Godly Discipline

Crossing family, I want to welcome you joining at all of

our different locations, those of you watching online and those

of you who are part of our inside family.

And I also want to welcome those of you who are new to the

crossing, whether it's your first time or your first time in

a long time, We are so glad that you are here.

And I hope that before you leave today, if you've never swung by

the new here booth in all of our lobbies, that you would do so.

And if you're watching online, type something up in the chat

and say, hey, I'm new. Pay attention to me.

I had an opportunity last night just to meet some people who are

part of our church that watch online.

And we're just so thankful for the stories that God is writing

in your life, wherever you are at.

Before I get into the sermon, I just want to kind of, I know

that for many of you, this past week was painful and troubling

and disheartening. And I know between the 24th

anniversary of 911 and the assassination of Charlie Kirk

that there is just a lot that you are processing.

Karl Barth said that a good preacher should have the Bible

in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

So that way he is speaking biblical truth over present day

realities and that is really good coaching.

The challenge is that a newspaper had editors and it had

ideally an approval process, which is something that's kind

of gone by the wayside recently. And now that has been replaced

with social media, which means that on a regular basis you're

inundated from stuff all across the globe all the time.

And so as a church, I it is impossible for us to do what we

want to do and hit absolutely everything that happens

absolutely everywhere in the world, absolutely all the time

being reported by absolutely everybody.

And so the reason why I'm saying that is I'm, I'm going to do my

best when there's a cultural moment to kind of step into it

and try to lead us, guide us and pastor us.

And no doubt, what happened this past week with Charlie Kirk is

indeed a cultural moment for Gen.

Z Charlie Kirk became their older brother and was trying to

help them understand the complexities of life and faith

and government. And for many of them, it was

heartbreaking to watch them lose their digital older brother.

For others of us, we kind of saw Charlie as a person who was

speaking wisdom and counsel to people who would kind of lost

sight of that. And I know that many of you are

feeling a heavyweight, as am I. And So what I want to do is I

just want to kind of say 6 things to you, OK?

The first thing I want to say to you is I am so very glad that

Charlie Kirk had a relationship with Jesus Christ because any

loss of life that does not have the hope of eternal life with

Jesus is a tremendous loss #2 how you behave on social media

could limit your ability to tell somebody about Jesus.

And right now, when you are highly emotive, you should be

profoundly quiet because you want wisdom to catch up with

your feelings. And how you respond and how you

comment and how you post could limit your ability to speak

godly truth to people that need Jesus.

That unlike Charlie, have not yet found Jesus #3 our fight is

not against flesh and blood, but a demonic and sinful fight.

It is not on social media. It is not in Washington.

It is in you, it is in me, it is in US.

Pay attention to this. Any unchecked sin in our lives

will grow and cause unspeakable harm.

The Christian response when something like this happens is

mourning. It's brokenness.

It's pain. It is not just a hatred of sin

in other people, but a hatred of our own sin because our sin

unchecked could lead us to places we never wanted to go #4

The shooter has parents. They took him home from the

hospital just like I took my boys.

They took pictures, probably prayed prayers.

They fought with them over what outfit they were going to.

He was going to wear it on school picture day.

And never in their wildest imagination did they Would they

think that their son would end up doing what their son did?

And hear me, the Christian response can both be angry that

he did this and love the family and pray for them.

So if I can just issue a kind word of rebuke before you post,

can you be people who pray? Can you pray for this kid who

has a period of time left on this earth before he meets his

Maker that he would actually be prepared for that day, repent

over his sins and find the same relationship with Jesus Christ

that we found that saved us? Let me say this, it seems like

recently people are taking shots.

This is number 5. If any of you guys are taking

notes, which you probably don't need to take notes on this part

because there's a lot coming in the sermon.

There's people taking shots at thoughts and prayers right now.

And I understand the sentiment like thoughts and prayers and

policy or thoughts and prayers and something else.

