Paul, just by the way he writes it. He says, "It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality in the church." And you can see right off the bat that this is shocking to him. It would not be shocking to most any other pastor today that there was sexual immorality in the church, but it was shocking to Paul because he goes, "This isn't supposed to be in the church. The church, what are we doing? The church is the bride of Christ." The church is supposed to be individuals that have been born again, saved. Old things have passed away. All things have become new. We're not We're not allowing sin to remain in our lives. We're repenting of sin and turning to Jesus. He says, "So, I'm a little, you know, you can see it in the tone. He's a little bit shocked. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality in your church." And he says, "It's of a kind that is not even tolerated among the pagans. For a man has his father's wife." This would have been the person's stepmother. Do we have any children in here tonight? By the way, I'm looking around. She's too young. She can't understand nothing. That's okay. He's too young. Okay. All right. Just letting you know the the sermon will be PG-13. So if I missed anybody, you need to get them out. Uh, he says, "For a man has his father's wife." He says, "And you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you." Can you believe that? Again, first of all, have you ever even seen this done in a church? I mean, this you're going to read this dozens of times tonight, but it shows this is not about punishing people. You got and you'll see this as this goes along. This is not about punishing people. This is about protecting the bride of Christ and presenting the bride of Christ to Jesus as what it is supposed to be. And so he says, when you how is it that how is it that you have this thing going on in the church? It's obviously a situation that everybody knows about. It's not something that was done behind, you know, closed doors and and it just stayed there. Like, no, it's spread now. The whole the whole church knows about it. And he's shocked. He goes, "How is it that you haven't dealt with this? How is it that you have tolerated this?" He says, "Let the one who has done this be removed from among you." This person, he says, should be cut off from the body because of the sin in their life. Verse 3, "For though absent in the body, I am present in spirit, as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing." When you, and listen closely to his instruction, how many of you think, I know we're having fun tonight. This is going to be a fun time together. But how many of you think that we should obey the word of God? Yes. I mean, I I take the word of God so seriously. And when I read something like this and I go, I've never been part of a church that's done this like this. Okay. Um, I, you know, haven't ever administered exactly like this, but if I see it in the word, my desire is for us to align with the word of God. And this is what and the reason what I what I believe about that is that when we are functioning as the word of God instructs us, there is a grace and a blessing and fruit that will come out of that that we cannot possibly imagine. And I think one of the reasons why you look around and the church is weak, feeble, powerless, diminishing in many ways is because we have so many areas like this that we just ignore. And for me, what I am endeavoring to do as your pastor and the pastor of this church is to align our church as closely as we possibly can with the word of God. And so I'm going to talk about how we've done that and how we've treated this. But I just wanted you to see it from the word of God. So he says, "Though absent in the body, I'm present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present," Paul is saying that with the power of our Lord Jesus, "you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord." He said, "This man did something sexually immoral that was so egregious that he is to be removed from the body of Christ. It is to be done. He is to be removed publicly in front of the entire body." I don't know whether he's there or not for this, but he is to be removed in front of the entire body. And it is to be explained to them why this person is being removed from our from our fellowship. Again, have you ever been a part of some of you may have, I don't know. Have you ever been a part of a church that's done this? I've been part of situations that if we were following the scripture, it should have been done like this. I don't know that. And we'll see from other places in scripture. I don't know that um, you know, I don't know that it means necessarily that it has to be done in front of the whole church. Like, for example, with our church, we have a group of about 40 or 50 leaders that we meet with separately from the from the larger church. And and you know, we've handled things in that setting, but not ever in front of the entire church. And so I think these things we have to apply wisdom. We have to apply the leading of the Holy Spirit to know exactly how to administer these things. And also remember that Paul is talking about a specific situation here. It doesn't mean that every situation gets handled exactly like this, but this is his instruction for this particular situation, but it it but it serves to us as a model and it serves to us to understand the seriousness of sin. And if you read this and you hear that and you go, "Well, that sounds that sounds too harsh," then what needs to change is your understanding, not the word of God. I mean, there's nothing wrong with the word. So if this is abrasive to our ears, it's because uh we haven't thought correctly on these things in line with the word of God. Okay. Verse 6, keep reading. He says, "Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed." So now he compares it to bread that's being made with yeast. And he says, when you have dough, it doesn't take just a little bit. You put a little bit of yeast in there. And he said it spreads to the whole lump. And he said that is why you remove sin from the body. He said because sin will spread to the entire body. It doesn't take just one person in a church that is filled with gossip to spread gossip to the entire church if it's not handled, if it's not addressed. And I
Don't just mean addressed by the pastor. Because actually, a healthy body, what I have observed from pastoring this church, a healthy body will actually take care of a lot of these issues.
