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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.