But I want you to know there is only one undefeated power, and

that is the power of the Holy Spirit that is released through

the prayers of the Saints. And if you're at men's

conference this year, I kind of let you into a sneak peek in my

life. I'm becoming more and more and

more and more and more and more convinced in the unstoppable

power of prayer. And I would love for our church

to be a church that wakes up on its knees, that is begging for a

move of God, begging for God to blow on your life and on this

ministry and on this region with an unquenchable fire that the

Holy Spirit can't put out. And number six, the church is

the hope of the world through the spread of the gospel of

Jesus Christ. And if you are sitting on the

sidelines and not doing everything in your power to

advance the Kingdom of God, you are allowing the enemy to win.

So if you've not found a place for you to serve, give

sacrifice, lead, disciple, baptize, get in the game because

it is a spiritual game that is advanced by spiritual people

doing spiritual things. If I had a rule, it would be

you're only allowed to comment as many people as you baptize

annually. That would shut most of you up.

But what it really should do is it should convict us.

We know the hope. We know that there is a name

above every other name, and by that name is salvation found and

sin defeated. And if we do not embrace that

oath, we will cling to idols and imposters.

And when you and I get radically serious to the point where we

would give whatever we have to advance that Kingdom 'cause we

would actually see the world that we're wanting, the world

we're longing to see. Heavenly Father, I love this

church, I love this region. I love the stories that you're

writing and I want more. I want more stories of life

change. I want more stories of

sacrifice. I want more people finding you.

We are not satisfied. We do not believe that you are

done. Got to pray that you would speak

peace over not just Charlie's family, but also the family of

the shooter. Got to pray that you would raise

up more people to speak godly truth, not just to our

generation, but to the generations that are coming

after us. Yeah, that you'd put a holy

conviction on our hearts to be about your business because

that's what your Spirit's about. And so if we are not about your

business, that means that the Spirit is not guiding and

directing us. And God, we know what happens

when we are not guided and directed by you.

God, I pray that you would use today to draw people closer to

you. In your name, I pray.

Amen. I asked my boys, how do you know

that someone loves you? We're in the car driving to see

some things as a family. And I told Jennifer to pull out

her phone and start, you know, capturing their responses.

And they said you approach us with gentleness, which Jennifer

and I were not expecting that one.

We were like, hey, OK, apparently they can take more

than we were those, but we were surprised.

They also said we are slow to anger, which, you know, I guess

they were drunk. I don't know how because I was

like, I feel like we get pretty angry.

They said you want good things for us.

That's true. They said you pray over us every

day. They said you take care of our

needs. They say you teach us

responsibility, how to take care of stuff.

You prepare us to be a good spouse one day.

That's true. Then they said, sometimes you

withhold from us what we want because it's for our own good.

Then they said, sometimes you don't give us what we want

because you know that we don't need it or aren't ready for it.

Sometimes you say things we don't want to hear that we don't

appreciate, but we know it's for our good.

How do you know that someone loves you?

What would you add to the list? Maybe some of you go I know that

someone loves me because they listen to me.

They make time for me. What do you want to do today?

Maybe it's because you've seen them serve you or sacrifice on

your behalf. How do you know that Somebody

Loves You? Maybe you'd say they encourage

you. What are the things that you

would add to that list? Well, today we are going to look

at one of the most loving things that we can do that is often

times overlooked. We are in the series in First

Corinthians where it is a letter written by Paul to the church in

Corinth through the power of the Holy Spirit to a church that

Paul loves. Paul loves these people and

today we're in chapter 5 and tucked away inside of this short

chapter with only 13 verses is a powerful tool in the life of

every believer who wants to love God and love people well, which

by the way is the 1st and 2nd great commandments.

However, as good as it is, I'm going to tell you up front, it

is not easy. The goal of the crossing, you

guys have heard us talk about this before, is to help people

find an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

We want, we have this big audacious goal that we want to

make this region where we do life in ministry the hardest

place on planet earth to get the hell from.

