Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #35： Should Christians Judge Other Christians？

00:00:00.000 welcome to real christianity today we are talking about should christians judge other christians

00:00:07.680 well this is again we are the podcast that tackles all the taboo topics

00:00:14.560 but actually it's a really important conversation to have we've never i don't think we've ever heard

00:00:21.840 a message on this topic in our institutional church years maybe we have but it's a pretty

00:00:29.280 rare conversation to have in the church, but I think it's important, especially when you look

00:00:34.620 at it through the lens of Scripture. And we're going to dive in on that today. But before we

00:00:39.660 get started, a couple things. Thank you guys so much for all the reviews. They are so encouraging.

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00:02:30.220 show notes and we will backtrack for all the past episodes to get them there as well so uh let's

00:02:35.740 dive in we got i don't know how long these shows are i always think they're long and then they end

00:02:39.100 up only being like 30 something minutes so i know that sounds long to me it is nine o'clock here

00:02:45.200 our time as we're recording this because our kids go to bed and this is when we do it

00:02:48.780 and it is snow snow snow outside and it is cold it is cold yeah so we're gonna start veronica's

00:02:56.160 gonna open us up and uh we will uh have the conversation about judgment yeah judgment so

00:03:01.840 we hear it all the time right don't judge me or we're called to love one another and not judge

00:03:06.220 one another or you even see people with the tattoos it said only God can judge

00:03:09.640 me so totally I totally have seen these tattoos no regrets no no regrets okay so 0.90

00:03:18.760 where do Christians you get this this idea of not to judge one another well

00:03:24.340 there's a piece of scripture from the Sermon on the Mount that has been used

00:03:28.060 out of context probably since it was written yeah and that's in Matthew 7

00:03:33.100 verse 1 through 5. So I'll go ahead and read that now. It says, judge not that you, that you be not

00:03:39.900 judged for with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will

00:03:46.860 be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider

00:03:51.980 the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove that speck from your

00:03:57.680 eye and look a plank is in your own eye hypocrite first remove the plank from your own eye and then 0.99

00:04:03.840 you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye i thought you were going to 0.99

00:04:07.700 lose it there i thought i was too man it's a tongue twister yeah judge not it's just so like

00:04:13.800 um you know the biblical language it's just so different than the way we speak today and so it's

00:04:20.100 just hard to i feel like i'm saying it wrong yeah we and we read the new king james version which is

00:04:25.640 a little bit more poetic, which we like when you're reading it privately and not out loud.

00:04:31.460 But yeah, judge not that you be, I can't even say it either, judge not that you be not judged.

00:04:36.820 This is just this, this is where they go, you know, this is where people go to the scripture.

00:04:42.900 So is Jesus really saying no judgment ever? Is that really what he's saying? Because judge not

00:04:48.120 that you be you be not judged um you know how is a court supposed to uh you know bring justice in

00:04:56.000 the matter of a law you know breaking the law is that wrong to bring judgment there because

00:05:00.960 you know it says judge not um how are we to correct or exhort or rebuke our brothers and

00:05:07.920 sisters in christ as the scriptures call us to do if we're not to judge our brothers and sisters

00:05:14.200 How are we to discipline our children or teach our students if we don't know the difference between right and wrong

00:05:20.680 and have to make distinctions and decisions and judgments about those matters?

00:05:26.760 You know, better yet, how are we supposed to fulfill the call for church discipline

00:05:33.200 where we are to make judgments that Jesus himself says in Matthew 18?

00:05:37.820 So is Jesus just, you know, just a maniac saying one thing over here

00:05:43.840 and then on the other side saying something that totally contradicts himself?

00:05:47.040 No, that's not what's happening.

00:05:50.680 Yeah, Jesus is saying that we need to look at judgment in a specific lens.

00:05:57.920 And I'm going to talk to you about that.

00:05:59.440 There's two types of judgments that humans can make,

00:06:02.600 and we're going to break those down here in a second.

00:06:04.560 But this is why reading scripture in context is so important.

00:06:08.760 I actually, I feel like I did an okay job at this,

00:06:11.880 But once I went through, at Western Seminary, I took a class called Biblical Hermeneutics.

00:06:19.140 And it's really the science and art of interpreting Scripture properly.

00:06:23.780 And the way that you look at Scripture is you don't just take a verse.

00:06:26.860 You have to make sure that you look at the verse within the paragraph.

00:06:28.960 You look at the paragraph within the chapter, the chapter within the book, the book within the covenant, the covenant within the whole Bible.

00:06:35.040 And so you constantly pull back to go, okay, let's look at the context, the historical cultural.

00:06:40.760 is this prescriptive is a descriptive let's look at and and this is advanced stuff but when you're

00:06:46.920 teaching the bible you absolutely should do this stuff and and because i'm a bible teacher that's

00:06:52.760 often what i do but the context of this chapter that the sermon of the mount jesus is talking

00:06:58.880 matthew chapter 7 um clarifies this point of judgment this conversation of judgment and so

00:07:06.640 is the verbiage. And so the word judge in this place is actually translated from a Greek word

00:07:12.140 that says, it's called krino, krino, K-R-I-N-O. And it's indicating that the judging that's being

00:07:19.100 forbidden in this place, in this specific passage, is not to decide, presume, or determine an evil

00:07:26.220 status of another person. In other words, judging their salvation or lack of it. That's really what

00:07:33.200 I would say is the core context. And I looked up lots of commentary on this just before I was

00:07:38.780 writing this outline. And John Gill, Matthew Henry, Adam Clark, John Calvin, all came to

00:07:47.640 same or similar conclusions on this. So it's not just my own personal interpretation on that.

