Dennis Tuuri

But it can be quite cute. Okay. So, how do we tell a puppy dog to get out? And then fourth, putting on your stern face, your angry face, your game face. You know, this is what the church essentially does to those that are excommunicated. And when we’re trying to recover people, that has reached the public phase. That’s also sort of what we’re supposed to do. And that’ll lead into the last part. So, that’s about your responsibilities, stern face.

And the last is Sanity. Sanity and life. So we’ll go from “get out” to a puppy dog stern face and then sanity in life. Okay. So let’s look very simply at the—as I said last week these are very simple statements that are given here and they’re absolutely critical for the church today. As I said I began this series by after attending the justice conference. And lots of people are involved in international justice efforts and lots of people are seeing more and more the injustice that goes on in the world and frequently in the context of our own country.

How could it be other when there is no justice in the church? When impenitent sinners are allowed to remain in the fellowship of the godly? When God’s city isn’t even cleansed? How can we possibly hope to be doing justice in our communities if we don’t do justice in our churches and if we don’t do justice in our homes, in our relationship to our spouses, our children? Now, I know we’re not perfect. I understand that.

But if we’re not striving to do justice in our homes and in God’s home of the church, uh fine, we can do efforts in the community and world, but I don’t think they’re going to be all that effective because what’s happening in the world is a reflection of what’s happened in the church. The lack of ability to discern and make proper judgments and stigmatize people under God’s word’s instructions in the church has led to a culture that increasingly can’t do that either.

So that’s where we’re at. And that’s why this text is the concluding one is so appropriate because as I said, Psalm 101 says, you know, boy, you better keep this city holy, the city of God, or there’s really no hope for keeping Oregon City or any other city holy. And so, how do we do it? Well, first of all, when conflicts are not able to be resolved in a biblical fashion, we tell the sinning person, we’re going to tell the rest of the people, right?

So, he sins. And in this case, the case in Matthew 18 is a private sin, but this would apply to, you know, non-personal sins as well. You know, your neighbor is getting drunk, for instance. That’s a sin. And so, you go to your neighbor and you tell them, “Well, you know, I saw you drunk. Nobody else saw you. I’m talking in private. You really need to repent, right? In other words, you got to stop. You got to commit to not being drunk anymore.

And if the person says, “No, I’m not going to commit to that and I don’t think it’s a big deal. Yeah, who cares?” Then you bring in two or three other people and you say, “Well, you know, you all tell them that.” And at that point, if the person won’t repent of the sin, okay, and you’re sure now you’ve got the mouths of two or three, this has now been confirmed. That’s what the text says. By the mouths of two or three, all things are confirmed.

And so, this now is confirmed that this guy’s in sin to the best of your knowledge and seems like he’s got a pretty good case that would cause him to want to turn from his sin and repent, which means to turn to doing what’s right. If he refuses to hear those people, then you tell him, “We’ll tell.” Now, that’s a funny thing, isn’t it? If you think about it, church discipline, basically, it’s just “we’ll tell.” You know, the guy that shot up Aurora theater.

He didn’t believe in the power of words. He believed in the power of physical warfare. But in God’s way, it’s the power of words. It sounds like such—who cares if you’ll tell? And yet, it has a significance to it that Jesus says, “This is what you’re supposed to do.” Doesn’t say you’re supposed to go beat the guy up. Doesn’t say you’re supposed to do bad things to him physically. You tell him, “We’re going to tell people. We’re going to, you know, let the public know that you’re involved in this sin. So ‘we’ll tell’ is that step of confrontation that’s described for us here. Conflict resolution. A person won’t repent. You tell them we’ll tell. We’ll tell the church.

And this text gives us that’s kind of the basic steps here. There’s private reproof and then there’s a double witness and then there’s the church is told and the church is supposed to do particular as well. What does it say? It says then if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. “We’ll tell.” If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a gentile and a tax collector. Okay? So, what we’re told about here is that after you tell the church and the church exhorts him and he still doesn’t come to repentance, now there’s this stigma that I mentioned before applied. He’s supposed to become to you as a gentile or tax collector.