And I think if you were to ask the church in Corinth, they

would have had a similar idea, a similar ambition.

However, something was getting in the way of it happening.

It seems like the ways of the city and the culture of the day

were making their way into the church.

The boundaries between the ways of God and the ways of the world

had disappeared. The distinction between saved

people and lost people had dissolved.

We pick up in verses one through 5.

It is actually reported that there is a sexual immorality

among you and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate.

A man is sleeping with his father's wife.

Let's pause for just a second, OK?

The Bible lays out that sex is 1 good.

Two, it is for married people of the opposite sex.

And any sex that is not that is not good sex.

So if you're having sex with somebody who doesn't have

different chromosomes than you and is not married to you, you

are outside of God's best for you.

So you might go, oh, oh, so you're like, man, I should have

thought about that before I came here today because wasn't

planned on that. But hear me.

God is a good father and has a good gift to give you.

And one of the gifts that God gives you in sex is that it

happens inside of the way that God designed it to be.

A fire in the fireplace is fantastic.

A fire on the stairs of your house, not good.

Or in the living room, not good or in the kitchen, Even though

you can have a fire in the kitchen, it's not the best place

to have a real fire. God says sex is a great thing

when it is contained inside of a biblical marriage.

It can be a disastrous thing when it is anywhere other than

that. And he says, and you are proud,

shouldn't you rather have gone into mourning and have put out

of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?

We'll circle back to that. For my part, even though I'm not

physically present, I am with you in spirit as one who is

present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in

the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this.

So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit and the

power of our Lord Jesus is present, 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. This is bad.

There is a guy in the church who is having sex with his stepmom.

Like how did he get there? Well, more than likely he had a

mom and dad and either through death or divorce, the mom is out

of the picture. Dad now has a new wife and

through either death or divorce, the dad is out of the picture.

And so the son is kind of like, you know, let's just stay in the

same house. And then it kind of led to them

playing house. And now you have a son having

sex with his stepmom. And Paul says this is not OK.

And the fact that you think this is OK is not OK.

In fact, the city that we live in, Corinth, which celebrates

people having all kinds of different kinds of sex, where

there are no rules, no consequences, nobody cares who

you're having sex with, even this culture says that that is

not OK. And the fact that you say that

it is OK is not OK. And so Paul looks at this church

in Corinth that he loves and gives them a reality check and a

heart assignment. The 1st is the reality check.

Paul looks at him and says stop being proud of what you

tolerate. Tolerance is not the Christian

ethic and instead of being tolerant of sin, mourn it.

You should see this sin going on and you should be grieved about

it instead of proud of what you are permitting.

You should have a broken heart. One of the signs that the Holy

Spirit is working on your life is that your heart breaks for

the same things that God's heart breaks for.

And sin is no laughing matter. It is sin, all sin, that caused

the Son of God to die a brutal death on the cross on behalf of

us. Great or small, they nailed them

or they nailed Him to the cross. And then Paul gives them a

really hard assignment. You saw and went, oh, no, it's

going to be one of those kind of days.

Oh, yeah, Look what he says. Put out of your fellowship the

man who has been doing this. And I know what some of you are

thinking. I thought Christians were not

supposed to judge. And I got to be honest, Clayton,

this sounds kind of judgy. And you're right.

So let's dive into it. One of like the favorite verses

of people who are not Christians is Matthew Chapter 7 verse one.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

They don't know what's Matthew Chapter 7 verse one?

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

US Bible nerds do, but they have quoted this phrase.

Judge not or you 2 will be judged.

How many of you have heard somebody tell that to you?

Oh yeah. That's like the John 316 of

people who don't go to church. The problem is, is that the

people in the church don't have an answer for that.

And so then they're like, well, maybe I shouldn't say anything.

Maybe I shouldn't step into this conversation.