Because let's say, for example, that somebody does come in with a with a a a gossiping spirit. Let's say that they do come in with that gossiping spirit and they try to they go to this one and this one goes, "I ain't talking about that," and then they go to this one and, "I ain't talking about that." It it can't find a place to spread like that. So a healthy body will actually remove a lot of these a lot of these things on its own without ever having to be confronted by the leadership. But this is part of the reason why he says it has to be dealt with. He said it's like yeast in a in a large piece of dough that is going to spread to the bread. He said, "If you take it out, then the the dough is saved. If you leave it in, it'll spread to the rest."
Verse eight, "Let us therefore celebrate the festival not with the old leaving, the leaving of malice and evil, but with the unleven bread of sincerity and truth."
Verse nine, he said, "'I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.'" He's talking about a previous letter that he had written to him. He said, "I wrote to you in that letter, do not associate with sexually immoral people." Just pause and let's camp out on that one for just a second. Are we following this in our life? Are are we obeying this in our life or is this one of these scriptures that we go? He says, "I wrote to you in my letter, do not associate with sexually immoral people." He clarifies, "Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of the world." In other words, somebody who's not saved or the greedy and swindlers or idolators, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or an idolator, reviler, drunkard or swindler. Not even to eat with such a one. Most people don't pract most most people would not practice it because in in their mind it seems unloving. It seems it seems hateful. But notice he's differentiating a person who is saved and a person who is unsaved. He said, "We're not talking about people who are unsaved." He said, "We're not talking about people that don't know and they're living in sin." He said, "No, no, you go after those people." He said, "But if there's somebody among you who calls themselves a Christian and they are living in unrepentant sexual immorality," he said, "do not associate with them. Do not even eat with them." And another place we're going to read in just a moment says, "Do not even greet them." Do not even greet them. So the problem here is a person who calls themself a Christian but will not repent of their sexual immorality. And you can begin to clearly see from this that that person is being removed from the body of Christ. And notice this, the last verse of verse 12, it says, "God judges those outside, but you are to purge the evil person from among you." So this is very serious. I don't think any of these are suggestions. I don't think any of these statements are suggestions.
So here's what I think this should do. First of all, I think first of all, if you are, and he sex, he's dealing with sexual immorality, but he mentions a whole list of things, right? He says, "You're greedy. You swindle people. You also have idolatry in your life." He said, "These these things," he said, "any of these people that that are doing these things," he said, "Don't associate with." But here's the point. Anybody who calls themselves a self a Christian but has known sin in their life that they refuse to repent of. Not talking about struggling with sin. Not talking about repenting, wanting to overcome then falling back, but I'm I'm having trouble like I need some help. I need some believers to gather around me, help me and support me. Not talking about that. It's not what he's talking about. He's talking about someone who calls themselves a Christian but has known sin in their life and says, "I'm not changing that. I'm not changing that. I I'm still a Christian, but I'm going to live in this sexually immoral relationship or I'm going to have this such and such sin in my life. I I don't have a problem with it. So, I'm not changing." And he says, "That person you are to not even associate with. You are not to eat with." He says, "You are not even to greet that person." I'm just telling you what the word says. This is a little bit hard even for my ears to hear, okay? But this is what the word of God teaches us. And what I know from the word of God, as we've talked about before, that everything that God does is for love. When I read something like this, the first thing that starts going off in my head is, I think God knows something about sin that we don't know. I think God understands something about sin that we don't understand. It would be like if we were living, you know, in the in the medieval times and you took you took a doctor from the 21st century that understood germs and bacteria and you took them back to that and you see them over there playing, you know, they're they're they're cleaning out the stall and they got stuff all over them and they're picking up stuff off the ground and what and then they're overpreparing food over here because they don't know anything about bacteria or germs like we do now. And you got the doctor going, "Oh, what are you doing? You can't do that. You got to wash your hands. You're going to spread this to everybody." And then the whole village is getting sick and they don't know why. I think God knows something about sin that we don't know. And so he deals with it in these very, very harsh, seemingly harsh terms. But what you're going to find out is that it's in the best interest of the person being removed and it's in the best interest of the church. Actually may not feel like it in the moment, but it's actually in the best interest. Which is why up here in the beginning, he says uh when you're in the presence of all, he says, "Turn this person over, deliver this person over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord." In other words, what we're ultimately after is this person's salvation. They may have a they may have some pain on the way there, but what we're ultimately after is this person's salvation. Then he talks about the leaving. So that's the body part. He says this is this is what's best for the person, but this is also what's best for the body. We don't live in a world that thinks like this right now. We live in a world that is not in alignment with this at all. And most churches would not do anything like this to begin with because they don't want anybody to run off because they want their church to be as big as possible at all cost. Doesn't matter how much sin is there. Just as many people as we can get in is number one. And then also we don't want to run people off that are given money because we need their money too. So we want the big we want the church to be big and we want the money to come in. So we don't want to deal with this kind of stuff and we and we just let it we let it stay. But that is not in alignment with the word of God. And we are creating a church. We are building a church that is in alignment with God's word. Amen. Praise God.
