Holiness Not Tolerance

This morning, though, we're continuing our sermon series in the seven letters of Revelation.

We've been looking at uh Jesus' letters to his church that the Apostle John writes down while he's on the island of Patmos, and he sees Jesus speaking to him, right?

He's visited by Jesus, and Jesus commands him, write these things down, deliver this letter.

And there's these seven letters to these seven churches that he begins with as he unpacks the fullness of the revelation that he desires John to throughout the rest of Revelation.

So we've looked at Ephesus, we've looked at uh Pergamum, we've looked at uh uh uh let's see, what was it?

Sardis.

Now we're in Thyatire.

That's where we're at this morning.

Now, uh Thyatire is one of the first cities that's not on a coastal area.

So this starts to kind of get inland as we looked at the route of which he would take to actually deliver these letters, he kind of wrote them in the actual order he would be able to travel and deliver.

So we've kind of come off the coast and started to bend back down inside of that province of Asia Minor where they were addressing these specific churches.

And there's not anything super spectacular about Thyatire when when as a as a city in and of itself.

We've talked about some of the things that made the other cities really stand out and made them prominent.

A large part of that played in that they were coastal cities that had ports and were open for market and trade.

Uh, Thyatire doesn't have anything super specific about it as a city.

So we're gonna really kind of bypass the introduction this morning and dive right in because we got a lot of stuff to cover in this letter that John pins for Jesus for the church at Thyatire.

So what we see is like in the beginning of each letter, Jesus is refers back to an aspect of his personhood that complements the content of the letter of which he's writing.

So when he first introduced himself to John or revealed himself to John on the island of Patmos, John said he heard a voice like a trumpet behind him, and he turned to see who was standing there, and he started jotting down or writing down what he saw, and he described all these different aspects of Jesus.

Here we see the same thing as in every letter.

Jesus is going to refer back to a part of his personhood that John had described in chapter one, and that complements the content of the letter.

It actually emphasizes or affirms what he's writing to these churches.

And so we see very on the very onset in verse 18, we would summarize that kind of first introductory verse this way: that Jesus searches the mind and heart of man.

Jesus searches the mind and heart of man.

Jesus is letting the church know that there's nothing that goes unnoticed by him.

His eyes don't simply see our exterior actions, but the very mind and heart motive that caused them.

This is again reaffirming the intimacy that Jesus has with his church and his people, that even the intentions of man are seed and weighed in accounts.

When it says that he's the one, the Son of God, with the eyes like a fire, this fiery gaze.

It's seeing how he searches the church, that nothing goes unnoticed by him.

So that shows how intimate he is with his people, but it also sees that nothing gets outside of the scope of his gaze.

We may be able to masquerade selfish and sinful intentions with perceived good works to one another, but we cannot to Jesus, who has eyes like a flame of fire.

So for us, we might be able to fool our friends, we might be able to fool our spouses or one another with actions that are actually cloaking these alterior motives or intentions that are maybe selfish or prideful or sinful in nature.

But to Jesus, we can't do that.

He sees not just our external behavior, but the very mind and heart of man.

And we see this reflected in his personal ministry in John chapter 2.

John 2 · chapter mention

We read this.

Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.

But Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

So here's what we see: Jesus performing these miracles, and all these people start following him.

They start trying to be a part of the ministry that he's doing because they see the signs and wonders that he's performing.

But what does it say?

Jesus doesn't just see, oh, they're following me, look how big of a crowd I'm getting.

They must love me.

You know, he says that he doesn't entrust himself to them because he knows what's in them.

He's able to see beyond their exterior actions into their motives and intentions through their mind and heart.

But in Jesus' searching, as he has these eyes like fire and he's searching his church, he's standing upon a foundation of holiness.

So another aspect of what he actually refers to himself as is feet like burnished bronze.

Burnished is like this polished bronze.

So if you ever look at bronze, it can be dull and kind of uh bland in character, but when you start polishing it and you get it burnished, it's bright and shining, but it talks about even the purity of the metal itself.

And so Jesus not only searches his church, but he stands upon the foundation of holiness.

Depicting Jesus' feet as burnished bronze demonstrates the holiness of his foundation.