So let's actually see what the Bible says.

Let's start Matthew Chapter 7 verse.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

One does indeed say do not judge.

Therefore you also will be judged.

And that's Jesus talking. And a general rule for

Christians is if Jesus says it, you should pay attention.

Let's start there. So Jesus said it and we should

pay attention. But Jesus has actually a lot of

things to say. In fact, in the very same

chapter, verses 15 through 20, look what it says.

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's

clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.

By their fruit you will recognize them.

Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears

bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad

fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and

thrown into the fire. Thus by their fruit you will

recognize them. Same chapter, same author Jesus,

same sermon. Question.

How can you and I look out and watch out for false prophets if

we cannot judge the content of their teaching or evaluate the

fruit in their lives? If you're to go to the book of

John, John Chapter 7. Apparently Chapter 7 has a lot

John 7 · chapter mention

to say about judging people. Look what Jesus says in John

John 7 · chapter mention

Chapter 7. Jesus here stop judging by mere

appearances, but instead judge say it.

Hold on a second here Jesus you're confusing me.

I thought you said do not judge and now you're telling me don't

judge by mere appearances. I'm supposed to judge correctly.

Galatians chapter 6, verse one through 2, Paul teaching here to

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

the church in Galatia says this. Brothers and sisters, I'm going

to circle back to that. If someone is caught in a sin,

you who live by the Spirit should restore that person

gently, but watch yourselves or you also may be tempted.

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the

law of Christ. How can I restore a person

caught in sin if I cannot judge whether or not they have sinned?

Furthermore, it appears that one of the things that spiritual

people do is acknowledge sinful behavior and step into those

moments to restore people gently.

Now let's go back to Matthew Chapter 7, the one that

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

everybody quotes, and let's do something radical.

You ready? Keep reading.

Anytime you find yourself with a with a verse that you don't get,

the solution is keep reading. OK Matthew Chapter 7 do not

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

judge or you 2 will be judged for in the same way you judge

others. You will be judged, and with the

measure you use it will be measured to you.

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye

and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of

your eye, when all the time there is a plank in your own

eye? Now watch this.

Jesus gives instructions, you hypocrite.

First take the plank out of your own eye, then you will see

clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Jesus isn't saying we don't get to deal with the specs in our

brother's eyes. He's saying before you get to

their speck, deal with your plank.

Jesus is not saying that there is no place for judging or that

judging should not take place. He's saying before you deal with

the small things in somebody else's life, make sure you're

dealing with the big things in your own life.

And if we don't deal with our own stuff first, we become

hypocrites and our message becomes too hard for our hearer

to receive. But if we don't deal with their

stuff, we are not loving a fellow brother or sister in

Christ. Let me say this to you, OK?

You will never be confronted by a perfect person, no matter who

comes to you outside of the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

Every person who comes to you and says, hey, this is not good,

there's going to be plenty of stuff that you could fire back

at them because they are not perfect.

They are saved, but they are in the process of being sanctified.

It's appears from the text that Jesus does not have a problem

with people being judged. He just wants it done with the

right posture. And for Jesus, it's more than

just having the right posture, it's also following the right

process. And Jesus actually lays out a

process for how to point out the sin in other people.

It's in Matthew chapter 18. Look what he has to say.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

This is still Jesus talking. If your brother or sister,

you'll keep noticing. Brother and sister, brother and

sister, I promise I'll get to it.

If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault

just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have

won them over. But if they will not listen,

take one or two others along, so that every matter may be

established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church.

And if they refuse to listen, even to the church, treat them

as you would a Pagan or a tax collector.

So the right posture is, I'm going to be dealing with my

stuff. But I still see this.

I'm going to enter into this conversation gently.

I know that I'm not perfect, but I just want you to know I'm

seeing this in your life. And one thing's better.

I'm going to go to you personally.

If that doesn't work, I'm going to bring some other people.