00:07:54.600 We have to remember, not even Christ, while he was on earth,

00:07:57.520 cast eternal judgments on people.

00:08:01.240 He actually says in the Gospels,

00:08:03.660 I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.

00:08:06.860 Now, he's going to judge the world when he's in heaven at the due time,

00:08:10.880 but while he was here, he wasn't even doing that.

00:08:12.920 He came to save it.

00:08:14.000 And the text also seems to imply, on top of that context,

00:08:17.880 really this forbidding of a rash, intense, harsh,

00:08:22.300 or thinking of evil where evil has not been proven of certain people.

00:08:27.220 Just be very careful in the way that you judge.

00:08:29.340 We are all sinners, and we've all fallen, we've all failed.

00:08:33.120 And you don't want to, like, cast that, oh, man, look at you, you failure, 0.86

00:08:36.780 like, in forgetting how filthy and dirty we are.

00:08:39.940 And that's kind of the same line of thought on this type of judgment

00:08:44.920 that I've got from the text as well as many theologians of times past.

00:08:50.540 See, we have a habit of elevating ourselves above others

00:08:54.560 and viewing ourselves better than others.

00:08:57.560 And Jesus knows this, and this is what he's preaching against. 0.99

00:09:00.380 And the Jews were criminal at this. 0.89

00:09:02.420 I mean, the way that they viewed anybody outside of the Jewish culture 0.98

00:09:04.980 or the Samaritans or the Pharisees,

00:09:07.540 how they viewed even people in their own culture.

00:09:09.200 I mean, this is something that is a big deal.

00:09:12.280 Judgment was a big problem in terms of just a more,

00:09:16.380 almost like a superiority judgment, like, I'm better than you.

00:09:20.780 And Jesus kind of levels the playing field

00:09:24.400 in this passage here.

00:09:26.920 So also when he says,

00:09:30.600 you know, judge not lest you be judged

00:09:32.140 to the intensity that you do it,

00:09:34.480 it'll be given back to you.

00:09:35.660 He's not saying eternal judgment from him.

00:09:38.600 He's actually, what I think he's saying

00:09:40.200 is that don't judge people's inner status.

00:09:44.420 You know, I think about the scripture

00:09:46.300 in the Old Testament for the man

00:09:47.380 looks upon the outside,

00:09:48.880 but the Lord sees the heart.

00:09:50.860 And so all we have to judge is the outside.

00:09:53.440 So we better be very careful on the way that we make any judgments about anything on anybody,

00:09:58.560 because you just, all you can see is the outside.

00:10:00.860 We don't get to see the heart.

00:10:01.980 We don't get to see their story, but the Lord gets to see the story.

00:10:05.240 And if you judge people's hearts or you judge their eternal salvation with that severity,

00:10:11.700 that harshness, people will reciprocate with that severity back to you.

00:10:17.220 And if you're a judgmental person, man, you're going to be judged by other people harshly.

00:10:21.420 it's going to be reciprocated back to you.

00:10:23.940 And it could also mean that it's going to be reciprocated back from the Lord.

00:10:27.740 Basically, Jesus and the entire New Testament teach us that there are things that we should not judge,

00:10:35.600 and there are things that we should judge.

00:10:38.360 And we're going to break that down.

00:10:41.600 In Proverbs 8.13, it says,

00:10:44.500 The fear of the Lord is to hate evil.

00:10:48.240 We know that Proverbs 1 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

00:10:53.300 So, you know, it goes on with the fear of the Lord is to hate evil.

00:10:57.600 In other words, we actually are instructed to form a judgment or form an opinion,

00:11:05.020 a distinction and bring identification to what is right and wrong or good and evil.

00:11:10.900 So we are absolutely to judge there.

00:11:13.360 Like you need to judge that stuff's wicked right there.

00:11:16.380 We need to make that judgment. Now, there's a difference between judging an activity that's

00:11:21.000 wicked and judging the person that's necessarily doing it. The general rule of thumb that we're

00:11:26.780 going to break down today is this. Christians are never, ever to judge anyone's eternal status.

00:11:36.060 That's just, get that in your head. You don't get to do that. That's not your job to do.

00:11:39.960 Christians are never, ever to judge anyone outside of the church who does not identify

00:11:45.900 themselves as a Christian. Not your job. They are under the Lord's authority and the Lord's wrath.

00:11:52.280 He's going to do the judging. You don't get to do the judgment on anything. And this is why

00:11:56.820 if anybody walks into our life that's not a believer, I don't care what path they're walking

00:12:04.000 in. I'll sit down and have dinner with them. I'll sit down and have a conversation with them. I'm

00:12:08.020 not making a judgment at all. I'm here to share the gospel with them, have a conversation, love on

00:12:11.440 them tell them tell them the truth about about jesus but christians are however so those are

00:12:18.640 the two areas that you are not to judge the area that we are to judge are those who are inside of

00:12:25.100 the church and are named a brother or sister they've labeled themselves as christians as

00:12:31.980 believers the bible has expectations for how god's sons and daughters are to behave and he's actually

00:12:40.720 given his sons and daughters the authority to make judgments and hold accountable their

00:12:47.980 brothers and sisters to their father's expectations.