So from this one passage, we learn several things. The scriptures tell us to remove a person from the church for unrepentant sin, false teaching. Another one mentioned specifically is divisiveness. We're going to look at Titus chapter 3 10. Titus 3:10. It says, "As for a person who stirs up division after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him. Knowing that such a person is warped and sinful, he is self-condemned." You see, another thing that I noticed from reading these scriptures is that the standard may be a little higher than than we've set it. And mostly what you see happening in churches is what he rebuked the churches in Revelation for which is tolerating. I mean, we we may be as the modern church, we may be guilty of tolerating too much. Because in this instance, what he says is that if there's somebody who's stirring up division, there's a there's a Christian in the church that's stirring up division. Maybe they're talking about the leadership or they're they're dividing families or they're gossiping, they're slandering, okay? But they're a divisive person. He says, "Warn them once and then twice and have nothing more to do with them." Knowing why knowing that such a person is warped and sinful and he is self-condemned. Does it mean that there's no hope for him? No. Says you just and he said he said, "I gave you a chance to get it right here. You couldn't get it right here. Now you're going to try to get it right out there because you're not going to stay in here doing that and hurting other people here. Still a chance for you to repent and get things right, but it's not going to be here. You're out there now because you've been removed because of this.
Here seems to be some patterns that emerge from scripture. And again, we got a lot more scripture to go through, but here seem to be some patterns that I notice from scripture. Number one, the severity of the sin matters. The severity of the sin matters, right? He deals specifically with sexual immorality. That was a big one. Um there are little, you know, in the law, and people say this sometimes. People say, "Oh, well, all sin is sin." I don't like that statement. I don't I don't believe that's a true statement. It's a true statement in this sense that every sin is guilty before God. and and every sin, no matter how small or large, needs a savior. So, it's true in that sense. But we know we are created in the image of God. Okay? We understand and we think about these things, I believe, like God. So, the idea of justice uh in our legal system, we know that it's not the same thing to punish somebody who stole a piece of candy as it is that somebody who murdered somebody. We that would actually be completely unjust. But we know that all sin is not the same. Plus the law when Moses gave the law, he gave different penalties for different sins. And that was God. And God doesn't ever change. So c certain sins had a light penalty. Other sins had a very severe penalty all the way up to death. So no, every sin is not sin. And this is just the same. And in this situation when it comes to what he is describing of removing someone from the church, the severity of the sin matters. Not only the severity of the sin, but the duration of the sin. Meaning, how long has this gone on? How long has this how many times has this been addressed? How many times has this been confronted? How many times has this been dealt with? Uh, number three, the danger of the sin spreading to others. Is this a sin that is likely to spread to other people in the church? If so, it must deal it must be dealt with quicker and possibly harsher. Number four, is the sin publicly known or outwardly evident? Meaning, does the whole church know about this as in the situation in 1 Corinthians 5? Is this something that can be handled privately because it hasn't affected a large number of people or is this something that has affected the entire church and therefore needs to be addressed in front of everybody uh or or are or are addressed in a way that everybody can see that it's being handled. So, not only is not only is it need to be dressed if it's been publicly known because of the people in the church, it needs to and this is a big one. You're going to see this in these scriptures that we read. It needs to be addressed because of the reproach that it is bringing on the name of Jesus. This is a big one that gets mentioned because when when everybody publicly sees a Christian, especially a leader sinning, they are bringing reproach on the name of Jesus Christ. And what these scriptures indicate to us is that for the honor of Jesus, we have to stand up for this and we have to make it clear to other Christians. This is not exemplary. This is not how you act. You do not need to emulate this person because they are not living as a true Christian.