If that doesn't work, I'm going to bring it to the church.

If that doesn't work, I don't think we're on the same team

anymore. It becomes corporate.

We're wearing different jerseys. Now, why does this matter to

Paul? Why is he telling the church

that he loves about this? It gets explained in verses 6-7

and eight. Your boasting is not good.

Don't you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of

dough? Get rid of the old yeast so that

you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are.

For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.

Therefore let us keep the festival, not with the old bread

leavened with mouse and wickedness, but with unleavened

bread of sincerity and truth. He's talking about two kinds of

breads. There's like the the Ritz

crackers, which is like the unleavened bread.

And then there's the I'm not a bread person.

Well, I mean, I eat bread. What?

Texas Roadhouse rolls. OK.

And in this context, here's what Jesus is saying.

I want you to be more like what you take for communion, which is

actually where the whole unleavened thing became a deal.

Then the, you know, Subs, same, whatever the what is it called,

Jenny? Regular bread, bread.

OK, you guys get it. I'm just thinking like there's a

junior higher out there. Like I don't.

I thought there was just bread. What you got Wonder bread and

communion bread and Jesus saying I want you to be communion

bread, not Wonder bread. Now why is he saying this?

Because the way you make the difference between comedian

bread and Wonder bread is just a little bit of yeast.

And if you allow just a little bit of yeast and it makes its

way through the whole batch, if I were to make you all brownies

and put just a little bit of poop in it, you would not call

them mostly good brownies. You know what you would call

them? Poop brownies.

And if I were to say, you know, I, I, I mean, I'm, it's it, I

kid you not, it was just, I was, it's a little bit, I don't think

any of you would be like, all right, it'll be OK.

You would go hold on a second. You tell me that there's poop in

those brownies. I want nothing to do with the

poop brownies. This is what Paul's trying to

create in the church. That just a little bit of sin

isn't worth it. I don't want it.

I don't want it in my life, and I don't want a little bit of sin

in your life. And John Wesley famously said

that what one generation tolerates, the next generation

will embrace. The sin that you were excusing

and allowing in your home will become habitual in those that

come after you. And if you and I don't stand for

truth and speak out against sin, it will consume those that we

love the most that will follow us.

Now, while Paul's telling this to these people, he says as you

really are, he's looking at them and saying, look, you're

navigating sin issues, but I want to remind you who you are.

He's acknowledging that this group of people who are

struggling with sin and tolerating sin are people who've

been washed by the blood of Jesus, who've been redeemed by

the blood of Jesus, who have been saved by the blood of

Jesus. And at the same time, he's

saying this is who you are in him.

Sin is taking back the ground that the cross of Jesus Christ

has claimed over your life. When you and I step into a

relationship with Jesus Christ in the area of salvation, we

become set apart, holy, made new, and sin loses its power and

its dominion over your life. You no longer have to be ruled

and governed by it. You don't have to worry about

the penalty of it because the penalty was paid in Jesus.

But what should happen in the life of a believer is our

appetite and our affections change.

Where before we wanted to sin, now we don't want to sin.

And while you and I are never going to become sinless, this is

you and I in heaven. This is when you and I will be

sinless. Right now we are saved but

sinful. But over time, we will sin less

and less as our appetite for Him outpaces our appetite for the

flesh and the world. And so when we sin, the natural

response for a Christian is to repent.

I don't want to do that anymore. Mourn, I'm sorry I did it.

Confess. I want somebody to help me make

sure that I don't do it again. However, if we are caught

sinning or caught up in sinning, we need people to point it out

to us. And when they point out a sin to

us, you and I have two options. We can either receive it and

repent, or we can reject it. That's why there's a process

that someone comes along to you and says, hey, do you see this

in your life? And you go, forget you.

I'm going to keep doing me. And then they're like, OK, well,

one-on-one didn't work. So now we're going to tag team

it. We're going to bring some other

people in that care about you and care about God.

