A Charge to Keep

There was another song written this one back in the 1700s by Charles Wesley a Song entitled a charge to keep I have we don't hear that song much anymore Maybe the reason we don't sing it is its number six six six in our hymnal Maybe the reason we don't sing it but anyway, we don't it's a great old song. It goes like this a A charge to keep I have a God to glorify who gave his son my soul to save and fit it for the sky To serve the present age my calling to fulfill Oh, may it all my powers engage to do my master's will Arm me with jealous care as in thy sight to live and all thy servant Lord prepare a strict account to give Help me to watch and pray and on thyself rely and let me nare my trust betray but press to realms on high Great old song that reminds us that Wesley understood back in the 1700s what it meant to have a charge given to him by God that he must keep But it goes back further than that it goes back into the 1500s One of the great English reformers in the mid 1500s was a man by the name of Hugh Latimer Hugh Latimer was a preacher who dared to stand against the throne and against a lot that was going on in his country religiously He preached one Sunday and King Henry the eighth was in attendance um predictably the king was offended at the sermon that Latimer preached and so he commanded Latimer to preach again the following Sunday and retract what he said and make an apology Well, this was how Latimer started his sermon the next Sunday Hugh Latimer dust thou know before whom thou art this day to speak to the high and mighty monarch The king's most excellent majesty who can take away thy life if thou offendest Therefore take heed that thou speakest not a word that may displease But then consider well to you thus thou not know from whenst thou comest upon whose message thou art sent Even by the great and mighty God who is all present and who beholdest all thy ways and who is able to cast thy soul into hell Therefore take care that thou deliverest thy message faithfully and he preached exactly the same message He had preached the week before this time with more passion more direct energy And he gave his life for that he was burned at the stake I bring up those old stories not to appear ancient which I am But to remind us there has been a charge given down through the centuries that remains for us today And it didn't start with Wesley It didn't start with Latimer. It started with the Apostle Paul And the Paul Paul gives this charge to his young minister in training his young preacher boy if you will Timothy This charge that he leaves with Timothy rings down through the ages and is a charge that we do well to take heed to today It is a charge that was true in the first century the 16th century the 18th century and the 21st century It is a charge that I leave with you today I'm very conscious of the shortness of time as I move toward retirement and I've chosen I believe God is laid on my heart To preach through these pastoral epistles Because they are God's design for the church And specifically his design for how to lead a church How to be a pastor And so the charge that God gave Timothy I'm giving to you because you are entrusted with the responsibility of Choosing the next senior pastor the one who will stand before you to proclaim the word of God and whose responsibility it is to Protect the flock from doctrinal error. It is the responsibility of all the pastors to do that in part But each pastor has specific areas of responsibility It is chiefly the charge of the one who occupies the pulpit to preach the word of God to make sure the church stays Doctrically on target and to make sure the church is protected from false teaching It is that charge that Paul gives to Timothy in first Timothy chapter one We've already seen that he is talking with him about doctrine He's instructing him about proper doctrine in the church how to protect the church Then he gives his own testimony Paul does of how he was delivered from that group of false teachers Saved by the mercy and grace of God and called and entrusted with that glorious gospel to preach it and to hold it For the next generation and now he passes it on to Timothy and he says in verse 18 Timothy my son I am giving you this Command the word command or instruction in some translations literally is a military word It is a military command. It is not to be trifled with this is from the commander in chief And Paul as a drill sergeant if it will is saying to this young private Timothy I'm giving you a military command, but he catches it in the terms of relationship. He says my son So this is serious. This is a military command. This is orders from headquarters, but it is also delivered as a father to a son And this charge has much to teach us about what these two books are all about first and second Timothy This charge which flows throughout the whole first chapter. He's mentioned the same word in verse three and again in verse five This charge kind of bookends these these this this chapter and really fills the whole chapter It sheds light on what Paul is doing with this whole book And the nature of these two letters to Timothy They are in total a charge Timothy Personally, you are to remain true to the gospel and you are to defend it against the attacks of false teachers You are to be on guard yourself and you are to guard the gospel that was entrusted to me and I'm passing on to you Over and over and over again. He