He stands upon his holiness, and his finished work is to bring his bride, the church, into that holiness.

So, what's Jesus doing at the church in Thyatira?

He's searching and he's seeing sin.

And he's showing them that he's standing upon holiness and his call, his goal, his end work is to bring that church, bring his church into the holiness of which he stands upon.

Holiness which he purchased by his blood, holiness which he calls us into.

If we look at Ephesians 1:4, we see this.

Ephesians 1:4

We see this purpose of our calling.

Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

So an a primary aspect of our being chosen by God before even the foundation of the world was not just so that we could live in eternal bliss forever and enjoy him.

Sure, that's a great and beautiful benefit, but a foundational and primary purpose of our being called or chosen is that we would live in the holiness that he has called us into.

You see, Jesus searches his church for sin that jeopardizes the holiness that he has purchased for her and called her into.

Now, when we look at verses 19 through 21, what we see is that toleration of that sin, toleration of sin is devastating to the health of the church.

Toleration of sin is devastating to the health of the church.

Jesus does like he does in every letter, he commends the works of Thyatira.

He starts off, you've done good.

You've done good in works, in service, in faith, and patient endurance, even so much that your latter works, what you're doing now, are better and greater than the ones you did when you first started.

They've not grown complacent, leading to lesser works, but have grown in love and faith that have produced greater works.

Where we see at the church of Ephesus that they lost their love, or we see at the church of Pergamon where they allowed false teaching to come in.

This isn't the case of Thyatira.

They've actually held fast to both, and it's led to greater works.

But what Jesus condemns, what he condemns of the church is that they have actually tolerated sin.

As we talked about last week, idolatry and immorality are the fruits of false teaching.

Wherever we have false teaching, you can be confident that idolatry and immorality will follow it.

Here we see not simply false teaching, but a false teacher who the church has tolerated and allowed for this teacher to corrupt others.

The church failed to protect the sheep of its congregation.

They tolerated sin rather than deal with it biblically, and their failure to remove it from their midst has caused harm to Jesus' people.

This is what we're seeing in this letter.

That you tolerated this woman Jezebel and her sexual immorality.

And now there's others who are acting out in her sexual immorality as well.

And because you've tolerated it, you've jeopardized the entire health of the church.

And we see that she had time to repent.

She had time to repent of her immorality, but she maintained a posture of rebellion.

She hasn't simply brought sin into the church, she's also refused to demonstrate repentance of it.

So here's what we have: The church has seen her sin.

They've observed it.

It's not hidden, it's not something done in darkness outside of their knowledge and awareness.

They've seen her sin.

But not only have they seen it, they failed to biblically confront it, they've come to a place where they end up tolerating it all after she's refused to repent of it.

So they've jeopardized the holiness of the church by allowing sin to go undisciplined.

Fundamentally, this is what we're seeing in this letter that Jesus is writing.

Remember, Jesus isn't writing to Jezebel.

He's not writing to Jezebel or the people who follow her.

We see that he does address his actions of justice, and we're going to get to what that looks like, but he's not writing to her.

He's writing to the church who tolerated her.

Now we would think if Jesus was going to write a letter to the church of Thyatire, he'd address the letter directly to the person who's conducting themselves in such immorality and leading others to conduct themselves in that same sin.

But that's not what Jesus does.

He doesn't write to the sin, he writes to the people who tolerated it.

The toleration of this false teacher that has bred sin has cost the church vital health to its members.

But here's what we see in 22 and 23.

As we move on to the text, we see that Jesus is patiently kind and perfectly just.

Jesus is patiently kind and perfectly just.

Now this might seem like an odd statement, right?

Because in that passage we see this warning that he gives.

So how can we say that Jesus is patiently kind in the context of a warning of threat like that?

Well, it's because this Jesus still says, unless they repent of her works, his warning is not final, his judgment is not certain.

They still have opportunity and time to repent of the works of which they're doing.

Jesus is now going here in this passage to take up the cause of handling sin that's affecting his church.

Why?

Because the leaders of this church have failed to do it.

They failed to address it biblically, they've failed to confront it and get it out.

So he's going to take up the cause himself of getting the sin out that is affecting his church.

Because Jesus has purchased her holiness and called her to live in that reality.

