THE CHURCH UNCENSORED

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

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“Toxic Tolerance”

1 Corinthians 5:1-13

Rev. Dustin Largent

March 22, 2026

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Part 1: The Woods and the Soap

When I was about probably eight or eight years old, I remember I went up in the woods behind our house. We lived in East Peoria and behind our house there was a bunch of woods up there. And me and my friends used to like to go up in the woods and do kinds of stuff. Well, there was some kid we didn’t know very well, and he started, he came in and was playing with us and man, he was using all kinds of really, really bad language like using language that we never heard. Well, I heard all that language all the time in my house, but I wasn’t allowed to ever say any of it. But I was in the woods, man. And so, all of a sudden, my parents ain’t around, nobody’s around. And so, I was like, I started ripping off a whole bunch of words that, and I’m saying all these bad words and I felt pretty tough, right?

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Because I’m dropping this word and some of the words had four letters, some of them had five letters, some of them had three letters, they all had, and I was like, man, this is all right. And until, until somebody told the neighbor lady that we were up in a woods cussing. And, and all of a sudden, and the thing is, it happened really fast, even without cell phones. There was a phone call from the neighbor lady to my mom, and my mom demanded that I come home. And so, I came home and my mom took me and she, I remember, I remember I was in the bathroom upstairs, she took me and she set me on the sink and she said, tell me what you said. I must have been a moron because I just started ripping off words.

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I dropped, one of the words had my mother in it. And so, I’ll say a word and then she’ll take a bar of soap, put it in my mouth, bite down. And I, what else did you say? Well, I’m just saying another word, bite down. What else did you say? Just, stupid me, right? I mean, and I, it must have been, it probably was only like three minutes, but it seemed like eternity. And you know, I look like I got hoof in mouth, right? There’s foam coming out everywhere. Yeah, I should have, I should have listened to it, but anyway, after I’m done, and that was bad enough, but that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part is after I was done, she said, go into the bedroom over there and you wait until your father gets home.

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Well, I can handle a little soap, right? It depends on the flavor, but I can handle a little soap, but dad was coming home. I knew he was going to come and it wasn’t going to be good. Now the good news is I’d already been punished, but I hadn’t been punished as severely as I was going to get punished. And he said, well, why were they disciplining you? Now, for those of you that are maybe our younger parents, you might go, well, why were they doing that? Because they were good parents. That’s why, because they were going to discipline me because they were trying to change wrong and destructive behavior in my life. They didn’t want me to grow up to be that. That they were trying to protect me. They were trying, they were loving me enough to discipline me.

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And so my dad did get home, and I was sweating, man, because I was right by where the driveway is. I was right above where the driveway is and where it comes in. I could hear the car coming up. I was like, oh crap. Like I’m just, I’m just like really nervous, you know? And, you know, I hardly ever got in trouble, but this is one that I remember. And the worst part is that my dad was coming home and it reminded me of this passage where when we left last time, Paul said, I am coming to you. I’m going to come to you. And when I come, one of two things is going to happen. I’m either going to come gently, right? As your spiritual father, I’m going to come gently, right? Because you fixed the problem, right? You fixed the problem at home. Or I’m going to come with the rod.

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Now that doesn’t mean that Paul came with a huge stick and he started beating the people in the church. That’s not what he did. When it says the rod, it’s saying that he was going to discipline them in order to fix the behavior in the church in Corinth because their behavior was detrimental and it was harmful not only to them, but to the church at large and to the community around that was watching the way they were living and saying, wait a sec. So you see this all the time now. You’ll see churches and church leaders and you’ll see that they’re like a major church and you’ve got four or five pastors in the church that consecutively over time are having an affair. And so, people then outside of the church look at that and say, well, see, everybody’s a hypocrite. You see that that’s the reality of Christianity. There’s nothing to it. And so, it causes a lot of damage outside of the church.

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And so he said he’s coming. Now he’s going to lay into the reason. What is the actual crime they’ve committed? Like he’s going to start laying them out. He said, listen, I’m coming. You need to fix this. Right? You need to discipline those in the church that are doing all this. Otherwise, when I come, I’m going to take care of it. And you know, when your father gets home, it’s going to be worse. Right? So, I’m probably the only person that’s ever had that experience. No, I guess not. I guess not. So I feel, let’s turn to 1 Corinthians chapter five. And we’ll, this is going to be our last time in 1 Corinthians for a while because we’ve got another series that we’re going to start for a while and we’ll come back to it. We have Easter in that.