reminds Timothy of that at least three more times in this book and at least twice in second Timothy He reminds him to guard that deposit that charge that was entrusted to him that's being left with him This morning we look at chapter one verses 18 to 20 the essence of that charge to Timothy and in that charge to Timothy Paul describes both the defense of the faith and the defection from the faith He will first address to Timothy how he is to defend the faith and then he will give some Some illustrations some examples of people who have defected from the faith who've turned their back on the faith Let's see what he has to say to Timothy and I believe there's still something for us today as well as a church as a pastor as the people of God The defense of the faith Paul talks about in verses 18 and 19 and he begins by describing the war We must fight This defense of the faith is literally a warfare. We are in a war. It is a war. We must fight Notice how he addresses Timothy in verse 18 Timothy my son I am giving you the word giving literally means to entrust or to deposit with He is he is giving him this precious gospel In all of its fullness that was Deposited with Paul and now he's entrusting it to Timothy. It's like a rare jewel that he's he's entrusting to Timothy to care for and to protect I'm giving you I'm entrusting you I'm charging you with this charge this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well You can tell from the terminology Timothy is in a war It's a battle for the faith It's a battle to keep what the Bible teaches pure Untainted unspoiled and moving forward not being hindered in any way Paul says I'm giving this I'm entrusting this to you Timothy and I'm urging you to fight well Seven more times in this book He encourages him to fight this fight Ending with chapter six in verse 12 where he says fight the good fight of the faith Take hold of the eternal life to what you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses But seven times in this book he gives him this charge Guard this deposit keep this treasure War well fight the battle well And you may be thinking well, okay. What does that have to do with me Isn't that just an apostle telling a pastor how he's to operate the church how he's to defend the faith as a pastor What does that have to do with me? Well, it has a lot to do with you It has a lot to do with all of us as believers Because we are all in this same battle The charge is given to Timothy as the pastor of the church at Ephesus He is responsible and will answer to God But all of us are in this battle for the faith You're on the front lines too. It is it is my responsibility The other other pastor's responsibility To equip you to be ready to fight that battle in the day in day out trenches of the life that you live Because when you go out to your workplace When you go into your neighborhood when you go into the community to do business or to interact with people or to minister to people You are going to face attacks on the truth of God's word We face a culture that is shot through and through with pluralism Which basically says that everything is on an equal playing all views are equally valid We face a culture of relativism which says there is no absolute morality And there is no absolute standard for truth either So every person is left to himself or herself to choose whatever lifestyle Whatever belief system whatever group of morality or immorality they want to And that's all okay because it's my life And nobody else is an authority over me That's what we face every day when we go out into the world to live We face that kind of mindset that world view that philosophy and way of thinking So we are in a battle and we must constantly Fight well the battle of maintaining God's truth Now this fight is different from a literal warfare We're not in this fight to blast people away This is a fight that we undertake with grace Kindness mercy love a Christ-like spirit of meatness But we must be ready to stand for the truth We must be ready to give an answer for the hope that's in us with meekness And with the fear of God recognizing that we will account to him will give an account to him for how we have handled that So you're in this battle every day too The question is whether or not you're fighting well or whether or not you're backing up just being quiet Not even taking up for your lord or for his word or the standards of the Bible the question is how are you fighting? So we're all in this battle But the battle is much more pervasive than just this Concept of the battle for the truth of God's word and pure doctrine The Bible describes everything about the Christian life in terms of warfare In terms of a battle and so in the broader sense we're all in that battle too And and the Bible teaches that we are warring against at least three very powerful enemies One of those enemies is Satan himself and all of his forces look at this verse in Ephesians chapter 6 verses 10 and 11 Finally Paul says be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes Mark my word the devil is scheming every day to see how he can undo you He never lets up He is constantly warring against your mind against your affections Against your desires and in planations Against your your tongue your eyes He's constantly seeking to bombard you with his thoughts his philosophies And we are in that battle every day So we've got to put on all the weapons that God has given