And those things are hard. Those things are difficult to do. Matthew 18, we're going to read a bunch of these scriptures, but Matthew 18:15, Jesus explained it to us like this. He said, "'If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens, you have gained your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses even to listen to the church, let him be to you as a gentile and a tax collector.'" This goes back to the other ones we were looking at where he says, "Do not associate with this person. Do not eat with this person. Do not even greet this person." So he says after this process, why? Because a believer cannot act like this. That's that's the bottom line. You do not get to bear the name of And by the way, by the way, I want to make this clear. One of the commandments that God gave Moses was to not take the name of the Lord in vain. And somewhere along the line, we turn that into not using the cuss word GD. But that is not primarily what that scripture is talking about. What that scripture is talking about is a person who bears the name of Christ or bears the name of God in vain because their lifestyle does not match their profession. If you want to talk about taking the name of God in vain, it's going out into the world and telling everybody you're a Christian, but then the fruit of your life demonstrating something else. Why? That is very confusing to people. Number one. Number two, it runs the name of God through the dirt. It it's it's spitting on the name of Jesus. Listen, I if if you are a Christian, if you call yourself a Christian, but at the same time, you're going out and everybody knows about all the sin in your life and you're letting everybody know about that and they're seeing that and you're telling everybody you're Christian, listen, please don't do that. It'd be better for you to not let anybody know you're a Christian than do that and put your sin on display in front of them because you are hurting the name of Jesus and you are you are taking the name of God in vain if you do that.
Now remember this is a big conversation. It's a big conversation because you have again you have new believers. You have people that are coming in. They're trying to get their they're repenting all the time, right? They're try as you grow in the faith you're learning new stuff. You're getting rid of this, getting rid of that. Repent. You're growing. That's not what we're talking about. I believe what is being talked about here is a person who is established in his faith. He bears the name of brother. He's been confronted. He or she has been confronted about their sin. Hey, this isn't right. A Christian shouldn't do that. Christians shouldn't live like that. And they go, you know what? You're right. I I don't want to do that. I want to get rid of that. Okay, that's not what it's talking about. He's talking about somebody that even when confronted, they are still unrepentant of their sin and they will not change. So he says, if you go through them privately and you bring some Christian brothers, maybe some leaders, and you say, "Hey, we need to confront you on this because this is a big deal." And he says, "If that won't work," he said, "then go to the church, presumably, I believe, the elders of the church, and say, 'Hey, this is a brother in Christ. We've approached him. We've talked. They're not let and let let the let the pastors let the leaders talk. If that doesn't happen, then we know the process laid out in scripture of how it would need to go from there.
2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 6 he says, "Now we command you brothers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you receive from us. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him." Do you see the pattern here? I mean, almost every scripture we've read, it says this that at a certain point, if a person does not repent, it says, "Have nothing to do with that person." Okay? If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him that he may be ashamed. See, this again goes against contrary. We go, we I don't want anybody to feel ashamed. I don't want anybody to feel bad. Like we don't we don't want to be judgy, you know? We don't want to make people feel bad. He says, "Listen, that's part of the whole point of what you're doing." He says, "It's part of the whole point of staying away from them is that they would feel that shame. Just so that they can feel shame, no, so that they would repent." God cares more about that person repenting than he does how bad they feel. Because God has a view of eternity that we don't have. and he would rather that person feel feel bad for a moment if it ends up saving them from hell. So he says, "Yeah, you do this. You don't you don't smile and be buddy buddy with them. You don't pat them on the back. You don't act like everything's fine. You don't act like everything's okay." Why? Because that communicates to them that there's no problem. There's a problem. You're calling yourself a Christian, but you're living this way. I can't be in fellowship with that. Every one of these scriptures has told us this. Okay? If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.
Romans 16:17 says, "'I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. Avoid them.'" I don't think there's a single passage we've read yet that doesn't say avoid them one one way or another. I'll be honest, I have not followed this properly. I don't believe I'm reading because when I see people that have hurt me or hurt the church, I'm usually very nice to them. And in my mind, I'm I'm trying to walk in love to that person. But I'm reading all these scriptures now. I'm going, man, I don't know. Maybe maybe when I maybe I do need to do a little more avoiding. I don't know. We we'll I have to pray about that. Let the Holy Spirit lead me on that one. He says, "For such persons, look at this. I appeal to you brothers, watch out for those who cause division." Of course, he's talking about in the church. He's not worried about the world. and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught, avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. Do you understand what this scripture is saying? It's saying that there's a lot of people that can do this. A lot of people that can come back, they can say anything they want through smooth talk and flattery. They deceive the hearts of the naive. And he said, but you need to look at the fruit in their life. It's not this. You need to look at the fruit in their life.
