Constitution IV

Everybody who, everyone have access to one of the Constitution sheets? I see maybe one here. Anybody need one? Alright, the word's going to be up here, but we also want to, well, let you take notes if necessary. Mike, are you going to be walking around and do that? Okay, fantastic. So whenever you ask a question, just because these are being recorded, some folks have made comments that The questions need to be recorded, so if you have a question, make sure you get the mic and get the microphone and we'll... Oh yeah, that worked out well. So, we're... You are square. We are looking at membership, so everyone turn in that passage of your Bible that commands every Christian to be a member of a local church. Yeah, it's just not that simple. There's not this great proof text. See, there it is. But I believe it is a clear teaching in Scripture, or a clear expectation in Scripture, that Christians will be committed in what we would call membership, members of a local church. It's a logical conclusion from a number of texts. One that I know you all have heard me explain a lot, from 1 John particularly, is that being a member of a local church is really the only way you can truly, I think, fulfill the commands of Scripture, to their highest degree at least. And so we think about loving others as Christ loved the church. Important for me is defining, well, loving other brothers and sisters, as Christ has loved me. Defining who those brothers and sisters are that I'm laying my life down for. Obviously, we want to think about the universal church, but I believe, as 1 John is directing that in other texts, it's really thinking about those local brothers and sisters that you're always in community with. Secondly, there's a command that we talked about last week, to submit to your leaders. There's no longer apostles. I think we're all in agreement there. There's no longer apostles, and so the church leaders are now pastors. And a pastor, to submit to your leaders, you need to know which pastor in Charlottesville you would be submitting to. Be watchful for one another. This is one of those great commands in Scripture. You need to know who you are responsible for. So, it's loving one another, but it's also being responsible for other Christians. And so, the high level of Christian responsibility It can't be for the universal church, but I believe it needs to be for the local church. One particular command is the widows. Which widows are we caring for? It's just these and the local body. And then, well, I think the clearest example of fulfilling the commands, that is exercising discipline. And we'll get into that, but that's positively discipling and admonishing and Lord willing, not. The reality is there is the excommunication, and that logically means you have to belong to a body. Secondly, I want to focus on that last point there with the exercise of discipline. We can all turn to 1 Corinthians 5. 1 Corinthians 5. We could also go to Matthew 18, 17. Brian, you go to Matthew 18, 17, if that's okay. Can you read that? Once you get there, I'll read 1 Corinthians 5. I'm going to begin in verse 3. The passage here is referring to their sexual sin within the church that is not even heard of among the pagans. And Paul is just amazed that this is continuing to be allowed within the body of believers. So, verse 3, 1 Corinthians 5. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit, and in the presence, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. This is the important part. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. Now, he's communicating to the assembly. First Corinthians, it's not written to the elders of the city of Corinth. He's not writing to the elders, he's writing to the church. So he's already addressing the church as a whole, and there he particularly focuses when you are assembled together as a church. You are to remove this person. Now logically, if we are responsible for removing someone of this nature, the logical conclusion, the inference I think, is that you are logically responsible for voting them in. I wouldn't think we were going to vote someone out that we haven't voted in. And so that's the great responsibility of voting in membership. We're congregational. We'll get into this a little bit more. But the idea is that if you're voting someone out, you've voted them in. So that's fairly clear from 1 Corinthians 5. Now, read Matthew. Start where the context begins, because verse 17 is 15. Yeah. Now there when the church is being referenced when there's the universal church or the local church and honestly I I have no idea how that could possibly refer to the universal church so I'm gonna pause any questions about kind of the those are logical what I'm trying to argue there is that the logical arguments a logical move from the first Corinthians 5 and the Matthew 18 passages necessitate that one has voted someone in. In order to remove from the assembly in the church, one has to have already been in. Does that make sense? Paul agrees. I don't see anyone else agreeing as heartily. So thank you, Paul, for your affirmation. The third argument, and I'm going in what I think are strongest to least, but this is still, I think, a strong argument. All three together, I think, make a very clear argument. The church always knew who was with them and who was not. The church always knew, the very language of scripture implies they knew who was in and who were out. So this is a little bit beyond the clear removal means you had to come in. And here, Acts 2.41, Those who received the word were baptized and then they counted them. Acts 2.47, they added daily. And then in 4.4 again, they again count. So there's a counting. There is a taking of account of who has come to the faith. We talked about it in the end of Colossians there. It never struck me because I'd read that passage over so quickly before. He describes Onesimus as someone he clearly believes is a brother in the universal church. He describes him in this way, who is one of you. Now, logically, I'm just thinking Paul here says he loves Onesimus. He's made it very clear, this is a brother of mine in Christ, but he's one of you. It's like me knowing a brother who I love dearly who's a member of another church. I'm sending him back to you. I love him dearly, but he's one of you. He's under that authority. He's in that fellowship. Typically, the word Ecclesia, or church, is used for a