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One Flesh: What does it Mean?
<page 58>Unfortunately, there are some difficult issues associated with the ministry of righteousness, especially when it comes to sexual sin. It would be nice if we could only focus on God's forgiving acceptance of His children, but a one-sided discussion would be misleading. It also wouldn't truly meet the needs of recovering sex addicts. Most of them know that if they continue in sin without repenting there will be consequences. It is best to be upfront about this.
We need to consider what is called "church discipline." In church discipline, a person is first privately corrected for their sins, and if they do not repent they are publicly corrected. Then if they still don't repent, they are removed from the church.
"Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that 'by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.' And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector."
The possibility of being publicly rebuked can be absolutely terrifying for a recovering sex addict, and it greatly complicates the message of the ministry of righteousness. Many sex addicts already feel a great deal of guilt and shame. Adding the threat of being removed from a church makes it tough for them to feel God's love.
It may have been years since a sex addict has made it more than a few days without falling into sin. He may have tried to change many times and failed. His natural assumption is that he has not truly repented (and that he will therefore be disciplined). Based on the Scriptures, he reasons that if he had repented, his actions would change.
Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, "Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." (emphasis added)
Ministering to sex addicts is a balancing act. On the one hand, we need to be honest about verses like Matthew 18:15-17 and Luke 3:7-9; repentance is important, and it needs to produce fruit. But these verses, by themselves, will only tend to frighten addicts into denial, running, or hiding. The thought of being cut down and thrown into the fire is too much for them to bear without being balanced by great amounts of the acceptance and love of the ministry of righteousness.
It is the kindness of God that leads to true repentance (Romans 2:4 NASV), and addicts are not accustomed to the idea that kindness and a call for repentance can exist together. Their hearts often need to be slowly opened to the possibility that their lack of fruit may be the result of <page 59>taking an overly simplistic approach to desires that are as strong as death. It may take them a while to realize that God can both welcome them as they are today and at the same time require them to move step by step through a difficult change process that will bring fruit over time.
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles – that a man has his father's wife! And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
…For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore "put away from yourselves the evil person." (emphasis added)
These verses are about a church discipline situation involving sexual sin in the Corinthian church. What can we learn from them? First, they show that this church discipline situation involved someone who was willfully unrepentant rather than someone who was trying to obey but failing. (He still had his father's wife.) When someone is humbling themselves and seeking to listen to God and others, and when they are taking steps to protect others from their sins, I don't believe that church discipline is needed. Though the person may still be falling in some ways, that is the result of immaturity on their part rather than willful rebellion. They need help and patience rather than strong discipline.
If a person is rebellious, however, there is a chance that they are not saved. Paul told the Corinthians to discipline the man that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. He was in danger of mistaking a dead faith for a living one (James 2:14-26), and church discipline was necessary to call him to deal with that possibility. It placed him outside the protection of the church (deliver such a one to Satan) so he would suffer consequences (the destruction of the flesh) that would hopefully wake him up to his true condition.
In the above scripture, also notice that the entire church had become puffed up. The man's attitude toward his sin had infected everyone. He had said, in effect, "What I am doing isn't wrong for me. God will accept me without judgment, and everyone else should too." Others in the church had bought into that lie, and they considered their acceptance a sign of their spirituality. Paul, however, called them to task. He recognized that the man was deceiving everyone, and he brought the lie into the open so it could be dealt with.
This sort of deception is a danger with any sin that we treat lightly. Each of us has character flaws that are so comfortable for us that it is easy to laugh them off and say, "I'm only human." The truth, however, is that we are not only human; we are new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17), and we need to guard against living like mere men (1 Corinthians 3:3).
When a church becomes puffed up in accepting sin, a process is set in motion that will slowly fill it with a poison:
<page 60>Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
If we don't treat sin seriously, and especially if we glory in it, we are setting the stage for it to spread to others. When a baker puts leaven in a lump of dough, even if it is only a small amount, it will spread throughout and leaven the whole lump. The same sort of effect happens when we accept sin in the church. It leads others to lose the fear of the Lord that protects them from their own areas of weakness, and those weaknesses gain control in their hearts. They stop humbling themselves and crying out to God for help and mercy, and their lives drift from the truth.
When someone is treating sexual sin seriously, however, even if they have not yet fully overcome it, the leaven will not tend to spread. Their life isn't proclaiming the message that God accepts sin. Instead it is saying that He accepts the humble who cry out for Him to save them from their sins (James 4:6). They are standing on the Bible's promise that He will forgive them and gradually transform them by putting His laws in their mind and heart (Hebrews 8:10). They are also accepting the reality that they are reaping what they have sown. In the past, they didn't flee sexual immorality, and they must now patiently work through the resulting damage.
This sort of wisdom is a positive message for the church. Others, caught in their own struggles of various types will be encouraged to also humble themselves. Those who have not yet fallen will see the consequences of bad choices and fear the Lord. Some in the church will be moved to show mercy and offer help (Jude 23). As people give testimonies of finding freedom, faith will grow.
This brings us back, however, to the first line of defense. If it is the chief answer to sexual sin, people will find it difficult to share about their sexual struggles and victories. Though the church won't become puffed up like the Corinthian church was, it will remain in ignorance of God's answers. In that sort of environment, we will find that those who struggle tend to bury their problems out of sight where they fester beneath the surface.
