In 1974 I was 14 years old. At that vulnerable part of my adolescence, a man came into my life who abused me daily. I met with this man every day after school, and he subjected me to the most intense forms of physical torture and verbal abuse imaginable. I went home with my body racked with pain, feeling like the scum of the earth because of the abuse I took. Yet every day I went back to him. That man was my wrestling coach, and he held out the promise that if I went through this physical torture and verbal abuse, I would ultimately be a better wrestler.

If you were a fly on the wall in my house, there's no telling what you might see. You might see my family sitting at the table having fun. You might see times when we enjoy one another more than I can possibly tell you. But you might also see us when things are tense, when my sons have violated the will of their father and experience the tough side of love. Maybe they're being lectured. In the past, perhaps they were even being spanked. These two events in our home have a lot to do with one another. It is the imposed and frees us up to enjoy one another. Both of my sons, Michael and Seth, are heroes of mine. Like every father, I love my sons. There's never been a time when I've had to discipline them that I enjoyed it, contrary to what I make them believe.

I read you a card from one of my sons:

You took center stage in my thoughts today, and my heart gave you a standing ovation. I appreciate you so much. Dad, I love you so, so much. Not a day goes by when I don't thank God for your wonderful heart for God and your desire to raise Michael and me to be great people. I know it's no special occasion or anything, but you're a special dad, so I just wanted to say thanks. I love you and Mom bunches. Seth

Can you believe a son whom I have spanked would write me a card like that? I want you to see these two things are connected. That is true not only in our physical family but in God's family as well.

Discipline, rightly handled, is good for the church family.

The discipline God imposes on us keeps our hearts close to his, keeps us in fellowship with him.

The correction God offers through the body of Christ, through fellow believers and church members, keeps us in love with his people, in love with his heart, in love with his way.

The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5 about just such an event. A brother in the church had fallen into sin. Every road has two ditches, and Satan doesn't care which ditch he gets you in.

When it comes to church discipline, I see two gross errors people commit. On one hand, there are those who say, "This is a private matter. We have no business interfering in people's lives." Therefore there is no discipline. There is no security. There's no fellowship, ultimately.

There are those who take it to the other extreme, and they think the purpose of discipline is merely to censor, to be harsh. They forget its redemptive purpose and err on that side. These two extremes seem to view one another with great disdain and distrust, and they blame the other for their own actions. Since one group doesn't practice discipline, then the other group is going to be extremely harsh. Since those people are harsh, we're not going to practice discipline at all.

The Bible tells us the proper way to practice discipline. You can't argue against something based on its abuse. Otherwise we would have to be against marriage because some men beat their wives. We would have to be against disciplining our children because some people abuse their children. No, you have to argue against the abuse of the thing, not the thing itself. In Scripture we see unequivocally that discipline is commanded in the church of the Lord Jesus. It's not an option.

I speak to you not as a theoretician, not as an academician, but as a pastor, one who has pastored two churches and in each of these churches I have taught this principle and led those churches to practice scriptural, biblical, loving church discipline. Paul and the Lord Jesus prescribed for us how to do it.

1. Identify sin's impact on the world.

Paul says, first of all, in verses 1—5, you have to identify the impact of sin. To identify the impact of sin you need to take a look in three different areas.

First of all, he says, identify sin's impact on the world. In verse 1 he says, "It's commonly reported among you that there's immorality of such a kind that even the world says it is gross immorality." Even the world looks at that sin and says, Hey, Christians don't do that.

Paul lays out a principle. Not every sin makes a church member subject to discipline. What qualities, therefore, make sin worthy of such an extraordinary step?

First of all, notice the sin is public. "It's commonly reported among you."

Second, notice that it's gross immorality. Even unbelievers know Christians don't do that. Don't ever forget the Lord gives the world the right to judge the church, but he does not give the church the right to judge the world. Remember Jesus said, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you have love one to another." He gave the world the right to judge us by our love for one another. In this passage he gives the world the right to judge us by our commitment to holiness. Even the world knows there are certain things Christians just don't do.