00:12:51.200 And so we are absolutely called to do those things.

00:12:55.940 Yeah.

00:12:56.680 So we're going to talk about the two different passages regarding how to properly exercise 0.58

00:13:00.240 judgment upon a Christian brother or sister.

00:13:02.760 And the first passage we're going to go through is from Jesus in Matthew 18, which Dale mentioned

00:13:09.400 earlier.

00:13:09.780 And we're going to go through verse 15 through 20.

00:13:13.940 And sadly, unfortunately, this is almost an extinct practice in the Western church today.

00:13:20.480 But it serves a critical purpose in keeping the bride of Christ pure and holy and righteous.

00:13:27.100 Yeah, when you hear the term church discipline, it's generally talking about this passage of Scripture.

00:13:32.760 sure. And man, until we were in a biblical community, I had never actually seen this done.

00:13:41.500 I'm not saying that it hadn't been done at the churches that we attended. Yeah, we just may not 0.66

00:13:45.080 have seen it. We just may not have seen it. But there was plenty of opportunities that it should

00:13:48.800 have been exercised. We just had not seen that occur. Right. Okay. So Matthew 18, starting in

00:13:55.480 verse 15. Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and

00:14:01.100 him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you

00:14:06.600 one or two more that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. And if

00:14:12.880 he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses to hear from the church, let him

00:14:18.800 be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on

00:14:26.200 earth we are whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you

00:14:31.420 lose on earth will be loosed in heaven again I say to you that if two of you

00:14:36.160 agree on earth concerning anything that they ask I will be it will be done to

00:14:41.400 you oh my goodness sorry it will be done for them by my father in heaven for

00:14:46.640 where two or three are gathered together in my name I am there in the midst of

00:14:50.020 them yeah so this is a chunk of scripture and so um you get get a chance to go and read it yourself

00:14:57.380 again matthew 18 verse 15 through 20 yes it's a good passage of scripture i'm going to break this

00:15:02.860 down for you guys right now because it's it's important to the conversation of how christians

00:15:08.420 should make judgments on other christians um first so it says right here uh in verse 15 moreover if

00:15:19.600 your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone and so this is

00:15:24.560 about interpersonal church relationships this isn't about the pastor and the congregation that's

00:15:32.520 how like church discipline is kind of i felt like it's turned into some sort of like hierarchical

00:15:37.960 process now this is about you and anybody in your own life that's calls themselves a believer

00:15:43.660 that's in your church community.

00:15:46.260 And so this is man-to-man, woman-to-woman.

00:15:49.400 If they've sinned against you or you've sinned against them.

00:15:51.180 Yeah, so very applicable.

00:15:52.740 Has anybody sinned against you?

00:15:54.820 Because if they have, this is the process of what you do.

00:16:00.100 Notice that it says, go to him alone.

00:16:02.740 Don't go talk to somebody else about the sin

00:16:08.600 that someone committed against you in a gossiping tone.

00:16:11.880 Now, there may be a way to go and seek out some counsel on how to approach that, but be very careful on how you do that.

00:16:22.780 But this, again, this isn't for the clergy or for the pastor.

00:16:26.760 This is for everybody.

00:16:29.160 The third thing I want to point out is, it says, if they don't repent, it says, but if he will not hear.

00:16:37.180 He doesn't listen.

00:16:38.220 Yeah, he doesn't listen.

00:16:38.800 He doesn't want to agree with what you're saying.

00:16:40.620 take with you one or two more.

00:16:43.940 And then he references an Old Testament passage

00:16:47.380 that by the mouth of two or three witnesses,

00:16:49.960 every word may be established.

00:16:53.220 What it's saying here is that if he's not going to hear you,

00:16:56.260 go build a little miniature court

00:16:57.760 and you're going to build a little bit of a jury here.

00:17:00.880 Yeah, bring one or two with you.

00:17:02.600 Yeah, and you know what?

00:17:03.580 It's pretty rare when you have the person that's offended

00:17:07.120 plus one or two more people that, or maybe even a total of four people that are sincerely there

00:17:18.200 to come up with the correct conclusion, to go there humbly, to seek out the facts,

00:17:24.640 to hear both sides of the story. It's pretty rare for three or four men or women filled with the

00:17:31.260 Holy Spirit who know the word of God, who are mature to get the incident wrong. And I think

00:17:35.940 there's some really beautiful safety and reconciliation capability when you have a few

00:17:40.920 people. And I think this is a great process, um, to, to go through if you need to do that.

00:17:48.140 Um, and if they don't listen then, well, man, now you got a prideful, you got three people

00:17:54.320 going against you saying, this is time to repent. You've walking in the sin, you're hurting people.

00:17:59.520 And, and it could be, you know, a husband who's looking at pornography and his wife brings,

00:18:05.060 after she's asked and asked and asked for him to stop,

00:18:09.140 he won't stop.

00:18:10.260 And she brings in maybe one of his good buddies

00:18:13.960 or the pastor of his church or whatever it might be.

00:18:16.140 Who's walking righteously.

00:18:17.040 Who's walking righteously in this area, two or three.

00:18:19.280 And man, if this brother just still says,

00:18:21.520 no, I'm going to continue to do it.

00:18:22.880 I'm not sorry.

00:18:23.720 This is something that I'm going to continue in unrepentantly.

00:18:28.200 And then it says to bring him before the church.

00:18:31.380 And you get to stand him before the church.

00:18:33.620 Now, this is if they show up.

