Over the last several years as we have had interns and had a lot of contact with young ministers and seminarians here at Twin Lakes, the one question that we have been asked more than any other is about church discipline, specific cases, how to begin it. But I think I was asked to speak on church discipline this year because I may be the only person in the room who has had a contract hit put out on one of our pastors by a man with whom we were engaged in church discipline. By the way, the next time you see my colleagues, ask Pastor Dodds about that and be sure and have him tell you how much his life is worth. I'll give you a hint, it's under $400. Seventeen years ago, when several of us gathered in a room and we first hammered out the charter of the Twin Lakes Fellowship, Dr. Johnson and Dr. Hall were in the room as well. We discussed the 15 points that we stood for, and if you open your program, you notice our principles and talking points, and I want you to look at number 13. Number 13, this is one of the things that we stated right up front as we began, a biblical understanding of church membership and discipline. And when we stated that, when that was put on the white board, no one objected. No one objected because church discipline has been the confession, the public theology of Reformed and Presbyterian churches for 500 years. Think with me. I don't want to just say that glibly. I want you to think with me for about 90 seconds about what the Reformed and Presbyterian church has always believed. I'm wary. I'm becoming warier saying, we've always believed that, whatever it is. But we've always believed and confessed the practice of church discipline. Think, for example, of the Belgian Confession in 1561. Listen to these words. Let them sink down deep into your stride. The marks by which the true church is known are these. This is the 16th century. I wanna give some weight to we've always believed this, always and at every point in our 500 year history as Protestants, we've always believed in church discipline. The Belgic Confession writing in 1561, the marks by which the true church is known are these. One, if the pure doctrine of the gospel is preached therein. Two, if she maintains the pure administration of the sacraments as instituted by Christ. Three, if church discipline is exercised in punishing sin. In short, if all things are managed according to the pure word of God, all things contrary thereto rejected, and Christ acknowledges the only king and head of the church, hereby the true church may be known. Now let me add editorially, I don't know if you've ever thought through this, the reason why the three marks is held out is those three marks picture the three offices of Christ. So when you have the preaching of the word, think with me here, the preaching of the word, you have Christ as prophet. When you have the sacraments administered properly, you have Christ as priest. When you have discipline exercised properly, you have Christ as king. If you don't do discipline in your church, your people are completely robbed of the kingship of Christ. exercising his rule. And so you already are robbing one-third of the offices of Christ. Well, when we come to the 17th century, You have discipline codified in confessions such as the Westminster Confession, chapter 30. You have John Owen's outstanding historic essays in volume 16. You have only all of the Puritans writing on discipline. You have James Durham's majestic work concerning scandal. When you come to the 18th century, you have a representative example would be Jonathan Edwards and his series of sermons that got him in so much trouble, especially his sermon on the means and ends of excommunication. When you come to the 19th century, it's really the golden age for the church thinking about church discipline. You have that explosion of writers on both sides of the pond, clarifying and sharpening our understanding in all matters of ecclesiology. In Scotland, you have the Bannermans. You have Robert Murray McShane. Of all people, Robert Murray McShane speaking and preaching this glorious series of sermons on discipline. I would commend them to you greatly. In the United States at the same time you have Thomas Peck and Stuart Robinson writing on church discipline. In the 20th century you have R.B. Kuyper and his outstanding little banner of truth book, The Glorious Body of Christ. He has some wonderful chapters on discipline. You have John Murray. In the 21st century If you just want to start at now and work backwards, get Dr. Guy Waters' book, How Jesus Runs the Church. He has an excellent section on discipline in there. And so when I say, as Reformed and Presbyterian people, we have always believed and confessed and practiced church discipline, I mean that from the very beginning. This is who we are. We're church-disciplined people. Well, let me press this a little further. I've been at 30 general assemblies, over 100 presbytery meetings, over 50 meetings of examinations committees in three separate presbyteries in different regions of the country. I currently chair the exams committee for Calvary Presbytery. And I have never, this is not hyperbole, I've never not once heard anyone in the years from 1983 to 2016 ever, not once, ever take an exception to Westminster Confession 30, that's the chapter on church centers, or Book of Church Order Chapters 27 through 46. So I've learned to ask on our Presbytery Exams Committee more than what do you believe about church discipline or what is your view of church discipline, but now I start by asking questions like this. Have you ever seen church discipline administered? Because most have not. And then more importantly, what has been your practice of discipline? And most importantly, what will you do in church discipline if you're ordained? Our book of church order says, book of church order 27, the exercise of church discipline is highly important and necessary. And says again, no communing or non-communing member of the church should be allowed to stray from scripture's discipline. Our book of church order in the preface, in our preliminary principles says, our blessed savior for the edification of the visible church, which is his body, has appointed officers not only to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments, but also to exercise discipline for the preservation of both truth duty. It is incumbent upon these officers and upon the whole church in whose name they act to censure, to cast out the erroneous and scandalous in all cases observing the rules contained in the Word of God. So you would think, wouldn't you, that since everyone subscribes to our constitutional documents and no one takes exception, that we would see 100% buy-in in the practice of church discipline in our churches, right? As my good friend Lee Corso says, not so fast, my friend. For the last few years, if you don't know who Lee Corso is, I pity you. For the last few years, I've been gathering evidence. I've spoken to about 200 ministers and churches in the PCA. Now, my wife is my training and academic sociologist and she kind of snickers at my research methods because they are anecdotal and not systematic. But my finding after several years of interviewing, as I said, probably about one eighth of ministers or churches in the PCA, is somewhere between 40 to 60% of the churches in the PCA never engage in church discipline, never. So in hopes of moving the needle just a little bit, What I would like to do is pass on to you, and more than moving the needle, maybe encouraging you as you're struggling in the practice of this, I'd like to