 Amen. Okay, so let's do a little bit of Bible management real quick. Put a bookmark in Matthew 18, we're going to be there. And go to 1 Corinthians 5, put a bookmark in there. I mean, we're obviously going to go to some other places, but that'll give you two of the main places we're going to be tonight. So tonight, I want to talk to you mainly about, well, let me give you a first giving introduction on culture, on the culture of this church. This is something that I thought a lot about before we came here. I've been thinking about this for several months. And that's, you know, how do I bring the culture of Verity Baptist Church Sacramento here to a growing church? I love the culture up there. And so the first thing I needed to do is I needed to quantify what I actually meant by what is that culture? What about that culture is it that makes it so good? So I have several things in mind, and we're not going to talk about all of them tonight, but I'm just giving you a heads up that throughout sermons that you're going to hear me preach, you're going to hear me talk about, you know, the culture of this church. And that's, you know, what I've done to quantify what that, trying to get that culture down here. Because just because we're a biblical church, just because we preach the Bible, it doesn't mean that, you know, we're going to have a great culture here. You know, I mean, we could have, you know, a mean spirited culture, or, you know, we could just, there's all sorts of different cultures. If you ever visited churches across the country or other churches, you know that every church kind of has its own unique culture. So the first thing I want to say about church culture tonight is we talk about dealing with conflict. That's kind of the sermon title tonight. It's going to be dealing with conflict in the church, okay? And it's going to help you, if you listen to the sermon tonight, it's going to help you with dealing with conflict in your whole life, outside of church, at work, in your home, wherever. So we're going to look at what the Bible actually says on how to handle conflict in a biblical way, all right? Now, as far as the culture goes, one thing that, you know, applies to this topic is that we want to have a friendly culture here. You know, we're going to be a growing church. We're going to have, we're very wopsided tonight. There's a lot of people over here. I'm going to have to like go over here more. I'm usually tend to go to this side, but I'm going to have to come over here. So I'm sorry, Brother Matthew. Anyway, the culture that we want to have here is a friendly culture. You know, the Bible says in Proverbs, you know, 1824, you know, I'm sure you've all heard it. A man with many friends must show himself what? Friendly, right? I mean, just think about, think about the, think about somebody in your life who just has a ton of friends and just like everybody likes him, right? What's the thing about that guy? You know, picture that guy right now. Is he a jerk? Is he mean to everybody that he meets? He's probably a very friendly person, right? Whether that be friendly in an ungodly way or whatever, you know, the Bible says that if you want to have a lot of friends and you want people to be your friend, you will be friendly. You know, it doesn't really sound like rocket surgery, right? But you know, I think a lot of people need to hear that. And in this church, we should always remember that, that that's the culture that we want to cultivate here. We're going to have visitors come in. It's not that big of a deal now because we're a small church and we all know each other. But as this church grows, the tendency of human nature is going to be that you want to go and just gravitate towards the people you're most comfortable with, right? So you can end up with situations here where we all get to be, you know, very comfortable with each other and, you know, very friendly, but you get a visitor that comes in and I've seen this happen. I've seen this happen in churches and nobody, you know, everyone wants to stay in that comfort zone. We need to get outside our comfort zone and always show ourself friendly, especially to people who are new and they're not, you know, maybe they weren't here when this church started. So let's just always remember that, okay? Now, dealing with conflict, you know, there's no conflict here that I know, which is good. That's why we're going to talk about it now before there's problems. So dealing with conflict, Matthew 18 gives us a very specific methodology on how to handle interpersonal conflicts in the church. And the verses that I'm referring to are verses 15 through 18, where the Bible reads, moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone, if he shall hear thee, thou has gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church, but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and publican. Verily I say unto you whatsoever, ye shall bind and earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So what I want to do tonight is I want to just, you just saw a three-step plan on how to handle conflict. It may seem simple, but you would be shocked and surprised that most people don't follow this. And that is how conflicts turn into disasters. So I want to step through this, give you a few examples on how you can do this, see where, you know, look at how some people go wrong and what you shouldn't do. And then I want to kind of see how, I want to show you how that relates into situations in rare cases where we may actually have to, as a church, you know, actually, you know, put someone out of the church. I mean, it's an unfortunate thing, but I can guarantee you it's going to happen eventually here. I've seen, you know, that will also be something that distinguishes us by the way from most other churches that you will