us faith and truth in the gospel of peace and all of those things The word of God that they're described there in Ephesians 6 so that we can fight that battle well But there's another battle that we face not only the attacks of Satan and his philosophies and schemes against this But there's an internal battle as well That we fight daily every moment we live with what the Bible calls the flesh Sometimes the Bible uses that word as we've seen in our study of man on Wednesday nights The Bible uses that word flesh sometimes to describe the sinful nature And in this case in Galatians chapter 5 look at these verses Paul uses it that way He says so I say walk by the spirit in other words let the Holy Spirit control your daily life And you will not gratify the desires of the flesh that sinful nature in us has its own set of desires That are longing crying out calling to be gratified And so he says for the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit you can see these two against each other already Because I'm to say in verse 17 and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh these are in conflict with each other So that you're not to do whatever you want In other words as believers we're not just supposed to give into whatever desire comes our way We're to check to make sure that desire is a godly one a biblical one Or is it coming from the sinful nature When Paul says they are in conflict with each other the word he uses for conflict is hand-to-hand combat I mean this is up close and personal right inside you every day it never lets up You're in a battle you're in a war With the devil and with the flesh and then Jesus told us we would also be in a war against the world And the world is not planted earth. It's not the world of people It's not people it is a system and way of thinking That is against us Jesus said in John 15 if the world hates you keep in mind that it hated me first If you belong to the world in other words if you were part of this organized world system the way of thinking that controls Folks who were lost and without Christ if you belong to this world it would love you as its own as it is You do not belong to the world, but I've chosen you out of the world That is why the world hates you Remember what I told you a servant is not greater than his master if they persecuted me They will persecute you also So we fight against a way of thinking a world view a philosophy a way of living that is totally contrary to what the Bible teaches and it is in your face every day And so we're all in this battle. We can't escape it the charge is very applicable to you as well as to me as a pastor It is applicable to all of us in just the way we live Fight the battle well Paul tells Timothy and we need to fight the battle well by giving our submission totally to the spirit of God and And God's word and living according to this book the war We must fight But Paul also instructs Timothy about the way he should fight The way we must fight is described in verses 18 and 19 notice what he says He says Timothy my son. I'm giving you this command In keeping with the prophecies once made about you so that by recalling them You may fight the battle well Now what he's talking about here is living up to his potential And so the first way we fight the battle well is by living up to our potential What does he mean when he says to Timothy? I want you to remember recall the prophecies once made about you That's how you'll fight the battle well Well interestingly enough he mentions At least one other time in this book and in in second Timothy also Something very similar to that that may give us a clue in chapter 4 and verse 14 He says to Timothy do not neglect your gift Which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you And then in chapter one of the second letter chapter One and verse six he says for this reason I remind you to fan into flame The gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands He put those three verses together and you come up with a picture that may look something like this We're not real sure but it appears that when Timothy Was somehow set aside for his ministry maybe at what we would call the day in ordination But when he was set aside by the elders the leaders of the church With the apostle Paul present Paul because he was an apostle Received a revelation from God which he spoke into the life and heart of Paul It was a prophecy It was literally the prophecy of what his gift would be Now because he goes on in chapter one and verse seven of the second epistle to talk about Timothy Not being timid and unashamed because we have a spirit of power and of love and of sound might Many believe that that gift was the gift of public proclamation of the gospel or public preaching the preaching ministry So if that's what his gift was Paul is reminding him here Remember that recall that by divine revelation you you understood what your spiritual gift was And you're to use that you're not to abandon that By recalling that and using your gift faithfully you'll fight the battle well Now again, what does that have to do with you and me Okay, I understand an apostle there in a special relationship the god having a prophecy they speak into the life What they have to do with me? You know the Bible teaches that every Christian has a spiritual gift It is a divinely given ability for service. It's something god has given you to do That dovetails perfectly with how he's