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This is from Haley.
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"I'm 16 and have been saved
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for about two years.
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I live with my dad who is also saved.
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My mom is a professing Christian,
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but has made it very obvious she is not.
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She lives with her boyfriend,
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uses the Lord's name in vain frequently...
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I've written her and witnessed to her countless times.
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My question is, in the Bible, the Lord says,
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"do not even eat" with someone
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who claims Christ but is immoral.
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Does this mean I cannot have a relationship with my mom?
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Thank you for your time, Haley."
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I'll tell you what.
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Do you know where she gets that from?
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1 Corinthians?
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Somebody know where that is?
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Where it says not to associate with
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anybody that calls himself a brother,
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anybody who's a professing Christian?
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1 Corinthians 5. Let's read it.
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Turn there if you have your Bible.
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1 Corinthians 5:9-11.
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I just want you to see the flavor of this.
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Now let me tell you something.
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Young people, pay attention to this,
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even though Haley is dealing with this
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with regards to her mom,
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this is something
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especially you guys that are coming out of other churches
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and still have friends in other churches
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and you have family members that claim
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to be Christians and all sorts of things like this.
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There's a lot of application here.
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In fact, more so than I think sometimes we
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acknowledge in our day.
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1 Corinthians 5:9
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"I wrote to you in my letter
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not to associate with sexually immoral people.
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Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world."
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Do you see? Paul wants us to be evangelistic.
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Does he want us rubbing shoulders with red-blooded sinners?
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You better believe he does.
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He's not saying, "come away from all
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the sexually immoral people in the world."
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"Or the greedy or the swindlers or the idolaters,
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since then you would need to go out of the world."
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And that's not what he wants.
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Christ said you're the salt, you're the light.
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We need to be in the world;
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we need to be out there in the world.
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We need to be salt and light in this world.
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We need to shine in the darkness.
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We need to be salt in a decaying and a foul
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and a corrupt generation in which we live.
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Verse 11
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"But now I'm writing to you not to associate
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with anyone who bears the name of brother,
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if he's guilty of sexual immorality or greed
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or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, swindler -
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not even to eat with such a one."
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Let me tell you something,
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Haley's question deserves a lot of attention
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in our day and age - you know why?
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Now you guys know 1 Corinthians 5,
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if you know your Bibles very well,
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this is coming after Paul has described a situation
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about a man who was sleeping with his father's wife.
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You guys remember the account?
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Paul says you guys have been arrogant,
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you need to put this guy out to the devil,
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get rid of him!
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A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
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You've got a problem there, you've got sin,
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this guy calls himself a brother.
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Get him out.
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And there is evidence, is there not?
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We're not told exactly, but there is some evidence
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that in 2 Corinthians that this guy was restored.
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But here's the thing.
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I think we might have a tendency
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to do something as Christians.
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Let me just give you an example:
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We had this guy Bruce...
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come into our church claiming to be a Christian.
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If you don't come to our church, I'll fill you in.
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This guy started coming to our church,
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and he'd come in drunk.
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I mean, he was a homeless guy,
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living on the street, and he was a drunk.
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And he'd come in and say he was a Christian.
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And he'd interrupt things and do bizarre things.
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He threatened one of the guys in the church
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busting his teeth out when he confronted him
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about whether he was a true Christian or not.
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Which kind of gives away where he's at.
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But here's the thing,
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I think we live in a country where there are
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multitudes of false professors.
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Because we've got such a cheap gospel out there today,
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which is no gospel - not a true one.
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We've got people being pipelined into the Kingdom
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through short little sinner's prayers.
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Repentant-less messages like I told you about earlier.
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It's mass producing false converts.
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But see, I think sometimes we think,
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well, the guy in 1 Corinthians 5,
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sometimes it goes into our mind,
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he really was a true Christian,
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and when he was put out,
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he repented and he came back.
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And so I think sometimes what happens is
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we have people who profess to be Christians,
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and we tend to categorize them in our mind.
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We tend to categorize them either as somebody who
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we genuinely think is a Christian
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and probably needs to be disciplined
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because they've fallen into some sin,
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and we're hoping they'll come to repentance.
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Versus somebody that we look at and we say,
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"Ah, they're lost."
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And so what we can tend to do is
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say, well, the guy who we think is a Christian
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who has fallen into this sin, we ought to discipline him.
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We ought to put him out to Satan, like it said there,
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but this guy over here like Bruce,
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we look at him and we say, yeah, but he's lost;
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he's deceived.
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So we don't deal with them the same way.
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But listen to me, Paul doesn't say that.
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Paul doesn't say evaluate whether you think he is
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a Christian or not.
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Paul says if a guy says he's a brother,
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and he's involved in some habitual sin,
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just like we were talking about,
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put him out.