2 John 1 verse 9. "Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the father and the son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting." And verse 11, this is huge. "For whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works." Do you see the seriousness of this? He says, "If someone brings in this instance a different teaching, if they're, in other words, they're bringing false teaching or they're not holding to the teaching that the apostles laid out on sin and all of these other things." He said, "If they do not hold to that teaching, yet they call themselves brother." He said, "Do not receive them into your house. Do not give them a greeting. For whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works." It means you are complicit. It means you are complicit.
And how do we apply this in our life? How do we walk these scriptures out? Because there's a lot of them. Obviously, it's not like one obscure scripture that we can just ignore. I'm not even finished. Okay? There are many of these scriptures and all of them talk about how what our response as the body should be to this person. And here these people and here's how I think about this. I think about a healthy body, the body of Christ, like a healthy immune system. A healthy immune system keeps the body from getting sick. And when something foreign tries to come in or something that doesn't belong there, you know, the white blood cells and everything, they gather around, they deal with it, and that thing is expelled or that thing is dealt with. It's like the the the healthy immune system protects the body. It's the same with a healthy church body. A healthy church body knows how to lovingly and cautiously accept people in, but also knows how to go, "Hey, it's not a good fit for you here because you're harming the body or you're harming the name of Christ." And this last part, verse 11, it really gets to me because it says, "For whoever greets this person takes part in his wicked ways or in his wicked works." And what this makes me think about is when you act buddy buddy with this person, you're giving your stamp of approval on their behavior. We all kind of know that instinctively. We all question that like am I condoning what this person is doing by, you know, pretending like everything is fine. Like I don't want to do that, but I want to be loving. Well, we we have a lot of scripture here telling us now, yeah, that's exactly what what you're doing. And um I've had conversations with friends, family members, you know, different like, oh well, we're going to get together and you know, this person's going to be there. And and I've I've had conversations with people where I said, well, I just want you to know that if I'm going to be there, then we're going to talk about this because I have no interest in just pretending. I don't I don't want to get in the room like, "Oh, everything's fine. Everyone's good. We're all doing great." No, we're not. You're hurting your family. you're hurting this person. You're hurting the church. No, everything's not fine. And to pretend like it is, he says, you are complicit in their wicked works. So, not only do we have a responsibility of how to protect the church, we have a responsibility of what our response to these things are first and foremost in our own lives. Amen. I mean, as we're reading this, the first thing we better make sure of is we're not the one that needs to get removed. I mean, that'd be the first thing. So, yeah, the first thing is, man, look at this. How serious this is. And this is what I look, okay, I want to go to how we've handled this as a church because I I want you to understand that we have walked in this for 15 years, but it's been it's been in a way to try as best that we can to protect the person as well that is being dealt with. So, as a pastor, as the pastor of the church, I will from time to time become aware of
Sins in someone's life that I feel like needs to be confronted. Again, it's based on how long have they been saved, how much do they know, how long have they been at one life, have they heard enough teaching and enough sermons to know that they should have changed that? Because first of all, that's my first desire. Number one desire is that you would just come to church, hear the word of God, and begin to repent of your own sin as you hear the word of God; nobody ever needs to confront you or say nothing to you about it. Because as you hear the word of God, you begin to—you—you know what's right and so you change it. And a lot of people, that's the case. So, it's judged partly on that. How long has this person been saved? How long have they been at the church? Have they been here long enough to hear the word of God on some of these issues and some of these things?
Once a person has been here for a while and I go, they're not repenting of this lifestyle or this sin, then I realize, okay, it's—it's time for me to—to address this in this person's life. I will usually set up a meeting with them. This has happened dozens upon dozens of times, uh, in—in the 15 years, and I'll say 95% of the time that's all it takes. 95% of the Christians that I've ever dealt with in this church, when I bring them into my office and I say, "Hey, I've noticed you're doing this, this, and this," and this is always my first question: "What do you believe the word of God teaches on this?" Because I want to know, do you know what you're doing? Or do you—have you deceived yourself that the Bible doesn't say that? In other words, I, you know, if somebody says, "Well, I don't think that's wrong," okay, well, now I know how to address this. I have to show you this from the word of God. But if you already know, no, no, no, we know, we know this is wrong. I don't want this in my life. We don't want to be like that. Great. I'll—then we're going to help you change and help you come out of that. 95% of the time, no one else gets involved, right? No one else in the church gets involved. No one else knows about—no one ever knows about that conversation—the person. Why? Because the goal, of course, is repentance and restoration. That's the goal of Jesus. It's not to embarrass somebody. It's not to have to walk through this whole process. These are all like last resorts. This is like a last resort. Nothing else is working. This is your final option.