see. Because we will, I mean, hear me out throughout the sermon, but we will follow these rules. And we will practice this. I'm going to explain to you very clearly why we're going to do, follow the Bible on this. First of all, it's the word of God, so I shouldn't have to explain anything, because we're just going to do what the Bible says. But I want to just, I want to give you God's logic behind it. What have I always said? The Bible is a logical book. You know, the same logic that the Bible has is written in your heart. Right? So it should make sense. Okay, it makes sense. So let's say that we have a conflict in the church. We have two people that have a conflict. We look down at Matthew 18 and chapter 15. Let's just step through this process and let me show you how it should work. The first thing in verse number 15, moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. So step one is to talk to the person one on one who has offended you or transgressed you or trespassed against you in the Bible sense here. Now first of all, this is just good practice in life. Okay, this is just good practice in life that if somebody does something wrong to you, you should go and just have a conversation with that person and say, hey, brother, this happened, bring it to them by themselves. This is a good practice at work. If there's people at work, this is where everything goes wrong in secular situations, in my opinion, is just people don't talk face to face to each other anymore. We have this culture now where people want to, if you've ever talked to anyone under the age of 30, and I know I'm stereotyping people, but they'd rather stare at their shoes than talk to you. They'll send you text messages. They're very brave on YouTube and on Facebook, and some things can get to the point where people won't talk to you face to face, but they'll be very nasty on the internet. That is not biblical at all. The Bible says that you are supposed to talk to people face to face if you have a problem with something that they have done against you. That is something I've taught my kids since they were very small. It starts out with a man showing his young son how to shake somebody's hand. How do you shake somebody's hand? Do you stare at your shoes and shake somebody's hand? No, you give them a firm handshake and you look them in the eye. That's how I was taught to shake somebody's hand. You look a man in the eye, and that's the first step. Soul winning is gonna be great training for people to be able to talk to someone face to face. I mean, I've had several situations where people will, they will text you. They don't even wanna talk on the phone to some people anymore. So it's very important that you're able to talk to people in this church, especially a brother, it says here. If you have a problem with a brother, bring it to your brother face to face and tell him what's going on. Now, before you talk to him, here's another, just a tip. Before you go and talk to your brother or sister, and not like the man who only wants to get in arguments, but before you talk to your brother and sister, try to see things from their perspective. That's just good practice as well. Always try to look and say, you know what, most people are reasonable people, but maybe their perspective is different than yours. This will just give you a better understanding when you go into that conversation to their response to you. So in the Matthew 18 example, we have someone who, it's his fault. I mean, somebody actually did something wrong and you're going to, you're going to him and talking about something he did wrong. So let me give you an example. Let's look at a situation where maybe two men in the church do business together, right? And say there's a contractor who, you hire a contractor from the church to come to your house and, or, you know, whatever. He comes to your house and he builds cabinets for you or whatever and then, you know, something goes wrong, right? And in that case, first of all, you know, on the note of doing business at church and with friends, let me just say this, turn to 1 Corinthians 6, I had you go there, let's just do a, you know, it's a risk and you need to know that it's a risk, but there's ways to mitigate that risk and I'm not going to say that you should never do business with people at church. Obviously, you know, I have done business with people at church, but I want to show you 1 Corinthians 6 to give you a guide on how to go about doing that. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul is kind of, you know, kind of chastising the church at Corinth because they're taking them, they're taking their brothers and sisters to court and they're suing each other and in 1 Corinthians 6 and verse number four, the Bible says if then you have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. He's basically the verses before this, they're suing each other. He said you would be better off having the least esteemed person in the church judge these matters than you would be taking this outside to the magistrates outside the church, to the unsaved world. And then he says, I speak to your shame. That shows you he's tongue in cheek when he says that. I speak to your shame. Is it so that there is not a wise man among you? Is there no one among you that you could use to judge a situation? And no, not one that you'll be able to judge between his brethren, but brother go to law with brother and that before the unbelievers. He's just like, why are you doing this? Now therefore there is utterly fault among you because you go not to law with one another. Why do you not rather take wrong? Why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? So here's the thing, here's my policy on doing business with friends. There's actually, my policy is this. As long as I can guarantee that I will