The Witness of the Body

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

I want to tell you a quick story about a pastor friend of mine. He is a DFW pastor, and he was getting his haircut. And the hairstylist asks him a question. He just kind of talks to him. He just says, You know, what do you do for a living as a new hairstylist? What do you do for a living? Oh, I'm a pastor, you know. Oh, okay, great. What, you know, what church? Oh, tells them the name of the church. And she goes, oh, I've heard of that church. That's the church where everybody cheats on their spouses. She didn't laugh. There was no joke. There was no nothing. And a pastor, like I said, a friend of mine is the first-hand story. As he's telling that story to his congregation, he says, And you know what? I couldn't defend you. I couldn't defend you. We've been going through a series called The Body. The Body is what Jesus calls his church. This is how he refers to his church.

local church is Jesus's body, Jesus's hands and feet. And what we've learned so far is that we are only the body because Jesus has called us from death to life, called us together. Without Jesus's call, we're not anything. We're a collection of people that happen to be in the same building, okay? Without Jesus's call, we We are not a church, that's our identity. Jesus calling us from death to life. And we've learned last couple of weeks, Daniel Oster has been helping us understand in 1 Corinthians how if we are the body of Jesus, then we will have unity and diversity.

We will understand and celebrate the differences that we have. Also, if we are Jesus's body, then we will be steeped in love, that love will mark us out. In fact, I thought that Daniel said very well, a church without love is worthless. If love is necessary, and it is, then a church without love is worthless. If we're gonna be a church, then our power and our desire to obey It has to come from God. It has to come from God. In other words, if we claim to be the body of Jesus, if we claim to be fueled by God, if that's what we claim, then there should be a corollary. There should be a line that we can draw between who Jesus has called us to be and how we act, how we interact. Art Deber is a pastor theologian writer in Washington, D.C.

And he says it this way, that churches are the gospel made visible. Churches are the gospel made visible. So it's good to know that a body should have unity and diversity, but it is better to see it in action. It's better when we see people who see the world differently, put that aside and accomplish the mission together of making disciples. It's good to know it, it's better to see it. It's good to know that a body should love sacrificially, but it's much better to see it. It's better to see that love in action when we have a member who is unable to mow their own grass and another church member mows their grass for the more, but they can't get their own groceries or they need a place to stay. And we see the body open themselves up. And in fact, one of the best stories I ever heard was, and it is like probably fourth, fifth hand, you know, I wasn't there,

but there was a church that was having a, they just call them body life services. It's on Sunday night, and they were just sharing prayer requests. And somebody said, hey, you know, our car is whatever, you know, our car is broken down, and we really need a car, and we're just praying for that. And another member, cross the way, stood up, took his keys out of his pocket, and just threw it at them and just said, it's yours. And you're going, oh, yes, yes, love and action. We wanna see that, right? We love that. But what happens whenever that knowledge and those actions don't agree? What happens whenever there is disparity? This is why I titled today's sermon, The Witness of the Body. The witness of the body. It's a witness because our actions bear witness. testify how we act bears witness on what we believe, on what we value. We can talk all day, but how do we act? And just like that hairstylist, people are going to do the math on our church.

We can, man, we can talk all day. We can have the best website. We can, I mean, we can have, We can have anything that a church would want to have, but when we earn the reputation, it's all over but the crime. Oh, these people claim to follow Jesus, but their lives look nothing like His. It is the most overused, yet certifiable cliche for a church that they are full of hypocrites. Church's full of hypocrites. It's the most overused and the most certifiable criticism of a church, full of hypocrites. I love Jesus, I just don't like his followers. There it is.

Now, if we're gonna deal with the witness of the body, right, if we're gonna be a church whose actions match Jesus's actions, if we are gonna somehow attain attain to that of having integrity as a church body, then we have a fight on our hands. Let's not pretend like this is super simple or easy because it is not simply a battle of the will. You can't white-knuckle your way through that. It's much more indirect. You can't just want bad enough to have a good witness. You can't. It's like I said, it's way more indirect. For our knowledge and our action to sync up, for us to have a good witness, we must change how we see ourselves in two ways.