put you together and made you That he wants you to do in serving him So every believer is supposed to be involved in serving god in some way Because he's given us all the spiritual gift you say well, I don't know. I don't even know what spiritual gifts are It's a worthwhile study and for that reason we have a class called chapel 301 and we encourage every person at Johnson Chapel if they've not taken it at some point to take chapel 301 why because it leads you through a self-discovery process Examining the spiritual gifts so that you can try to determine what gift god's given you But it also it also examines your heart Inclinations and motivations what gods put in your heart is a passion to do The abilities he's given you that can be pulled together and used with your spiritual gift to serve him The personality he's given you You know if you're very withdrawn introverted person. Please don't be a greeter in our church You just won't fit So the personality gods given you is an important part of that and then all the life experiences you'll be able to go through and list Experiences throughout your life up to the present time to be able to show how god is woven those together to put all of that package together in you To serve him in some way and then we try to help connect you with church ministries and other outreaches into the community We have a we have a place for you to learn what he's telling Timothy here was given by direct revelation to him Learn what your gift is learn how to use it and then use it serve god in some way or ways In this church and out into our community And That's one of the ways you fight this battle well We don't fight spiritual battles well by sitting down We fight them by getting in the trenches and being active in service for the Lord Living up to our potential What gods built into us The second way we must fight is by keeping the faith notice. He says it there in verse 18 I'm giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you So that I recalling that you may fight the battle well here it is verse 19 holding on to faith And that may sound like just general faith, you know trusting god for salvation and for the Christian life But it really in this context probably should be the faith Holding on to the faith because in the very next verse well at the end of this verse He talks about those who have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith And he has mentioned this body of doctrine throughout chapter one that Timothy is entrusted with to safeguard And so it seems obvious that in this passage he's talking about keeping The faith and what is The faith we kind of use that experience now for just you know keep going, you know athletes say to each other keep the faith What does that mean? It just means just you know keep going That's not what Paul means when he says keep the faith He's talking about a very specific body of truth The basic doctrinal truth of the word of god which was given to Paul And entrusted to him and now he's leaving that as a precious jewel to Timothy He's entrusting him with it. This is critical And so he challenges him you keep this Faith It is important For those who are charged with pastoral ministry And I give this charge to you as a church As we are now in the search for the next senior pastor. I give you this charge It is imperative that the senior pastor who is charged with with The deposit of the gospel and the truth to communicate to the entire church When we're gathered like this it is imperative that he know doctrine That he be able to teach the word of god I love what Kent Hughes says in his commentary on first Timothy great statement He says so we see first of all that if we are to fight well We must have a solid grasp on the objective content of our faith The essentials if you love god while knowing little about him will you love him less by knowing more about him? Of course not the deeper knowledge of our infinite loving merciful gracious holy god the deeper our love will become The sad truth for so many Christians is that their love of god languages Due to their lack of knowledge of him. They simply do not know much about god They may have a relationship with him, but it is stated stunted by their ignorance of him He goes on to say evangelical ignorance is a fact If we are to love god as we ought we must know the doctrine of god the doctrine of christ the doctrine of salvation Just to name a few but our knowledge must not come from textbook dogmatics But from the bible it's history it's narratives it's poetry It's parables it's teaching passages. It's prophetic sections The bible provides a multifaceted many textured vital knowledge of god that anoints the mind that affections with love Hughes goes on to say I cannot urge enough the necessity of knowing the word of god Begin by learning one book perhaps Romans Know its theme its divisions its unity what you know and believe about god is everything Because what you know and believe will determine how you live doctrine determines conduct Right doctrine makes it possible to fight the good fight that is exactly what Paul's telling Timothy You fight the good fight of the faith by keeping the faith I want to I want to back up just a moment here To give a personal charge To pass or Dan and pass or James They are both involved in seminary programs right now and that is tough sledding especially when you're involved in full-time ministry It means the late nights