And if that still doesn't work, then we're going to let other

people come in. And then eventually we're going

hold on a second. So you, you actually do not want

to be a part of the Kingdom of light.

You want to live your life in darkness.

We are wearing different jerseys.

Look what it says in verses 9 through 13.

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually

immoral people. Not at all.

Meaning the people of this world who are immoral or the greedy

and the swindlers and idolaters. In that case, you have to leave

the world. Let me pause for just a second.

Paul starts off with the sin of the one guy, and I'm assuming

that there's nobody here today at any of our locations who's

having sex with his stepmom. If you were, you're thinking,

wow, this church has data like, yeah, this is my first time.

And they emailed Clayton. You're like, what?

And it'd be really easy for us to, like, look at that guy and

go, yeah, you got to stop your thing.

But Paul's saying, hold on a second, you got a thing, too?

What's the sin that you've allowed?

What's the sin that you've said? Yeah, that's just going to be

who I am. Paul starts listening off.

You know our sins. Sexually immoral, greedy,

idolaters, slanders, drunkards, swindlers.

Do not even eat with such people.

What business? What business is it of mine to

judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those

inside? God will judge those outside.

Expel the wicked person from among you.

He's saying this person is claiming to be a Christian but

refuses, refuses to acknowledge their sin and turn from their

sin. And he's saying that person you

do not have fellowship with. I'm not saying that your job is

to go around and judge everybody in the world because the world

has a different standard than Christians.

Christians have a king, and his name is Jesus, and we follow

him. We submit to him.

We believe that God's way is best for us.

He goes, but you cannot hold the world to the standard of

Christians. Now, as we've been going through

this, you've kind of seen this over and over again.

It's the phrase, brothers and sisters, confronting sin is

something we do for each other because we believe that we have

the same goal and the same ambition that we want to move

into the direction and the likeness of Him.

It's something we do for each other.

This is not the standard that we are holding the world to.

You can't do church discipline on people who aren't a part of

the church. You can't hold people to the

standard of Jesus who have yet not yet submitted their lives to

Jesus. At the very beginning, I asked

you a question. How do you know that you are

loved? May I submit to you that one of

the ways that you know you are loved and one of the ways you

know you truly love somebody is through discipline.

Pointing out sin and saying this needs to stop.

Most of you guys, you grew up with parents that disciplined

you. Some of you are gone.

No, I never experienced any kind of discipline.

You don't have to raise your hand.

We know who you are. Parents, you know this.

One of the most unloving things that you can do is not

discipline your children. Show me a kid that no one

corrects, no one disciplines, and I will show you a kid that

nobody truly loves. You see, discipline is done out

of love. It is a sign of love and it is a

sign of belonging. Do you know how many neighbor

kids I've yelled and screamed at?

Zero. Do you know how many of my kids

I have disciplined? I'm batting 100%.

OK. You disciplining your kids,

you're like, yeah, that makes total sense.

You doing that same discipline. You can't ground somebody else's

kid, right? It's a sign that you're in the

family. When you get disciplined by dad.

Watch what? Watch what?

Watch what the Bible has to say. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 6.

Hebrews 12:6

The Lord disciplines the ones he loves, and he chastens or

punishes everyone he accepts as his son.

Part of being in the family of God is God care enough about you

to say stop, you're better than that.

I've put something in you that is better than that.

You see, discipline is a sign of love and restoration is the

goal. We are not punishing to get a

pound of flesh. We are disciplining them so that

they can be restored into fellowship.

I want to speak to two groups of people for a second.

To those of you who have had somebody point something out in

you that needs to change. I know that Satan in that moment

fills you with all kinds of emotions and all kinds of

arguments, but I want you to hear me say this.

You were being loved. As you and I get older and

older, there are less people that we actually submit to.

We get to a point where we can kind of do whatever we want,

whenever we want. And so we run out of people who

we allow into our lives to speak truth over us and to speak hard

truths to us that are actually good for us.