We must change how we see ourselves in two ways. The first involves internalizing something very difficult. The second involves maintaining something very difficult. And I wanna start with, we'll get to scripture in a second, I promise actually we're gonna be in 1 Corinthians 5:1. You can turn there and we're gonna get there in just a second. I first want to help you understand what we're up against because we need to internalize this very difficult statement that a church body must meet its own lofty goals,

or ideals, excuse me. A church body must meet its own lofty ideals. And everybody knows it. It's the worst kept secret ever. Everybody knows this because, and I'll prove it to you, nobody blinks if a drug dealer is unfair in paying wages. Nobody cares. There's no public outcry if a homeless person steals from another homeless person. No one cares. If a salesman abuses rhetoric to get their way, that is not going to make headlines in Burleson, USA. It won't do it. You know what's going to make headlines, though? A pastor involved in a sex scandal. That will definitely make headlines. You know what else is going to make headlines? The church that covers it up. definitely going to make headlines. If you don't believe me, get on any new site at all. Search church. Just church and see what's there. Go ahead. Go ahead. I would bet you dollars to donuts. You're going to have more scandal than feel good. Okay? That's what

makes headlines. And it should. It should. It should make headlines. Why? Because it's illegal? No, it's not because it's illegal. It makes headlines in our culture because it is a monumental disappointment. Sure, sure. There's some editors with agendas out there. There's people who want to see Christians fail. I get it. I believe those people are in the minority and most people, especially most people in Burleson, Texas, most people when they read those headlines, when they see that story when they find out that truth they are supremely disappointed and frustrated supremely and they should be the reason that they get so frustrated with churches that do that is because most people want churches to be a moral compass they are looking for churches to do that they are looking for a church to reach its lofty ideals they want to really they want to believe that that kind of community actually exists. They want to believe that Jesus is real.

They want to. And they're looking at us and going, look, you were saying Jesus is real, but now you're not acting like Jesus. What gives? And they're frustrated. They feel duped. This is difficult for us to internalize as Christians, as a church, because it's not fair. It's not fair. Nobody's dragging the drug dealer out in front of everybody saying, you should pay fair wages. It's ludicrous to even think about. But it's not ludicrous to think about a church being drug out for the exact same thing. Churches, it pressures churches rightfully to lead the way morally and spiritually. It pressures Christians to consider their reputation. All that's true, And it should be. It should be true. This is difficult to internalize. Because when you meet somebody and you tell them you're a Christian and their thought is, oh, okay, you're a Christian, okay, now I'm watching you. I got my eye on you. Okay.

And they're waiting, right? And they're not, hey, they're not waiting for you to mess up the first time, right? They're waiting to see if your actions match what you believe. They're waiting to see that. This exact same kind of situation is going on in 1 Corinthians 5. The church in Corinth, to whom the Corinthian church was... the letter of 1 Corinthians was written, they are dealing with the same kind of And we're going to start in chapter five, verse one. And remember from a couple of weeks ago, Daniel Oster told us about the place of Corinth. It is like Vegas. It is a land where, you know, what happens in Corinth stays in Corinth. Okay. This is not a, this is, this is not a city with a great reputation. Okay. In the first century, temple prostitution rampant. It's really all you need to know, okay? All right, let's let's read and I want you to just I'm gonna spoil it a little bit the first the first part of the first sentence it is actually reported

That that is exactly what it sounds like Okay, there is there is a tone there That is that is disappointment Okay, it is actually reported. I I can't believe you actually said that okay That's what this is. So let's read now. Just the first two verses. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans for a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant. Aught you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. Okay. So we have a situation here where a member of a church is engaged in a severe, persistent sin. Admittedly, the exact nature of the sin is hard to discern. A man has his father's wife is all we know. A man has his father's wife. We don't have all the details. Three things are clear though. The father is likely still alive because it's not the father's widow. It's the father's wife.

So there's that. Whatever was going on between this guy and his father's wife was universally condemned. So that even the pagans are condemning you and they don't condemn anybody. Okay, and the last thing that's clear is that the church is proud of their acceptance of this man. You're arrogant, verse two. You're arrogant, are you not to more? You're proud you have this guy. You're proud that you have accepted this gentleman who has his father's wife. The church then is not meeting its lofty ideal. So in response, Paul is saying, let him who has done this be removed from among you. Paul is saying for the church body to address that person, people that are willfully engaged in sexual immorality. And in fact, not just to address them, but to remove them. Excommunicate them. That's exactly what it's talking about here. And it's right there at the end of verse 2.