Now, the word gentile here—you think well, gentile—but this particular form of the word gentile is only used I think three times and once in First John couple of times in this go three times in this gospel and it basically has the negative connotation of being a heathen. It doesn’t just mean somebody that’s not, you know, the chosen people because you can have gentile God-fearers. This is like a gentile non-God-fearer, somebody who’s totally heathenish and pagan. So the consideration is isn’t that this guy is just like anybody else outside of the church. No, he’s seen as not even a gentile, but a gentile heathen sort of person.

And then secondly, he’s a tax collector. A tax farmer would probably be a literal translation of this term, or publican. Publican is a tax collector here. And they were despised people because they weren’t good people, right? They were, you know, nasty, intimidating, robbing, thieving sort of people. And that’s the way they’re supposed to treat the fellow.

So the basic idea is that these gentiles are outside of the people of God. The people of God being both Jews and Gentile God-fearers. These are gentile non-God-fearers. And so this person is told to get out. So as I said, write on your order of worship, right in the front there. Do it right now if you like. Might be a good time for it. This is outline point two. “We’ll tell.” And if you don’t listen, we’re going to tell you, get out. You’re not part of the people of God. You’re not considered to be part of the people of God.

Now, there’s lots of scriptures that embrace this same truth and we’ll get to a few of those in a couple of minutes, but obviously Psalm 101 is one of the obvious parts. Now, I think it’s important to understand what’s happening and not happening when you tell somebody to get out. When the church proclaims someone to be excommunicate, okay, so what we’re going to do today is we’re going to tell you in 40 days, this is what our constitution requires. An individual will be excommunicated if unless they repent.

So now they’re no longer allowed to the table. They are allowed to come to the church, but if they’re excommunicated, then they’re barred from the premise of the church altogether because it’s a picture of them being barred of the household and it keeps the city of God pure and helps people and all that stuff. So there’s this interim position where you’ve the church has been told about a matter, the elders have acted and said, “Yeah.” And they’ve called this individual to repentance to turn his life and he won’t do it.

And in fact, it’s kind of this particular individual is fairly, you know, there’s no question that he’s not going to do it. And so at that point, we then think that it’s proper to tell the church in the context of the assembly, all of the church, not just represented by its officers. Good people disagree about this particular part of the process. But in some way the church is told and this is really unusual too to use the word church here as eklesia—the called out ones, the gathered ones who gather for particular purposes—and this is only used a couple of times in the gospels, it’s used a lot later in the epistles, but in the gospels this is one of the few occurrences so it seems significant.

Jesus is using unusual words—ethnicos for gentile like pagan—and then this word for church—both are not common words, at least here in the gospels. So the church has this responsibility then to do something to urge the person to repentance and if they don’t repent then the stigmatization occurs. Then you declare him and if this person doesn’t repent in 40 days—I think first Sunday in September or something—we will announce his excommunication and at that point he is to be treated as a gentile pagan tax collector. Not nice. Okay.

In the meantime, you’ve got a responsibility to exhort this person to repentance. And that’s what this process is talking about. If he refuses even to hear the church. So if you talk to him, and I don’t mean every last individual here, but you know, most—a lot of you people know this particular individual. And if you talk to him, urge him to repentance, and he doesn’t, then he’s excommunicated. Then he’s treated in that particular way.

Now, it’s important to recognize that we believe based on Deuteronomy 17 and other texts that the person is not really excommunicated for his particular sin. Summary sin of this person is not following Jesus, loving Jesus by not loving his family by prolonged absences and all kinds of other stuff. But ultimately, let’s say somebody shoots the guy in Aurora. He repents. He decides to turn his life around and become a Christian and follow Jesus. I mean, it happened to Paul, right? David was a murderer and an adulterer. So this can happen, right? But if he doesn’t, he’s not excommunicated for murdering people. He’s excommunicated for failing to turn and repent.