He will see to it that the sin that was abolished on the cross is literally and physically abolished from his church.

You see, we forget about that.

That Jesus went to the cross to abolish sin.

And so that we would be free from sin and its effects.

However, we live a life that Jesus didn't do that.

Or we imbibe in sin in such a way that we find it, we think, we assume it's more satisfying than holiness is.

But Jesus abolished sin on the cross, and he's going to see to it that it's physically and literally abolished in his church.

He's not simply coming after the woman, but all who commit the same sinful works that she does.

There'll be no finger pointing happening, no blame cast upon her deception.

Each person will give an account for their actions, for nothing will go unnoticed by the fiery gaze of Jesus.

Even so, Jesus is patiently kind.

Even in his perfect righteous anger, he makes a way for them to not suffer under his judgment.

He still calls them to repent and to turn back to the holy living he's called them to.

You see, a lot of us in the church, we don't understand repentance well.

We think repentance means stop doing something bad.

And what we've done is we've created a behavioral faith, a behavioral religion where our relationship with God is dictated upon how we act.

So we stop doing things.

But the problem is many of us in our Christian life, we've stopped doing things because we were told that we bad that they're bad and we shouldn't do them.

We're not actually convinced that they're really bad for us.

And what does that lead to?

That doesn't lead to transformation and conformity to Christ.

That leads to behavioral acceptance in the gospel.

You see, what really repentance is, is not just a stopping of what's doing bad, it's a changing our mind of how we even think about sin in the first place.

You see, we put the cart before the horse when it comes to holy living.

We try to stop doing things first and then get better and more mature in our Christianity afterward.

What we should do is act out real repentance where we can form our mind to the way that God thinks about sin first, and it becomes so repudiating to our own spirit that our behavior as implication follows suit to obedience.

When we change the way we think about sin, we will change the way that we live out holiness.

So this response of Jesus, of his judgment on them, is provoked by what?

By sin.

You want to see what God thinks about sin?

God hates sin.

Fundamentally.

God hates sin.

Not in some fluffy way that has no real human uh implication, right?

Because we think about this.

There's no real human repercussions, at least we're convinced of that in some manner by the way that we understand sin.

We'll say things in the church that have a nice ring to them, like uh hate sin but not the sinner, right?

Hate sin but love the sinner, so forth.

But if we're honest, we really are just Christians who tolerate both.

We tolerate the sin and we tolerate the sinner.

We become much like the church at Thyatira.

We don't really hate the sin, because if we hated the sin, how much more so will we love and pursue the sinner?

We just become tolerant.

You see, God hates sin.

God knows that sin has real human repercussions, it makes man his foe and it brings destruction upon his image-bearers.

Being a Christian demands that God's view of sin becomes our view of sin, and his hatred of it should be shared by his people.

But yet his kindness toward us still remains.

As his true hope is for us to repent and be satisfied in him than to remain rebellious and be destroyed by him.

You have to hear this.

Even in the midst of this warning that he gives to the church of Thyatira, that if they don't repent, there's still that call to repent.

There's that patient kindness that's happening.

Because his good pleasure, his desire for us is not to be destroyed under his judgment.

His good pleasure is for us to repent and find our satisfaction, joy, peace, life in him.

But we presume his kindness.

Romans 2, 4 says this about us.

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness?

Let me stop there.

What's that saying?

Are you arrogant enough to think that his kindness allows you to keep on sinning?

Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

Why is God patient with us?

Because he actually desires repentance.

It's kind of like this.

Sometimes you ever catch your kid doing something kind of dumb, right?

Something wrong.

You can you kind and you kind of stop and you kind of watch and you're like, I'm gonna see how this plays out.

I'm gonna see how this plays out a little bit.

And your kid's over there, like, I can see my son.

He knows what he's doing is wrong.

We've had conversations about this.

However, he's gonna kind of see, and then there's this, those times where they look up at you and then they smile, and you kind of look at them like, I'm gonna see what you do.

Now that you know I'm watching, are you going to be able to do what you know is right and repent and do the right thing?

Are you gonna remain in your rebellion, right?

I don't come over there and just stomp on him and just say, you know, straighten up, do what's right.