Just to be sure, let's skip ahead, read verses four and five. This is exactly what Paul's asking him to do. When you want to assemble, then the name of the Lord Jesus, am I Spirit is present and with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Okay, so he's not whistling Dixie. He didn't just sort of think it might have been a good idea to remove this guy. eye. He's being very clear. Remove that man. Churches should remove believers who are willfully living in sin in order to restore them. When you look at the end of verse five, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Now, before I press on, before I jump further into that vat. I will say that the complaint against this kind of action is extremely strong. They go something like this. Aren't we supposed to be merciful and loving? This sounds judgmental

and unforgiving. Aren't we supposed to be a place of acceptance? Hey, Drew, should we should hunt people down because they might be sinning. You're going to be the moral police. And then the most indicting, right? That doesn't sound very much like Jesus. And I will admit at first glance, it is somewhat unsettling. First, I want to say just to answer simply, yes. Yes, our best way forward is to love as Jesus loves. We are followers of Jesus. Full stop. Nothing else really needed there. We followed Jesus. What does Jesus do? We do that. I don't want to hunt people down either. I have better things to do than being the moral police. You have better things to do than hunting people down who could be sinning. We do. In fact, hunting people down, just in case they might be sinning, is also not the way of Jesus. So we talk about the way of Jesus often and that's not it.

So first, let me just say, yes, that we've got some problems there. Second, I'll say this, and this is a bit to the contrary. It says, if we're going to follow Jesus, then we're going to follow Him everywhere. We're going to follow Him when He does things that are supremely unpopular, that hurt other people's feelings that could potentially frustrate people. Let me just say this, Jesus in his ministry, if you would just read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus routinely narrowed down the number of people that were following him, routinely. Not just once or twice, but had zero problem. So the most famous example, Mark 10, the rich young ruler. So he turned him away. But then he also at the end of that, he said, hey, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than a rich man to enter the King of Heaven. And all the other people that were

listening said in just kind of this outcry, then who can be saved? And Jesus says, well, with with God anything's possible. With man it's impossible, with God anything's possible. But Jesus didn't like relieve the tension. He didn't say to them like, oh no, no, it's fine. It's fine. No, you're in. No, no, no, it's okay. It's not that hard for you. No, nothing. Jesus just let it be. Matthew 8 or Luke 9, pick your chapter. A scribe declares devotion to Jesus and Jesus's reply to that scribe, foxes have holds and birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head. In other words, I don't have a trailer anywhere. Well, this isn't a mobile show. I'm sleeping on the ground. You still want to follow me?

You still want it? You sure? Champ? You want to get in line? Jesus is not over eager. In John 6, Jesus says to a listening crowd, a crowd that at least is half receptive to what He's saying. John 6, he says, if you don't drink my blood and eat my flesh, you won't have any part of me. You won't have any life in you. And then when pressed, he's like, no, no, no, I mean it. And then in John chapter 6, verse 66, appropriate, many of his disciples, it says, many of his disciples turned back and no longer wanted to follow him. John 6, 6, 6, look it up. It's my new life verse. David's disciples turned back, no longer wanted to follow him. Jesus is routinely narrowing the number of people that follow him. I mean, what else do you think is going on? Mark 834, whenever he says, he says, if anyone would come after me, let him go to church and follow me. Everybody say, no.

If anyone would follow me, let him read his Bible and come after me. No, that's all he said. He said, die. If anybody would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. It's nothing less than everything Jesus says. Jesus is not concerned with how you feel about that statement. He wants you to know. He wants you to know it takes everything to follow Him. He's not going to soft pedal. He's not going to, oh, maybe, oh, uh. Jesus, just when you look at his ministry, right? Like, I'm not making this up. This is Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Just read it for yourself. Jesus seemed, seems to hold up a standard of following him.

And at the same time, he doesn't condemn people that don't follow him. He actually, so you have a, you have a prostitute that's caught and said, he's like, go and sin no more. But he's not telling her like, hey, unless you leave everything, you can't follow me. That's not, he's not talking to the prostitute that way. He's talking to people that follow him that way. You see the difference? This is part of what makes the case in 1 Corinthians 5, is that this guy, this guy caught in sexual immorality, in persistent, unrepentant sexual immorality, is a member of the church. He has promised to fellowship with this body. Lastly, I want to say this, this is not some weird teaching tucked away in 1 Corinthians 5. This is also in Matthew 18, 15 through 17, where Jesus is talking to his disciples and he says, if you have a brother that sins against you, go to that person alone.