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In fact, it doesn't just say put him out,
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it says not to even associate with him,
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not to even eat with him.
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Folks, let me tell you something.
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We've lost this.
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We don't do this.
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And I'm not just speaking to you - I'm speaking to myself.
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Are we as a pattern coming across people
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that say they're Christians
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and they're living in sin
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and we just kind of write them off as lost people,
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and kind of approach them evangelistically.
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But that's not what it says to do here.
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It says, don't associate with them.
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Are we doing that?
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Now, of course, her question is she's got a mother that way.
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Now I would say this,
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Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5,
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when the church comes together.
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This is a church discipline situation.
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This isn't something that the government's told to do.
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It's not something the family is told to do.
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It's not something the employer is told to do.
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It's something the church has been told to do.
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It's a spiritual thing.
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I would say this, look,
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if somebody's husband gets disciplined,
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the woman is still bound
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by her marriage vows to be his wife.
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This girl, what should her relationship be?
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Let me tell you this:
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It's something the church does - it's not something
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that specifically the family's told to do.
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And all I can tell you is this:
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We have no specific biblical example where
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discipline takes place
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and there is a family member there
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and how they are to relate.
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But I would tell you this,
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because the principal behind non-association is
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that leaven leavens the whole lump.
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What's that mean?
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What is a little leaven leavens the whole lump mean?
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What's the leaven?
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Sin.
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Where there's sin, it has a tendency to do what?
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To spread.
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Just like yeast, or leaven in bread, it spreads through the whole.
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If you allow sin in the church to go unchecked,
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what Paul's saying is,
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what happens is it infects.
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And the fact is, I'll guarantee you this,
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what happens is we get in a world of people
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that profess Christianity that are living in all sorts of sin.
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You just immerse yourself in that long enough
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and there is an infection that comes from it.
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There is a yeast there. There's a spreading
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that tends to dull down what true Christianity is.
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It has an effect.
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We're told not to associate.
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But I'll tell you when it comes to a child,
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when it comes to a parent,
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when it comes to a spouse,
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are they to sever those family relationships?
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We're not told specifically, but I'll tell you this,
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that wife, that husband, that child, that parent,
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needs to be aware of what the spiritual reality
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behind church discipline is all about.
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It's meant to prevent sin from spreading.
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And so I would say,
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if a family member is ever put in that situation,
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though I would not say that they are to cast
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honoring the parent out the window,
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or the wife loving the husband out the window,
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when it comes to a church disciplinary situation,
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they need to be very aware of the fact that
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whatever leaven existed
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that caused the discipline to take place,
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they need to pray for special grace
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not to be infected by; and they need to pray
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for the grace to abide in the midst of that
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and not be tainted by it.
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And let me just tell you this too,
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it's 2 Thessalonians 3, where it says,
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"if anyone does not obey what we say
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in this letter take note of that person,
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and have nothing to do with them,
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that they may be ashamed."
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That's 2 Thessalonians 3:14 following.
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But it says this,
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"Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother."
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You know, in all the non-association that we have
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with disciplined people, it doesn't rule out -
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it says don't eat with them,
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I'll tell you what, if there was a disciplined brother
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that I was going to have over to my house to eat with,
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and all I was going to do is use it as an occasion
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to warn him and admonish him,
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I would feel liberty to do that.
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Warning.
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And if this young lady,
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she has been doing the right thing.
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She has been confronting her mother with that sin.
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And that's a loving thing; that's an honorable thing.
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She's desiring the best for her mother.
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That's reverencing her mother.
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And it would be the same situation
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if it was a woman to her husband, a husband to his wife.
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If they want the best, they want them to
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come to repentance over the matter.
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They either want them to come to repentance
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or give up their profession.
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Right?
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Come clean that you're lost. Or repent.
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And so to press people and admonish them and warn them
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is what we're told to do in 2 Thessalonians 3:14.
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And so I would just say that,
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that family member needs to keep that in mind.
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And obviously, if the wife's living with the husband,
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she's not going to spend 24/7 admonishing the husband.
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She's going to know when to do it;
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seek God for proper opportunity to do it.
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And maybe in many ways,
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she's going to seek to be that 1 Peter 3 woman,
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who without a word is just seeking to win her husband.
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Whether it's to repentance or to the faith.
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Whichever it might be.
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But taking that approach,
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and that might be a good approach
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for a child to take too.
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Like I say, we don't have a specific
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example of this in Scripture.
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And I know out at Community Baptist Church,
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not the same church that I was talking about up on
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1604, not the same one,
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this is a different one - this is down 1604 on the South side.
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But we had situations where members were disciplined
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who had spouses or parents or children
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who were members of the church as well,
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so this came up.
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And obviously, the family relationship was never severed
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because of that,
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but there is a way to walk in the midst of it in wisdom.