Corporate Responses to Sin

In this part of the sermon: Martin reviews previous sermons, recalling two categories of individual responses to sin: covering a multitude of minor sins with fervent love (1 Peter) and confronting specific…

Love casts a veil over a multitude of sins, preventing us from marking, amplifying, or broadcasting them, which would cause division and friction. The absence of love does the opposite.

do in the presence of specific people? What does love do in the presence of specific people? What does love do in the presence of specific people? What does love do in the presence of specific and aggravated sins between individuals? For just as certainly as the word of God to believers is, have fervent love that covers those multitudes of sins. So the scripture says what love is to do in the presence of specific sins, sins that are very clearly of such a nature as to demand some action. And we've looked at the directives. If I'm conscious that I've sinned against a brother, I'm to go and make...

3:32 - 4:32 Read in full sermon

Driving home: For listen, if he's a true believer, there's only one thing more painful than the withdrawal of the fellowship of God's people. That's the withdrawal of conscious fellowship with his Lord. And since his Lord dwells in hi…

Illustrates spiritual segregation by suggesting a believer stop casual social visits (like having coffee) with a disorderly brother, explaining the reason for the withdrawal of intimacy.

Maybe this fellow happens to live on your street and on the way home from work or if you've been out to doing something in the evening, you might occasionally stop in and just have a cup of coffee and chat and have a word of prayer together. Paul says, don't do this anymore. To what end? When he asks you and says, hey, Hank, how come you haven't invited to see me?

19:51 - 20:09 Read in full sermon

Driving home: For listen, if he's a true believer, there's only one thing more painful than the withdrawal of the fellowship of God's people. That's the withdrawal of conscious fellowship with his Lord. And since his Lord dwells in hi…

Compares the pain of withdrawal of fellowship from God's people to the pain of withdrawal from conscious fellowship with Christ, as Christ dwells in His people.

That is, that he may feel the social pressure of this corporate segregation and by that leverage may be brought to see his sin, repent of his sin, and be brought back into the fellowship of the people of God. For listen, if he's a true believer, there's only one thing more painful than the withdrawal of the fellowship of God's people. That's the withdrawal of conscious fellowship with his Lord. And since his Lord dwells in his people, you can't separate those things as clearly as you can do in a sermon or on paper.

20:27 - 21:05 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And therefore, it is love that withdraws from this brother. It's not bitterness. It's that you love him enough to see him wrenched loose from his delusion.

Compares a parent who fails to enforce discipline due to personal pain to a church that fails to segregate a sinning brother, calling it a vicious form of self-love rather than true love for the child/brother.

And so in love, we withdraw. And a failure to do this is a vicious form of self-love. It's like the parent who says to the child, do this and this will be the reward. Fail to do this and this will be the reward.

25:25 - 25:41 Read in full sermon

The point: If you find that there's an individual in the church who, when you are with that person, their speech and attitude is such, that it causes you to think things you should not of others, it causes you to find attitudes sti…

Compares spiritual segregation to quarantining someone with measles, where dark shades are for the patient's good (protecting eyes) and isolation is for the good of others (preventing contamination). This illustrates that discipline, though seemingly cruel, is an act of love and protection.

Love that longs that the crippled brother be restored, and when other means have failed, this may be the means that God will make effectual to his facing his sin. This is not harsh. It is for the good of that person, and it is for the good of the established, and the most accurate parallel I know in the human realm is what you do when you quarantine someone. When someone's got the measles, and you quarantine them and put dark shades in the room, and you don't let them have much light, that may look rather cruel.

30:26 - 31:03 Read in full sermon