You see, our sins are not what really get in the way here. It’s the one sin of being contemptuous of the government of Jesus Christ and calling him to repentance. In Deuteronomy 17, there’s a process articulated and it says, “that you know when cases come up that are too hard for you, cases of assault or any other case within your towns,” reading directly now from Deuteronomy 17, “that’s too hard for you. Then you shall arise and go up to the place that the Lord will choose and you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days.

You shall consult them. They shall declare to you the decision. Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that the Lord will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you. According to the instructions that they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside from the verdict that they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left. The man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister before the Lord your God or the judge. This man shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel and all the people shall hear and fear him and not act presumptuously again.”

Now when the ruling authorities are only the priest—the ecclesiastical authorities—you know, this was a theocratic regime where the judge and priest are talking together. But the church side of the death penalty is excommunication. So the church isn’t, you know, but the point is the man is executed not because he stole something from somebody for instance but because he wouldn’t do what the judges were saying and what the priests were saying. The priests and judges are representatives of God. And because God is telling this man, “Turn your life around. Work for yourself. Make restitution. But more than that, become a better person. Become a better man. Right? Do that in the power of Christ. Believe the promises and gospel of Jesus that’s what you can do because your sins have been taken care of by Jesus because he refuses to obey the voice of God spoken through the voice of the judge and the voice of the priests. That’s why he then is subject to the ultimate penalty—death in the civil state or the ultimate penalty in the ecclesiastical realm—excommunication to be expelled from the life.

The only place life is in the church of God. So what he’s being excommunicated for—excommunicants—ultimately are not the particular sins that get you to the place of standing before the representatives of God who tell you repent and you don’t do it and therefore you’re cut off. It’s not the particular sins. It’s that you will not do what Jesus speaking graciously and lovingly through the words of the priest to you exhorts you for your well-being and for the well-being of others to repent.

When you are so stiffened and hardened to act high-handedly and presumptuously by refusing to hear the word of Christ’s representatives, by refusing to submit to the gracious government of Jesus who will forgive you of any sin, right?—when you repent—that’s the reason why you’re excommunicated. So “we’ll tell” becomes “get out” when he refuses to hear the voice of the church, church and his friends in the church who exhort him.

And then the “get out” is a pronouncement because he hasn’t heard the voice of Jesus speaking through the church both through her officers and through her members.

So you know another thing to keep in mind with excommunication is it is not a performative action. I don’t think it is. What do I mean? So there was a great wedding here on Friday and lots of fun and joy over refreshments afterwards and all this stuff and at the end of it Pastor Wilson said something like “I now present to you” or “I now pronounce” or whatever—”that you’re man and wife.” We don’t believe that the officiant creates that marriage. All Elder Wilson—he’s not creating a marriage by his words. He’s declaring to you the results of two people taking vows to God being represented by him and to one another. Right? Because they’ve done that, there is now a marriage in place. His words are declarative that it’s true. They’re not performative. They don’t have the power to make marriage.

I think the same thing’s true of what we’re talking about here. When the church finally, when the officers of the church tell the church and tell the individual “get out,” it’s not their power that accomplishes that. They are declaring what God’s word tells impenitent sinners. Or if they loose a person’s sin and they declare a person forgiven, they’re not thereby creating the forgiveness. They’re declaring what God’s word has said and done.

See the difference? So nobody’s asserting to the church power to determine the eternal states of souls. But the church has an obligation before God to declare what God’s word—this word for instance particularly clearly says about this or that or the other thing—and in this case you know, men who are excommunicated. So I hope you understand that our words don’t create the marriage, the pastor’s words, the officiant words, our words don’t create the state when Jesus says you’ve got the keys of the kingdom to Peter and now he tells it to where two or three are gathered in my name I’ll be there with you and I’ll accomplish this thing—that’s because we are—it’s assuming a faithfulness of men and women in the church and the officers of the church to declare what the word says.