If not, bring another person to go to that person, tell him to stop. If that doesn't work, bring him before the church and tell him to stop. And if that doesn't work, remove him, treat him like an outsider. This is the words of Jesus. First Timothy 1:20, there's two guys, Hymnaeus and Alexander, says that they've made a shipwreck of their faith and they need to be handed over to Satan. Same idea in verse 25, handed over to Satan so that they can be restored. Titus 3 9 through 11, if there is a factious man, a man who makes divide in the church, who tries to divide people after two warnings, make that guy leave. 2nd Corinthians 2 5 through 11, you actually see, and it's not the, I don't think it's the end of this episode that we're seeing in 1 Corinthians 5:1, but in 2 Corinthians 2, Paul actually tells the church, restore the brother, right? Restore this guy. He's repented. Restore him now. If the witness of our church body, of Jesus's

hands and feet, are going to hold credibility in a watching world, we first must see that these lofty ideals that we have are absolutely necessary. They are part and parcel with following Jesus. We cannot keep letting the scandals continue. We cannot turn a blind eye to our brother in sin, sister in sin. If Jesus is going to usher in salvation to people, And he's going to use the church as his method. If he's going to use making disciples as his method, then we don't have another choice. We don't have an option. If we don't love, if we aren't engaged in unity, if we do not attempt to live lives of obedience, then we will. It's not maybe, it's yes, it's going to happen. We will drag Jesus' name through the mud in Burleson.

We will do that. And this brings us to our second difficulty, probably the more difficult of the difficulties. Is that we must maintain the difficult practice of restoring members who claim to follow Jesus, but sin without repentance. Let me say it again. We must make a practice of restoring members who claim to follow Jesus, but sin without repentance. What I've just said is fraught with bad memories of people being rejected by the church. It's fraught with people remembering what it was like to be cast out or made fun of or being condescended to. I remember being 10 years old and being the child of a divorce, and we went to a new church, and at that church, man, everything was pretty and big and opulent and nice. And the people there were really nice, but they're also very like... I mean, they love the Lord, and you could tell. And they wanted you to be in line, and I was 10.

And I was this child of divorce. And I can remember, I mean, 10 years old, I can still remember the feeling of not belonging, the feeling of being looked down upon. And so even as I say these words, memories come back to me. They're there. We can remember churches and leaders abusing power, or at least creating environments where it's hard to be there and feel all right. And so for clarity, I want to go through each part of this, and I want you to see how this is laid out in 1 Corinthians 5. I want to highlight certain parts. The first is restore. Restore. We've got to restore members. Restoring is not wagging your finger. Restoring is doing the hard work. It is where the actions that you have don't just indict someone, but invite someone back into a restored relationship. I don't know if you've ever been a part of an intervention, like with somebody that was either abusing alcohol

or abusing drugs. They're not fun. Wouldn't recommend them for a party. But being a part of an intervention, what you're trying to help them do is you're trying to restore them to right relationship with everybody else in that room. Part of that intervention is that they are in broken fellowship with everybody else in that room. To restore them, our actions need to move toward restoration. We're going to see about more of this in a minute. I want to move on though, the next part, members. We need to restore members who claim to follow Jesus. Okay, Paul makes a specific point of this in verses nine and 10, right? 1 Corinthians 5, 9 and 10. It says, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Get this, verse 10, not at all meaning the sexual immoral of the world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters. Since then, you would need to go out of the world, which is really funny

because Paul is saying, look, when I said don't associate with sexually immoral people, I meant people in your church. Please, by all means, associate with sexually immoral people outside the church. That's the point. Right? I mean, have we not lost the plot? If all we do is say, oh hey, you remember here? It's okay if you're sexually immoral, but then we're condemning sexually immoral people that are outside the church. We've lost the plot of we're doing that. That's not okay. We only, we, Jesus's body, only call out people that are members of that body. Jesus is not asking us to call people out who do not know him or are not part of our body. That's just not, that's not, that's not there. Just not there. It's not there. If someone has entered into a covenant with our church and they said, my spiritual life is with this church. I'm walking with this church to make Jesus

and the gospel visible. Somebody is like that. And that person has or earns a reputation for cutting corners at work. Okay, like cooking the books, doing things that are at least shady, probably illegal. Then we, our church, we owe that person a difficult conversation. We owe it to them to say one on one, you've got to stop doing this, man. You have to stop. There's so much at stake. Quit it, everybody knows it. That sin is eroding your soul. You are dragging Jesus' name through the mud. Stop it. You need help, I'll help you. Stop doing that, you plead with them. You pray with them, you pray for them. And so we restore, we restore. We restore members who claim to follow Jesus. And lastly, we restore people who sin without repentance.