get the short end of the stick, I will do business with friends. And if I can guarantee, there's a guy who's a good friend of mine at Verdi Baptist who I have literally told him that you know what, I'm just not really ever gonna hire you because whenever him and I get in arguments, but in kind of dealings, he's trying to give me the better deal. I'm trying to give him the better deal and it's just this back and forth. I would never really know, I know he wouldn't charge me what his time is worth and I could never really guess what his time is worth. So I'm just not gonna go there. His time is worth money and I'm not gonna have him do something for me because he wants to do something for me. But constantly, that's a good relationship. When you're constantly trying to out, give the other guy the better deal, that's a good relationship to have with a friend. What you don't wanna be is the kind of person that's like constantly wanting to get the long end of the stick from your brothers and sisters in Christ. You know, that's when you're putting yourself in a situation to possibly have a conflict with somebody. Okay, so as long as you can guarantee, I've hired people from the church and I've hired them knowing that I was gonna pay them more than what I could probably get it for somewhere else but I would rather give them the business and it's a great deal. But it's good for them, it's good, you know, it's great. As long as you can just make sure that you're always willing to take the short end of the stick and that you're not shorting anybody, you're not at risk, okay? That's what he's saying here. He's saying if you have a conflict, if somebody came, if I went and I built cabinets at somebody's house and they just didn't pay me and now we have a conflict, right? He's saying just suffer yourself to be defrauded. That's what Paul's saying here. Just suffer yourself to be defrauded. What we're trying to do here is we're trying to stop the conflict, okay? So the first step is to go to them one-on-one and if I go to that person one-on-one and I say, hey, I built those cabinets at your house and you didn't pay me and I read First Corinthians 6 verse seven and I'm gonna practice that. No matter what that person says to me, I'm just gonna suffer myself to be defrauded. End of conflict. So there's the Bible ending that conflict. What we're trying to do, that's the goal. This methodology, the goal is think of a flow chart. End of conflict. We're always trying to get to that end conflict arrow, right? Does that end the conflict? No, continue to step two, right? So in the case of two people doing business together, whatever, you feel like you got shorted. Maybe he didn't like the cabinets and he's like, I don't think they're worth anything and end the conflict. Suffer yourself to be defrauded. So that ends the conflict. Now, another thing is don't enter into, don't borrow anything. This is good practice as well and it kind of fits with don't suffer yourself to be defrauded. Don't borrow anything. Don't do anything for anybody if you're not willing to be defrauded. So if I borrow you something that I need from my business and you ruin it or if I, we'll just put it this way. I put myself at risk of having a conflict. If I borrow you something that I can't lose or I can't suffer to have damaged or whatever, right? So don't put yourself in those situations. So if somebody needs to borrow something from you and you just, you only have one car and you can't be without that car, it's probably not the best thing to borrow out something that is going to possibly cause a major conflict in the church. So if you can't be defrauded of that item, just don't go into business with that item. Look, it's a beautiful situation when you have two friends who are competing to try to give the other one the better deal. That's the way every situation should always be. But unfortunately, they're not that way. So the next step is to just suffer yourself to be defrauded. And after that, if you still can't work out, you know, this relationship, say it's a much bigger deal than some cabinets. It's something with an interpersonal relationship where someone is really hurting someone. Then you can go on to, you know, step number two. But let me just say, before we get on to step number two, you know, let me just say this. Forgiveness can be one way. It can be a one way street. Okay, the Bible teaches that. Turn to Matthew chapter five, Matthew chapter five. You know, the Bible says in Matthew 18 that we just read that, you know, how many times should I forgive my brother? It's 70, you know, 70 times seven. Basically, just keep forgiving them. And many times in the Bible, there's a parallel passage in Luke 17.4 that basically says, you know, if your brother asks forgiveness of thee, you know, if he repent, then forgive him. But repentance is not necessary because there is many verses in the Bible, Matthew five being one of them. Ephesians 4.32, I'll read for you as one of them. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. So we see this model that God, you know, God has mercy towards you through Christ and you should show mercy to other people. And if you look down at Matthew five and verse seven, the Bible says, bless another merciful, for they shall what? They shall obtain mercy. So if you give out mercy in abundance, you will receive mercy in abundance. That is the model. So be that merciful person. Just forgive people. You know, don't let the sun go down on your wrath, the Bible says. You know, this works for husbands. This works for wives. This works for friends. Just forgiveness can be a one way street. I don't need you to come to me and apologize in the exact way that I think you should have to apologize in the exact wording that I think that you've wronged me in order for me to be able to forgive you. If that is required of me, then my heart is not merciful. Okay, so I should be able to just go to you. If I've been wrong, just be like, I'm gonna suffer myself to be defrauded. And the more I've been defrauded, the more merciful I am. And the more mercy that I will receive, the Bible says. So that's just good practice. Now, look, folks, if this doesn't end it, nine times out of 10, going to someone one-on-one and then suffering yourself to be defrauded and then using forgiveness as a one-way street, nine times out of 10, conflict over, I'm telling you. That'll do it. But here's what you shouldn't do. And nine times out of 10, when there's a major problem that has snowballed into something, the problem is, is that people have gone to someone other than the person that has wronged them. Okay, and this is what you don't do. What you don't do is go around and gossip and go up to brother so-and-so and be like, hey, you know, brother John, here's what he did to me, man. Can you believe that? And just try to go around and get all these people against this person. That is wicked. The Bible says that that's gossip. In Proverbs 6, 16 through 19, here's what God says about that. It says in 16, verse 19, in 6, verse 19, the Bible says, a false witness that speak it lies, these things, these six things, I'm sorry, doth the God, doth the Lord hate. The A7 are an abomination unto him. God says these things are an abomination. And then in verse 19, one of those things is a false witness that speak it lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. So if you go around, it doesn't matter if you're right. If you're going around and you're not following this practice and you're just sowing discord about so-and-so who didn't pay you for your cabinets, you're wrong. So you can be right and wrong at the same time if you follow the wrong process. Do you understand how important this process is? Look, at work, guys, when I start anywhere, whether it's a new job site or whether it's a new job in general, I can spot this guy in about six seconds. I'm telling you, I can pick him out, like they have a beam on them. It's this guy that's constantly going around talking smack about the boss, and talking smack about how things, you young men, listen, because this will save you at your job. There's always this guy. He's talking garbage about the boss and how they do things there. You know, it's like, well, why aren't you the boss then? If you're so smart, first of all. I remember there was a young man a few years ago that I had high hopes for. He was just kind of getting into a new job and he started this new job. And I was like, hey, how's your new job going? The first day he says to me, he says his first day, he's like, yeah, it's okay, but we're all underpaid. I was talking to this guy and he said, we're all underpaid and management's just trying to rip us all off and it's great. And I almost picked him up off his feet and put his back into the wall and said, whoever you're talking to at work, you get away from that person right now. Because you will be painted as somebody that's just this cancer of a bad attitude at work. And what you're doing is you're just giving into gossip. That's what you're doing. So when you hear that stuff and you identify that guy, it's really easy. You just, if you walk into a conversation and that's going on, you just walk out of the conversation. It's real easy. People will figure out in a hurry that you're not the kind of person that is gonna listen to that stuff. It's real easy to establish yourself in that sense. Look, Proverbs 16, 17 says, he that passeth by and medalleth with strife belonging not to him is like one that take of the dog by the ears. What do you think of that, soul winners? Look at some of these dogs that we see out there. Imagine taking one of those dogs by the ears, right? I mean, that's what it's like, though. Somebody comes to you and says, hey, the boss did this to me, or hey, brother Joe did this to me. What do you think about that? Whoa, that's not, you're not involved in that. Don't get involved in that. Don't grab that dog by the ears. What you need to say to that person, especially if it's in church, what you need to say to that person is, hey, have you talked to brother Joe about that? Or, hey, let's go talk to brother Joe about it right now. Maybe you could just jump right to step two. Let's just go talk to brother Joe about it. Or you should talk to brother Joe about it, right? I mean, don't get involved in other people's messes. Now, back to proper conflict resolution. Turn to First Kings three. Let's look at step two. Let's look at step two. So step one did not go well, and this person is like, you're wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't owe you anything. I haven't done anything wrong to you. You just go to step two. You just follow what the Bible says. It's that simple. In First Kings three, we see a great example of this. Okay, bringing in the second witness. You have two people who are at disagreement, and this is not over a small matter in First Kings three. So they bring in the second witness, and you know, this is an extra chance. This shows you the long suffering of God. This is an extra chance for this person to get it right. And in First Kings chapter three, in verse 16, what we have is we have two women, and one woman is accusing the other of stealing her baby. One woman's baby has died. This is the story she tells the king. This is King Solomon, the wisest man who has ever lived. And you know, they have a pretty good, they have a pretty good third witness here, right? Your second person to bring in. Now, you have a woman who says that her baby died, and then when she was sleeping, she took her baby and put it in the other babies, the other ladies, they both had babies at the same time. She