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But it says in 1 Corinthians chapter five verse one, it says, It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you 1 Corinthians 5:1 NIV. Now actually reported, what’s that meaning is it’s common knowledge. So, I want you to just picture Atkinson. I want you to picture Atkinson. There’s only like one Protestant church in Atkinson. Okay. Now let’s just, let’s just assume that it’s actually reported. People are out talking like they go, they go to the, they go to heritage days, or they go to any event here, they go to this and that, but people are talking down at, down at the barn, talking wherever they’re at. And the word on the street is, you hear what, did you hear what’s going on in the church down there? Like it’s just word of mouth. Oh man. Oh yeah. They’re like, they’re like worse than we are. Right? Those holier than thou people. Man, pastors, pastors having an affair over here and, and the people on the board are doing this and doing that. And then there’s people, I know they go to that church but look how they live.

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That’s really damaging to the church. And Paul says that can’t be, that can’t be. I mean, you have to live the way you’re supposed to it. So, so it is actually be reported. And the problem that they’re having there is it’s being reported. People are talking about all the sexual immorality that’s happening in the church in Corinth. Let me remind you that Corinth is like Vegas. It is very licentious. It is a very loosely moral place. It’s, it’s not a, in Corinth, they actually have people that as a part of their religion have sex as a part of their religion with temple priests. It is very, very loose morals. And these people are talking about how immoral the people in the church are. That gives you just kind of a, that’d be like if we had a church in Vegas and, and like the strippers on the side of them, man, those people are really bad. Right?

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So, it says it’s actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you. Now the word sexual immorality here is the word pornea. It’s a Greek word pornea. It’s where we get the word pornography. But really all it means is that it’s any kind of sex outside of marriage or what we would call natural, a natural marriage or like a natural relationship. So anything that opposes from one man and one wife who are married.

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Part 2: The Specific Sin and the Pride of the Church

So, anything that opposes from one man and one wife who are married. Sex before we're married, sex with somebody outside of your marriage, any kind of like distorted type of sex that I don't want to think about, all that kind of falls into that. It says that’s being reported and it says among you. So that, who’s among you? That’s the people that’s in a church. And then it says, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate. Boy, like the people in Atkinson. They look at the church and they go, boy, they're way more immoral than just us rather regular folks that don't go to church. Look how bad they are. Look at the nasty. Boy, that’s gross. Boy, I don't want to eat after thinking about that. That’s rough.

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And so you say, well, what is it? What is so nasty? What’s so immoral? It says a man is sleeping with his father's wife. You're like, that’s in the Bible? Says it right here. That’s the problem in the church. A guy is sleeping. Now, I don't know anything about this. I mean, I know sometimes age gaps are different. You know, you might have an older man that gets a younger wife and maybe he died and then I don't know what that relationship is. I don't know if they're still married. I don't know what’s going on. All I know is that it is forbidden in scripture. It’s forbidden just in general. Just in general, if you look at Leviticus 18:8, and I’ll throw these on the screen, says, Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonor your father Leviticus 18:8 NIV.

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Deuteronomy 22:30 says, A man is not to marry his father’s wife; he must not dishonor his father’s bed Deuteronomy 22:30 NIV. And it’s not just religious people that think that’s wrong. Even like the Roman government said, that’s against the law. You can't do that, Cicero. He was a Roman statesman. Said, it is a wicked, unspeakable crime to have as a wife one who stands in the place of his mother. And so, Paul says that this sin in the church in verse one is of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate. A man sleeping with his father’s wife. So, most of you are saying, well, I know that’s wrong. Why are we even talking about this? Like, as a general rule, you know, you didn't have to throw a Bible at me to figure that out. I just kind of naturally knew that was like the wrong thing to do, that I shouldn't be doing that. Right? I'd never do that.

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So, let’s move on to something more relevant. Right? I'm kind of done with this topic. You okay? All right. All right. Had an injury in the church. We lost him in a bizarre cup dropping accident. So, here’s what says, he moves on though. Everything I've said, how many of you agree that it’s gross? Everybody agrees that’s gross. Okay, all of you that aren't putting your hands up, would not talk after the service. Right? You're like, no, that’s fine with me. Bring on mom. No, that’s not good. Keep away from that.