pass on about 15 lessons in church discipline. These observations, assertions, instructions, have been gleaned from 30 years in pastoral ministry, all in the PCA, in five separate congregations, the last 16 in the same church. By the way, these observations are based on, I've served churches in the South, the Midwest, and the West, served in church plants and established churches, have served in small churches and large churches. Our congregation at Woodruff Road has about 680 members at the present. So what I'm saying is, is not germane to just one size of church, one region of church, one age of church, it is the church, period. So about 15 observations or lessons. Number one, know your stuff. This is an admonition to seminarians and men coming out of seminary and men in their first pastor. When I came out of seminary and went to my first church, I did not know my stuff. But amazingly enough, that first congregation didn't wait for me to learn my stuff before I was confronted with discipline issues. They didn't wait for me to get up to speed. I quickly realized in my first pastorate that I was horribly deficient. Everybody here has probably had that conversation or heard it where you say, you know, they never taught me this in seminary. Do you know what? They did teach me in seminary. I had Dr. George Knight for church government and he was marvelous, but I was drinking out of that fire hose and I thought, oh, I'll never get to that. I won't have to deal with that. Well, I walked into my first pastorate and I was dealing with it immediately. I was on the phone back to George Knight within the first week. And Dr. Knight said then, he said, Carl, there are three things that you need to master immediately. You should have listened in class. He said, number one is the biblical data. He said, you need to have adequate exegesis of at least the following four passages. He said, you need to have them down so that if I call you and wake you up at three in the morning, you can give a good exegetical explanation of these. Hebrews 12, where we are told that discipline is a positive thing and God disciplines every son. Matthew 18, where we're told the sequential methodology of how to address sin in fellow confessing believers. 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul demands immediate excommunication. Isn't it interesting? Where Paul leaps over all the other steps in 1 Corinthians 5 and demands immediate excommunication for a man in egregious sexual sin. Well, 1 Corinthians 5 should convince us all. It should get down in our bones that a Christian must live in holiness and the professing Christian who is in sin cannot be allowed to go on thinking that he can both be a Christian and live in sin. And the fourth passage is Galatians 6, 1, where Paul addresses the desire of godly elders, ministers, namely the gentle, humble restoration of the repentant person. So first of all, when I say know your stuff, I mean know the biblical material, at least the core text. Second, you should know Westminster Confession 30 backwards and forwards. It's tight. And then you should know Book of Church Order 27 through 46, the rules for discipline. If you know your stuff, it will save you time, heartache, embarrassment, and just sadness. Second, second lesson. Make sure that both you and your elders know and understand that you are called to exercise the keys of the kingdom. I know session after session where if I said those words, keys of the kingdom, I would get a blank stare. But Matthew chapter 16 in verse 19, Jesus tells the ruling officers of the church that they represent him. in the exercise of the king. Now interpretively, let me just flesh this out for a few seconds. Our elders need to grasp, first of all, that Jesus is the one who opens and no man shuts, and shuts and no man opens. He says so in Revelation chapter three. In 2002, Dr. Doug Kelly stood right here and he preached, I think, I have kind of my list of the five most compelling sermons I've ever heard. But Dr. Kelly stood here and he preached on Revelation 3-7. And his punchline throughout the sermon, it was about a 70 minute sermon, and I don't think I moved a muscle for 70 minutes. And Dr. Kelly preached, and the sermon, the point was, is that Jesus has the keys. Well, David McIntosh was my new young assistant, and he was fresh out of seminary, and he looked like he was about 11 years old at that point. And David, not only did he not know anything, he didn't even suspect anything. David, David sat next to me and because he had only heard my preaching and he, as he listened to Dr. Kelly preach on Christ has the keys, I looked at David's eyes and they got bigger and bigger and he looked like he was about to faint as Dr. Kelly preached because Dr. Kelly painted this glorious picture of Christ with the keys in his hands opening and shutting. And at proper points throughout the sermon, Dr. Kelly would punctuate and say, man, Christ has the keys. It was meant to encourage us and give us hope. So for the next six months after we went back home, David McIntosh would stick his head in my office about once every three weeks and he would say, Carl, did you know that Christ has the keys? Yeah, that's what Revelation 3, 7 says. But here's the astounding thing that we need to make sure we and our elders understand. Our confession goes on to say in Westminster 30, that to these officers, the elders, the keys of the kingdom are committed, by virtue whereof they have power respectively to retain and remit sins, to shut that kingdom against the impenitent, both by word and censure, and to open it unto penitent sinners by the ministry of the gospel, by absolution from censures as occasion shall require. Now, let me encourage you to go home and just say to your session at the next meeting, brothers, Christ has committed to us the keys. That your session has something much more important to do than just to vote on budgets. They exercise the keys of the kingdom. This is what Jesus tells the apostles in Matthew chapter 16. So the second lesson I've learned is, it is vital in leadership training, in session meetings, to always be reminding the session brothers, don't look around and say, I wonder who's going to exercise the keys? It's us. It's the elders of the church are the men who hold the keys of the kingdom, who open and shut. That means that we have power to admit people to the visible church, and we have power to shut out people to the visible church. The third lesson I learned, get help. This is one of the best parts of being a Presbyterian. Most of the blunders I've made in discipline, and they are many, could have been avoided if I would have simply used the means of the presbytery. You would think that, you know, we talk about connectionalism a lot, that a presbyterian would know this first lesson. Oh, if you need help, call the presbytery. But it took me about 19 years to figure that out. Well, I don't know about in your presbytery, but in our presbytery, we have this glorious thing called the shepherding committee. and we've learned to call them in on difficult cases. Don't be proud, don't be an independent. One of the best aspects of Presbyterian government is assistance in discipline, especially when you're in a church that's never done discipline before, or you are shepherding a group of people who have never heard of this, or if you're planting a church, you need to have the shepherding committee of your Presbytery on speed dial. Lay a good foundation. Let me especially say to you brothers who are planting churches, how you lay the foundation is who the church will be for the