put her dead baby in the other ladies arms and she took the live baby for herself. And of course, the other mother knew that this wasn't her baby, so she's coming to King Solomon, okay? And she's like, hey, I've been wronged here. And we hear the story. And then there came two women that were harlots unto the king and stood before him. And the one woman said, oh my Lord, I and this woman dwell in one house and was delivered of a child with her in the house. And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also. So the babies were very close to the same age. And we were together and there was no stranger with us in the house, save we too in the house. There was no other witness, it was just those two. And this woman's child died in the night because she overlaid it. And she arose at midnight and took my son from beside me while thine handmaid slept and laid it in her bosom and laid her dead child in my bosom. And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold it was dead. But when I considered it in the morning, she looked at it, she saw it. Behold it was not my son, which I did bear. I mean, a mother knows her own child, right? And the other woman said, nay, but the living is my son and the dead is thy son, not meaning your son. And this said, no, but the dead is thy son and the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king. Now, the story ends where basically King Solomon says, all right, no problem, take the child and just cut it in half and give each half to each woman. And then of course, the mother who lost her baby, who had her baby stolen, just said, let her have the baby. Don't kill the baby. So then Solomon knew, it's very wise. He was noted for being very wise because of that judgment. But basically what I'm trying to get at here is the third person solved it. So he brought in this judgment and it solved the situation. So what I want to get at you tonight is if you need a third person, if you couldn't work it out between the person, the third person should be someone of integrity and character. And in a church, it should be someone in leadership or the pastor of the church or the pastor's wife of the church should be brought in at that point to help judge the situation, okay? Especially if there's a conflict inside the walls of this church. And after that, Matthew 18 and verse 17, if you're still in Matthew, look, this is gonna solve it. You know, once again, nine times out of 10, problem solved, right? Because once you have the pastor, that's another reason it should be the pastor or a leader in the church because when they do pass judgment amongst those two guys, whether it be the cabinet guy or the owner, it should be someone who, you know, both men respect, right? And they'll respect that judgment or that decision as in the case of Solomon. Now, if that doesn't work, now let me just say this, first of all, this leads into the sermon series that we're gonna talk about. If that doesn't work, if the pastor of the church at that point says, you know what, you defrauded him, you know, I've listened to it, you know, King Solomon gives his judgment, it should be a situation where you have a heart problem with one of those two men or one of those two individuals, right? So in Matthew 18 and verse 17, the Bible says, and if he shall neglect to hear them at that point after step two, tell it unto the church, but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican. He should be put out of the congregation at that point. Now, turn to 1 Corinthians 5-11. Now we're getting into the point of church discipline at this point, all right? And in 1 Corinthians 5-11, the Bible gives us six very specific sins that if someone is involved in, that they should be also put out of the congregation, okay? And if you're there in 1 Corinthians 5-11, the Bible reads, now, but now I've written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner with such and one, no, not to eat. So we saw this example of someone that was defrauding someone as the example I used. And I submit to you tonight that if you get to that, end of that second step and get to that third step of, you know, in front of the church and they still will not admit that they're wrong, they're going to be very likely one of these things here anyway. So, you know, either, you know, the covetous in the case of the, you know, the cabinet example that I gave you. All right, now these are six very specific sins that the Bible teaches us are not to be allowed in the church, okay? By someone that is called a brother. So that leads us to this point of, you know, we've gone through conflict resolution. There should be situations where, you know, you can work things out nine times out of 10, right? You can work things out amongst yourselves, amongst the leadership of your church. There really shouldn't be an issue if both people are, you know, if you have, your heart is right towards God, you're humble, you know, hey, I was wrong, I'm sorry, I should have paid you for the cabinets, whatever the case may be, right? You should never get in a conflict with somebody over money anyway. Just suffer yourself to be defrauded in that case. But let's talk about this idea of church discipline because you don't see this today, okay? If you go to, you know, normal old IFB Baptist churches, you're just not going to see this anymore. I know, I have dealt with this myself personally. I have seen clear cases where people were in a church that should not have been in a church, it was putting people in the church in literal danger. And I've seen it because this is not being followed, okay? Now, a couple caveats, turn to 2 Timothy chapter four. 2 Timothy chapter four. 2 Timothy chapter four in verse two. The Bible says this. It says, preach the word. 2 Timothy is one of the pastoral epistles. So Paul is