There’s no performative action or power. There is however a promise in the text of efficacy. Right? You know, he says that you know, if you do this then indeed it’ll happen. “Where two or three are gathered in my name there am I in the midst of them. If you agree on anything on earth it will be done by my Father in heaven.” So there’s a promise here and the promise goes on to say, “you know, whatever sins you bind will be bound. Whatever sins you loose will be loosed.”

Our Savior tells us that excommunication isn’t just some empty thing. There is a relationship as we do it in connection with the word of God. There is this relationship. There is an efficacy. There’s a promise by Jesus that binding and loosing and answered prayer will happen in the context of church discipline done by his purposes. So, pretty simple stuff. You’ll tell. We’ll make it public and then if he still doesn’t repent, get out.

Okay, but this can be difficult. Be more difficult than it seems. It’s the puppy dog part of the outline. How do you get rid of a puppy dog? It’s kind of difficult. You know, some excommunicated people are snarling pit bulls. That’s not so tough to deal with. But other excommunicates are more like puppy dogs or even sad puppy dogs. Now I want to talk here about Lazarus and the rich man because that’s an example—the rich man in Jesus’s account of Lazarus and the rich man is an example of what I mean by a puppy dog.

Now what fallen men does is he blames other people for his sins. Right? What did Adam do? God comes to him. He blames two people. He says, “The wife made me do this.” And “it’s the wife that you gave me, God.” So fallen men tend to blame somebody else rather than assume responsibility. And ultimately, they also are ultimately blaming God through that. And but—and so when we see that happening, it’s—it’s not to be—I mean, this is just what they do. This is what unrepentant man does.

Repentant man—an important part of evaluating repentance is, has he turned from irresponsibility to responsibility? Has he turned from blaming everything around him for all the difficulties he’s in, always hearing about the problems that he’s had that led to his place, or is he finally manning up and saying, “My fault. My own fault. My own most grievous fault.” Right?

Well, that’s the difference. But sometimes it’ll seem like they’re being a pretty good person. Story of Lazarus and Dives. I don’t know if that’s right. But now—and I’m telling you this because here’s what Galatians says: “Bear one another’s burdens. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”

The task you’re being called to do today by the church in relationship to this particular individual, the task you’re always called to do when the church announces a pending excommunication is a dangerous one. We’re warned in Galatians that you too can fall into sin. And one of the ways that happens is when the person we’re dealing with is like the rich man who acts like a puppy dog.

You know the story, right? And you know Jesus tells the story that you have this rich guy and then you had Lazarus who is at his—rich man has a big house, castle. The Lazarus is this poor man. He all he wants is a little bit of food and he doesn’t get it from the rich man. And they both end up dying. And you know it’s prior to the ascension of Jesus Christ. Jesus brings humanity into heaven what we call heaven now into the throne room of God until Jesus is raised up. The Bible describes this place of Abraham’s bosom or Hades. And you have these—this place, this intermediate place where souls go. They can’t go into heaven yet, the saved people, because Jesus is the first human that’ll open that door, so to speak.

So Jesus describes the situation. Both men, Lazarus and the rich man are dead. And there’s Lazarus with Abraham. And there’s the rich man. And the rich man says some things. He says, “Oh, you know, it’s so hot. You know, couldn’t you—could you just have my servant Abraham go get a little bit of water on the tip of his finger and put it on my tongue?” Okay, so that’s the first thing he says. “Oh, just a little bit of water from Lazarus, please.”

And then the next thing he says is—and so Abraham says, “No.” And then the rich man says, “Well, you know, this is—you—I just—if I would have known—Please send somebody back from the dead. Send Lazarus back to warn my five brothers because they need to know how horrible hell is or at least the Old Testament place that was preceding hell, but like hell. They got to know how bad this suffering is.”

This is self-pitying but seemingly a good set of things to talk about. “Oh, I just need a—I don’t want to ask for much—a little drop of water is all I need. You know, that’d be great. And why don’t you have Lazarus do it?” And then, “Oh, you know, I care so much for my brothers that, you know, why don’t you please, God, send somebody back. Send Lazarus back to warn them.”