after everybody else has gone to bed Doing the reading and writing the papers and studying for the exams. It must be But I want to challenge you guys don't Give up That is an important part of your ministry. It is a critical part of your ministry Stay the course in your studies. I know it gets long it gets hard. I've done it twice. I understand But it is worth it Because we are charged with knowing this book And knowing this book then to be able to communicate it to others In ways that hopefully are compelling and convicting but also to know be able to smell out and sniff out and detect Departures from true doctrine so that we can Again like Barney 5 nip it in the bud when it comes to the church That's our responsibility now. There's an importance of balance. Can't keep our head in a book all the time There's an important of balance Not to be puffed up with knowledge But to use that knowledge to express our love for Christ more in engaging service for him We don't want to all be knowing and no doing obviously it has to be balanced with serving But we must serve out of a reservoir of knowing this book and I agree with Kent Hughes knowing this book and knowing God better Will fuel the passion of our service so that service is not just well. I'm supposed to be doing something right No Service is fueled by a passionate glimpse of the glorious God Who inscribed this book for us That's what fuels our passion to serve So we fight this battle by living up to our potential by keeping the faith and thirdly by having a good conscience That's interesting look at Paul. He says he says it in verse 19 holding on to faith and a good conscience You know a good conscience is very important to Paul it must be he's already mentioned it back in verse 5 The goal of this command is love which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith Now he mentions it again when he gets to chapter 3 and he's giving the qualifications for pastor in verse 9 look at this They must hold keep hold of the deep truths of the faith With a clear conscience So three times in this book he mentions it in 1st Timothy chapter 1 he says I thank God whom I serve as my ancestors did with a clear conscience In the book of Acts Acts chapter 23 he is Standing before the Sanhedrin. He's been arrested in the temple and he's standing before the Sanhedrin The Bible says he looks straight at the Sanhedrin said my brothers. I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day Again in chapter 24 when he's standing before governor Felix notice how he phrases his responsibility to God and carrying out his ministry Says so I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man And in Romans chapter 9 when he's making a point to the Romans He says I speak the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit Paul says a lot about his conscience and the role it plays in his ministry and in his life So what is that all about? The conscience is that part of you that God has placed in you That serves as the instrument through which the Holy Spirit convicts you Now the conscience is not always a reliable guide because the conscience can be misinformed The conscience requires that it is informed by proper truth And so the conscience has to be shaped by the value system of this book Telling us what is right and what is wrong Otherwise the conscience can become warped or as the Bible says it can become seared Like as a hot iron carterized where you don't feel it anymore But the conscience is that part of you which the Holy Spirit God has placed in you that the Holy Spirit uses kind of as a A warning light on the dashboard of your heart that something is wrong You are about to get in the territory of sin or you are sinning and you know it deep down your conscience The Holy Spirit is speaking to you and you know it's wrong Conscience serves the same purpose for your spirit that pain does for your body Pain is the instrument that God has placed in us Through the nervous system to tell us something is wrong with my body And so pain is that warning light on the dashboard something is wrong physically And so you get that addressed you get it looked at you go to a doctor Conscience plays the same role in your spirit. It is that function of the Holy Spirit through your conscience saying You know this is wrong Are you going to go ahead? Are you going to stop? Now the reason why I want to stress this this morning is that you cannot fight the fight of the Christian life You cannot live for Christ as he wants you to live If you're constantly violating the voice of the Spirit of God prompting your conscience to say you know better than this You know this is wrong and some of you are doing that Some of you have been unfaithful to your mate And you know it's wrong The spirit of God has been eating you up inside about that You know it's wrong But you've rejected and thrown aside the voice of the Spirit of God prompting you through your conscience Some of you have dipped way too far into alcohol Or gotten involved in other drugs And you know you're headed down a wrong path Your conscience the Holy Spirit is using to warn you that light on the dashboard of your heart is flashing And basically God has put that there for you so that you can make a decision Will I go fly in the face of this Knowing that it's wrong Or will I recognize God's internal warning system and back off Some of you have filled your mind with thoughts a way of thinking Continually