teaching, you know, how to be a pastor here. And he's teaching church leadership skills. And he says, preach the word. Be instant, out of season. Be instant in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort. Then look what he says, with all what? With all long suffering. So I really want to give you some details tonight about the actual position of Verity Baptist Church and your pastor, who I have talked to about this issue to make sure that I say it exactly right. And I am in lock, step, agreement with on how this will actually be carried out, okay? And what I want to say is that pastor, humanities, first of all, is as far as a leadership example to me, probably the biggest takeaway that like my personality and my style of doing things versus his personality is, the biggest takeaway from pastor Jimenez to me is that he is one of the most long suffering people I have ever met in my life. And that is something that we all need to be, is long suffering. It's very important, especially in leadership to be long suffering with people. The Bible uses the word long suffering throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. Most of the time it is talking about God towards us. So that's very telling, okay? So I want to just let you know that we're not on a hair trigger to throw people out of church. That's the context I want to, do you understand that? We are not on a hair trigger to just kick people out of here, okay? But there is biblical precedent here and it must be followed. Okay, now in 1 Corinthians 511, go back to your Bible. Look very closely. This is the position of Verity Baptist Church. And in 1 Corinthians 511, the Bible reads once again, but now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, covetous idolater, railer, drunkard, extortioner. Now look, especially with a new church like this, people are gonna come here with problems. We have to understand that. Now do you understand, you notice when it says if any man be called a brother, this isn't talking about somebody who comes here once every two months, who we see every now and then, who comes here and it's like, oh hey, you know, I'm in town again and they pass through every now and then. This is talking about people who get involved in this church, who we call brother, who we see every week and who are getting engaged and involved and plugged into this church. That's what this is talking about. That's when, that's how we interpret if any man that is called a brother. Because you could take a pretty hard line on this and just start throwing people out after five minutes. But if any man is called a brother, they're plugged into this church. See, we wanna give people a chance to grow here. We wanna give people a chance to hear the Bible preached. We wanna give people a chance to have God like actually, I don't know, like work in their heart, right? I mean, that's the whole point of a biblical church. And if we're like, ah, you're not perfect, get out of here. That doesn't make any sense. All right, so what we're doing is if any man is called a brother, meaning you're in this church, it's found out that fornication is a great example. It's found out that you're living with your girlfriend or you're not married and you're living in fornication. Then at that point, if a person's called a brother and they're in that type of situation, there's just, at that point, there's gonna be out to have a conversation with those people. And it's not gonna be like, ah, you're doing that, get out of here. It's gonna be like, hey, here's a conversation. Here's your options, choose an option. You know, this is, like I said, we're not following people home. We're not forcing people to do anything. You have three options. You know, you get married, you move out, or you know, you stay the same. One of these will get you thrown out of here. You know, that will be the conversation that we had in a nice way. And I have personally seen people thrown out for that reason. And this practice was followed and they chose to just stay the same and it just couldn't be that they stayed. So the decision was made. And thank God for leadership that will do that. And I'm gonna show you why. Okay, I'm gonna show you why. It should be enough. Look, it should be enough that the Bible says it. Done. Okay, that should be enough. But I'm gonna show you the logic of it. Okay, the logic of it is this, all right? Look to your left and look to your right. That's the logic of it. In 1 Corinthians 5, you probably see some kids to your left and to your right. In 1 Corinthians 5, the Bible says this. To deliver such in one, it was found in 1 Corinthians 5, we're not gonna go into the whole story that someone was in for an occasion. And Paul said, kick him out. Get him out, put him out from among you. To deliver one such unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. It's chastisement. It's the first purpose is to get that person right. I mean, we're here to help people what? Grow and live the Christian life and do something that has eternal value with your life. I'm sick of seeing people out there just wasting their whole life. You get somebody saved and nine times out of 10, they're just gonna waste their life anyway. They're saved, see in heaven, they're gonna waste their life. We are here to help people grow, to help people go out and help other people grow, to learn the Bible, to follow the Bible and to actually have some eternal results with our one, piddly life that we have. Right, it's like a vapor. Just one. I'll often say that exact same thing to people. How many lives do you have? Somebody just got saved. How many lives do you have on this earth? Just one. It's like a vapor. And if you find somebody who's 40 or 50 years old, you tell them, is your life going faster or slower every year? It's, and they'll be like, faster? It's