Hear me, the person who pointed something out to you, they may

have said it wrong. They may even have had a plank

in their own eye. And their motives may not have

been perfect, but they just might have been loving you.

And it is unrealistic to think that you are doing everything

right. If you're walking through life

thinking you're doing nothing wrong, you think you're Jesus.

You're not. Which means that there are areas

of your life that you cannot see, that you are not aware of,

that you need somebody to speak into and go.

There's a blind spot in your life.

And if we're on the same team and we're both wanting to be

more like Jesus, your responses, Thank you for pointing that out

because I cannot know all the areas where I fall short.

For those of you who've been going through the 1st

Corinthians book, I didn't write a lick of it.

There's a guy who is on staff at our church.

He doesn't live in the area anymore.

His name is Walt. Walt has done 1000 beautiful

things for this church. And we are what we are in part

because of his service and his sacrifice.

And anybody who knows Walt knows that Walt will actually point

stuff out to you. And so as you're reading the

First Corinthians, that is Walt pastoring our church.

And one time I was in a meeting and I did something I didn't

know that I did that was wrong, but it was wrong.

And in a Walt fashion, I get an e-mail and it outlines all of

the areas where I had failed. And the problem is when you get

it from Walt, you're like, yeah, I guess that's 100% what

happened. And so he just blistered me in

this e-mail. And when I was done reading it,

I realized that I had sinned and I had failed.

And so the appropriate response is I emailed all the people that

were in the room and I said, I am so sorry.

This is what I did. Walt pointed this out to me.

I'm sorry. I should be better.

You deserve better. And I have shamed myself and my

family and I have not represented you or our Jesus

well. And guess what happened to the

way the people in that room viewed me?

They did not view me as less. They viewed me as more because

somebody pointed out a sin and I responded to it through

repentance. Do you know why you didn't hear

about this until right now? It's because after Walt brought

it to me, I said, you're exactly stinking, right?

If I had said, you know what, Walt, here's all the sins in

your life, you know what would have said Fairpoint?

I'll bring somebody else in. And Walt's one of those guys who

would have pulled up a group of people, sat down in my office

and said, OK, I tried the e-mail work, but you did sin.

I saw you need to repent. And if that didn't work, they'd

have brought it to the board. And eventually you all would

have had somebody up here on this stage reading an e-mail

about a sin in my life that I refused to repent over.

And then if the others were doing their job, they'd have

kicked me out, fired me. Why?

I'll tell you why. Because if we don't grieve sin,

we don't have the same God. If we don't want more of Jesus

in us, we are not on the same team anymore.

And so Walt loved me enough to speak into my life and help me

become a better follower of Jesus.

Now I want to talk to the second group of people.

There are some of you who you see people going through a

sinful situation or a sinful season.

And I want you to hear me say this.

One of the most loving things that you can do is to step into

it. It's going to be one of the most

scary things you can do, but it's also one of the most loving

things you can do. And I want to expose something

to you. You might be concerned with what

they are going to think about you, how it could change your

relationship with them. And I want you to know that

those thoughts are of Satan because he is subtly creating in

you idolatry where you are worshiping yourself and your

position and how people view you over how God views you.

You see, discipline is a sign of love and its goal is

restoration. Look what happens in First

Corinthians verse 5, verse 5. Why is Paul saying do this to

the guy? 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. The goal of telling somebody,

hey, there is sin in your life is that way Sin does not retake

control over their life. So they can turn from their life

of sin and live the life that God has called him to in a

posture of humility, covered in grace, following the godly

process with our eyes set on the goal of restoration, we need to

lovingly embrace discipline because we don't want to get to

heaven by ourselves. We want to get to heaven with

other people with us. And the truth is we live in a

world that would much rather tolerate sin, celebrate sin,

then be people who confront it and go I sent to I don't know if

you know that you just did this, but let's work this out with

Jesus together. That's actually the kind of

people that we want to be and we're afraid to be.