In other words, we only call out members who are unrepentant. I wanna look at our command for the third time, the last time it's spelled out here in 1 Corinthians 5, Verse 11 says, now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or an idolater, reviler, drunkard, swindler, not even to eat with such a one. Okay. These are people that are unrepentant. Let me tell you the difference. Let's just take one of them. Let's take one of that list. Let's take drunkard. Okay. There is a huge difference between an unrepentant drunkard and a repentant person who struggles with alcohol addiction. Those are two vastly different things. One unrepentant drunkard is not struggling with anything. They're just struggling with where they're going to get the next drink. The person who is repentant, who is struggling, that's the key word, struggling, if you are

struggling with an alcohol addiction, then that's something that our church, obviously, we're gonna help you with, we're gonna walk you through. But whenever it comes to somebody struggling with that, if they are struggling and they are acknowledging the struggle, like they're there, if we go to them, like they're unrepentant, then that's where bridges get burned. That's where people really, really begin to understand or kind of feel this legalism, right, that should not be there. If somebody is struggling with alcohol addiction, our church should welcome them with open arms. We should get them in counseling, we should get them in a life group where healing can happen. That is the work of restoration. If someone is getting drunk and unrepentant, and if they are defending their actions, they're refusing to stop, they're not doing anything to work against it, then the work of

restoration in their lives is to confront them. That's how you restore them. First one on one, then with one to two people, and then with the leadership of the church, all in effort to restore them. And some people aren't going to want the restoration. And if that happens, if they don't want the restoration, they're probably not going to want to hang out with us. So look, I'm going to leave you with this. In our church, we need to ask the questions soberly. What if our church were in that situation with the pastor getting his haircut? What if that was us? Oh, oh, you go to South Burles? Oh, I've heard of that church. That's where everybody cheats on their spouses. I mean, may it never be. May it never be. But what if our church were in that situation? I want to look at it from both sides. If you were the one that was steeped in sin, If you were the one that was guilty, right?

If you know that you have this sin, if you have a sin struggle right now, and my basic assumption is that most people do, in your sin struggle, if you are trying to hide it, that is foolish. It will always out, it will always come out, it will always present itself. And it should make us think, man, if only that person, if you were in that situation, If only I had someone to talk to, if only I had a safe space to work this out with people that I trust. This is why our church has Life Group. Life Groups are totally safe spaces for people to talk about their past, about their present, about their future, about their worries, about their sin struggles, about all of it. And Life Groups help sinners confess and get healing, and that's all of us. We all need a place of regular confession and healing, all of us. All of us. And that's what life groups are for. Now think about on the other side where, you know, we're in that situation, oh, you go

to South Burleson, oh, that's where everybody cheats on them. And you, you know, if you say, oh, oh, oh, let's just say you're in that conversation with a hairstylist and that hairstylist says, oh, that's where everybody cheats on their spouse. And you say, you blurt out before you can even think about it. You say, oh, no, oh, no, not, that's not us. How do you know? How do you know? What would you do about it if it were real? This is another benefit of Life Group. Because Life Groups provide places to talk about that when you need to have hard conversations. If somebody's in rampant sin and they need a difficult conversation, the context of a Life Group is the perfect place for that to happen. Life Groups help us do this. Look, no one likes having conversations like these. Nobody. But if we do not have them, mark my words, our witness will ultimately fail. We will not have the reputation of being a blessing.

We won't have the reputation of a church that actually loves and sacrifices for each other. We won't have it. We won't have it. rot from the inside out, unless we are willing to have conversations like this. Moreover, and lastly, I wanna end with this. This helps us see Jesus' heart toward his church. It helps you see Jesus' heart toward you. Jesus desires you and me to be holy, to be purified, to be, as the Bible says, made into his image. But Jesus also knows that we struggle against sin. And the first time we sin, or the 50 millionth time we sin, even if it's the exact same sin on the 50 millionth time, Jesus does not immediately send us to hell. Jesus reaches out to us past that. And he says, look, I know you're struggling, but I wanna give you the power and the desire to have victory over that sin. Jesus gives us a new heart, And he gives us a new family.