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Here’s the problem. Watch this. That’s not the sin that Paul’s worried about. That’s not the sin he’s worried about. That is a sin, but that’s not the one he’s nervous about. That’s not the one that he’s angry about. That’s not the one he’s going to come with a ride to deal with. You know what the sin is? Look at the next verse. Look at what it says. It says, it says, of any kind that the pagans do not tolerate a man asleep with his father’s wife, and then it says, and you are proud. You are proud. Right? The sin in 1 Corinthians 5:1 with his father's wife is bad, but Paul’s primary concern is that the church has prideful tolerance of it in their midst. They're looking at it and say, oh, you know what? We're so progressive and we're so loving that you can commit any kind of nasty type sin, and we'll just say it’s okay. Just come in and we'll just enjoy it. And we don't want you to feel judged and we don't want you to feel as though you're doing anything wrong. You can be involved in any type of sin you want, but we're so loving.

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And as a matter of fact, we find our pride as a church in that. You know what? Why don't we have a whole month called Pride Month to celebrate how we embrace all your sinfulness? That is that you thought this was new. This isn’t new. This was the case in, if you go to Revelation, this was the case in the church of Thyatira. The same thing. You tolerate everything. You don't maintain, you're the mom that’s at home and the kid’s cussing in the woods and you're just like, oh, it’s fine. We'll just allow you to cuss us out however you want. We're going to allow you to do whatever you want in the house and we'll never discipline. We'll never show you what’s right and wrong. We're just going to accept everything that you say. That’s the most unloving thing to do.

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And Paul is very, very clear here. He says, he says, and you are proud. I mean, they have this view that as, as forgiven Christians, they are now free to do whatever they want. So, if you turn to 1 Corinthians chapter six, we'd get that a little bit later. It says, I have the right to do anything 1 Corinthians 6:12 NIV. He’s quoting the Corinthians who say, well, we have the right in our freedom in Christ. We can do whatever we want now. Since Christ is forgiven over our sins, we can just sin like crazy. Right? And so they're indulging in sin because they're like, well, it’s all forgiven. If I commit the sin, God’s going to forgive it. And it says, I have the right to do anything, you say—but not everything is beneficial 1 Corinthians 6:12 NIV. It says, I have the right to do anything, but I will not be mastered by anything 1 Corinthians 6:12 NIV. I mean, you're, you're putting yourself back into slavery by being involved in these. And so, America is filled with churches today that pride themselves on tolerance of what God says is sinful and they celebrate the sin and they elevate it. We'll take people involved in those sins and then we'll ordain them as pastors.

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Part 3: The Purpose of Discipline and the Call to Repentance

America is filled with churches today that pride themselves on tolerance of what God says is sinful and they celebrate the sin and they elevate it. We'll take people involved in those sins and then we'll ordain them as pastors. And the $10,000 question is how should the church really respond? Like how, what should the church really do in that situation? Like how, how are they supposed to respond? And so, the very first, if you look at this, Paul tells us, look what it says, it goes on. It says, shouldn’t you rather, rather instead of what? Instead of being proud and boasting about, hey, look, we accept all kinds of sin. Welcome to the neighborhood.

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Instead of that, it says the first thing you should do is you should mourn. You should mourn when there is sin, active sin within the church of people that are considered themselves a believer in the church and they are, they’re a Christian to the church. They become members of the church. They are, they are following Christ and they say, oh yes, we’re Christians. And then you are actively involved in doing something heinous and sinful. The response is not for us to say, oh yes, oh everything’s accepted, we love it. The response is for us as true believers to start to cry and to mourn and to weep like Jesus wept over Jerusalem. There should be tears. There shouldn’t be laughing. There isn’t nothing funny about that.

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You’re ignoring the holiness of God, right? Paul, Paul is weeping. He’s saying these people that I love so much have just abandoned everything that God died on the cross for and they’ve embraced it. The sin that came upon them, they’ve, they’ve taken that sin and they’ve glorified it and said, oh, it’s all good. He says, stop laughing. Start crying. Start weeping over the destruction of the sin that’s in your midst. What does that say about your heart? And what am I mourning for? I’m mourning, first, for the man’s sin. This is a man who is doing something that is causing destruction in his life and if that’s the case, what’s the actual state of his soul?