next 30, 40, 80 years. And so you want to get disciplined right at the beginning. The David McIntosh who I mentioned a moment ago, we sent him out after he was with us for a few years. He planted Hartsville Presbyterian Church in Hartsville, South Carolina. And before David left, David was picking my brain about the things that I need to start out with. And David said, Carl, what do you think of the things that I need to start out with? I said, start out with both morning and evening worship. Because if you don't start with evening worship, it will be like, an earthquake, when you try to implement it four years later, eight years later, start with it. It's the same with discipline. Don't say, you know, this discipline will be too ugly and hard to start with. We'll add that in 10 years later. No, start with it. And get the help of your shepherding committee. Get help. Fourth lesson, do discipline by the book. And by that I'm referring, I'm using the singular when I should be using the plural. Before you begin the process, reread Book of Church Order 27 through 46. That's the rules for discipline. You can read through it in 15 minutes. But I am astounded at how many people begin process and they don't do it according to our constitution. That means that you should document everything. I have been involved in enough discipline cases where it wasn't well documented and the thing blew apart because we didn't document it, didn't keep careful minutes. This means using standardized forms of communication, such as letters of citation. Don't send one type of letter of citation to this person and a different one to a different person. This means let the letters you use to inform the congregation, if you do it by letter, it should be the exact same letter. Make sure you know what constitutes an offense. When you look at our Book of Church Order 29, it defines what an offense is. Oh, I pity the poor session who gets halfway down the road in discipline and realize we have no business disciplining this person because what we are accusing them is not an offense. to use the language of our Book of Church Order. One should only pursue discipline when an offense is outward, serious, and unrepentant. Outward meaning it's an external manifestation, not just when you suspect pride or greed in someone's heart, you can't know another person's heart. When it's serious, love covers a multitude of sins. You know that your option when you suspect sin is to confront or cover. The man who confronts everything has no wisdom. It should be serious when you confront, and it should be unrepentant. So this is the person who has a dogged unwillingness to let go of outward serious sin. So remember, only pursue discipline when the offense is outward, serious, and unrepentant. A fifth lesson that we've learned. This is vital. This is a matter of training for you and your elders. When you are involved in discipline, keep your eye on the ball and what it is you're looking for. You should be like a laser beam. You're looking for one thing in discipline, and that is repentance. Keep your eye on the ball. There are a thousand distractions as you walk through the process. You are looking for one thing, clear repentance. Now, let me tell you what's going to be one of the big smoke screens. What you're not looking for is just an admission of guilt. I can't tell you how many times when we've been involved in discipline, somebody will say, well yeah, you're right, that's what I did. And I'll have an elder, oftentimes a rookie elder will say, well, Carl, can we go ahead and stop discipline? Because they admitted that they were in sin. Admission of guilt is not repentance. The PCA's Book of Church Order tells us the following things. Listen to what elders must be. And now we focus on this in our elder training. That elders must be men who are masters at the subject of repentance. Listen to what our Book of Church Order says. It says in 37.2 that elders are to pray for the offender's repentance. It tells us then in 37.3 that elders must be satisfied as to the reality of the repentance. Did you hear that? Elders have to make judgments on whether repentance is real or not. That's a high bar. And then our book of church order goes on to say, elders must obtain sufficient evidence of his sincere repentance. So the point is, is when you're involved in discipline, you are looking for really one thing. That's why our book of church order keeps hammering this over and over again. Pray for it, look for it, evaluate it, repentance. That's what you wanna see. Now, I'll give you a concrete example. We had a man who had been excommunicated. Before I came to Woodruff Road, my predecessor, Dr. Rod Mayes and Richard Thomas had done a great job of instituting discipline. So I came to the church that had good practice of that. There had been a man who had been excommunicated for unlawful divorce. Over 80% of the excommunications that have happened at Woodruff Road had been for one subject, unlawful divorce. So we had a man who came to us who had been excommunicated seven years before, and he said, I'm broken over my sin. I want to be restored. Lots of tears and sadness over his action. We rejoiced, but we have learned to ask the hard questions. Turns out, And this is why it's vital that you understand what repentance is. Turned out, we asked him, what does your repentance look like? Can we contact your wife? They'd moved out of the area. And he started hemming and hawing at that point. So we picked up the phone and called his wife and says, has he come to you and sought your forgiveness? No. And by the way, he's not paying his alimony. So we called the brother in and we said, we would love to restore you, but repentance always has evidence, bear fruit in keeping with repentance. So you need to go seek your wife's forgiveness and you need to pay your back alimony. And the man said, oh, do I need to do that? He said, yes, that would constitute repentance. So the man set up a meeting with us in the room, sought his wife's forgiveness, handed her a check for over $20,000 on the spot, and then after a couple more months, we removed the censure. But if you're going to do discipline well and restoration well, you have to know what to look for. And what you're looking for is one thing, repentance. A sixth lesson. To create a culture, part of your task is to create a culture that normalizes discipline. We live in a culture that is undisciplined, thinks church discipline is odd, freakish, a relic from a Nathaniel Hawthorne book. And your task as a pastor is to make discipline be normal. So here's how you do that. First of all, let's just start at the very beginning. You teach on it in your new member's class. I teach the new members class. Sometimes other pastors, ruling elders, interns help, but I teach the bulk of it. And I spend a session in the new members class for people who are coming to join Woodruff Road and say, here's our practice of church discipline. Here's our constitutional standards. And when you join this church, you are making yourself liable to church discipline if you become a communing member. Are you sure you want that? And we'll have some people at that point say, I just rather be a regular attender. And we have plenty of people say, no, I get it. I'm signing on for serious accountability. Then, to normalize church discipline, teach it in your communicants class. I think, by the way, this is the black hole in a lot of our churches. We just took in, because it's that time of year, we just took in a group of teen communicants and Scotty Anderson, one of my fellow pastors, who had taught the communicants class, when he brought the communicants to meet with the session for their sessional interviews, he made sure in the membership interviews before the session that each teen was asked and affirmed that they now understood by becoming a commuting member that they were now subject to the discipline of the church. And all of those teens said, yes, we've been taught this in our communicants class. Now, again, still on the process of normalizing discipline. You normalize it by trained elders in it every time you do leadership training. what discipline is, how to do it. Then, still talking about how you normalize discipline. Something doesn't become normal unless it's talked about and modeled. So notice what I've said. You're doing it in the new members class, you're doing it in the communicants class, you're doing it in leadership training, then sermons. When I first came to Woodruff Road, I spent, some of you are going to think this is a misprint, I spent seven years preaching through the Westminster Confession into evening service. 