When sin is hidden, it also makes it more difficult for us to practice church discipline with grace. Because answers are not being presented, those who get caught and disciplined will tend to feel they are being punished for failing to receive help that was never offered. And since no one is honestly discussing the problem, it will be tough to tell the difference between someone who is humbly seeking God yet struggling and someone who is openly rebellious. Only when help is at least semi-publicly available can we see who is actively seeking answers and who isn't.
Imagine a situation in which those who had escaped from sexual sin were giving their testimonies in church meetings of some sort. People could hear honest accounts of both the difficulty involved and the amazing grace of God that can empower us through the battle. The principles that lead to healing would be explained, and some in the church would be like doctors and nurses, patiently working with those still caught in the illness. In that sort of environment, <page 61>there would be a clearer distinction between those who are laying hold of the grace of God and those who aren't. Though the failures of the two groups might be similar, the fact that some are actively receiving from the immune system of the body of Christ while others are not would give us a reading about whose repentance is real and whose isn't.
There is one other point we need to consider related to church discipline. It is that some sexual sins cause more damage than others, and the church needs to take steps to protect people from the most damaging sins. A man who falls to physical adultery has done more harm than a man who lusts in his heart. Both sins are classified as adultery (Matthew 5:27-28), but physical adultery hurts others more than mental adultery does. For example, if a man commits physical adultery with one hundred women, he has directly damaged one hundred families. A man who looks at pornography one hundred times has only directly damaged himself and his own family.
Because of this, acts which involve more than one person will require swifter church discipline than acts which only involve sex with oneself. If a struggling person is honest and humble before God, they will be willing to submit to this sort of wisdom, and they will take steps to make sure the more serious damage does not occur. Fortunately, those steps are usually fairly easy to implement, although they may be painful to carry out. A struggler can set boundaries to avoid being alone with people who will tempt him. They can walk in accountability with others who will hold them to avoiding unsafe situations. Taking steps to protect others in this way shows that a tempted person is not just looking out for themselves, but is also considering how their weaknesses might affect others. It is a sign of true repentance.
Sins that involve civil crimes must be carefully avoided, even if doing so requires unusual restrictions. Civil laws are designed to punish those sins that bring extreme harm to others, so they are a guideline for areas in which we need to take special precautions. Even if someone who has previously fallen to sexual crimes has served time in jail and now seems to be making good progress, churches need to take steps that will insure that they do not hurt anyone if they have a bad day. Situations in which victimization could occur must be off limits. So, as an obvious example, a former child molester should never teach a Sunday school class. We can't risk the possibility that a moment of weakness could inflict great suffering on a child. If a previous offender is humbly repentant, they will understand the wisdom in these sorts of restrictions and submit to them.
We will return now to the subject of sexual sins which are less damaging. I had a time in my life when a church had to decide whether they would discipline me for these sorts of sins. I will describe this time in some detail in "Chapter 11. Hail Mary Pass." For now, it is enough to say that after eight years of unsuccessfully struggling to resist sexual temptations, I decided I didn't know how to control myself. As a result, I stopped resisting some temptations. In order to protect as many people as possible, I continued to avoid sins that involved others, but with those sins that only involved me, I felt helpless to stop the plague that had been spreading in my heart for years.
<page 62>I confessed what I was doing to some Christian friends and a church leader. I said basically, "I don't know how to stop this. If you have any insight, please let me know." Since I had all but given up on resisting, I knew that this was a time when church discipline would be considered. I didn't look forward to that, and I knew that the only way to avoid it might be to leave before it occurred, yet I didn't want to leave. My life was falling apart, and I wanted to do whatever I could to keep that from happening, so I opened my heart to others in the hope that someone could help.
Fortunately, the church leader I shared with knew me, and he had seen that I had been devoted to the Lord for many years. He decided that if I had stopped resisting, it was because I lacked the ability to resist well. He felt I was not dealing so much with rebellion in my heart as with a lack of wisdom. He also saw that I wasn't doing anything all that dangerous for others, so there wasn't a need to discipline me in order to protect people. He thought it best for all of us to simply pray and pursue the Lord. We asked God to give us insight into what I should do about my problems.
This church leader also showed through his actions the phrase I mentioned at the end of the previous chapter, "paternal levity" (fatherly enjoyment). He spent time with me and drew my heart into the open. We laughed together as he helped me to appreciate the value of my imperfect steps into maturity.
When I wondered aloud about my state before God, he told me that God gives us time to repent (Revelation 2:20-23). He believed that even if I was rebellious, the church should be willing to patiently work with me for a time to bring me to my senses (2 Timothy 2:24-26). Jesus' parable about the unfruitful fig tree is a good picture of this:
He also spoke this parable: "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, 'Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?' But he answered and said to him, 'Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut it down.'"
After several months of being open about my problems, my fig tree (my life) started bearing the fruit of repentance. My heart and actions changed, and I have never been the same. I believe that the situation was handled extremely well. God's people were protected, and we went to the throne of grace where I found mercy and help (Hebrews 4:16).
I have been saying in this chapter that Church discipline complicates the ministry of righteousness, but if we face it in the light of God's word, it doesn't change the basic nature of that ministry. External rules that protect others can't make us righteous or change our hearts. Only grace can do that. The fact that we might need some rules to keep others safe while we are in the process of finding answers doesn't change the fact that He is the one doing the work. I am grateful to have been a part of a church that understood this when my life was hanging in the balance.
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