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I mean, if you’re a guy and you’re a Christian and you’re having an affair with your, with your father’s wife, something is a tad askew in your soul. You gotta wonder if the Holy Spirit is actually present in that person. Are they really saved that they’re actively involved in that? And so I am mourning over this person that’s in our congregation that I love so much. I’m not celebrating with you. I’m, I’m sad for you, but I’m also mourning over the damage to the church’s holiness and witness. I’m mourning over the fact that now we’re a joke to everybody in Atkinson. We’re just a big joke. They say, talk about Jesus, but they’re worse than we are. You should see them. Boy, I don’t even, I don’t want to go to their stuff, man, because they’re a little, the stuff they’re involved in is really sketchy, right? They’re hypocrites. They don’t, they don’t really believe it or they would live differently.

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And so not dealing with sin damages the reputation of the church. Pastors have affairs, and then they’re back in the pulpit a few months. I do not understand this. I go and I go online and they’ll be pastors, the huge churches, and they’ve had an affair with somebody, and they’re back in the pulpit after a time of, what are they called? A time of, a time of repentance and a time of healing. How can you be back in the pulpit if you’re not even qualified to be an elder? How do you do that? I don’t understand it. I probably never will. And the fact that you aren’t grieved in mourning shows how disconnected you are to God, right? The fact that you’re proud and you’re tolerant of this sin makes it even worse because you won’t respond appropriately, right? It’s not just that you’re not mourning, but you’re not responding to the problem appropriately because you’re rejoicing.

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And so how am I supposed to be responding? Well, the first sense I’m supposed to mourn, the second is it says put out a fellowship that man who has been doing this. What does that mean? It means kicking him out of your church. You go, I can’t believe you said that, Dustin. I’m just telling you what the Bible says. If you’ve got a person that is living in your church and they’re blatantly sinning and they’re unwilling to repent and they don’t want to change and they’re claiming that they’re Christians, then you need to remove that person because they are a cancer in your church. And I’ve seen this effectively done in many cases. And I’m going to go into this so that you understand why that happens and what the result is because I don’t want you to freak out.

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Here’s what he says. It says in verse three, for my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. Now, some of you are saying, not now, Paul, you can’t be passing no judgment now because we don’t judge anybody. Who told you that? Who told you that? Somebody on YouTube? Some guy down the street? I’ll get, let’s read the passage that you so much want to throw in my face. Matthew 7:1 says, Do not judge, or you too will be judged Matthew 7:1 NIV. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you Matthew 7:2 NIV.

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So what this is forbidding is hypocritical, hypocritical judgment. I can’t go, I can’t go out and I can’t say, you know, I’m going to judge you for this activity, but then I go on and do it. Right? The point of the passage that says, listen, I want you to take care of the log that’s in your neighbor’s eye. But first, you got to get rid of the telephone pole in your own eye so that you can see good enough and be in a right position to be able to say, listen, and come along side somebody in love and say, listen, this isn’t right. And I understand it’s not right. I understand because I maybe struggle there too. But together we need to make sure that we’re living right and I’m going to come alongside you and I’m going to help you with this. I mean, as believers Ephesians 4:15 says that we are to speak the truth in love Ephesians 4:15 NIV.

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Well, if, well, how do I do that? If I can’t tell you the truth about your sin, if the Bible says something is true, and then I can’t tell you the truth, why is it saying speak the truth in love? Because we’re not supposed to lie to people and say, oh, you know what, sleeping with your father’s wife is fine. That’s not speaking the truth in love. That’s lying bold place in, in, it’s ridiculous. Proverbs 27:6 says Faithful are the wounds of a friend Proverbs 27:6 NIV. Why does it say that? Because it’s your friends, the people that really love you that are going to tell you the truth about your life. Right? Your parents are going to come, come hopefully and they’re going to say, you know what, this is a problem. Your best friend’s going to come and say, you know what, this is a problem. Or I’ve noticed, they just tell you the truth. That’s how you learn and that’s how you grow. If you look at Matthew 18:15, it says If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you Matthew 18:15 NIV. It doesn’t say if your brother sins, ignore it and throw a party for him to celebrate all the sin that they’ve committed.