that you know is wrong or a way of speaking to people That you know is not right and God spoken to your heart about it your conscience has pricked you But you go on Listen friend. That's a very dangerous place to be Very dangerous place to be you cannot live the Christian life just running rough shot over your conscience Because that is the very tool God has placed in you to be the prompting warning mechanism of the Holy Spirit to point out sin To warn you before you go too far So So the way we fight this battle that we face every day of our lives Is by living up to the potential gods put within us the spiritual gift the way he wants us to serve him and be involved in his work We keep the faith we know his word and we stick to it and then we must have a good conscience a conscience that is not Avoided and neglected when it's warning us about sin in our lives That's what it means to fight despite that's what it means to defend the faith Because the faith is not just a body of doctrine. It includes everything God teaches about how we live So that's the defense of the faith But then Paul gives some chilling examples of the defection of the faith the Timothy and Just want to look at this very quickly Notice first of all the manner of this defection He says holding on to faith in a good conscience which some have rejected the word which is singular Refirst back to the nearest now which is conscience. He's saying they've rejected their conscience You see why that's so dangerous you see why that puts you on a slippery slope You start rejecting your conscience and the word reject means to violently throw off The violently reject and shake your head and say I don't care. I'm gonna do this anyway When you make that decision my friend you're in danger of ship wrecking your whole life Everything you believe you're gonna trash That's the danger That's the manner of this defection from the faith rejecting throwing off violently Purposefully the moving of the spirit of God through your conscience Showing you that what you're thinking what you're doing what you're saying is wrong When you reject that when you throw that off your head had down a very dark path a very bad path Notice the tragedy of this defection He says some have rejected and have suffered ship wreck with regard to the faith They've turned their back on everything they believed And he uses a very descriptive word in the first century which would strike fear in the heart of every first century traveler And that was ship wreck You see the Mediterranean Sea was basically the sea of the New Testament world the large body of water And most ships in that day were only equipped to kind of hop along the coast And maybe go out to the island to create or someplace like that and then get back closer to the coast But occasionally if you were on a long trip like to Rome you had to cross a large body of the a large part of the Mediterranean Sea between islands And that's when you were in danger of ship wreck the most Paul experienced it himself in act 27 When you got caught up in a hurricane And his boat was shipwrecked the whole boat was destroyed and they had to clamor onto an island That fear would be in the heart of every traveler just like for many of you may be flying as a little bit fearful You board that airplane and you realize it's totally out of your control And you've seen those programs about all the things that can go wrong and you feel like they go wrong with every flight And it's certainly going to go wrong with yours If you're given to that kind of fear that's the kind of fear Paul is bringing up with the use of this word When you begin to turn your back on your conscience What the spirit of God is using to show you you're in danger of sin when you turn your back on that you're in danger of Shipwreck You're in danger of the ultimate catastrophe of turning your back on everything you believe and your whole life Will be destroyed It's that serious. It's that tragic and then he gives two examples of men who'd done that verse 20 among them are hymenes and Alexander He calls him out by name says here two guys that have shipwrecked their faith ruined their lives Turned their back on the Bible We know one of them what his doctoral problem was at least in part. He's mentioned in in the second epistle in chapter 2 Where it is said that he believed and taught that the resurrection that already passed there was no literal resurrection So he may have been denying Christ resurrection. He was certainly denying the future resurrection of believers So he had turned his back on what he believed But all started with violating his conscience throwing off his conscience rejecting his conscience That's how it started for Karl Marx Karl Marx was brought up in the evangelical Lutheran church in Germany Went to university of Berlin studied under a man named Bauer who began to teach one of the first Liberals in the universities in Germany Who Taught for instance that the Old Testament was full of myths and fables in not history Taught that Jesus Christ was not really a real man denied every basic doctrine of the Bible and Marx came under that influence turned his back on his faith Same thing happened with Charles Darwin Darlin would have claimed to be a believer early in his years Turned his back on his faith The examples What's the result notice the result of this defection verse 20 among them are Heimeneus and Alexander whom Paul says whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme Whoa handed over to Satan that sounds pretty serious. What does that mean? It's used one other time by Paul in In first Corinthians chapter five and because of the context there we have a better feel for what he's talking about He says in 1 Corinthians 5 hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord There's a lot that's involved here, but but basically in 1 Corinthians 5 We're talking about a man in the church in Corinth Who is openly living in immorality In fact, he's living with his stepmother Having an a sexual relationship with his stepmother And it's such a scandal in the community Paul says even the Gentiles know that's not right So how's the church supposed to deal with this Well, there there are lots of passages that deal with what I'm going to call church discipline Matthew 18 first Corinthians 5 Romans 16 Second Thessalonians 3 tightest 3 and our passage here today about turning them over to Satan And those passages all put together teach us that when there is some scandalous type of sin not every Disobedience or all of us would be under church discipline But when there is some kind of scandalous sin that brings a reproach on the name of Christ in the community like false teaching Here Division in the church creating division in the church in Romans 16 immorality public immorality for 1 Corinthians 5 Second Thessalonians 3 the example is as people who are quitting their job because they said Christ was coming And then they were mooching everybody else in the community and the whole community was saying is that what Christians do You have to be kidding and so it was a public scandal when there's that kind of sin the Bible teaches first of all We should reach out to try to restore that person Matthew 18 and If those first attempts are not successful then take others with you and then get the church involved through church leadership And if none of that is responded to then the last resort is to hand them over to Satan that literally means to put them out of the fellowship of the church To put them back into Satan's domains very graphic picture put them back into certain Satan's domain out of the protection of the body And the reason for that he says it's always remedial the reason is for restoration not punishment the reason is for restoration To be taught not to blaspheme you see when people get away from the protection and fellowship of the church Many times the Holy Spirit will use that to bring conviction And repentance of their sin and they'll get right with God. This is called church discipline Now I will be the first to say in fact. I bear it as my responsibility We do not practice church discipline much at all certainly not well here at Johnston Chapel And I bear the responsibility for that. I have not taught much on it. I have not led you as a church To practice within the proper spirit of Christ light gentleness Church discipline It should only be used in in extreme cases as the Bible teaches But it does need to be an option For when people are living in flagrant sin and are not responsive to efforts to restore them I say that because I firmly believe your next pastor Will take this more seriously than I have and rightly so And you need to be ready to follow his leadership. I hope to be able to do some teaching on this before I leave But you need to be ready to follow his leadership and what the Bible teaches about this In the few attempts we've made just to update our church role. I have found out we are not well schooled In church discipline We are not ready for this you need to get ready You need to be ready to be the kind of church God says we need to be to at times very rarely But at times be willing to take that ultimate step of barring someone from the fellowship of the church That's not what John King believes. It's what the Bible teaches So you need to be ready for that you need to be ready to support the leaders who will teach the word of God and show you that Listen, this is a very important charge that Paul gives to Timothy It is a charge That he is entrusted with to take the gospel and the truth of God's word and to keep it to guard it to proclaim it to guard the flock against Errors and to go out and live it every day of our lives It's a very important charge that has echoed down through the centuries and people have been willing to die for this Should we not be willing to live faithfully for this To keep this gospel and the word of God intact and pure Shouldn't we be willing to live for that? I challenge you. I charge you Don't let anything hinder you from fighting this good fight The good fight of the gospel of the integrity of the scriptures of a life that has lived in a good conscience before God Fight that good fight Let's pray together Father Father we realize is how often we fail personally corporately as a church Me as a pastor But we come back to you to ask for your strength your forgiveness your help Your grace in enabling us To guard this deposit that you've entrusted to us This body of truth in your word And may we not just know it as doctrinal truth may we live it out With a clear conscience before you Allowing the spirit of God to point out to us where we're in danger of sin Where we've spoken wrongly thought wrongly acted wrongly treated someone wrongly and Send against you Help us to fight this good fight to live out your word With integrity with intensity We ask in Jesus name Amen