You, you know, start name-calling or whatever we want to do.

We kind of give this patience.

Why do we give patience and kindness even to our children?

To give them an opportunity to do what's right.

Now, if we can do that on an earthly level, imagine how God, the creator of the universe, does that with his image bearers.

You see, his kindness, his patience, his forbearance isn't for us to stay in rebellion.

Imagine if your kid looked up at you and then screwed, and you've probably had this done before, and you whoop their rear end afterward, and they just go back to doing what they know is wrong.

They're kind of like, let's see what you got, big guy, right?

Now imagine that's what we do to God.

We see him in his kindness and patience.

We look up and be like, all right, you ain't got me yet.

I'm gonna keep going.

We should not presume upon the riches of his kindness because God's desire, good pleasure, is that we would repent.

But if we fail to repent, his dealing with sin is perfectly just.

Now that's something that's difficult to wrestle with.

You see, though the warnings of Jesus are harsh and even shocking to us, they are neither empty threats nor the violent rants of a sadist.

They are the warnings of perfect justice.

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.

Steadfast love and faithfulness go before you, says Psalm 89, 14.

Psalm 33, 5 says, He loves righteousness and justice.

The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

But see, in our culture, we have a major issue with justice right now.

Right?

We hear constantly throughout the culture crying out justice for this person, justice for that person, justice in this situation.

But if we really stop and assess what we mean by justice, it's not the justice of the Bible.

It's biased justice, it is partial justice, it is based on our own personal feelings of righteousness and vindication.

However, God's justice is perfect because he sets the standard of righteousness in which justice is actually measured against.

Justice intrinsically demands punishment for those who are morally unrighteous.

And God in his holiness sets the standard for righteousness, making his infliction of justice perfect.

You see, God determines what is good and evil.

God determines what is righteous and unrighteous.

And we try to separate God into being different things.

You see, we want the mercy of God, but we don't want the justice of God.

We want the grace of God, but we don't want the judgment of God.

We want the love of God, but we don't want the wrath of God.

These things we can't separate because he cannot be separated in his person.

He is holy both.

And so we have to understand that though we are recipients of his mercy, it does not diminish or remove the reality that he is also perfectly just.

We see this most beautifully in the gospel.

Because you see, the gospel is not just a demonstration of God's grace.

It is that, but it's not just that.

The gospel is a demonstration of God's perfect justice.

Because there is no hope in the gospel if there's no crushed Messiah.

If there's no crushed Messiah, judged in perfect justice in our place for our sin, there is no gospel.

The gospel didn't cost heaven nothing.

The gospel cost heaven everything.

And it was the pouring out of God's wrath through his justice on unrighteousness in the person and work of Jesus, though there was no guilt found among him.

Standing in our place, we have hope.

And so justice is necessary, justice is an intrinsic part of God in his person, and justice.

Is executed either on Jesus for us or on us because of us.

In verses 24 through 28, we see this that we faithfully faithfully rule now so that we might rule eternally with Jesus.

We faithfully rule now so that we might rule eternally with Jesus.

At the end of this, each letter in Revelation, we see this promise.

I will do something.

At the end of this letter, there's something kind of weird about it, if we're just honest, right?

All of a sudden we're talking about Jezebel, sexual morality, and then you're gonna rule the nations with an iron rod.

It's like, okay, cool.

Sounds sweet.

Let's talk a little bit more about that, right?

So what Jesus is showing is that we're called to rule faithfully now.

You see, the church is the authoritative arm of God on earth for his people.

We have to be faithful in ruling now, because if the church in Thyatira was faithful in ruling, they would have cast out the sin that was among them to fight and contend for the holiness of the church, which Jesus had purchased for them and called them into.

But before we dive too much deeper into that thought, we're gonna close it up.

But I want to talk about this deep things that he talks about.

In that 24 through 28, he talks about to those of you who did not follow the deep things of Satan, there is a correlation between false prophets, because we're talking about Jezebel, she was a false prophetess, false prophets, false teaching, and deep things.

Unfortunately, those three things in the church tend to go hand in hand.

Because here's what happens: we get bored with orthodoxy.

We get bored with the historic Christian faith and confession.