like that, it's gonna be over. You do, you wanna have, we wanna get some eternal results from people. And you know what? People want eternal results for their life. I'm convinced of it. So it's for their benefit, to get them right, to put them out from their brothers and sisters so they feel like I'm being punished. They have some time to think alone about the sin in their heart because they got a heart problem. They're not listening to the Bible. They're saved, they're a brother. Doesn't make them unsaved. They just, they need to be chastised. It's for their own good. It'd be like if I never spanked my kids. The Bible says if I don't, you know, if you spare the rod, you hate your son. So it's like you hate your brother in that type of situation. You got a backslidden brother. He's in fornication. You just wanna keep him in the church. You just wanna keep him just the way he is. These liberal churches, it's pitiful. It's pitiful, they hate that person because even if that person's saved, they're just gonna make him waste his whole life. That's what Satan wants. The best Satan can get out of you if you're saved is to have you just waste your entire life. So that's what we're trying to do. That's the point, is to help people. Okay, so it seems mean. If it seems mean to you, I don't know, you know. Think, think about it. It makes perfect sense. The second thing is this. Did you look to your left and your right? You see some kids in here? Sin is contagious. And God picked these specific sins for a reason. Okay, and if we let that stuff in here and we do nothing about it, you know that what you do matters much more than what you say to your kids. They're watching you more than they're listening to you. You remember that, you parents of these young kids, they're watching you and you'd be shocked at what they notice when they're five years old. Six years old. Sin is contagious. And when they see the men in this church and they see the men that are leading their families that are allowing this. Oh, they're preaching against fornication here. Right, oh yeah, fornication, bad. Bible talks about it all the time. And then we just have people in here that are just living in fornication. Forget the preaching. That's what that means. Because what we do matters more than what we say. That's why. There's logic behind it. The Bible's enough, but there's logic behind it. Galatians 5, 9 says a little 11, 11th the whole lump. Think of this, you know, think of like, think of magnets, right? You know, think of this world out there. We're gonna talk about, you know this, the forces and the influences in this world. Think of a magnet pulling on a piece of metal. A really strong magnet, but you've got another magnet over here that's pulling on it too and that piece of metal's kinda like, which way do I go? What happens if you just take this one away? How fast will that piece of metal just smack into that magnet? That's what'll happen. And you can see it happening. I've looked a lot into what happened into churches in the 80s, in the 90s. We talked a little bit about it today. I heard some men talking about it. What happened to these churches? What happened? Well, they got soft on sin. They got soft on sin and it's shocking how fast it ruins the church. Because you start getting people in that don't wanna hear about sin. All of a sudden I can't preach about sin because I've painted myself into this tiny little corner. I can't preach about sin or I'll lose half my income with my church. And then people start leaving, the godly people start leaving. It's Gresham's Law. We talked about it this morning. The bad will drive out the good. So no, it's just like everything else we've been talking about for the last few weeks, we're gonna hold the line. And we're gonna do what the Bible says. And we're gonna be long suffering about it. And we're gonna be nice about it. And we're gonna be biblical about it. But we're gonna be biblical about it. You understand? There's a balance there. And the balance is always just what the Bible says. We're gonna be merciful. We're gonna be long suffering. But we're gonna do what the Bible says. Okay. Look, false prophets, that's a whole other thing. But bad doctrine is contagious too. Bad doctrine is just as contagious as sin. So we're gonna watch for that as well. Go to Matthew 16. Go to Matthew 16, let's see what Jesus said about that. Matthew 16 in verse six. Jesus says to the disciples, and I just love the disciples. They don't, we probably wouldn't have understood what he was talking about either half the time. You're like, ah, how do they not get this? But we probably wouldn't have got it either. Anyway, in Matthew 16, verse six, Jesus is warning the disciples and he says unto them, take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. And they reason among themselves saying, is it because we have taken no bread? Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, oh ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves because you have bought no bread, brought no bread? Do you not understand? Neither remember the five loaves of the 5,000 or how many baskets you took up? Neither the seven loaves of the 4,000 and how many baskets you took up? So they're probably obsessed over bread after those two miracles. How is it that you do not understand that I speak it not unto you concerning the bread that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood how he bade them not beware of the leaven of the bread but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. So we need to be very careful about bad doctrine as well. So I just want to throw that one out there because that's part of church discipline as well. Look folks, we must practice what we preach even if it's uncomfortable at times and it's uncomfortable. I remember the first time I sat and