00:18:35.060 What a serious amount of pride it would take to come up and stand before a congregation of people on what it takes to do this.

00:18:43.420 And this is actually a fascinating point.

00:18:45.800 He says, yeah, but if he even refused to hear the church, and he says, tell it to the church.

00:18:54.540 This is the first time that Jesus uses the term church in the Gospels.

00:18:59.260 It's before he even talks to Peter about establishing the church,

00:19:03.580 building his church on top of Peter the rock.

00:19:05.940 It's pretty fascinating.

00:19:07.180 So he uses that word ecclesia there.

00:19:09.200 And I just wanted to point that out for you because it's kind of fun theology nerd stuff.

00:19:14.120 Yeah.

00:19:14.700 So basically every step that you take in the issue,

00:19:20.920 it makes the issue more and more public and likely more and more humiliating.

00:19:24.980 Like you said, it would take an insane amount of pride to go in front of the church

00:19:28.580 and have this sin be acknowledged and if they won't repent still jesus actually tells us to

00:19:36.160 break fellowship with them by treating them as if they were a tax collector yeah this is

00:19:41.340 what a crazy thing that jesus make it more and more public less and less private you see like

00:19:48.640 it's first just you alone and you can just kind of you know settle it and let it go let it go and

00:19:54.420 no one needs to know about it what a beautiful gift that is and then you know what hey give you

00:19:59.940 a second chance only a few people get to know about this embarrassing situation and you know

00:20:04.600 what you can drop your pride you can be forgiven but man if you're not going to do it then strike

00:20:09.640 three and you're out yeah jesus is like torquing the screws and going you're going to go before

00:20:14.640 the entire congregation of people in your community and be embarrassed and potentially

00:20:20.580 very humbled and more and more public yeah but the goal is to win your brother back yes it's not to

00:20:30.080 you don't want to have to do these steps no but they are so critical jesus doesn't give us

00:20:34.600 instructions for this stuff for fun or for no purpose or for for a suggestion no this is what

00:20:41.940 you do when this happens it is a protection of the body uh he says to treat you like to treat

00:20:48.520 him like a tax collector. He doesn't say to view them as if they're lost. Now, again, we don't get

00:20:55.700 to make the judgment if they've like walked away from the Lord, unless they've declared that

00:20:59.280 themselves, like they've apostatized. But to treat him like a tax collector, and I want to just

00:21:05.920 remind you, for those of you that don't understand what Jewish culture, how they would view a tax 0.80

00:21:10.940 collector, because this message is pre-crucifixion. Jesus is talking to Jews about this message in the

00:21:17.080 Sermon on the Mount. And tax collectors were hated and despised because they were fellow,

00:21:23.340 generally, fellow Jews who worked for Rome. And there was like this kind of betrayal sense.

00:21:31.820 Traitor. 0.83

00:21:32.300 Traitor, yes. And the way that these people would make their money, these tax collectors, 0.98

00:21:38.580 is they would actually add money on top of their collections through threats, revealing

00:21:44.420 embarrassing information. And this is where we get the word extortioner. They would extort people.

00:21:50.780 And throughout the scriptures, you see that word all the time. Don't associate with any, you know,

00:21:54.500 reviler or drunkard, extortioners. This is part of that culture at that time. And it says to treat

00:22:00.080 them like a tax collector or like a heathen. And the way that Jews treated heathens, like Gentiles, 1.00

00:22:05.520 is man, you are totally breaking fellowship with these people. You would actually walk on the other 1.00

00:22:10.580 side of the street if if you saw a tax collector like that's how brutal this is now you're doing

00:22:19.440 this judgment out of love because you hope that the breaking of fellowship actually wins people

00:22:27.920 back yeah and unfortunately we've had to do this before yeah we have in our own community all the

00:22:34.780 down to the last step and it's not something any Christian should enjoy

00:22:39.980 doing or take pleasure and like I said it's painful it was sad so it's

00:22:44.320 heartbreaking and it's very much tough love for the purpose of them you know

00:22:51.200 hopefully changing their ways and they get they have the opportunity to either

00:22:56.100 choose their sin and pride or fellowship with the church yeah and then the second

00:23:02.980 passage um on christian judging other christians is found in first corinthians chapter five

00:23:08.360 yeah so i want to just take a moment real quick just to give you a fun metaphor to give to drive

00:23:15.820 the point home here i don't know if i want to call it fun a good metaphor to to drive the point home

00:23:20.680 um i want you to consider if we took just all the fornicators these are people that are not 0.83

00:23:28.000 married, having sex in the church, going to the young adults program, you know, sleeping around, 0.99

00:23:33.240 getting drunk on the weekends, adulterers, drunkards, revilers, idolaters, all the sexually 1.00

00:23:37.840 immoral people who call themselves Christians, all the people who are liars, like unrepentantly 1.00

00:23:41.740 lie. And we will take all those people that are in the church today, that are going to church 0.98

00:23:48.140 every Sunday, unrepentantly walking in these things, this repetitive sin, habitual sin,

00:23:52.520 and let's just say that we took all those people out of the church and we placed them on an island.