220 doctrinal sermons on the 33 doctrines of the Confession, including five on Westminster Confession 30. Those five sermons have been downloaded thousands of times by people. Those five sermons were week one, the biblical necessity of church discipline and the result of neglecting it. Week two, the goals of church discipline, which are, you know these, you had to answer this for licensure. The goals of discipline are the restoration of the offender, the deterrence of others from sin, the vindication of the honor of Christ, the prevention of the wrath of God, and the purging out of the leaven, which might infect the whole lung. Week three in the sermon dealt with the steps of discipline from Matthew 18, and week four, tough questions. Who is discipline for? How do I treat the person who's been excommunicated? When is an excommunicant restored? And then week five, how to confront one another and do it biblically. Well, that preaching on those subjects, so it completes that loop in creating a culture that normalizes discipline. Seventh lesson, and this is going to sound repetitive to what I just said. Let me encourage you, if you have gone to a church that doesn't have a practice of discipline, what you should do before you institute discipline, if you have gone to such a church where they don't have a practice of discipline, don't be the bull in a china shop and start discipline tomorrow. There are things you should do before you start discipline. Let me tell you what they are. This is even if the elders are for doing discipline. There are things you should do before you start discipline. First of all, the things that I just mentioned, talk about it and begin talking about in your new members class, your leadership training. But here's I think a key step. I've seen this done and I think it's vital. Listen to me carefully. If you're in a church that has not been practicing discipline, I think it's vital that the elders of the church should stand before the church and say, dear friends, church discipline is in the scriptures, our confession, and our constitution, but we have been derelict in our duty. We have not been doing it. Please forgive us. And by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, we are going to try to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. We are going to seek to obey the words of Jesus and Paul and Peter. I think that step is vital because I've heard more people say, Carl, how can I just change the process? I'm going to a church that hasn't done discipline. So what things do I need to start? I think the first thing is a full, honest repentance by the session to say we've dropped the ball. We have not been the elders that the scriptures have called us. Please forgive us. But then, I think still talking about what you should do before you institute discipline in a church that currently doesn't do discipline. Second, put in place meaningful church membership. God bless Mark Dever in his nine marks. Mark Dever talks about this and I think he's dead on. Don't start the practice of church discipline until you have meaningful church membership. That means that your people understand the benefits of a high view of church membership. If something requires oaths and vows like our membership does, think of what you do in life that requires oaths and vows. Your marriage, the baptism of your children, and church membership. I've never taken any other oaths and vows other than my ordination vows. That's pretty weighty if something requires oaths and vows. When people join a church, they have to take those five membership vows. If something requires oaths and vows, it should be done with a great deal of forethought and preparation, like a membership class where you address the gospel and major doctrines and practices, who you are and who you aren't, the biblical basis for membership, your practice of church discipline. Now, let me press on with this. Save yourself a lot of problems by being more careful whom you admit as a member. I am now going to tell you my biggest learning curve that's happened in my ministry in 30 years. I am officially the slowest person in the room on this subject. And I want you to learn from my mistakes. When I came to Woodruff Road 16 years ago, I had already been in PCA ministry for 13 years. So I was a 13-year veteran at that point and was still clueless on this one subject. We went through, when I walked in the door at Woodruff Road, we went through a tremendous surge of growth. Mostly transfer growth, I should have noticed. And I was sure all of these people were coming and transferring to Woodruff Road because of either my powerful preaching or sparkling personality. But I did notice in several of the membership interviews of these people who we took in, things that should have been a red flag to a smarter person, like say anybody else in the room except me. And I noticed odd views, strange practices, contentiousness, but I was laboring under the false notion that if somebody A, had a credible profession of faith, and B, desired membership, we had to receive them. False. We took in dozens of these folks. Some ended up on the session and the diaconate. Scroll the clock forward a few years, and we started drowning in difficult pastoral issues. And they were the people whose testimonies I had heard as they came into membership. And we were engaged in all kinds of discipline cases, discipline for tax protesters, discipline for crazy racists, and much more. I woke up and realized, and I went to the session, and I said, brothers, this is all my fault. I blew it. If I had said, we are not going to admit you as a communing member, then we wouldn't be having to spend inordinate amounts of time, energy, and capital on these people. And I began to think through the issue, can we actually have meaningful membership where we turn down folks for membership who A, have a credible profession and B, desire membership? And the answer if you're a Presbyterian is yes. Listen to me. When you open our Book of Church Order, the first preliminary principles in our Book of Church Order were penned by John Witherspoon in 1788 in preparation for the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA. Witherspoon, of course, was a Scottish Presbyterian, son of a minister who came to America to be president of Princeton. And he wrote these words. Listen to this preliminary principle and hear it maybe for the first time. Every Christian church is entitled to declare the terms of admission into its communion and the qualification of its