local church, not the universal. And we see this constantly. There's those of us, and then there's those of you, or there's the church and the world. So this is kind of my intro to that church membership is, I think, fairly clear in Scripture. There's not that one kind of You know, here's a verse that commands everyone to be a Christian or a member who commands every Christian to be a church, to be a church member. But I think from logical conclusions from, well, more texts than this, actually, these were just kind of the simpler ones. I think we can say that church membership is expected. Any questions about that? All right. You can always talk to me about any question you want to ask privately. If you have a question privately beforehand, you can ask it to me. You can ask me that and I will answer it and not tell anyone who asked the question. So it may be that other people are asking that question. Qualifications for membership. So now we're getting into the Constitution. This is going to be a little different from last week. I'm still going to read the section and then give comments and then ask questions. This one kind of gets into a little more doctrinal, and we're going to be reading more text tonight. So, membership. Section 1, qualifications. So, qualifications for membership. Can everyone read that? Everyone has access to reading along with us? To qualify for membership in this church, a person must be a believer in Jesus Christ who gives evidence of regeneration, who has been baptized in obedience to Christ following his or her regeneration, and who wholeheartedly believes in the Christian faith as revealed in the Bible. Each member must agree to submit to the teaching of Scripture as expressed in the Statement of Faith, and must promise to keep the commitments expressed in the Covenant. The elder shall be responsible for determining each person's qualification for membership." So, I'm just going to walk through line by line. So line 48 and 49. And I'm going to go ahead and jump ahead to 50 and 51. What we see here is that members must be believers. Members of this church, members of what I think we believe what the Bible teaches, or else we would change our practice. Members must be believers of Jesus Christ. We believe in regenerate church membership. Only those who are of faith are Christians. We don't believe in a mixed body. One of the most damaging interpretations in terms of for the church, and it was Augustine, who you all know I love, but he got this wrong. He interpreted Matthew 13 as referring to the church. So the wheat and the tares parable, he interpreted that as referring to the church. So it's a mixed body. Let's not refer to the church. So it's, we don't believe in a mixed body where the church membership is made up of non-Christians and Christians. We hope that our church membership is pure, which means it's made up of believers. Now, we can only make that assumption as to your practice, your confession, and so forth, but the goal is to make sure that our church membership is, well, it reflects the universal church. The local church is a microcosm of the universal. That's really not changing anything in our bodies, so I'm going to just move on, and I'll take time for questions here in a second. Line 49 through 50, who has been baptized in obedience to Christ following his or her regeneration. This again isn't really changing anything. We believe the children of God are children of faith, as Paul told in Romans 4. The two main traditions, historically speaking, are Paedo-Baptist and Credo-Baptist. Paedo referring to infant baptism and Credo referring to a confession baptism. So, that's your two main camps. So, people who baptize infants and people who baptize those who are able to confess. Well, this puts us clearly in the Credo confession. Really, if all we said was members must be baptized That's saying really nothing distinctive, because every church everywhere would require membership, or... I shouldn't say that. Every church everywhere should require at least baptism before membership. Here we're showing that we have a distinctive credo-baptismal doctrine. I am going to briefly give a brief, I'm going to emphasize the word brief, argument for believers baptism and the logic of only believers being the people of God and I'm not gonna take questions about it because this is in no way introducing a change of Jefferson Park but I may it may help others ask questions afterwards so the reason we believe in believers baptism and the reason we believe in regenerative membership really comes down to the fact that Jesus changed everything when Jesus came he brought with him a new covenant So, Abraham was given promises. Jesus fulfills them. He is the final and perfect fulfillment of every promise. As Paul says, He is the Yes and Amen. And when He came, He brought with Him a new covenant, as Jeremiah says and as Hebrews confirms. As we looked at when we talked about the sermon, He is not just a prophet, He is the Son. And he comes to bring what Moses could not, and that is a final and absolute revelation of God and of grace. We could actually also look at Colossians 2, 11 and 12. We preached that a few months ago at a baptismal service. Here we see circumcision and baptism being talked about side by side. And a lot of times folks have said, well, baptism is just a new circumcision. Well, if we look at that text. What is what was that on the floor? And then also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, so there we're seeing that it's a regeneration of the heart, not the circumcision of Abraham that we're talking about by putting up the body, the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith. in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead." This is a text, oftentimes, folks will point to and say, baptism just replaces circumcision. They talk as if it's a one-for-one. There's a key word in that passage that makes it very clear it's different. The word faith. In the Old Covenant, the one being circumcised didn't have faith. In the New Covenant, the one who is baptized, who receives a son, we believe he has faith. So I think there we see baptism being introduced with a key concept of through faith. Acts 2, 38-41. This is a passage that actually is found throughout our Constitution. One of these great beginning texts to define the church that helps us in many ways. And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ. Remember there, the name of Jesus Christ. That'll help you Sunday. For the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children. And for all who are far off. Often enough, people will stop there and say, see, it's just like the old covenants for you and your children, where I think we have to continue, whom the Lord our God calls to himself. For the promises for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. I believe that's referring to those who eventually confess faith. And we've already mentioned Romans 4. The children of Abraham are no longer children of seed of offspring. The children of Abraham are children of faith. That's a key passage for a Baptistic interpretation. I'm not going to get questions. I'd love to hear private questions about that afterwards. Again, that's introducing no change to our actual makeup. 