00:23:58.000 and let's just say that it was 10 million people out of the whole church of Jesus Christ a couple

00:24:03.600 billion people we take these 10 million people out and in five years we after them being on an

00:24:11.800 island for five years what do you think the culture would be like on that island

00:24:17.240 absolutely disgusting filthy filthy yeah sinful right that that's probably I mean that's probably

00:24:24.340 what would happen right it's that these people that are not reverent to the lord they're non-repentant 0.91

00:24:28.740 then yes potentially immature uh in the lord don't understand the idea of of truth and righteousness

00:24:35.300 and um and walking in a manner according to scripture okay so now let's just imagine after

00:24:42.500 those five years that we uh we take the population of that island and we import it into a hundred

00:24:52.840 thousand Christian churches. There'd be one thousand people from that island added to each

00:24:58.100 of the hundred thousand churches. What do you expect would happen to those hundred thousand

00:25:04.740 churches? Will a culture of holiness increase or will a culture of holiness decrease in those

00:25:12.980 churches after adding those people back in? Decrease. It'll decrease. And you think that you

00:25:18.720 go, well, so you put a thousand people in a church of 5,000, you think that it'll actually

00:25:23.280 decrease in holiness? And I do. I think so. And I'm going to tell you why. Because earlier in this

00:25:30.260 passage in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul says this statement that you've probably heard, a little

00:25:34.800 bit of leaven leavens the whole lump. He uses this in this exact same chapter, referring to this exact

00:25:42.560 same discussion. Yeah. And if you're a baker or if you made bread before, you probably can grasp

00:25:47.400 this concept. Yes. Leaven is defined as an element, influence, or agent that works subtly

00:25:54.680 to lighten, enliven, or modify the whole. It modifies the whole. And how much influence

00:26:04.260 can 10 million unrepented, filthy, sinful, habitually wicked, practicing wickedness,

00:26:14.460 but calling themselves christian how much influence can 10 million of those people have

00:26:20.360 on the church of two billion well if it's 11 a lot it can have a huge impact on that and i actually

00:26:28.160 remember a pastor once giving me a fun uh visual example we were talking about church discipline

00:26:34.880 and uh making judgments and keeping the church pure a pure holy white bride um doing these

00:26:42.040 things out of love? And what does it really mean to judge? And he used this conversation. He took

00:26:47.840 me and he says, hey, I want you to stand on this chair. And he said, I want you to try to pull me

00:26:54.180 up while I try to pull you down. Who do you think won every single time? Yeah, it's way easier to

00:27:01.240 get someone to pull someone off something than it is to pull someone up something. And this, again,

00:27:08.560 this idea is throughout the scriptures it says bad company corrupts good morals we need to be

00:27:13.960 very careful with allowing this stuff to stay and fester within the church and that's why jesus puts

00:27:22.800 these things in place and paul puts these things in place they're for the benefit of keeping the

00:27:29.160 bride holy it's not because we're better than anybody it's it's not because we're not graceful

00:27:36.160 and merciful we are it's not because we enjoy it it's because scripture tells us to do it and we

00:27:41.120 need to do it with the right heart all right so let's read this passage and just to make a quick

00:27:48.160 point we're not reading in the abstract when we read this section of scripture this is something

00:27:53.280 christians especially today need to understand and obey so please listen closely um as i read

00:28:00.480 this next passage in 1st Corinthians 5 verse 1 it is actually reported that 0.59

00:28:06.840 there is sexually immoral sexual immorality among you and such sexual

00:28:11.800 morality as is not even named among the Gentiles that a man has his father's 0.99

00:28:16.980 wife yeah you just you think about that and you go oh my gosh this is crazy

00:28:21.180 there's an incestual relationship going on in the church and you think that

00:28:26.160 there's no way that would ever happen in my church.

00:28:28.820 Well, people, we are going to talk about that.

00:28:31.680 This is, again, as Veronica said, it's not the abstract.

00:28:34.040 This kind of stuff happens all the time in the church.

00:28:37.900 And he says sexually immoral.

00:28:41.580 And so I want to point out a few things that Paul writes here

00:28:44.220 that are just important to know.

00:28:46.820 So it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you.

00:28:51.980 So one thing is that somebody called it out and declared it to the authority who is Paul.

00:28:59.700 So just, we always feel guilty, like, man, I'm not going to say anything about that.

00:29:04.680 No, it's, sure, you want to, again, first thing, you go to a brother.

00:29:08.160 Yeah, you go to them directly.

00:29:09.220 You go to them directly, but at least people aren't listening.

00:29:12.020 Or if you don't know what to do, you go to your pastor if there's some ignorance there.

00:29:15.940 The reality is, though, it was reported.

00:29:18.180 And it's not because of anything else but love.

00:29:23.100 You can't let this kind of stuff stay in and tarnish the body of Christ.

00:29:29.540 And so that's the first point.

00:29:32.300 Second point is you have to catch this word.

00:29:35.860 It's really critical.

00:29:37.000 John Piper actually did a really fantastic sermon on this years ago.

00:29:40.680 It says that a man has his father's wife.

00:29:47.420 It's really important to capture that has.

00:29:51.000 He didn't have past tense.

00:29:53.780 He has his father's wife.

00:29:56.180 He's walking in it and not repented of it. 0.98

00:29:59.620 It's not something that's been corrected.

00:30:01.380 It's something that's still going on.

00:30:03.960 Yeah, it's going on.

00:30:05.600 And so we're talking about a brother,

00:30:09.560 in the context that Veronica is going to read here in a second,

00:30:11.400 that is currently sinning, obviously unrepentantly, because he has his father's wife.

00:30:18.840 It's probably a stepmother or some other weird situation.

00:30:23.600 But again, we think that this is crazy talk.