But in walking this out in practice, what I have discovered is 95% of the time that I bring someone in my office and I say, "Hey, I know this is going on. What do you believe the word of God teaches about that?" It ends up getting resolved in that meeting—almost—almost every time. Someone of the meetings I had recently, someone said, they said, "Oh, I thought this was going to be a lot harder." I thought you were going to just rail. I thought you were going to be so much meaner, you know, on this. And I said, why would I have to? As soon as you walked in the room, you're like—you guys are like repenting. Say, we know what we're doing is wrong. We don't want to do this. We want to change this. You know, like, why would I? It—it's not God's heart to beat somebody over the head for no reason. You already are moving in the right direction. The only point of me bringing the—the stick is because you're not moving in the right direction. So that's not the heart of God, um, to—to just do that for no reason or bring shame or bring condemnation or bring hurt for no reason. The goal is to get people to make right choices and move in the right direction. It is the—it is a necessary function of a healthy local church. It is a necessary function. The way it should work is that the word of God should go forth. The Christians, the believers should hear that word and self-correct. And if believers are self-correcting, no issue. And if you're not, and this is my advice to you, this is my advice to you: If you don't want to self-correct, if you say, "We're going to just keep living in this lifestyle or we're going to just keep doing these things," I would suggest not coming to church. I would suggest not coming to church until you are ready to repent and make that thing right in your life. It is very, very dangerous to come sit in the house of God with sin that you are not willing to repent of and just sit there week after week after week, because what you are doing is you are hardening your heart.
I am not talking about a person who is struggling with sin and repenting and then gets victory and then slips back. I'm not talking about that. You need to be in church. You need to be in church until you get the strength and the help to overcome. But if you are a believer and you're not even repenting of your sin, you're just choosing to stay in a particular lifestyle, you are in danger of hardening your heart. You are in danger of searing your conscience. You are in danger of being a hearer of the word only and not a doer and thus deceiving your own self. And that is a very dangerous place to be in. I have—I said 95%. I have—we have had situations in the church, unfortunately, I will tell you this—this is—this is the other—so I said 95—so what is that 4.9%—the other 4.9%—there's only 0.1% that falls in the last category, but the other 4.9% of the conversations end this way—conversation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I'm—I'm gonna get that right. Few months later, no—no change. Have another meeting. Hey, you're still doing this. Remember we talked about this. You can't keep doing that. You got to change this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Conversation. Sometimes I've had six, eight, ten, twelve, more than I can count, conversations going, "Hey, you cannot keep doing this. You have to change this." And the other 4.9%, they will not repent and they end up leaving on their own accord. I did not have to remove them from the church because they just got tired of hearing it, right? They just got tired of—they realized I can't stay here and not be confronted on this. I'm not going to change it. So, I'm now mad at him. And that's the reason you—Oh, well, we don't like him. So, we're leaving. So, that's the reason that they have.
There is the very, very smallest fraction—and matter of fact, in 15 years it's only happened one time—where I ever had to look at a person and say, you are not welcome in this church, and you have to understand that to arrive at that point it was literally a several-year process—we're talking five to six years—which may have been actually too slow according to the scriptures that we're reading now—there might have been too much mercy there. But in this case, there was a lot of quote-unquote repenting, at least surface, but the person wasn't really changing. And then there was—there was a straw that broke the camel's back that was a lot like 1 Corinthians 5 that we read about. There was a situation that happened that said, "Okay, that's it for you. You're not welcome here." And that person actually did come back to church one time after that. And I met them—I met them at—at the back and said, "I—I told you that you're not welcome here. I'm sorry." And I hated to do that. I love this person. I love that person. But according to the scripture, that was the—the process that we had to follow. And I do not regret that decision at all. It was 100% the right decision, um, and that was proven after—after the fact as well. So, but it's very, very rare. It's very, very rare. We've never brought somebody in front of the church and—and spread their business out. We've never done that. I don't—I don't have plans to do that. I hope that doesn't ever—never arise at that. But according to these scriptures, there is a time and place for that. And—and actually, um, the time and place that we see it—1 Timothy 5:19—is against leadership specifically. So he says, "Do not admit"—this is 1 Timothy 5:19. He says, "Do not—do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear." So when it comes to—he says an elder, but I think the—I think the issue here is—is how publicly visible is this person? How much leadership do they have in the church? How much authority do they have in the church? How much influence do they have in the church? And he says if this person is in a high place