Now, the interpretation of this, I think, should be the following. Implied in the rich man’s first request is the fact that he didn’t give Lazarus anything. And if Lazarus doesn’t—if God doesn’t let Lazarus give him anything—do you see how there’s a moral equivalence that’s being drawn here? I mean, Lazarus—the rich man—is essentially saying, “What right does Lazarus have to heaven if he’s not willing to go back and get me some water?” And in fact, “What right do you, Abraham, have to this whole place you’re running? If you don’t somehow show that what I’m judged for—that I didn’t help this guy in any way—if you won’t help me in any way, what’s going on with that?”

Now, he’s a deceptive man. He’s satanic, right? Satan doesn’t just blurt that stuff out. But that seems to be the subtext, as we would call it today. And what’s the subtext with wanting Lazarus to go back and help his poor suffering brothers? Look at his, you know, his puppy dog eyes. “All I want’s a little bit of water. And then look at his puppy dog eyes. Oh, I know. I know I’m here, but oh, please save my brothers. I’m so concerned for someone else other than myself—my brothers.”

He’s a puppy dog. Doesn’t your heart begin to melt a little bit for this poor, suffering rich man who the Bible says is every bit deserving of his hell? What is what is the rich man saying when he talks about sending back Lazarus? He’s telling God, “If you had done things differently, if I had something other than what your Bible said, if you had sent back somebody to tell me what this was like—someone from the dead—by God, I would have repented. That’s what he’s telling God.

And we don’t see it. We can’t see it typically because he’s got the puppy dog eyes and he puts the whole thing in such a telling nice little story. And he seems so wanting very little and he seems to be caring about somebody else. But in reality, he is indicting God for his state. He’s telling God, “You didn’t do enough for me.” And he’s putting it in the guise, in the covering of a supposed great care and love for his brothers, right?

And of course, the obvious answer is, you know, well, if they don’t listen to the law and prophets, they won’t listen to somebody come back from the dead. God’s word is there. What’s wrong with you? See, God’s word—he blames his environment for where he is at. He blames the fact that he lived in a time when Jesus hasn’t been resurrected. “That, yeah, you know what was he going to do? He just had the Bible. You know, he had this environment of difficulty and stuff and he blames all of that for his sin. He is unrepentant man. He is irresponsible man. But irresponsible man will frequently be talking to you when you go to tell him about his sins and urge him to repent. He will frequently look to you like a puppy dog and his story will have some plausibility to it.

And if you start letting him go on and on about how tough his life was, you’re in trouble, my friend. You’re in trouble. And he’s in trouble. Because love to him is telling him very simply, “I don’t want to hear your stories. I don’t want to hear any excuses. What I want to hear from you is ‘I want to follow Jesus. I want to follow him right now. And I want to go talk to the elders of the church and the people I’ve sinned against. And I want to tell them, I’m going to try by the grace of God as hard as I can to do what’s right.’”

That’s all I want to hear from you. Have you got stuff to work out? Fine. You work it out after you turn. But don’t go telling me all this stuff, rich man. Don’t tell me it was God’s fault because it wasn’t.

So, puppy dog. So, you know, we’ll tell. And then if he doesn’t listen, you know, get out. And as part of that process, the church is encouraged to both in the warning of the person and then in the actual excommunication of the person to be willing to kick out a sad puppy dog. Now, that’s just what we’re called to do in God’s word. It doesn’t make any difference how they appear.

Okay. I want to talk a little bit more about your responsibility and then we’ll conclude by talking about the goal of all this. The goal is obviously forgiveness and repentance unto forgiveness. But a little bit more about your responsibilities then in terms of this process.

First of all, 1 Peter 4:8 says this: “Above all keep loving one another earnestly since Love covers a multitude of sins.” Okay. And we interpret that verse and well, we’ll just overlook everything. Somebody, you know, adultery, murder, okay, that we can’t overlook. But most things in love, we love people. We cover a multitude of sins by our love. But that same expression is described in more detail for us in James chapter 5. Here’s what we read.