00:30:25.880 Let me read you one of the statements to the amendment of the Marriage Equality Act

00:30:33.120 currently in legislation here in the United States.

00:30:36.260 It says, quote,

00:30:37.420 The right to marry or to personal consortium shall not be abridged or denied by the United States or any state on account of sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, ancestry, consanguinity, which means you can marry your brother or sister, affinity, or number of participants.

00:31:00.800 Okay, this is not abstract when we think about this stuff kind of invading the church.

00:31:06.100 it's coming and so this is a crazy thing to read about in corinth but it's not a crazy thing to

00:31:14.740 read about here in america yeah so um later in this chapter paul tells the church how to handle

00:31:20.960 this matter of an unrepentant brother so let's go ahead and read that um verse 9 through 13

00:31:26.760 so i'll start and we're still in chapter 5 yes in first corinthians um i wrote to you in my

00:31:33.480 epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people yet I certainly did not mean with the

00:31:38.500 sexually immoral people of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or idolaters since then

00:31:45.620 you would need to go out of the world but now I have written to you not to keep company with 0.94

00:31:50.800 anyone named a brother who is sexually immoral or covetous or an idolater or reviler or a drunkard

00:31:57.080 or an extortioner not even to eat with such a person for what have i to do with judging those

00:32:03.800 alone who are outside do you not judge those who are inside but those who are outside god judges

00:32:10.220 therefore put away yourselves the evil person this is um

00:32:15.440 what was the last time i heard a sermon on this passage of scripture

00:32:19.580 uh and first corinthians is such an applicable book i just spent what a year probably a year

00:32:26.340 and a half i don't know yeah close to it teaching through first corinthians and um it's such an

00:32:32.780 applicable book for today and this passage is so applicable and this this letter it's not just

00:32:38.740 written to the corinthians this letter if you look up at the introduction of first corinthians

00:32:43.680 it says in the very beginning in the greeting when you're opening it up uh it says to to those who

00:32:51.020 are at Corinth, comma, called to be saints, comma, to all who are in every place who call on the name

00:32:58.080 of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a letter which is the universal doctrine, but for local application.

00:33:03.940 So there are some things that are happening here that are specific to Corinth, but the principles

00:33:09.100 are universal. Paul expected this letter to be pushed around all types of churches, not the

00:33:14.860 specific church that you're dealing with here. So I'm going to explain verses 9 through 10. So he

00:33:20.680 He says, I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people,

00:33:23.920 yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world

00:33:27.840 or with the covetous or extortioners or idolaters,

00:33:30.260 since then you would need to go out of this world.

00:33:32.160 He's saying, I'm not talking about the people who don't know Jesus,

00:33:36.140 the people that are on the other side of salvation.

00:33:39.240 I'm not talking about them.

00:33:40.140 You go spend as much time with them as you want to

00:33:42.700 in terms of your efforts of sharing the gospel.

00:33:46.660 But I did tell you, to clarify Paul's saying,

00:33:50.780 But now I have written to you to not keep company with anyone who named a brother who is sexually immoral, covetous, idolater, or reviler, or a drunkard, or extortioner, not even to eat with such a person.

00:34:09.920 Okay, like he's saying, don't keep company.

00:34:12.660 That's the first thing he says.

00:34:14.660 And then he says, dude, don't even eat with them.

00:34:16.640 Like, that's how extreme I'm talking right now.

00:34:19.820 sacred or civil. Don't eat with them in communion. Don't eat with them just for a lunch meeting.

00:34:25.700 Don't spend any time with these people. And you go, dang, Paul, this is harsh.

00:34:29.680 This is a total cutoff of fellowship and community. And Paul later admits, he says

00:34:38.500 in verse 12, for what have I to do with judging those who are outside? Even Paul, the apostle,

00:34:46.800 capital A, doesn't judge people that are outside the body of Christ. Neither should you. Do not be

00:34:54.960 judging people. But then he says, do you not judge those who are inside? Question mark. But those who

00:35:02.220 are outside, God judges. Therefore, put away from yourselves the evil person. Get away from them.

00:35:09.620 And I remember I sat with a brother maybe a year and a half ago, two years ago.

00:35:18.780 He invited me to lunch and told me he was dating a girl.

00:35:23.080 And he told me that he was sleeping with his girlfriend at the time.

00:35:29.840 And calling himself a believer and walking in sin.

00:35:34.260 And they've been doing it for months and months and months, maybe even years.

00:35:37.960 And I said, hey, brother, thank you for sharing that with me in terms of just your vulnerability.

00:35:44.200 One, we got to talk about that's not right.

00:35:46.280 Let's talk about the scriptures according to the Bible, why this isn't the life you should be living.

00:35:51.560 And I think it calls for repentance.

00:35:54.080 And he was humble and receptive.

00:35:57.180 And I said, hey, brother, if you continue to actually go on this way and identify yourself really as a sexually immoral person named a brother,

00:36:05.460 The scriptures tell me that I can't even meet with you again.

00:36:08.940 I can't even eat with you because you would be refusing to walk in righteousness 0.91

00:36:14.340 and calling yourself a Christian.

00:36:17.280 And you know what?

00:36:18.900 I was so proud of him.

00:36:19.680 He went back home, had a conversation.

00:36:22.840 Everything got made straight.

00:36:24.680 They got engaged.

00:36:25.440 They got engaged, got married.

00:36:26.760 Yeah.