Other categories of sin are mentioned in Scripture besides the gross immorality that's mentioned in this passage. In Romans 16 Paul says doctrinal heresy is a grounds for biblical church discipline. If one teaches something contrary to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, they must be dealt with.

Once we had a man in the church who became convinced of the doctrine of universalism. He became convinced everybody was going to heaven and that we were therefore wasting our money in missions and wasting our efforts in evangelism. I heard he believed in this, and I privately talked about it with him. I said, "You are in gross error. That is contrary to the Word of God. I want to warn you. If I ever hear you propagate that, we will deal with it." Well, he took that as a challenge and printed up his beliefs, and one day during a service he went to every car and put one of the tracts under the windshield wiper.

I called upon him to repent. I talked to him privately. He would not. I took some men with me. We confronted him again. He would not repent. Then we brought it before the church for a time of prayer regarding this brother that he would repent of doctrinal heresy. But when he would not, we removed him from the fellowship of the church with tears and prayers that one day he would repent of that heresy. At that time he would be welcomed back into the fellowship of our church.

Doctrinal heresy is grounds. We are also told in Titus 3 that creating division is grounds for church discipline. Paul writes, "Avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is a divider after the first and second admonition reject." Paul, following the words of Jesus in Matthew 18, says you go to him once; you go to him again. Then if he will not hear you, if he will not repent, he should be rejected. He should be put out of the fellowship of the church.

There is also a special case in Scripture that if an elder, one of the leaders of the church, sins, he should be rebuked publicly before all, so that others may fear.

You need to identify sin's impact on the world. The world is watching us. The world is waiting to see if we really believe what we say, if we really walk the talk.

2. Identify sin's impact in the church.

Paul says in verse 2 we also need to identify sin's impact in the church. Paul laments, "You haven't mourned over this. You're puffed up." What did he mean by "puffed up"? How could they be proud over such a gross sin—that a man would have a sexual relationship with either his mother or his stepmother? They prided themselves not in the fact that he was in sin. I believe they took pride in that they could be they could leave this as a private matter between him and God. They were puffed up about it, and they thought they were doing the right thing. He says, no. You haven't mourned over this, and unless you confront it, you become desensitized to sin.

Why should we go to such great lengths to deal with sin in the church? First, because the Bible absolutely commands it be dealt with. As a pastor it's much easier to sweep it under the rug. But when you do that, the church preaches a subtle message that sin is really not serious, and that the rules change based on who's committing sin.

Furthermore, there's no incentive for repentance. Perhaps someone doesn't know how to repent; maybe they don't know they are in error. When a church tries to take the shame out of sin, they engage in a dangerous enterprise. God wants sin to be shameful.

3. Identify the church's impact on sin.

Third, Paul says you need to identify the church's impact on sin. In verse 3—5 he says, "The result of your mourning should be obvious; the one who has done these things should be removed."

Now, in this text Paul does not explicitly mention anything about forgiveness, but based on other passages where we are told the point of discipline is always restoration, we can conclude that this brother was he was persisting in sin, and an opportunity for repentance had been refused.

In Matthew 18 Jesus laid out the procedure. If a brother is in sin, he should first be privately confronted. Often people come into my office and say, "I've got to tell you what has done to me." Inevitably I say to them, "Have you talked to him about it? You have no business talking to me about it until you have first talked to that person about it. Go to that brother."

Then if the person doesn't hear you, take two or three. Perhaps some of the elders should confront him. If he still won't hear it, then it needs to be told to the church. The church needs to call him to repentance. If he still won't repent, Jesus makes it clear that brother is to be, as Paul puts it, turned over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

You must rigidly enforce this procedure. You dare not ever skip a step. Don't go to public confrontation first. Don't even go with two or three first. There has to be a private confrontation first to spare the brother and give him opportunity to repent.