of leadership and they've been confronted on this and then they won't sin, they won't stop sinning, and then they have to be removed, then it needs to be addressed in front of the entire church. We've never had to do that. Praise God. But there are situations, for example, if a pastor falls or an associate pastor or a youth pastor or someone like that, it has to be—the congregation needs to know what happened, right? And he says the—the reason is, um, he said so that the rest may stand in fear in several ways. Learning number one to guard your own self—that if it can happen to this person, it can happen to anybody. So we all need to be on guard against sin, right? But another key reason would be it needs to be made known to the body. Hey, this person was given leadership in your life. They were given influence in your life, but they no longer have that leadership or influence in your life because they have been disqualified from that. And the church needs to know that. They don't need to be just left in confusion like, well, you know, where does this person stand with the church, and does the—does the church and the—and the leaders—do they still put their stamp of approval on this person, and should I listen to this person, should I not, should I emulate them, should I not, is it okay to greet them and—and hang around this person or not? And so it has to be addressed in—in that way—we avoid that at all costs—we—we—I mean, I—again, we've never had to do that in this church publicly, um, but I want you to understand that all of these things are that we're reading are a last-ditch, last—last resort. The goal is repenting through the word of God, repenting from your own prayer life, repenting from your own Bible reading. If you're not doing that, you may eventually get confronted lovingly, kindly as a matter of discipleship. Hey, you need to change this. We're still a long, long way from this, right? But when you get confronted on sin, you have a choice to make. I'm going to repent and change or, you know, if I—if I have no interest in doing that, then yeah, I maybe want to go find somewhere else where I can just live however I want and bear the name of brother and nobody will challenge me on anything. You can do that if you want to. There's—there's many churches in town, and—and a person can do that. But we are striving to honor Jesus Christ.
I think it's so important for us to have this conversation. I've been wanting to have this conversation with you for a long time because it's a critical part of our understanding of what the body of Christ is. When we begin to see all these scriptures, we take all these scriptures in context. There's only a few things you can walk away with. Number one, God takes sin in the life of a believer very seriously. And there should not be any believer that is just comfortable with sin just being a part of their life. There's no believer that—that—and—and really and truly what we're kind of reading here is—is that if you're doing that, you're not really a believer, which is why you need to be removed in the first place. Because no believer will just live in perpetual sin. Not talking about struggling with sin. Not talking about slipping. I've said this now three or four times, but it's important for me to say. Not talking about a—a believer that sins or—and—and is fighting it and is praying over it and is resisting it and they have setbacks. Not talking about that. Okay? That's a heart that wants to repent. That's a heart that wants to change. That's what repentance is for. That's why we have the gift of repentance. We mess up, we can repent. But I'm talking about a believer that is a certain way. They maybe are in a certain lifestyle or a certain relationship or they have—uh—resonant sin that's been addressed in their life and they're not changing it even when being confronted. This is what Jesus is dealing with here. So number one, we have to realize how serious Jesus takes sin. Secondly, we have to—what I come away with when I read this is the privilege that it is to be part of the body of Christ. Many of us when we hear this, it's a little bit—I don't know if offensive is the right word, but it's a little bit abrasive because we're like, well, anybody's welcome at church, right? And that's the—that's the term that we've always—that's the way we've always thought about it. Well, any—anybody's welcome at church. You can't tell anybody not to come to church. That's 100% not true. It is a—it is actually the job of the pastor in the church to—to guard the body of Christ and go—these people are welcome. These people are not—100%—that—that—that is the job of the church. I mean, that's what they were rebuked for in the book of Revelation in the letters from Jesus. So being part of the body of Christ is a—is a privilege that we should take very seriously. Like I'm talking about the people in this room. We should take very serious that it's a privilege to be part of the body of Christ. The good news is that if you want to change and if you want to be healed and you want to be restored, you're in the best place for that. That's right. Because no one is better at helping people get free of sin than Jesus Christ. No one is better at bringing the power of God into your life and bringing freedom and setting people free from—from bondage. So there's no—there's no reason to stay in your sin in the first place. So what—what we—what we should do is when we hear sermons like this, we should say, "Praise God, I can get free from sin." I mean, he wouldn't tell us to do something we can't do. We can—we can—There's not a person in here tonight that has to leave in their sin. You can repent tonight of anything. You can turn from anything tonight by the power of God and let God begin to bring healing and restoration in your life. His power, his presence, his spirit is here for that. Amen.