members. Did you hear those words? Every Christian church is entitled to declare the terms of admission. And so we, I started saying to certain people who had come, no, we're not going to receive you as a member because you're crazy. And if we received you as a member, If we receive, that's the technical language. And if we received you as a member, we will just be doing discipline in three months. This came to a pinnacle when I had a guy who came to me and said, Carl, I've been to the intro class and I'd like to be a member. And I said, no, we're not going to receive you as a member. Why not? And I said, well, let me pull it up. Here's your website. Your website promotes breaking the fifth commandment, especially with your views relative to the civil magistrate where you revile them, and you encourage people to not pay their taxes and disobey the civil magistrate, and then you have weird conspiracy theories and weird eschatology. And I said, we're not going to receive you as a member because if we did, we would just have to turn around and put you under discipline. And the guy shook his head and said, I've never heard such a thing. He said, you have to receive me. He said, no, we don't. Look at the preliminary principle here in the Book of Church Order. Well, one of the things we've started learning is we've started becoming much more, now we sound like a country club, which is funny because we're really a working class church. We've become much more selective because we've realized if we just receive every person, we'll just be doing discipline in three months. And so we're very now careful and wise in terms of who we receive. And we do a lot more interviews on the front end. You do know what makes a profession credible is fruit. And so what we are looking for when somebody makes a profession, is it credible or are they crazy? Now, again, we're still talking about what to do before instituting discipline. Don't start the practice of church discipline until you start comprehensively and carefully shepherding. Shepherding, by that I simply mean what's talked about in 1 Peter 5 verse 2, wise pastoral oversight of the sheep. Each one of our elders has a shepherding group made up of between 15 and 20 families. They do annual shepherding visits with them for spiritual encouragement, prayer, instruction, and counsel in their home. But if you start discipline before you start shepherding, and you just send a summons in the mail to someone you've not been shepherding, praying for, praying with, counseling, that's just lording it over the sheep. Don't start discipline until you've started personal shepherding. An eighth lesson in terms of discipline. And this is maybe one of the core lessons we've learned. Be prepared to answer the objections to discipline inside the congregation. I'm not going to answer them, just name them, but you must have good soundbite answers for each of these objections. Now let me tell you what the objections are you're gonna get. If you begin to institute discipline and you have not done it, and you do what I encourage you to do, and the session stands before the congregation, you say, brothers and sisters, we've let you down. We've been derelict in our duty. We repent, we've asked God for forgiveness, we're asking you. Let me tell you what the questions you're going to get at the back door are going to be, the objections. It'll probably be one of these eight. First one is, you will hear people say, discipline doesn't work. It's the pragmatic objection. And what they mean by that is, whether they're saying it or not is, I've never actually seen someone repent. Well, in many cases, the disciplined person doesn't repent. And I would argue that discipline always works and has worked in this situation. It has proven that the person was never regenerate. It's shown the hardness of their heart. Discipline always works. If it's done biblically, it always works. It shows that the person was a reprobator. It shows that they're regenerate. By the way, nothing puts this argument to rest like restorations. Nothing puts this argument to rest. We've had five. Five people are excommunicated who've come back and been restored. We've had the joy of seeing discipline work in the salutary sense where people have been excommunicated, have come back and been restored, sometimes as late as 13 years later. And so nothing is, it puts the lie to that faster. When somebody says discipline doesn't work, say, yes, it does. What about Mrs. So-and-so who was excommunicated in his return? But friends, don't buy it. Discipline always works. Sometimes it's just the means God uses to harden and reprobate. Second objection you'll hear. My church is too large to enact church discipline. I've heard this before from large congregations. I'm still trying to grapple with what that means. Does this mean that there are so many people we can't know what's happening in their lives, or we're not set up for elder or oversight shepherding, or there's a size of church that renders discipline impossible? I don't think that's the case. Because I've answered before, you're not too big to do the other two marks in the church. You're not too big to do preaching, you do that. You're not too big to do sacraments, then you're certainly not too large to do discipline. It's interesting, the Belgic Confession in 1561, it doesn't say the three marks of the church, except in churches that are larger than 400 members, are preaching, sacrament, and discipline. My friend, it doesn't matter if you're the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea, with over a few million members, or if you're the Country Presbyterian Church with 20 members, the three marks of a true church never change. A third objection. My church is too small to enact discipline. Meaning, we can't spare a member. But what that really means is, our small private club has no moral criteria for belonging to it. A fourth objection you'll hear. Discipline is not enacted equitably. Now that's a serious objection. And that's one that a session better take serious. Because if somebody says, Pastor, I don't think, I'm opposed to discipline because I haven't seen it exercised fairly, then you better pay close attention to that. Because one of the things I think is the hardest, I think this was really the hardest struggle for me in sessions, is to not be respecters of persons. You can't pursue discipline with one person and not with another because they're affluent or they're an elder or they're older. If you have been respecters of persons, the session needs to do some serious soul searching and repent. You cannot be, nothing will ruin discipline in a congregation faster than being respecters of persons. A fifth objection. We're all family here. In a congregation that I served, this was the objection that was raised. It was the objection that was raised. And what that meant was, it was a church like many of your congregations, where the church was made up of about five large extended clans. And I had men on the session say to me, Carl, we can't do discipline because if we do this, we will alienate about one fifth of the church. And my response to these folks was exactly what Jesus said in Luke chapter 12. Jesus demands that his disciples must love him more than father and mother. And in fact, don't families discipline their wayward children? The writer of Hebrews says so in Hebrews 12. A sixth objection that you'll hear is, and this is the hyper-Calvinist objection. We're not hyper-Calvinist, we believe in means. Listen to this objection. I've heard it. God will take care of the purifying of his