And if we're honest, many of us will chase after new things.

Where are we gonna get these new things?

Where's this new revelation gonna come from?

Probably someone who calls themselves a prophet or says that they hear from the Lord.

Then what's gonna happen is they're gonna have to fabricate false teaching enough to be able to prop up this new revelation that they got from Jesus.

And then what happens is we find ourselves in the deep things.

You see, we chase after deep things because we believe that mysterious, unique revelation will actually be revealed on the other side of it.

Instead, we are always met with false teaching, and the deep things becomes a pit of idolatry and immorality that's difficult to climb out of.

We have to love historical orthodox faith and not chase after new things.

I love the uh saying if it's new, it's not true.

We stick to what the Bible says.

Now that doesn't diminish our belief that prophetic gifting still exists in the church today, but this is what it means.

There's not going to be a prophetic revelation that's for the church universal.

We're not adding to the scriptures by any measure, and we're using the scriptures fully authoritatively to judge all accounts of what somebody might say they heard from the Lord.

If it doesn't line up with this word, brother, you didn't hear from the Lord.

Simple as that.

So we have to be cautious about deep things because false prophets, false teaching always go along with deep things.

Moving on, Jesus promises those who conquer that they will have authority and rule over the nations.

How do we conquer?

Through faithfully exercising authority and rule here on earth.

You see, we're charged to do away with sin.

We're charged to do away with sin and not tolerate it.

This is a charge that we have to take seriously because sin once entrapped us.

Now we are free from it, so do away with it where?

Personally.

In our own lives, we're to do away with sin.

In our families, we're to do away with sin.

And in our church, we're to do away with sin.

When sin comes into these fears, we're not to tolerate it.

We are to remove it from our midst.

We confront sin and seek to put it to death because it jeopardizes the total health of the church.

This is exercising faithful authority and rule.

Fighting to see the holiness that Jesus has purchased by his blood and called his church into, realized in the image of his people.

You want to see what true authority and rule exercise looked like?

It's that.

To see the holiness that Christ purchased by his blood and called his church into, realized in their very image.

Not just individually, but corporately in his bride.

You see, Jesus brings into view the authority and rule of the church.

They should have done away with the sin of the Jezebel woman, done away with her, but in their toleration of her sin, others were compelled to sin with her.

So what we have here in the letter to the Church of Thyatira is this: an unfaithful church unfaithfully demonstrating the authority and rule Jesus had given to them for the health and holiness of his church.

Jesus not only promises that if they conquer, if they rule and practice authority faithfully, will they rule with him over the nations with an iron rod, but he promises them that they would have the morning star also.

He promises this to give him himself the bright morning star.

And so the presence of Christ in his perfect rule and reign, we will rule with him.

So our main idea this morning is that the church is rule is the ruling authority for God on earth over his people.

The church is the ruling authority for God on earth over his people.

We have a calling and responsibility to execute justice and contend for holiness inside of Jesus' church.

Jesus has established the appointed leadership and designed the structure of the church so that she might mature into and reflect the holiness he's purchased for her.

We are called to demonstrate such authority in the church to maintain and sustain this holiness.

Jonathan Lehman in his book Church Membership says this about the church.

He says, the local church is the authority on earth that Jesus has instituted to officially affirm and give shape to my Christian life and yours.

Where does this authority come from?

Who says that there's authority anywhere?

Is it just because I stood up one day and said, I'm going to take authority and you all have to submit to it?

No.

Jesus gives the church this authority.

If we look in Matthew 18, we see this.

Jesus showing how the church has authority, and we're going to see how that plays out as well.

Let's read first off Matthew 18, 15 through 20.

It says this If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault.

Between you and him alone.

If he listens to you, you've gained your brother.

But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence or two or three witnesses.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Again I say to you, if two or of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.

Now, this is talking about church discipline.

This is talking about the authority that Christ has given to the church.

So let's try to unpack and break this section of text down.

We're gonna see four primary things in the context of this passage.

Number one is that we're gonna see the main issue being addressed is personal sin in the life of a believer.

Personal sin in the life of a believer.

That's vitally important.

We're not talking about the unbelieving.

We're not talking about the conduct and character of this world.