He gives us his body to be a part of, to have that victory, to fight that good fight. And if we're gonna do that together, we need to have ways that not only that we ask each other that question, but that we ask ourselves, and that we're open to that question from other people. I guess my better judgment, I'm gonna end with another story. There it is. I was an executive pastor at the church, there was that previously Hugh and Street Church in Southwest Fort Worth. And there was a man there, we'll call him JJ, that's his initials. Probably don't know this guy. But this guy was, JJ was, he had started coming around and he smelled funny. I didn't, not literally, because I can't smell that well, but he was fishy, something wrong with this guy. I just watched him, and I watched him, and he would turn every conversation into a debate about young earth creationism.

Now, if you don't know about young earth creationism, fine. But it is a huge debate. It can be a huge debate and a divisive issue, okay? It could be just, I mean, you know, talk about a mountain out of a molehill, I mean, it can divide. Every conversation that guy had was about young earth creationism. And he became this apologist. And he would get in, every conversation, he would say, oh, what do you do? And then they would reciprocate that question. He'd say, oh, I'm writing a book. Oh, what about? Boom, Young Earth Creationism. And they were stuck there for like 30 minutes. No kidding. This guy was, oh, this guy was awful. And so, I mean, after service, several times, it was JJ and another sucker, just going through that. And I could almost quote the conversation at that point. And I had lockup on a lot of those days, and so I'd be like, okay, JJ, time to get out.

I barely knew the guy, and I'm kicking him out of a worship center. So finally, I was convicted. I was like, this guy is causing division. He's making factions. At least he's trying to. I don't know if he's successful, but I don't wanna wait to find out. And so I address the guy, And I say, hey, man, I'd love to meet for coffee. Oh, okay, what do you wanna talk about? I said, young earth creationism. And he said, oh, he said, is that all you wanna talk about? He knew. Is that all you wanna talk about? I said, I wanna talk about you talking about young earth creationism. And he goes, oh, okay, that's all over text. And then I meet for coffee and he texts me like five minutes before, hey, hey, can't make it. I said, okay, he did it to me one more time. And in response to that second time, I texted him back and I said, hey, that's cool, JJ. Listen, until we meet for coffee, how about you never talk about

younger creationism at our church? After we meet, maybe you can have those conversations again, but until that time, you can't. And boy, I cannot tell you how long the text was back from him, but I would, I mean, I'd put it up there with the longest text in the world. I mean, it must have been, we're talking, I mean, 10 paragraphs at least. I mean, the guy probably had, you know, had his thumbs and bandages after that. Just the text of the century. Um, and sure enough, that guy was like, you know, if you don't believe in young earth creationism, that's denying the gospel and that's, and the only true way to follow Jesus is with Young Earth Creationism. I mean, the guy, the guy was off his rocker and he had gone down this really bad theological rabbit hole where the only true Christians were the ones that believed in Young Earth Creationism. And that guy was coming to bring faction into

our church. Now let me ask you, if that guy, if we could just, if we just welcomed that guy in, you know, he came up to join, we, you know, we voted on him. Oh yeah, he's a member, he's a member, he's a member. But then, in like, I don't know, five weeks, episode happens, that conversation with him is way more involved. We then would have to go through the process of excommunicating a guy who just wants to have division. You talk about not fun. It's not fun. It wasn't even fun barely going through with that guy. It definitely wouldn't be fun excommunicating him from our church. But I want you to see there are cases where it is necessary. Yes, there's cases where it's abused, but there's cases where it's necessary. And helps us see how Jesus deals with us. Look, today, the gospel, right? The gospel is simply that Jesus welcomes us, but that He makes us new.

And if somebody wants to say, I want to follow Jesus, but I don't want to be made new, then they're not following Jesus. As we sing one more song, and no, you can come on up. As we sing one more song, I'm just gonna be right here. If you wanna make a decision for the Lord, if you want prayer, if you wanna join our church, if you wanna do anything, if you wanna come forward for baptism, just know that we take following the Lord seriously, but it's because we love Him and we worship Him. So right now, let's stand. We're gonna do this. Jesus, thank you for all the ways that you love us. Thank you for the ways that you call us to be a church body even when that's hard. Help us work through what it is to be and have a good witness for your journey to Wigbray.