00:36:27.020 And praise the Lord what that did there because I was willing to say those hard things.

00:36:32.600 And we've done this with a few couples.

00:36:34.720 another couple from out of state that we did that same thing they were in town for a for one of our

00:36:39.360 events here and um we've done that with several couples several couples yeah and praise the lord

00:36:44.920 right yeah oh yeah absolutely and so um it's it's a great day when somebody can humbly acknowledge

00:36:53.100 their sin and turn away from it yeah repent and walk in right we just need to be willing

00:36:57.720 It says, love covers a multitude of sins.

00:37:02.040 Well, and the fact that they now have a testimony and they are now able to go do the same thing with other people.

00:37:08.880 Yeah, it's not loving to let people continue in their sin.

00:37:14.760 This is, lastly, my last point for Veronica to switch in here is, this is really the apostle's way of saying,

00:37:21.180 Let the world see that the church of God does not tolerate unrepentant immorality.

00:37:30.580 Okay, we, Paul says later in 1 Timothy 3, verse 15, that the church is the living God,

00:37:37.160 or we are the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth.

00:37:42.860 The church is the pillar and the ground of the truth.

00:37:44.980 and man if that's true like we are the pillar and the ground that upholds all of the truth in the

00:37:52.520 world and paul's saying let the world see that the church of god does not tolerate unrepentant

00:37:58.840 immorality now does it does it tolerate immorality yeah with grace and love man i sin

00:38:05.620 you know we all sin the difference is is a brother says man i i'm trying to turn away from

00:38:12.600 this. I'm actually repenting of that sin. I want to get better. I want to actually continue to walk

00:38:17.600 in righteousness. I'm not going to stay in this filth. I'm going to walk in the Spirit so I don't

00:38:22.240 fulfill the desires of the flesh. That's a different person than the guy that gets drunk

00:38:26.440 almost every single weekend and then shows up for church on Sunday and tarnishes the body of Christ.

00:38:33.900 Yeah, so as Christians, we are to judge other Christians. We are to do it in love. We are to

00:38:40.700 do it with a heart of restoration yes but we are to do it it is part of your

00:38:46.560 responsibility our responsibility as Christians to hold your brothers and

00:38:51.060 sisters accountable to God's expectations for his children so Dale's

00:38:56.480 gonna go ahead and leave you with five points that might help drive this message

00:39:00.920 home yeah just a few things that will I think help clarify this topic and it's

00:39:07.100 so important to it's not a fun part of the church but it's an important part we have a small church

00:39:16.060 we have a small little gathering and so it's pretty easy to walk these things out with each

00:39:19.360 other because we only have you know 10 or 12 families in our little house church and this is

00:39:23.840 again in my opinion how it should be played out it's very difficult to play this out in a giant

00:39:28.540 mega church you get sued there's churches actually that try to pull this stuff off and they end up

00:39:34.480 attorneys come and get involved, and they said that you can't come, and then you might actually

00:39:38.320 revoke your 501c3 status because you're actually a public organization. This is hard stuff to do

00:39:45.380 in the big box model, and another reason why we want to really come back to biblical church

00:39:54.240 and smaller gatherings. So I'm going to give you a couple points. Point number one that I think

00:40:00.160 is being made through these passages of scripture is if evil is allowed to live inside the body of

00:40:07.080 Christ, the work of God cannot prosper. If it's just allowed to be here, you know, if you just

00:40:14.500 let the guy, and there's got to be grace, especially for new believers and all this kind of

00:40:19.140 stuff, just be patient with those people. But if just evil is just allowed to be here, guys that

00:40:24.080 continue to look at pornography week after week after week, committing adultery on their wives, 0.74

00:40:30.160 if liars and idolaters and people that serve money 0.99

00:40:34.720 and people that are getting drunk and getting high

00:40:37.480 and coming to church over and over again without any correction,

00:40:41.920 if evil is allowed to live inside the body of Christ,

00:40:45.500 the work of God will be hindered.

00:40:49.080 The church will be hindered.

00:40:51.220 Purity and holiness and righteousness

00:40:53.120 are the foundations of progress in the church.

00:40:55.920 Jesus says, be holy as I am holy.

00:40:58.220 he doesn't give us commands that we cannot follow point number two discipline must be exercised

00:41:05.720 in the church corporately and member to member so meaning that like discipline needs to happen

00:41:13.620 from like a pastoral level but it also needs to happen like member to member like we we need to

00:41:17.980 be willing to hold each other accountable get in each other's lives and love each other enough to

00:41:23.460 say brother or sister you can't stay like this this is sinful according to scripture i'm not

00:41:28.760 going to continue to have fellowship with you if you're going to behave this way i would have been

00:41:33.280 saved from years of pornography i would have been saved from years of being a liar if someone would

00:41:41.700 have just said that to me but nobody was willing to say it was just constant grace without truth

00:41:47.520 and it's not loving to let people stay in their sin that way um and without discipline or

00:41:58.220 correction the church will soon look like the world which i was gonna say it kind of already

00:42:05.600 does if you can't tell the difference between a church community and the way the world behaves

00:42:14.840 because we're actually so busy trying to look like the world.

00:42:18.780 The right music, the right design, the right buildings.

00:42:21.420 We're trying to attract people based off the world's standards

00:42:23.980 instead of off of God's standards.

00:42:27.040 Man, we need to start working on the things that Jesus values,

00:42:31.360 which is truth, love, humility, righteousness,

00:42:35.300 the fruits of the Spirit.