We're talking about that of a person who confesses to be a believer.

If your brother sins against you, is how the passage begins.

Number two, within the process of correction, there is a defined and identifiable church to bring them before.

So it talks about if your brother sins against you, go to him and have a conversation.

If he refuses to listen to you, take two or three more, have another conversation.

If he still refuses, bring them before the church.

The church has to be one defined.

What is the church?

Who in the world are we gonna bring them before?

Are you supposed to just kind of walk around and ask people, are you a Christian?

Are you a Christian?

I've got somebody with a major sin issue that we got to bring before this thing we call the church.

So we have to define the church tangibly, realistically, existentially, but we also have to identify who those people are.

If we're supposed to fulfill the commands of Jesus and practice and uh putting someone under church discipline because we love them and care for them, then we have to be able to identify and define the church we're called to bring them before.

Number three, unrepentant sin is expected to be cast out from the church.

It says this if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a gentile and a tax collector.

The purpose of the church, one of the purposes, is to affirm and fight for the confession of faith that people make as believers in Jesus.

So in our membership process, we have an interview where we talk about do you believe the gospel?

How do you know you're a Christian?

Tell us your testimony and then tell us what the gospel is.

If you so have faith in Jesus, can you articulate and proclaim the gospel yourself?

Why do we do that?

Because as elders, it's our responsibility.

We take a posture of affirming your confession.

So if somebody comes against you and says, they're not really a Christian, I can say, well, hold up, where's that coming from?

I'm here to have their back.

I'm here to affirm.

I know that this brother or sister is a Christian.

I'll take, I'll take their side because I've searched it, I've tested it, and we affirm it.

But then it also comes to a play where if you prove yourself to be false, primarily through unrepentant sin, we have the obligation to reject that confession of faith as not being true and sincere and casting you out of the church so that you're treated like an unbeliever.

Number four, we see Jesus' authority and rule is seen and experienced in the authority and rule of the church.

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.

You see, Jesus says, whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven.

What's he talking about?

He's talking about someone's faith.

If we affirm it, that that confession of faith is true and sincere, then that confession has been bound.

But whatever we loose is loose also.

That's that authority that the church is demonstrating over its people.

And Jesus says where two or three are gathered to do this action, basically to kick someone out of the church, it's as if I was there doing it myself.

Ultimately, Jesus rules over his people as the authoritative head.

Yet he has put into place the church as the tangible representative head of that authority.

The church is charged with keeping the bride of Jesus pure in both her confession and her conduct.

Since false teaching and immorality go hand in hand, it is the responsibility of the church to exercise authority over God's people, not so that they conform in confession and conduct to the church's own truth and standard, but so that they conform to Jesus.

You see, our responsibility isn't trying to get you to be like us.

We've probably experienced a lot of church world that does that, where the leaders just try to get you to conform to them.

Nothing biblical about it, right?

They're inserting all kinds of legalities and uh uh weights upon you that have nothing about the scripture of how you what movies you can watch, what music you can listen to, how you can dress, what you can eat, whatever it may be.

Nothing biblical about it.

They just want to conform you to their own self.

And so they abuse that authority rather than submitting them firstselves to Jesus as head and then working with him in that submission to exercise your authority for the conformity to Jesus.

You see, us as elders, we are first and foremost servants under the true head Christ.

You see, we struggle with this in the church.

We struggle with this in one of two ways.

I think one of the big ways that we struggle with this is we reject authority.

And this plays itself out in two primary ways.

Many of us reject authority because we've been the victims of the abuse of it.

We reject authority because we've been harmed by people who were supposed to be responsible for us and care for us.

People using their position to bring conformity to their own selfish desires rather than to the benefit and flourishing of those whom God has put them responsible over.

And we've all felt and experienced this in some way.

We've experienced this in family, in jobs, sadly, even in the church.

Men, if you're a husband, if you're a father, if you have a leadership position at your job, your primary responsibility is not to exercise that authority to have people conform to your selfish desires.

Your primary responsibility of having authority over them is to see for their good, them walk out the fullness of everything God has ever called them to be.

That's why we use our authority.

We use our authority to lay our lives down as Christ laid his life down for the church so that she might be blessed.