church, he doesn't need human help. Well, this is a denial of God's ordaining of means. We rightly, I hope you do, quickly correct people when they make this argument in other realms. Think of how when people deny means. In evangelism, when people say, hmm, this sounds like the William Carey argument. When William Carey had been talking in 1792 at a meeting to pray for the conversion of the lost, When a man stood up and said to carry young man sit down if God wants to convert the heathen He will do it without either you or me carry went home and within a month he wrote the famous and now classic document entitled an inquiry into the obligation of Christian to use means for the conversion of the heathens and he presented it the next month to 14 people at a missionary society meeting. But what he did is he drew the divide between Calvinists who believe in the use of means and Hyper-Calvinists who don't. And so if we had somebody who said, well, Carl, we're opposed to a missions budget because if God wants to save the heathen, he'll do it his own way. We'd say, friend, we believe in the use of means. Or if somebody said, well, I don't believe in prayer because God is sovereign. You would encourage them to go by Dr. Kelly's book where he puts to rest forever that objection and shows how God has ordained to use you and your prayer in his purposes. Churches who know and believe this will have vital prayer meetings, those who don't will not. But in discipline, don't give any credence to the smoke screen that says God will take care of purifying his church and doesn't need human help. No, God has ordained the means of purifying his church and it's church discipline. We're people of means. Certainly the Ananias and Sapphira saga is clear evidence that God can purify his church apart from means. He can strike people dead. He did that in 1 Corinthians 11. But the ordinary means of maturing, erring believers is the obedient, patient, steady practice of church discipline. God is normally pleased to work through his appointed means. Another objection you'll hear. Church discipline is harsh and mean. My friends, don't let that objection stand for five seconds. Jesus taught it in Matthew 18. Paul taught it and practiced it in 1 Corinthians. And so to the person who says that you need to respond, I hope sweetly. So you're more gracious than our Lord Jesus Christ? He ordained and taught discipline and you're going to say he's harsh and mean? This is the Jesus who won't break a bruised reed or put out a smoldering wick? Another objection is, and this is probably the postmodern favorite objection, Christians aren't supposed to judge. You know this, Matthew 7, 1. It's the most quoted Bible verse by non-Christians. But they ignore the fact that Jesus actually commands all sort of judging. One of the things that's fascinating for you to study is in the exact same sermon, in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, just 14 verses later, that Jesus commands the believer to judge false prophets. Jesus himself repeatedly commands judgment. Pretty soon, post-modern friends are going to catch onto this and they're going to say, Jesus, you're so judgmental. Well, those are some of the objections you need to be prepared to answer. Number nine, lesson. Recognize, especially for young men, men who are in seminary, I've talked to young men who say, well, I'm gonna go in, here's my intention. I'm gonna go in, we're going to institute church discipline, we're gonna get things cleaned up like you're the new sheriff coming to Tombstone. We're gonna come in and get things cleaned up and then we'll be done. No, let me tell you what's going to happen. Church discipline is going to be part of the normal rhythm of the church for the next 45 years of your ministry. Don't grow weary in well-doing. You will be doing this 20, 30 years from now. Recently, I was preparing for the 30th anniversary celebration of Woodruff Road, and I went back to survey the minutes of session. And while I was there, I surveyed the actions of discipline during my service of the last 16 years. Let me read you, I wanna just read you a snippet of what the rhythm of the church of a congregation, it's just a normal vanilla Presbyterian church, just as normal as can be. Let me read you what it sounds like. These are just excerpts from our minutes. 2001, church admonished for immorality and drunkenness. 2002, met with several teens, young adults, single adults, sexual immorality. Another man, drunkenness and sexual immorality. 2003, met with a married man, admonished for adultery, there was repentance. 2004, four employees of an employer in the church came to bring charges against him for unpaid wages. 2005, disciplined members for teaching and spreading false doctrine. 2005, disobedience to parents by communing teenagers. 2006, racial sin and kinism. reviling the magistrate, not paying taxes. 2007, unlawful drug use. 2007, an elder admonished to resign from session household not in order. 2008, unfaithfulness and laziness in not pursuing work by an adult male and lying to his wife. 2009, fornication and adultery by a married man, lying to his wife, previous issues of sexual sin. 2009, discipline of a missionary brought off the field. 2010, fornication by a single man. 2011, adultery and fornication by a married man. You probably don't have these kind of people in your congregation. 2012, unlawful divorce. 2012, slothfulness, lying and stealing. 2012, adultery and fornication resulting in excommunication. 2013, adultery. 2014, unlawful separation. 2014, drug and alcohol abuse. 2014, session determines that this woman is the innocent party and free to remarry. 2016, drunkenness, fornication. That's the rhythm of a normal church. That's what life looks like in the church. You never get over doing discipline because we have 680 sinners who are members of Woodruff Road, and they are pastored by the chief of sinners. During this time, we have had eight excommunications. in 16 years, most have been for unlawful divorce. During that time, just a fascinating analysis, the subjects of discipline at Woodruff Road have been white, black, and Hispanic. The subjects of discipline by age have been people from the age of 16 to 77. The subject of discipline by gender have been equally split between males and females. The subjects of restoration have been black, Latino, and white. The subjects of restoration have been from the age of 19 to the age of 64. And the subjects of restoration by excommunication have been split 50-50, male and female. That's the normal rhythm of the church. Tenth lesson. Be consistent, and there's one word I want you to hear me stressing. Be consistent in the public exercise of the keys of the kingdom. The keys are not a private thing. The keys are public. If you use the keys to open, I'm fascinated when over these last few years I've been interviewing anecdotally all of these churches, and I've asked folks this question, I've learned to ask. I've said, first question I ask them is, do you admit members publicly? Oh yeah, we celebrate it. We put them in front of the congregation and we take membership vows and we introduce people. We put their pictures in our bulletin and newsletter. So when you exercise the keys to open the door, that's public. Do you do church discipline? Well, sometimes. When you do that, do you exercise the keys publicly? No. No, nobody knows about it. I said, brother, that's inconsistent. And so my admonition, my lesson is be consistent in the public exercise of the keys of the kingdom. If you use the keys to open, meaning admit new members publicly, then I