00:42:36.080 These are important things.

00:42:38.140 Number three, there is spiritual safety

00:42:42.020 within the divine brotherhood

00:42:44.640 and sisterhood of the church

00:42:45.660 Veronica and I have been rescued

00:42:48.200 through church correction

00:42:50.120 several times

00:42:51.560 by older folks, by peers

00:42:54.400 by people younger than us

00:42:56.000 that have made comments and said

00:42:58.260 hey the way you're behaving is not okay

00:42:59.980 can we talk about that

00:43:01.040 and praise the Lord for that

00:43:03.940 we live in a church

00:43:06.660 culture that avoids kind of real fellowship

00:43:08.860 like deeply known fellowship

00:43:11.740 But when you do have it, as Paul expects you to have, and you get removed from it, it's a big deal.

00:43:19.000 And it's an awful state to be in, to have lost your community.

00:43:22.400 And that's why that is the form of punishment.

00:43:24.340 Break off community with those people.

00:43:26.640 You can't have fellowship with me and fellowship with your sin.

00:43:30.580 You can't do it.

00:43:31.600 And Jesus says the same way.

00:43:32.760 You can't love your sin and love me.

00:43:36.580 And so it's the same concepts that we're seeing here.

00:43:38.900 Number four, toleration of unrepentant sin is hatred.

00:43:47.400 Toleration of unrepentant sin in a brother or sister's life is hatred.

00:43:52.400 And I'm actually going to give you a point here.

00:43:53.760 Proverbs 13, 24.

00:43:55.600 It's talking to parents, but it says,

00:43:57.460 Whoever spares the rod hates his son,

00:44:01.360 but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

00:44:06.100 I would just switch that out.

00:44:07.460 It says, whatever church spares discipline hates the member, but the church that loves him is diligent to discipline them.

00:44:16.380 I mean, that's just, it's a loving thing to do.

00:44:18.980 It's not fun, but it's the loving thing to do.

00:44:22.580 And point number five, which I think is critical, is a brother or sister's need for church discipline should never cause us joy.

00:44:35.220 it should never feel like a revenge it should actually cause us to mourn i've i've prayed

00:44:43.460 heavily for brothers that have walked away and fell in love with their sin and i've seen this

00:44:49.220 over the years um we are never to delight in the exercising of church discipline man if you are

00:44:56.400 prideful in this the lord will check your heart on that but this is a duty that we are called to

00:45:04.580 to walk out with one another.

00:45:07.780 And it's not our righteousness

00:45:09.740 that compels us to act on discipline.

00:45:13.400 It's actually our great sadness.

00:45:16.200 We're not doing this because I'm righteous and you're not.

00:45:18.500 No, it's that God gave us expectations

00:45:23.240 and we are all expected to live up to them.

00:45:27.500 And so I just want to leave you guys with that,

00:45:30.180 those points, and hopefully you hear the heart

00:45:32.780 because this is a tricky message to deliver.

00:45:34.580 Veronica is going to read a quote.

00:45:38.500 I have heard this quote in a variety of ways,

00:45:41.280 and I've kind of put it together.

00:45:42.480 I wish I knew who said it originally,

00:45:44.640 but I'm going to just have Veronica read it.

00:45:47.720 So I can't give you a name of the quote,

00:45:49.400 but it's a good quote.

00:45:51.960 Love without truth is licensed to remain the same.

00:45:55.520 Truth without love is surgery without anesthetic.

00:45:58.520 Jesus is 100% truth and 100% love.

00:46:01.740 He calls us to be like him in every way,

00:46:03.960 including this one we get to be a hundred percent truthful and a hundred percent graceful

00:46:11.940 and i often lean on the truthful side um and it's hard for me to like boost up my grace i feel like

00:46:21.820 the season has humbled me a bit the lord's the lord's taught us to be more gracious that's for

00:46:28.000 sure yeah it's the last year um and so we just want to encourage you guys don't be afraid of

00:46:33.480 church discipline don't be afraid of correcting rebuking exhorting a brother or sister always

00:46:39.480 done in love always done in love and it's a good thing it'll actually people if they it says in

00:46:45.000 proverbs that a wise man loves a rebuke but a fool despises correction man you'll have people

00:46:54.040 that come up to you later in life and go,

00:46:55.540 thank you for calling me out.

00:46:57.920 I was stuck and nobody said anything.

00:47:00.320 Thank you for calling me out.

00:47:01.900 So yes, we are to judge one another in love.

00:47:04.420 We are never to judge anybody outside of the church.

00:47:07.920 I think that's the end.

00:47:10.560 All righty.

00:47:11.400 So we, last thing.

00:47:14.020 Again, a reminder, if you guys would leave us a review,

00:47:16.080 it would be very helpful.

00:47:17.660 Again, you can watch this also on YouTube.

00:47:19.940 And this will be available at relearnchurch.org

00:47:23.360 with all the scripture references,

00:47:24.740 some of the notes from the show today.

00:47:27.040 One day we've been talking about getting these transcribed

00:47:30.940 so you can actually have them in writing.

00:47:33.080 But thank you guys for listening,

00:47:35.660 and we will see you guys next week.

00:47:39.340 See you guys.

00:47:40.300 Take care.

00:47:40.880 See you later.

00:47:53.360 You

Dale Partridge - March 06, 2019

Real Christianity #35： Should Christians Judge Other Christians？

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