You see, authority becomes a scary word when coupled to sinful people.

However, authority is God ordained and declared good for us.

Despite whatever we've experienced in the abuse of authority in our lives, we have to change the way we think about things to line up with what God says and realize that authority is God ordained and declared good for us.

We're called to trust God Himself and submit ultimately to his authority because he desires for us to flourish for his glory and our good.

But some of us, we don't just reject authority, we abuse authority.

Or I'm sorry, we reject authority because we a second part of this is we reject authority because we value hyper-individualism.

So some of us reject authority because we've been harmed by it, others of us reject it because we value hyper-individualism.

Our culture's built on and takes pride in this ideology.

Individualism makes the individual its focus, and so starts with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for freedom.

We can't submit to authority because it jeopardizes our own pursuit of this so-called freedom.

This is an anti-biblical worldview, and it's in direct contradiction to the Bible's declaration that you are not your own.

But this is what we want to believe as the church.

This is what we want to believe as people that have founded themselves for a substantial amount of time under a philosophy and worldview of individualism.

Right?

We've even let it creep into the church.

Oh, it's just me and Jesus and our personal relationship.

No, you don't understand.

Mine and Jesus' relationship is unique and it's personal between me and him.

Let me tell you something.

You aren't that special at all.

There is no way in this world that Jesus himself looked throughout all of time and space of which people have been made in his image and said, You, you alone am I going to have a unique relationship with that I'm not going to have with anybody else.

Jesus didn't do that.

He doesn't do that.

What Jesus calls each and one of us into is the exact same relationship that he calls the church into.

We don't have individualism, but our pursuit of it has corrupted our faith.

You see, we have to realize that submission to authority is good.

Both of these positions cause us to reject authority and cause us to miss out on all God has for us.

Listen to this here.

The fullness of God's plan for your life is necessarily discovered through submitting ourselves under authority.

You want everything that God has for you?

You want to experience the fullness that God has called you for your life, you want to experience the fullness of his favor and his blessing.

It is fundamentally received and understood through submitting to authority.

You see, our relationship with God has us first and foremost submitting to him.

If we want to be fully engulfed in the blessing, joy, peace of God, then we have to submit first to him.

But the Bible tells us very concretely: if you can't submit to your husband, you can't submit to God.

If you can't submit to the church, you can't submit to God.

If you can't submit to civic leaders, you can't submit to God.

If you don't love your neighbor, you don't love God.

That's 1 John for you.

We have to realize that our inability to practically and tangibly live out these direct commands of God in this life does dictate and have consequences to our spiritual life that we so desire to pursue.

You want to experience everything God has for you?

Submit.

But some of us we abuse authority.

We use our position to bring conformity to our own selfish desires rather than to the benefit and flourishing of those whom God has put us responsible over.

In many ways, we conform ourselves to the thinking God has against sin.

We take holiness in his church seriously.

We take seriously the truth that the shepherd always carries the crook, yet we primarily do two things fundamentally wrong.

Number one, we try too hard to take the place of Jesus.

You make a horrible Savior.

And you make a really bad Holy Spirit.

Though we are the representative head and authority of God on earth over his people, we are not the fullness of it.

It is Jesus who will ultimately judge sin and wickedness with the fullness of his justice, not ours.

Though we're held responsible for casting sin out of the church, only Jesus is able to punish it in the individual.

Number two, we don't see our authority as something good for the person, we see it as something to gain for ourselves.

We don't see authority as something good for the person, we see it as something gained for ourselves.

And that's such a condition of our fallenness, right?

Even in our pursuit of sanctification toward the image of Christ, we still wrestle with this that we use authority for our own selfish gain.

But what if we flipped it and understood that discipline actually existed for the good of the other person?

Authority actually existed for the fullness of blessing realized in the other person.

All authoritative discipline is for the good of the other.

Even when we look at excommunication, the furthest extent of church discipline, it has tethered to it the hope of restoration.

Why do you excommunicate?

Here, let's look at 1 Corinthians 5 for a second.

Paul, writing to the church of Corinth, says this you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

Why?

So that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

You see, he's writing to the Corinthian church about a young man who's having sexual and moral relationships with his stepmother.