witnessed something like that and it was done very biblical and very nice but it's uncomfortable and it's unfortunate that it happens but this is a biblical church. And we're just gonna be a biblical church. That's what's gonna happen here. So the application is it's this just don't be shocked when it happens. If and when it happens. And let me just say this. Another thing that really surprised me when I got into a biblical church like Verity Baptist Church is this. Bad people are gonna come here. So I want you to be ready for that. Bad people are gonna come here. Go to Matthew 7. You're already in Matthew, right? False prophets are bad people. In Matthew 7.15 the Bible says beware of false prophets would come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Look the Bible says that these people they wanna pretend like they're one of you but they wanna come in here and they wanna destroy and they wanna they're ravening wolves. They want to rip up things. They wanna stop this from happening. In Jude 1.4 the Bible says for there are certain men crept in unawares. They crept in, they sneaked in who were before of the old ordained of this condemnation. Ungodly men turning the grace of God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Look Satan wants to attack this ministry and it's obvious because there's no other explanation of it on why these types of people will try to come into churches like this. We're growing, we're getting folks saved so you need to not be surprised when church discipline happens but the second thing is you need to guard yourself. You need to guard, you need to watch this church and you need to guard your homes. This is gonna be part of the Sunday morning series but you need to guard your homes because Satan's gonna attack you. If you're out there in your new soul winner all of a sudden you're just getting people saved. Guess what? You got a target on you now. And it's real. And I've seen it. And it's gonna happen. So you need to make sure that you're right, you need to make sure that the proper defenses are in place in your home and you need to make sure that you're aware of this. Imagine being in a fight and you don't even know you're in a fight. You don't wanna be that guy, right? You're in a battle, you don't know you're in a battle. Only the other guy knows that he's fighting. It's not gonna end well for you. So just you need to be aware of this, that you're going to be attacked, okay? So you've entered the battle, congratulations. And as far as the church discipline part of things go, Brother Stuckey mentioned it if you watched his Wednesday night service but kind of the way things are gonna go here and it's kind of a pattern that you see with people that aren't false prophets, with people that are just worldly people. People are gonna come here and they're either gonna get right or they're gonna get out. And that's by design. We want people to get right. We love our brothers and sisters and we want them to get right. But the way the Bible is designed here is that it's designed that you're just not gonna be comfortable here. If you just decide you're just gonna stay in all the garbage that you've always been in. You're gonna be not only chastised by God but you're gonna have issues here and the church is not gonna allow these types of sins to just hang out here. So people are just gonna, they're gonna get right or they're gonna get out. And we just need to understand that we need to follow the word of God and whatever God does is right. And there's some confusing things in the Bible where I'm just like sometimes I just have to be like whatever God says is right. This isn't really one of them for me. Makes perfect sense to me. We love each other. We love you. We want you all to grow. We want you all to just win this Christian race. And most people aren't gonna win it. Most people aren't gonna finish it. It doesn't mean you're not saved. It doesn't mean that most people fall out of the fight. And the people that are in this church, we wanna be strong, we wanna be biblical. And we wanna have some eternal value, right? So in the upcoming sermon series, what I'm gonna do is it's a really nice segue into preaching about these six sins. So what we're gonna do is every Sunday night, we're gonna hit these six sins. We're gonna look at these six sins. Why these six sins, right? Why these? But I betcha it makes sense, right? I betcha it makes sense that these specific sins, if they're in a church, are gonna wreak havoc. So we're gonna look at that in detail. It deserves much more detail, each one of these topics. So that's what we're gonna look at. Maybe there'll be a preacher from Verity Baptist Sacramento that knocks us off our series, but that's what we're gonna be doing on Sunday nights is we're just gonna go through this list and we're gonna figure out, hey, what was God thinking here? What does this sin mean for you? What are the consequences? Why do we want to keep our kids away from this? And we're just gonna dig into it, all right? Well, I just want you to understand that the concept of church discipline, it's real, it's gonna be followed here, and it's a loving practice, okay? Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the beautiful methodology of everything that you've given us in the Bible and how it makes sense and how it not only makes sense to us, God, but I mean your law is there for our protection. And it's there so we can grow. And it's there so we can continue growing in this Christian life and have true joy in our lives as we serve you in the proper biblical way. Lord, I wanna also pray for the food. I wanna pray that you bless the fellowship tonight. I wanna pray that you bless this food to our body. I thank you for these people. I thank you for this church. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.