would assert that you must, when you use the keys to shut, to excommunicate, do that publicly as well. How do you communicate acts of discipline? I really think this is the core crux, the hardest thing that sessions do. How do you communicate it to the congregation? Well, for excommunications, we have communicated in a variety of ways. Again, I said we've had eight in 16 years. We've done it this way. We, in a particularly sensitive, egregious case, we sent a letter to our communing members. We typically, when we are going to announce an excommunication, we'll announce it at an evening communion service just before communion because, remember, it's excommunication. Discipline is tied to the sacraments. But if you don't communicate, let me tell you what will happen. If you use the keys to admit people publicly, but you never talk about excommunication discipline publicly, then how will the congregation know how to relate to the person who's now been formally declared to be an unbeliever? The congregation will go on treating him like a fellow believer when you as a session have declared him to not be one. For admonitions, where there's repentance, we don't make that public. We simply have a note in the church newsletter under our Acts of Session that says, the session admonished a member for drunkenness. We don't put their name. This helps keep discipline before the congregation. Remember the normalization principle? We're trying to normalize discipline. And for restorations, more on that in just a moment, they're done around our communion service. Principle 11. Lesson number 11. If you do discipline wisely and biblically, be prepared to be shot at from two directions. Let me tell you what two directions you'll get shot at. First of all, those who think you're being harsh if you do any discipline. A few years ago, We had elders who had gone through our very thorough leadership training, and they never breathed a word about their objections to discipline until they were ordained and installed. And then we had a discipline case, and these men stalled. They stalled, they objected, they foot dragged, they opposed. And one evening after a late night session meeting, when one of these brothers and I were walking out to our cars, I stood in the parking lot and I said, brother, I said, I'm trying to wrap my head around you. Could you imagine a scenario, you've opposed everything we've done in this discipline case. Could you imagine a scenario where you would ever be for church discipline? As taught by Jesus in Matthew 18, he thought for a while, looked up to the stars and he said, No, I really can't. And I said, brother, you didn't tell me that. You didn't state that you had an exception to our confession or our constitution. He said, I didn't think we would really do it. So this is a person who's always shooting at us that we're too harsh. We had another occasion where we were going to excommunicate a woman who had committed adultery and left her husband. And when we announced the excommunication, for unlawful divorce. I had a woman come and stand it to me at the back door and she said, it's one thing to exercise church discipline with men, but you can't do that to a woman. It's harsh to discipline women, especially since the session is all men, you are all bullies. And that was the last time I ever saw her. So, you're gonna get shot at from people who think you're too harsh. And here's the crazy thing. You also, if you do discipline well, you're gonna get shot at by people who don't think you're tough enough. This happened. Now, maybe this is just Greenville, but we have this phenomenon. My wife, the sociology term, created a term for it several years ago. She calls them reformed mentalists. Reformedamentalists are people who come out of fundamentalism and they think they're reformed, but they're not, because they brought along with them their legalism. And all they've added to that is just kind of a veneer of sovereignty and maybe baby baptism with that. So our term is, we call them reformedamentalists. So we had people, listen to this sequence in our history at Woodruff Road. We had a sequence, a five-year run, where I want you, I'm reading now from our session minutes. We had a couple of teenage girls who'd gotten pregnant out of wedlock. We'd addressed it biblically, confrontation, repentance had occurred, admonition. Here come the meetings, actually for a two year period, from 03 to 05. February 03, couple comes to confront the session about their laxity on teen morals. June 03, brother comes and critiques the session for allowing members to use alcohol and tobacco demands that the senior pastor preach abstinence and the session discipline any use of alcohol and tobacco. August of 03, a group of men comes and demands that the session discipline for modesty women wearing pants to worship. I thought, well, what else would they wear to worship? February 04, same group of men who come who thought we had not done enough, wanted pounds of flesh, public parading of these girls in front of the congregation, using them as cautionary tales, wanted these girls kept away from the other youth of the church. We explained biblical discipline. Fellows didn't want to hear that. Finally, December 05, a member came returning to tell the session of his disapproval of our not taking his previous suggestion and disciplining members for alcohol use. And this sequence in the life of the church, by the way, none of these people are at Woodruff Road today. The Lord has blessedly delivered us. But the point was, this was a group of people, a sequence of time in the history of the church, when people were shooting at the session for not being tough enough. So the point is, is if you do discipline right, you probably know you're doing it right. If you're getting shot at from both sides, then you realize, okay, we're hitting it about right. If we're getting shot at for being too hard and too soft, that's about right. Twelfth observation. How to answer the question, should you take a call to a church that doesn't currently do church discipline? There are several of you men in this room who are either seminarians, about to take a call, or maybe you're thinking of taking a call. I think this is a vital issue for you to consider. Should you take a call to a church that doesn't do discipline? Well, know the questions to ask, first of all. I will tell you, coming out of seminary, I didn't even know to ask this or think this, but now I counsel seminarians, interns, young men who come to our congregation, I will tell them, before you go to a church, ask the session if you can read their session minutes for the last five years. Then discuss the issues up front with them about discipline. This is what I did when I went to Woodruff Road in 2000. Be honest with them about your convictions on discipline. And if they are not currently implementing biblical discipline, ask the session if they would be willing to implement it. And if they say, men listen to me and be wise. If they say, we'll work on it when you get here. Be wise, get it in writing. A commitment to study the matter together using the scriptures, the confession, the book of church order. And listen to this and just take my word and be wise. ask the brothers, brothers could you give me a time frame of what you consider a wise pastoral time frame to implement discipline. When I took the call to go to Las Vegas, the church planned in 1995, the worship that they had been doing was It wasn't very salutary. And so I said to the leaders of the core group, brothers, I want to be honest with you. I'm not real crazy