Well, and this is in the context of where James says the prayer of a righteous man avails much, right? And how if we pray that we can do wonderful things and then he says this: “My brother, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, okay, so if he’s erred, sinned, he’s gone off. And if you restore him, you bring him back from his wandering, from his sinning, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”

You know the word cover can mean a lot of things and a lot of things will just paper it over but no—you know the atonement seat was a covering and the blood covers, cleanses us from our sin. And I think the way to understand the first text about love covering a multitude of sins is this second text that says love for your brother means going to him and calling him to repentance to get him to turn from his wandering ways. And if you do that, you’ll save his soul.

Now, how does that work with the eternal election of God? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I know God tells me, “You don’t got to figure it out, Dennis. I’m God. You’re not. Get used to it.” As Wilson says about the book of Job, “I don’t got to figure it out. I’m not put on earth here to figure it out. Big trouble in Little China. You’re not put here to figure it out. You’re here to fight the demons.” Okay? You’re here to cast Lucifer out. Okay? So, I don’t need to know how it works.

But that’s what it says—is that I’ll save that man’s soul. Okay? And in doing that, I’ll cover a multitude of sins. You don’t cover him. He says, just by ignoring him, you cover him by going to that person, confronting him about his sin, getting him to turn to in repentance to turn from wandering ways. Again, it’s not an emotional thing. It’s not a, you know, feeling bad thing. It’s a turning thing from wandering. That’s what it is. We’re calling him to. And if you do that, you cover a multitude of sins.

What’s love then? If you put these two verses together, it’s like those old math problems. A equals B. What is that? The commutative principle? Is that what it is? 50 years ago. I 40 years ago. Commutative principle. Isn’t that it? A equals B, B equals C, A equals C. What is it? Oh, that’s transitivity. Well, I guess I didn’t remember after 40 years, but now it was 40 years. It’s not my fault. Okay.

So, what is it saying? Love covers a multitude of sins. Telling your brother to repent and getting him to turn covers a multitude of sins. Love is the same as—you know, or we could—I don’t remember how to write the equation, but the point is you can see here the real love is biblical love is doing what we ask you to do today in our notice to you to go to this person to not hear a bunch of sad stories, but to simply tell them, “The elders of the church had determined that you have sinned and these particular things. You need to repent. I want to exhort you to repentance, or you’re on your way to damnation. You’re on your way to curse and being cut off from life, which is in Jesus Christ.”

So, your job is to help recover people on the way to excommunication by going to them in that kind of love.

There are other texts, for instance in 2 Thessalonians 3. We read, “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 your traditions that you receive from us. And then later in the chapter: If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter take note of that person have nothing to do with him that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.”

Now, this I think is has primary reference to this process we’re in right now with this individual that we’ll make the announcement about because you’re still warning him as a brother. Until a person is excommunicated—but Jesus says at that point of excommunication, you’re commanded to treat him as a gentile and a tax collector.

But, you know, it’s not as if you go from A to B. It’s A, B, C. A is remember in good standing. C is excommunicated. B is the elders have determined this person is in high-handed rebellion against the Lord Jesus Christ and we’re telling you about it so that you can exhort him so that you can make him be ashamed. Says “have nothing to do with him.” In other words, now is not the time to have normal concourse of relationship with a person in pending excommunication mode. You don’t just hang out with this person anymore. Okay? You try to approach him or not approach him to bring the person to shame.

Now, there’s another thing where we’re at odds with the world. Right. “Oh boy, you guys rule by shame.” That’s right. That is part of the tools that God says we’re supposed to use is shame. And then the removal of shame is the promise of the gospel. Without the gospel, there’s no dealing with shame. But with the gospel, people that are ashamed for their sins, if we bring them to that point of being shamed and willing to repent, then we’ve, as was said in the earlier text, we saved that man’s soul.