Let's stand on our feet tonight. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Let's take a moment to search our hearts before God. Holy Spirit, we invite you in this place, God, to search our hearts, to reveal our hearts to us, God, to show us areas of darkness, areas of sin that we've tolerated in our own life. We don't want to use this as a way to judge others. We want to use this as a way to judge our own selves under the—under the light of the word of God. Father, I pray that your spirit would begin to reveal areas of our life that are needing change, that are needing repentance. Thank you for the gift of repentance. Thank you that we can repent and that our sin can be wiped away. Our sin can be washed away, cleansed away by the blood of Jesus Christ. God, thank you that there's power when we yield to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Thank you that there's power to break sin off of our life. Thank you that there's power to cause old things to pass away and all things to become new. Lord, I pray in our spirits that there would be such an intolerance for sin—not a—not an intolerance towards the world or—or sinners in the world, but an intolerance of sin in our own life—that God, we don't want to grieve the Holy Spirit. And when we do say or act or think anything that is grieving to your spirit, that it would—it would be like an alarm going off in our—in our inner man and we would know, no, that's not God. I don't want that in my life. I repent of that. We want to be a holy vessel for God, living holy and pure before God. God, we want to be a bride that is spotless and without wrinkle. We know you're coming back for a church that is sanctified and holy without spot or wrinkle. And so God, we purpose according to your word to wash ourselves by the cleansing of the word of God and by the blood of Jesus. Make us clean, God. Make us holy by your power. Lord, use us to—to help those around us that are struggling, those in our family, in our friend group, in our circle of influence, God, to bring repentance, to bring the power of God into their lives, into the lives around us. Lord, let this be a church that glorifies God. Let this be a church that bears the name of Jesus proudly and boldly without the need to be ashamed because of hidden things in our life, but that we could—we could be an open book. We don't have to—we don't have to bear the—the shame and the guilt of hidden sin, but we can be an open book and we can say, "No, we walk cleanly before the Lord. We walk cleanly before the Lord. We walk in holiness before the Lord." Father, I pray that you could do that in us first—in this group that's here tonight. Lord, stir up that passion in our heart for holy living. If we've tolerated sin, we repent. If we've tolerated apathy, if we've gotten too cozy and comfortable with sin in our life, we repent. We want to be holy before you, God. We want to be holy before you. And I pray that you would use this church to bring many out of darkness, many out of a life of sin into a life of allegiance and holiness before Jesus Christ. God, we can't do this by just sheer willpower. We can't do this in our own accord. We need the power of the Holy Spirit. And so I pray that you would fill your people with the Holy Spirit, that you would fill us with your spirit, that every day as we wake up praying and worshipping and reading your word that we would be filled to overflowing with your spirit. Yes. And that our lives would be an outflow. Our lives would be an outflow of that fellowship with you, oh God. God, we turn—we turn tonight. We turn from our sin. We turn from our rebellion. We turn from not submitting to your word and to your spirit. We lay down our own lives and our own way of doing things. And God, I ask in your mercy that you would change lives in this place tonight. God, I ask in your mercy that you would change hearts, that you would change minds in the name of Jesus. God, I pray across this room. I pray for freedom by your spirit. I pray for the—the freedom that comes with yielding to God, yielding to the word of God. I pray for supernatural freedom to come on people's lives tonight in the name of Jesus. That as we repent, as we acknowledge our sin, as we acknowledge where we've rebelled and gotten off track, God, that you would bring clarity, you would bring cleanness. You would bring holiness. You would bring power for righteous living in the name of Jesus Christ. In the name of Jesus Christ, we give you praise and we give you thanks in Jesus' mighty name. Now let's take just a moment to worship him and let this word sink in—heart. Let the Holy Spirit work in your heart and finish this work in your heart as we worship his name tonight. You are here moving in our midst. I worship you. I worship you. You are here working in this place. I worship you. Worship. We're here moving in our midst. [Music] Worship. You are here [Music] working. We worship you. Oh, we worship you. You are way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness. My God, that is who you are. Yes, you are way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness. My God, that is who you are. You are here—touching every heart. We worship you. We worship you. You are here. Oh, you're here in every heart. We worship you. We worship you. Yes, you are here. Oh, you're turning lives around. We worship you. We worship you. You are here. Oh, your men in every heart. We worship you. We worship you. [Music] Oh, you are way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness. My God, that is who you are. Yes, you are. Way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness. My God, that is who you are. You are way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness. My God, that is who you are. [Music] Oh, you are way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness. My God, that is who you are. That is who you are. That is who you are. That is who you are. That is who you are. [Music] Thank you, Jesus. Father, we thank you once again for moving in our hearts and lives tonight. God, I pray as we leave tonight that your Holy Spirit would minister to us all week on this word. God, show us in our prayer times as we spend time with you each morning. Show us areas that we need to change, areas that we need to yield to you, God. Give us the strength and power to do it. We love you and we appreciate you. We thank you in Jesus' mighty name. And everyone said, "Amen." Praise God. Hug somebody before you leave tonight. Tell them you're glad they came to church. You guys are dismissed. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. Give thanks.