about the worship, but I'm pastoral enough to know that I don't want to yank everybody around on week one. What do you consider a wise timeline to move from A to B? We hammered it out and we actually were able to move it up and I said, I want to bring everybody along. I don't want to have my way on week two. What I want to do is us move towards biblical worship but bring everybody along. What do you think is a wise timeline that we can agree on? We agreed on a timeline and it actually went much faster than that. because the church was teachable. I think that's something you should do with the church. If they're not currently doing discipline, say, could we have an agreement, a public agreement that says, we're going to study the matter and then implement it. Maybe it'll be a year, maybe a year and a half. But if a church is unwilling to study the matter or commit to it, let me just counsel you, don't take the call. Don't go there. Remember, this is one of the three marks of the church. Don't take a call to a church where they're saying, we have no intention of exhibiting Christ as King. We have no intention of upholding holiness. But we want you to come and preach to us. Don't do it. You're setting you and your family up for heartache. 13th observation. And that is, I would urge you on the necessity for elders to be manly and strong. I've known lots of men who wanna talk about effeminacy and goof on skinny jeans, and I'm right there with them. But if you wanna see a true manifestation of masculinity, here's what it is. When elders engage in discipline. Because that is hard. That's a man. That's a godly man that I respect. And let me tell you, brothers, when you engage in discipline, you will get shot at, sometimes even by your wife. This is why I ask the wives now of elder and deacon nominees to sit through our leadership training because I want men's wives to know what it is their husbands are signing up for. And there has been a case several years ago where a wife of a man who's an elder nominee, as we came through the part about discipline, she said, Carl, I don't think that my husband can go forward with this because people won't like him. And it's very important. I mean, she meant it. She said, it's very important for me that everybody like my husband. And he stepped down and didn't take the call. When you are thinking about elders and men who should be elders, you need to ask them tough questions. Can you do the hard thing? Can you do the difficult thing? Or are you such a people pleaser that your ability to need to be liked outweighs everything else? The 14th observation. Recognize that it may take several cycles of nomination, training, election, and ordination to reform a session. Ask every candidate who comes before you, can you, will you follow the book of church order 27 through 46, the rules for discipline, and do the hard thing of discipline because we will have many cases. I thank God, when I list my reasons for thankfulness for the ministry at Woodruff Road for the last 16 years, that we have a session now that is manly. that does not fear men and are of one mind and will do biblical church discipline, it was not always that way. And I've had before, in our tenure, significant blocks of elders who would not do church discipline. They were in the minority, but they were significant blocks. And again, not one of them had ever stated an exception to the Woodruff Road Confession, the Westminster Confession, or the Book of Church Order. And by the way, I thank God for my presbytery, for Calvary Presbytery, that will do discipline and has done it well. Over the years when churches have come and knocked on the door and asked if we would entertain a call, I've said, tell me about your presbytery. And when I've looked at what they will do for discipline, I've said, no thanks, I'll just stick with Calvary because these guys actually will do discipline. I thank God, if you have a session who will do discipline, go home and plant a big fat wet kiss on their cheek. and tell them, I thank God for you. I tell our elders that on a regular basis. That's not just talk. I'm thankful for these men, because these are the rarest of men, godly men, who actually will do discipline. If you have a session like that, you should praise God. The 15th observation. I'll save this for last, because isn't this the goal of discipline? Rejoice in restorations and pray for them. We have times in our session meeting when we pray for those folks who are excommunicated. And during my pastoral tenure at Woodruff Road, we've had five restorations. One man after seven years. One woman after seven years. Here's my favorite one. Pastor Anderson, one of my colleagues, is going on a mission trip to Haiti. He walks into the health office in Greenville to get his shots before he goes to Haiti. And the nurse there says, what are you getting these shots for? This is kind of an odd barrage of shots. He says, well, I really need to be inoculated. I'm going to Haiti. Oh, really? What for? I'm going on a mission trip for my church. Really? What's your church? Woodiford Presbyterian Church. That's funny. I was excommunicated from there six years ago. Pastor Anderson said, ow. I kinda dug that needle in a little harder. And so he wisely said, could I talk to you about your need to repent? She showed up at church a few weeks later, began coming back. We had the joy of seeing her restored. Another man, seven years later, another woman, two years later, another man, 15 years later. Now let me tell you, when prodigals come home and there's real repentance as judged by the session, you better throw a party and make much of it. Doesn't Luke 15 say, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents. My friends, this is why I'm always puzzled when churches say, we don't want to talk about discipline publicly. This is the happiest moment in the life of the church. You mean you would rob the church of their joy by saying, we don't ever want to talk about discipline because it's awkward and hard and people might not like us. This is the happiest day in the church. My best days in 30 years of ministry had been those Sundays when somebody has come home and been restored. And I've had the joy of standing before the church at the sacrament of communion and say, this sister of ours who was lost has now been found. And after the sacrament, she's going to be the first person the elders serve. And after the sacrament and the benediction, we are telling you to come up, and the session has already rest, as your representative has forgiven her, but you come up and tell her as well, I forgive you and welcome home. And see that line out the back door, and hundreds of people coming and hugging this woman, there's nothing better. And you would rob a church of that? Don't keep that private. Brothers, many in this room have rejoiced in the rise of the Gospel Reformation Network to combat the pernicious spread of antinomianism and to promote gospel-driven holiness. But a church that loves holiness must practice discipline. It is a contradiction for a holy God to have an unholy people. This is a holy God who is spotless in purity. You remember what the angels cry out about him in Isaiah 6? He has gone to extreme measures to have a holy people. He's taken out our heart of stone and given us a heart of flesh. He's given us the Holy Spirit to indwell us and produce fruit. He has commanded us to be holy as he is holy. He rewards and blesses holiness. He teaches us in Psalm 51 to pray for a clean heart and he has given us church discipline to purify his people. We dare not neglect him.