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So let’s keep going. It says in verse four. So, when you assemble, I am not with, am I not with you in spirit and the power of the Lord, Jesus is present. Hand this man over. You’re not going to like this. I’m just telling you, says hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord 1 Corinthians 5:5 NIV. Here’s the problem. This person obviously is not living as they should. They’re obviously, it doesn’t look like this person is saved. They’re under the false pretense that when they die, they’re going to go to heaven. What we want to do is we want to take them out of the protection of the family of God, of the holy protection of God, and we want to say, listen for your own sake. We don’t have any choice but to allow you to experience the pain of not being in fellowship with the church, not having the ability to be under the care and the fellowship. You’re not going to have that. You’re going to have to just experience what you’re seeking after in your worldly life, in your flesh.

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And so, I’m going to turn you over to Satan and hopefully you’re going to experience that and say, you know what, I’ve had enough. So, think about the prodigal son. The prodigal son takes off. He doesn’t like living under his father’s authority. He doesn’t like acting like he should. He wants to do whatever he wants, right? And he’s going to act selfish and he’s going to do evil and he wants to, I mean, about his bad, you know what, God, give me, Dad, give me my inheritance early because I wish you were dead. If you were dead, I’d have my money now. I wish you were dead, Dad. So, give me my money now and I’ll just be out of your way. And Dad gives him his money, and he goes off and he has to live in the reality of that sin. He must live in the reality and he faces the consequences of living separate from his father and living separate from the fellowship of the home.

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And as a result of that, the next thing you know is he’s eating the food. He’s in a pig pen eating the food the pigs eat and he’s a Jew. That’s a problem. And he says to himself, you know, even my father’s servants are eating better than me. At least, they’re not eating pig food. You know, I’d be better off to go back. That’s the point. We want, we want the prodigal who is, who is living in this deep sin. We want them to go away, and figure it out. They’re protected from that influencing the body when he is away. And then he comes back and when he comes back, he’s coming back saying, I want to return to the fellowship. I want to have what I was rejecting when I left. I want God. I want to live for God. I want to serve God.

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So why do you have to remove the unrepentant person from fellowship? Verse six says, Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 1 Corinthians 5:6 NIV. You guys do any baking? You get a little yeast, right? The little yeasties, I call them little yeasties, and the little yeasties are there and I take a, get the bread, you get the dough there and put a little yeasties in there. Well, what they used to do is they would take, they would just keep a little lump of dough all the time with some and then they would pinch off a piece of the stuff that’s got the yeast in there and put it in the bread. And yeasties like to grow. They spread all over in the bread, right? They spread all over in it.

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And so, it says, Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the festival, not with the old bread, the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 NIV. You guys remember we had our Passover? That was a whole year ago, we had that Passover thing, it’s been a while. And remember we had to get rid of all the yeast. You had to get rid of all the yeast. There was no leaven in the house. You got rid of that. And what happens is that once a year, it’s like a, it’s kind of like a retreat. You wipe all the sin out. There’s no sin now. We’re starting fresh. There’s no yeast at all in the, in the whole house. And it’s saying that’s what we have got to do. We got to get the yeast out of the house so that it can’t contaminate everybody else. And so, and so sin in the church and the church body spreads like yeast in bread.

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Let’s look at verse nine. It says, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world  1 Corinthians 5:9-10 NIV. That’s really powerful. You know what he just said? You realize what he just said? He said, I told you not to associate with immoral people in the church. He didn’t say don’t, don’t not associate with immoral people, you know, in the store or that work with you or are your neighbors. Because then you’d have to be pulled completely out of the world. Why is that okay to associate with them? Well, first, because you’re salt and light, you’re supposed to be able to interact with those people, but they’re not expected to be changed.

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They’re not, people that are in the world are not expected to live like non-Christians. Christian people are expected to live like Christians because they have the Holy Spirit enabling them to live a holy life. Non-Christians don’t have the Holy Spirit. They don’t have the ability to live a holy life. They don’t have the ability to not sin because they are slaves to sin. And so, we live and we live, we live our life as Christians in the midst of these kinds of people. He’s not condemning and saying, don’t, don’t ever hang out with anybody immoral. He’s saying, don’t hang out as believers with people who claim to be Christians and live immoral lives. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. I mean, he even goes on and says, even with greedy people and swindlers, that’s fine. Idolaters, right? But he’s clarifying that he’s not talking about people outside. He’s talking about Christ. Jesus affiliated with people that were sinful people in the world. He gravitated to them. And the only way to not deal with immoral people is to leave the planet.