One time my father told me he was going to confront a woman in the church, a widow, who was living with a man. She was an older woman, a sweet woman. My dad went to her privately and said, "I'd like to read you a passage of Scripture." He read Psalm 51, David's great prayer of confession. He said, "I just want you to think about what I've said."

She said, "Just a minute, Pastor. As you read that, God convicted my heart. I know I'm in sin. I'm going to get out of this." She was given an opportunity in private to confess that sin, to repent, to cease the sin. God wonderfully restored her.

Paul said, "I've already made a judgment." I don't have to make a decision. Whenever someone persists in sin, whenever gross immorality goes unrepented and continually practiced, then that brother has to be judged. People often repent when they're confronted, but if they do not, Paul says they need to be turned over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

What does that mean? In God's church, God has a principle of authority: that when we are properly submitted to authority over us, there is a supernatural protection over us that Satan cannot penetrate. Collectively the body of Christ is a realm Satan cannot penetrate. When someone is put out of that body, then Satan is free to deal with them.

One of two things will result. They will hurt so badly that they repent. They say, Ouch, I see God's rules really are for my good, and they return. Or else they prove they were never believers to begin with because they can be happy in sin. To be frank, Satan doesn't even bother them because they are his. Paul says you turn them over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

Notice how closely Paul's apostolic words parallel the words of Jesus in Matthew 18. Jesus said to go through this process and at the conclusion he said, "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Jesus says, whenever you need to make a judgment regarding the brother who will not repent, that's when I am in the midst of you. I am with you in making that judgment. Paul says much the same thing. Even though I am away from you in body, he says, I'm present with you in spirit. In his apostolic authority he encourages them to count him as in on the decision and to deal with the brother in error.

Always treat sin like sin will treat you. Sin will be ruthless with you, and that's the way we should treat sin—not the sinner but sin. We hate it. We have to identify sin's effect and realize the serious problem it is. Sin affects the one who did it, but there is also an inherent effect on the church. Paul not only identifies sin's effect, but he also tells us to identify the attitude of the church.

Paul in verses 6—8 shows us another phenomenon. There's a deeper concern. Even more significant than the brother in error is its impact on the whole church. He says in verse 6, "You're boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? It goes throughout." Their great problem was they did not see sin as seriously as it was. Paul says don't treat sin lightly. When there's just a little sin, it results in members who are just a little guilty, and unmarried girls who are just a little pregnant, and little bigots who are just a little bit racist, and men who commit just a little adultery, and churches who have very little impact. He says you have to do some spiritual housecleaning, purge out the old leaven.

Positive church discipline begins with positive personal discipline. We've got to quit seeing church discipline as a negative. We've got to see it as a loving act of confrontation. I say to you, pastors, do not back down.

A few years ago we had to discipline a man in our congregation who had abandoned his wife and child to move in with his homosexual lover. He would not make it right. We publicly disciplined him, and we put it right in the minutes of the meeting that we did this with tears and sorrow and with prayerful anticipation of the day when the sin would be forsaken and repented of and he would be welcomed back with open arms. That was our goal. That was our hope.

It wasn't long after that I received a letter from a lawyer representing this man. She said, "I would like a letter from you telling me the membership status of Mr. SSo." I wrote back and quoted from 1 Corinthians 6. I said, "The Bible absolutely forbids me from discussing with you any internal matters of this church. I am a man of conviction, and this church is a church of conviction, and we will always obey God rather than man." If we administer discipline in a loving and consistent way, it doesn't matter who the guilty party is, this is always how we deal with sin.

The world looks at that and says, Those people are serious about sin. Paul points out, when you treat sin lightly, ultimately you're going to treat the atonement lightly. Do you see that? Why does he put in that little phrase, "For Christ is our Passover, he's been sacrificed as our Passover"? Since our Passover Lamb has already been sacrificed, we live in a perpetual feast of unleavened bread. Our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed not once a year but once for all. Therefore, we are always in the feast of unleavened bread. If you recall in the Old Testament in the book of Exodus when the feast was implemented, not only were they not allowed to have any leaven in their meal, they had to put it all the way out of their house. Leaven was a picture of sin. God wanted his people to see the necessity of purity. Since our Passover Lamb has given himself, been sacrificed for our sin, it's up to us to respond by getting rid of the leaven.