Now, that soul said that man will die if you don’t do that, right? The earlier text we read—Ezekiel says you might die in this process. At least by way of application, Ezekiel 33:7-9—and famous text I won’t read the text, but it’s the parable of the watchman. It’s the story of the watchman. He says, “You, Israel, are a watchman on the walls. Your job is to warn people, congregation of the Lord. You’re a watchman in this matter and your job—if you have any relationship with this individual—is to warn him of his sin.

“Now, it says, ‘If he sins and he won’t stop from his sinning and you’ve warned him about the sin and he dies, well, he dies. But if you warn him about the sin, you will live. If you don’t warn him about the sin, God says he’ll require the blood from your head. You will die.’”

Now, startling words. Pastor said, “If I don’t go put on my game face with this fellow I’m going to die.” Well, no, but I am saying there is this responsibility we have and unless we fulfill our responsibilities, you know, we take the church covenant here seriously. We’re an extended family. We want to help people in this church. And if you could just blow off an excommunication notice or a call for you to go and exhort somebody to repentance that isn’t good. That isn’t good. We’ll just leave it at that.

And Ezekiel says, you know, your very life is diminished. We could say, right? Your life in relationship to Christ becomes less if you just, you know, blow these things off and don’t care because it isn’t my family, it isn’t my friend, whoever it is. Okay? So, you’ve got an obligation. What’s your job? Your job is to be careful to not listen to sad stories, to not listen to justifications or rationalizations, but to call this person simply to repentance. To—and which means not sorry but it means turning from actions of the past to positive actions in the future—and you’re to do that still in love. That is love. Okay? That’s how love works at this particular point.

In terms of that, Paul said that in the talk to the elders in Acts chapter 20. He says, “You know, I’m free of the guilty blood—guiltiness of men.” And he’s talking about this Ezekiel text we just read. He tells the elders, “You know how long I’ve worked here. You know what I’ve done. I’m free. I have no blood guiltiness on my head. Because he said, ‘I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.’ And then he says later, ‘For three years, I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears.’”

Paul said because he went out of his way to warn people, do the whole counsel of God, including warning people of pending excommunication, warning them to repent. If he had not done that, he couldn’t have told him he was free of the blood guiltiness that Ezekiel talks about. So even in the New Testament with the pastors of the church at least we have reference to this Ezekiel text about our need.

Well, let’s—let’s—I’m going to read just briefly from 1 Corinthians 5:2 to 13 in terms of your job as well and why you’re doing this, why it’s important for us, how it relates sort of to the protection of community that’s on a lot of people’s minds today. This will be the last text I read in this part of the outline.

1 Corinthians 5: You are—he says—”you’re arrogant. You’ve got a guy there sinning sexually. He says you don’t do anything about it. So you’re arrogant. You should not—shouldn’t you rather mourn. Let him who has done this be removed from among you. Tell him to get out.” That’s what Paul says. “For though absent in the body, I am present in spirit. And is—and 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 Christ, and my spirit is present with the power of the Lord Jesus.”

Okay? So, he’s got all these same things that Matthew assured us of. It’s not just Paul talking. It’s not just when they’re assembled together that they’re talking. Jesus is with them just like he promised. I mean, Paul knew Matthew 18 where two or three are gathered together and Jesus is talking there—not about prayer. He’s talking specifically about excommunicating an impenitent sinner, casting him out of the church, making a change of state for them, stigmatizing him. And Paul says, “When you’re assembled together, Jesus is with you. You’re assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus. And this is going to be—this is the judgment—not of myself, but rather of the Lord Jesus. And you are with the power of our Lord Jesus,” he says at the end of verse 5.

And then he says, “You are delivering the man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. And so in other words, even excommunication in the church—it’s not anathema. If you anathematize somebody, as I understand Catholic doctrine, they can never repent. We don’t believe in that. They can always repent. So we believe in excommunication, but excommunication is part of the process hopefully where that person will repent of their sins.

But there are other reasons for it. And Paul goes on to say this: “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

“I wrote to my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolators. See, it isn’t just sexual sin. All kinds of stuff. He says, ‘Since then you would need to go out of the world, but now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of a brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolator, reviler, drunkard or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.’”