And he says, even the pagans don't allow this kind of junk, this mess around to happen.

You guys are tolerating it, you're allowing it.

Some of you are boasting about it, about the freedoms that you have in Jesus.

Paul says, no, no, no, no, no.

You don't understand the holiness of which Christ has called us into.

And here's what you're to do you're to ex you are to uh inflict such church discipline upon him that he is kicked out, that he's no longer counted as a believer.

Why?

Because Paul had this boy's good in mind in the end.

Paul loved this boy.

Even in disciplining him, even in exercising authority, the so that was for the boy's good.

Not for Paul's.

Not for any other pastor or leader in that church.

Not for the church itself.

It was for that boy.

Even excommunication should have the hoped-for purpose of restoration.

What's the beauty of the gospel for us this morning?

It's that Jesus has been given authority from the Father and rules with perfect justice.

Ultimately, the church will be presented spotless and blameless in the coming of our Messiah Jesus, because his authority will eternally determine all who are truly his and all who he truly has made holy by his blood.

The Father has given him all authority in heaven and earth.

This authority is to see his purposes fulfilled in guarantee.

There is not one aspect of the will of God that will go unfulfilled in the fullness of time.

Why?

Because all authority has been given to Christ.

The church, Jesus' church, will be whole.

Why?

Because Christ has authoritatively made her whole.

Jesus' church will be holy because he has washed her, whom are his in his blood.

Even if we're unfaithful to remove sin from within the church, Jesus will see to it that no sin remains in her when he comes.

His perfect justice will be executed, and we will either be judged by Jesus for what he did or by Jesus for what we have done.

Remember, there is nothing that can stand hidden from his gaze.

And he will establish the church to stand upon the foundation of his holiness.

So what can we do in light of this?

I have three things.

Personally, we can submit to authority.

We can submit to authority.

Throughout Scripture, God reveals that it is his will and commands for us to submit to authority.

He commands it for himself.

He commands us in civic matters, in family, to one another, but also to the church.

Like we said before, if we are unwilling to submit to the authority of the church, we will miss seeing and experiencing the fullness of God's love for us.

Because the church should not only work to convict you of sin, but it should also convince you of your salvation.

The church should be a place where we actively practice our own ability to submit to God.

I mean, think about your own life where sin just keeps popping its head up.

It's probably in places that you fail to trust and submit yourself to God.

There's probably a direct correlation to those two things.

You see, we practice submitting to God by submitting to the places He's called us to submit to.

One another, the church, relationships.

For us corporately, we should cherish the fruit of discipline.

Cherish the fruit of discipline.

God disciplines us because he loves us.

The fruit of discipline is the conformity of Christ in our lives.

We are being conformed to his very image, and we are disciplined toward that conformity because God loves us.

Look at Hebrews 12, verse 8.

Hebrews 12:8

It says this if you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Here's what that verse says in my own translation.

If you don't experience the discipline of the loving Father, you are a bastard child.

You have no father.

You have no family.

You have no legitimacy to your sonship.

You see, how do we know in part that we are gods, that we are children of the good and perfect Father?

Because we experience his discipline.

We should live in fear and terror if we're not experiencing the discipline of the Father.

Because that might equate to us not being a part of his family.

Because to all who have participated, who are his sons and daughters, he disciplines.

The fruit of discipline is the conformity of Christ in our lives and the pleasure of being fully satisfied in him.

God wants us to be fully satisfied in him, not in the things of this world, not in the things of this culture, but satisfied in him.

And so that act of discipline is to take that from us, to get our hands loosened so that he can take from us the things that we think are going to satisfy but fail us miserably, to insert himself in there and say, no, taste and see.

And then how should we engage with the world around us?

Well, this way, we should reflect the holiness of Jesus' bride.

Look at Ephesians 1.4 real quick as we wrap up.

Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

Listen, all my reform fund friends, hear this.

Your election is for reflection.

Your election is for reflection.

Jesus saved you.

We should reflect the holiness of Jesus' bride, the holiness his blood purchased for us, the holiness his spirit calls us into, the holiness we will one day be when he comes for us.

As the world gazes on in us, let them see a holy bride awaiting her groom in joyful submission to his life giving authority.