The atonement demands our holiness. We're not holy in order to earn atonement. We're holy because we have atonement. Put out the leaven. The atonement has been made. First the sacrifice, then the purging. We get rid of the leaven of malice and evil, and we eat the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

4. Identify the church's ministry of biblical separation.

In the final movement in the passage, verses 9—13, Paul says we must identify the church's ministry. It's a ministry of biblical separation. He said, you guys have it backwards; you are trying to separate from the sinners of the world. You can't do it.

When it comes to one who is called a brother, though, Paul says it's a different case. When that brother will not repent, we respond by removing him from the fellowship and then, he says, you don't even eat with him. It's an interesting discussion to decide there whether he's talking about just eating a tuna sandwich or whether he's talking about eating the Lord's Supper. But it's clear he says this brother is now to be shunned.

The church has a ministry of biblical separation, and of not judging the world. That's left to God. Too often we preach against the wrong sin. It's easy to stand in the pulpit and talk about what's going on in Washington and with the National Organization of Women and the ACLU. But we are not to judge those. Don't ever get mad at the world for acting like the world. What else are they going to do? We need to confront the sin that is within the walls of our churches, within the lives of our people. That is our ministry. That is the message we preach. Paul says, isn't it up to you to judge those within?

Last night I called some friends of ours in Arkansas and asked permission to share this story with you. I got a letter from a woman, a member of the first church that I pastored in Arkansas. She told me that Bob, my chairman of deacons and closest friend in the church, had left his wife and was living with another woman. I could not believe it. I called Doreen. I said, "Doreen, tell me what's happening."

She said, "It's true. He's left me. We're not even divorced, but he's already living with another woman."

I said, "Give me the number at that house." She gave it to me. I called. The woman answered. I said, "Is Bob there?"

She said, "Yes, may I tell him who's calling?"

I said, "Yes, tell him this is his friend and former pastor, Hershael York."

As I heard her say those words, I could hear him choking, deciding whether to take the phone, but he took it. I said, "Bob, what are you doing? What are you thinking?"

He said, "I just got tired of being the only one making an effort. What do you do when you give and you give, and you get nothing in return? What do you do when you try to express love, and she won't? What do you do when you give everything you've got, and she never even says thank you?"

I said, "Here's what you do. You make a cold, hard, rational decision to obey God anyway. Now, you listen to me. I want you to pack your things right now. I want you to go home to your wife. I want the two of you to drive all the way up here to Lexington, Kentucky, and I want you to spend a weekend with me and Tonya, and we're going to help you."

I can't explain it. God had given me the boldness to confront him like. He did exactly what I told him to do. He went home and got her. They came up to our house. That whole weekend Tonya and I ministered to them from the Word. They went back home. They said, "We're going to try to make a go of it."

Three weeks later they came back to Lexington with their two children. They said, "We want you to marry us again. We want to repeat our vows, and we want to start afresh." Last night I asked. I said, "Doreen, how is it going?" She said, "If anyone had ever told me marriage and life could be this good, I would never have believed it."

Listen, if you find me in sin, confront me. Love me that much. Don't let me go and think you've done me a favor.

Weep o'er the erring one. Lift up the fallen. Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave." Jesus found me in my sin, and he loved me, but he loved me too much to leave me there.

Hershael York is associate professor of Christian preaching at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He is of Speaking with Bold Assurance (Broadman & Holman, 2001).

(c) Hershael York

Preaching Today Tape #213

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Hershael York is pastor of Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, Kentucky, as well as professor of Christian Preaching and dean of Southern Seminary's School of Theology in Louisville, Kentucky.