So that’s the process and Paul assures them that as they go through this process, the presence and power of Jesus Christ with them—and that may recover the sinner hopefully. And then he also says the other thing it’s going to do because it’s going to keep your community pure. Right? An ex—an impenitent contumacious sinner is a contagion in the church. Is a contagion in the church. It’s that’s what Paul calls a little leaven and it’ll start leavening the church and you’ll start to end up with bad things in the church.

Why are churches so weak today? Because very few of them anymore do what Paul says to do here and what we believe we should do, which is calling impenitent sinners to repent or to remove them to tell them to get out of the church.

For your job is to warn someone on that path of what’s happening, to call them to turn from their actions of the past and to embrace the promises of God. What do we hope for them? Well, Acts 3 says this: “Repent therefore, turn back again from last week. Repentance is not sorrow. It includes contrition, but it is—it’s about a change of mind that produces change of action.”

The prodigal son comes to his senses. Wait a minute. He says, “Dad’s servants eat really good. It doesn’t look right to us, does it?” Well, I thought the guy would say, “Oh, wait a minute. I sinned against dad. Wait a minute. I got to confess my sins. Wait a minute. I’ve sinned against God.” But the benefits of life with his father is what draws the prodigal back, what brings him to his senses. He restores his right mind, the text says. And that’s okay because that’s what we want. We want people to see—who are outside of the church who are impenitent—that life and blessing are only found in father’s household. That is a belief in the gospel promise. Okay? That’s a belief in the gospel promise that produces a desire for blessing on the part of the formerly impenitent.

And so they’re to repent. Turn—as Acts says. And listen—this is what it says: “Turn back that your sins may be blotted out and that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”

I was in having a class this morning with a couple of folks and the ark of the feast list in Leviticus 23 begins with Passover and the blotting out of sins. But those seven feasts end with rejoicing, time together at the Feast of Booths. Strong drink, great food, Skittles, Diet Coca-Cola, cranberry, raspberry, Diet Snapple drink, whatever your heart desires. You get together, you have a good time every year at family camp or whatever it is you do. You hear the word of God. You rejoice in community. That’s refreshing times from the presence of the Lord. And that’s the goal of excommunication hopefully for that individual. They’ll turn and repent. And not only will their sins be blotted out, they’ll be ushered into new creation life again, which they have forsaken. They’ll enter into the joy of the Lord. They’ll enter into perpetual Feast of Booths time, refreshment from the Lord and new creation life.

Isn’t that what we want? And that’s what’s, you know, threatened if we don’t do this for the people that are there, that the house of God might be a purified house of God. And so, you know, what we’re doing has a hopeful goal of not just blotting out someone’s sins, but times of refreshment.

The goal of conflict resolution is justice in the Bible. And justice isn’t some sort of stern-faced adherence to law and not grace. Justice for the church of Jesus Christ is rejoicing in community together because of God’s grace that forgives us our sins and calls us based on that forgiveness to repent, to turn away from old life, death, bad things, and to embrace the promises of the gospel, the word of God that tells us that new life, new creation life is what we are in.

Brothers and sisters, every time you sin and you know you’ve sinned and you stay in that sin, you’re going back to death. And when you turn from that sin, that sin will be blotted out. And more than that, times of refreshing from the Lord will come with that. And times of grace, great joy together in community. That’s our hope and desire for the person we’re going to bring this announcement to you about now. And the honor and glory of God, the holiness of his city is what we are committed to maintaining.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the clarity of your word. We thank you, Father, for telling us to tell one another, to bring things public, even private sin when it’s unrepented of. We thank you for instructing us to be prepared to tell people, “Hey, you’re on the verge of being told to get out”—and not just get out of our little club, but get out of the church of Jesus Christ, in the only place where life and joy and true peace are found.

Bless us, Lord God, now as a community. Bless the people that will hear this announcement today and know that they should—that you lay it on their hearts, they should go and exhort this individual to repentance. And we do pray that sins will be blotted out and times of refreshment will be had. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Can I take your microphone? Yeah.