But with the power of the Holy Spirit.

It's possible we're moving to a time of decision to those of you

who are in here and you've never started an intimate personal

relationship with Jesus Christ. Let me just let me kind of take

this sermon and like boil it down to just something real

small for you to think through. You have two choices.

Sin and shame can be your master or truth and grace.

You can either live a life of sin and try to cover it in

shame, or you can allow the truth of Jesus to speak over

your life and experience the grace that was purchased through

his life. And if you have a choice, if you

want to know what happens if you follow one of those two masters,

you walk down that road. Sin and shame leads to death and

destruction and pain and isolation.

But the truth and grace of Jesus will take you to a place you

never thought possible. It is impossible to tell the

story of Jesus without truth and grace.

Jesus shows up as the sinless Son of God and lives a sinless

life. We didn't.

What does Jesus do? He tells us that we are sinners

who have ran away from the heart of God and our intended created

destiny. Jesus shows up on the scene and

he says look man, you failed. He speaks truth and at the same

time he is speaking truth. He says there is no way that you

could ever be saved. You are too bad.

You are too far gone. I know everything about you.

You're a Sinner. But because I love you, I moved

on your behalf. I paid a price that you could

not pay. I lived a life that you could

not live. And so not only are you a

Sinner, I'm a Savior. And sinners who encounter A

Savior can be saved. And so Jesus shows up, radically

exposing the sin in our lives and at the same time making a

way for us to be changed and redeemed.

And if you're here today, can I just tell you if you've never

started a relationship with Jesus, that's why this church

sings the songs we sing. That's why this church gets down

on our knees and pray. That's why we boldly proclaim

the truth of God's Word because we believe there's no better

place than life in Jesus. And we want that for every

person in here. And so in just a few moments,

when the people around you stand and sing and some of them come

to the steps and pray, I would encourage you to walk right over

there next to the baptistery or talk to a friend and say, what

do I need to do to get that kind of relationship today to the

rest of you in the room, to those of you who are Jesus

followers, two things and I'm going to be super

confrontational about it. One, is there a sin in your life

that needs to be destroyed? Is there a sin in your life that

is growing right now? When we're going through pain

and trauma and we're frustrated and we feel off balance because

of what's happening in the world, it can be so easy to

focus all of our attention on the sin in others than in the

sin that is in US. Deal ruthlessly through the

power of the Holy Spirit with the sin that is in your life.

Develop a godly brokenness over the areas where you fall short

or the areas where you have not yet claimed victory through the

power of Jesus Christ. Deal radically with the sin in

our own lives. And secondly, there's some of

you who through idolatry have been OK watching the lives of

other people spiritually burn to the ground because you're

worshiping yourself instead of worshiping a king.

And maybe it's time for you to go, man.

I don't know if you know this about you, but I just want you

to know I'm seeing this in you and I care about this.

And can I walk with you gently through it?

Are there conversations that you've been putting off that you

finally need to have? I'm going to be upfront with

you. This is First Corinthians

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5. Since I know my Bible, I know

that we got to go through chapter 6, Chapter 7, chapter 8,

Chapter 9, chapter 10, Chapter 11, and chapter 12 before we get

to chapter 13. Love is patient.

We got a road ahead of us. Not an easy Rd. but I actually

think it's the road we need. So would you bathe it in prayer?

Would you stand with me? Heavenly Father, the only thing

we want is a work of your Holy Spirit in our lives and in this

place. We don't want anything that we

can manufacture. We don't want anything that we

can leap through. We don't want anything that we

can manipulate. We want to move of your spirit

in our hearts, in our families, in our community and in this

region got right now we are at our best.

And so God, would you use the momentum created by this moment

right here to draw us further into you to push us further into

your word and to the expansion of your Kingdom.

And you know, I pray. Amen.