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So, verse 11 says, But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people 1 Corinthians 5:11 NIV. Right? You’re supposed to be salt and light to the unbeliever. So, befriend them. But the person who claims to be a Christian and is sleeping around, slandering people, getting drunk, ripping people off, don’t associate with them. You don’t associate. You don’t want to say, that’s fine. And why? Because if you do that, you’re just allowing that person to continue in their sin, and their soul is rotting and their soul and eventually they’re going to die and wonder what happened. Why am I in hell?

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The goal is I want you to be reconciled with me. I love you so much that I’m willing to let you go off and eat the pig, eat the pig food in hopes that you will return to us and we can love you. For the sake, for the sake of the church, you remove them. It’s the loving thing to do. So, by tolerating the sinful Christians’ unrepentant behavior, what we do is we compromise the home where we long for the prodigal to return to, which is the church. So, if the church is a pigsty, if the church is filled with all that kind of evil, that if the church is Las Vegas, if the church is all of that, and then the prodigal son goes away, he has nothing to return to. He might as well just stay in Vegas. The church is just as worldly as where he was. He took off into the world to enjoy and to live it up and to do all that. Why would he come back when the church is exactly the same or in this case even worse?

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Let’s finish it up, verse 12 and 13. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? 1 Corinthians 5:12 NIV. Amen. I have no judgment for you outside of the church. You’re not under my authority at all. You’re under the authority of the devil. You live, I disagree with how you live, but I’m not going to judge you. God will judge you. That’s up for him. I’m going to love you, and I’ll disagree and I’ll be honest about what I say, but I’m not judging you. I don’t have any ill feelings toward you. I love you. Paul says just as much, what business is it of mine to judge those outside of the church? If you’re going to say that the church is like, hey, get your nose out of our business. You don’t need to get your nose in our business as worldly people. Stay in your lane.

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Says, Are you not to judge those inside? 1 Corinthians 5:12 NIV. Yeah, we’re not supposed to judge those outside of the church and bring judgment upon them. That’s not our job. That’s God’s job, but those in the church clearly, we can’t just allow sin to run rampant within the church. We have to address it as a good parent. We have to discipline. We have to deal with these things, and it says, are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.” 1 Corinthians 5:13 NIV. And so, if you ever hear the term, mind your own business. We’re going to mind our own business. We’ll mind the business of ourselves as Christians. We’ll mind that business. That’s our business, but outside, that’s not our business.

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Right? So, they said, well, don’t get in my business. I won’t get in your business. I won’t get in your business. You stay out of my business. You stay out of mine. I’ll stay out of yours. But my business is here, right? Our business is ourselves because we’re the family. Don’t try. I’m not going to try. I’m not going to go over Rob’s house and say, hey, Rob, this is how you’re going to handle this and just how you’re going to handle that. That’s not my business. That’s his business. Rob’s not going to come to my house and say, Dustin, this is what you’re going to do. That’s not my business. That’s his business, my business. But when it comes to us as a family here, you know, we’re all, we are a family. So, we have to deal with our business properly.

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And kind of like mom had to take me and sit me on a sink, and she had to bite down and I bite down. And really, my dad didn’t really have to come home and discipline me because my mom already had. If they deal with this sin and Corinth, really, Paul will come with a gentle spirit. But if they don’t, he will have to come with a rod. Okay. And that’s what the passage is about. I went over by one minute and so I apologize for that and you know, have mercy on my soul.

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God in Jesus name, thank you for this passage. And this is a tough one. This is a really tough one because we’re in a world now where if you excommunicate somebody, they just go to the church next door and they bad mouth you and tell you, well, that pastor’s evil. And so, it’s difficult to do this, God, but your word still stands. And there may be some folks that are in our congregation today that are believers and they’re saying, man, I don’t want, I never want somebody in the church to go to Pastor Dustin or to go to somebody else and then them come to me and say, you know, you need to change this in your life because you’re not living in congruence to the spirit and congruence to how God says we should live. I don’t want to face that type of discipline. I’d rather just repent now.

There may be some of you that are here that are there and I might not even know what’s going on in your life and that’s probably the case. But if that’s you, I’m just going to give you a second just to confess it to the Lord and to turn and say, God, rather than rather than wait for somebody to address me and then call me to repentance and then if I don’t repent, maybe I’m not really welcome until I do that. God, I repent now. I just love this place so much. I love these people so much. I love the fellowship of your family so much. God, I’m making a decision right now to turn to you, to give up my sin, and to follow you with all my heart. God, we pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.