51 through 43, each member must agree to submit to the teaching of scripture as expressed in the statement of faith and must promise to keep the commitments expressed in the covenant. This too is not making any significant change except for the fact that the covenant is no different. Same statement of faith, Baptist faith and message, the covenant has changed. So that really is important for you to look over those commitments, test them, Ask if they're scriptural. Ask if you are committed to doing them. And suggest. Make suggestions. Make it better. Make it tighter. If we're missing a commitment that we should be making to one another, make it clear. So, this makes us Baptist again. Our Statement of Faith is a Baptist Statement of Faith. Again, there's really nothing that new there. Line 53 and 54, the elders shall be responsible for determining each person's qualification for membership. This is the practice now, only we could remove the word elder and put in deacon. So deacons nominate members and the church votes them in. So it's very clear, the elders will be responsible for determining each person's qualification they are not voting members in, the church does. And we'll get into that more. But here we just see that every member must be examined. There was a long trend for a long time, and I don't know where it started, but I hope it's ending, and that churches adopted a wide open door, front door policy, and had a very narrow or a hard closed back door policy. And so they would take anybody in, and never let it take anybody off their roles. So there's a lot of Baptist churches that have thousands of members and tens of attendants. And you could look at their roles and see that most of the people who are on their membership role, they're probably no longer with us. And the big problem here was the wide open front door. A very minimal examination. Whereas here, we always ask to hear your testimony and to hear you tell us what the gospel is, we really want to make sure that the open door is narrow, that we're examining everyone to see that there's a valid, a clear confession of faith. And we also want to make sure that the back door is fairly narrow and that we don't want anyone just kind of leaving without knowing where they are going and so forth. Yeah, I think I'll stop there before we get into the admission of memberships. We've already gotten that a little bit, but Section 1 qualifications, they need to be Christians, they need to be baptized as believers, they need to submit to the Statement of Faith, they need to submit to the Covenant, and elders will be the ones who determine a person's qualifications. Yes, go on. Do we specify immersion or sprinkling or anything with that baptism? Or is that addressed later? In the Constitution, we intentionally did not do that. Our statement of faith is clear on the mode, but given that our statement of faith is clear, we didn't think this was necessary in the Constitution. I will say this. Well, I can't speak for all the elders, so I'll just kind of speak individually here. My previous church, we had the policy when it comes to wholeheartedly believes in the faith as revealed in the Bible, each member must agree to submit to the teaching of Scripture as expressed in a statement of faith. They must agree to submit to the teaching of Scripture as expressed in a statement of faith. That allows for you to bring into question some of the doctrines. It doesn't mean you have to completely understand. It means you can't completely deny. So there's nothing in our Statement of Faith that you look at and you can't say, I absolutely disagree with that, but I'm going to do it anyway. You can't absolutely deny, but you don't also have to be absolutely convinced that it's all true. Our Statement of Faith is fairly basic. If it were more of a robust Statement of Faith, I think that would be a really important, helpful rule, such as if you get into a Statement of Faith that has a stronger view on God's providence. There, I would tell a lot of folks, You don't have to completely understand exactly what this is saying now. You can have questions about it. But if you ever get to the point where you actually disagree with it wholeheartedly, well, that would mean that you wouldn't be able to submit to it. Does that make sense? So, there's an openness there. You can have questions, but you can't deny it. Do we have to subscribe to all of the articles? You can't outright deny any of them. Submit to the teaching as in there. Yeah, I think in part you were referring to language that existed in Third Avenue. Yeah, the word hold hardly, for example, I think that you have to wholeheartedly believe in the Christian faith. But the next step regarding the statement of faith is that you have to be willing to submit to the teaching. Yeah. So so there, if you have a question of a certain part, you would just want to come talk to the elders and. Yeah, we would we would walk through it. So, Alan, he had some questions about the apparent pacifist statement. But it's not a pacifist statement since it says war is always to be avoided by all Christians. It says we're supposed to do everything in our power to end war. Well, I think I can interpret that as a Christian soldier. It was written in such a way that a Christian soldier could obey that. He's going to end the war by going. Not to get too technical, but so what does this mean for someone who was sprinkled as a believer? Our practice has not changed because our statement of faith has not changed. Our practice is that you have to be immersed as a believer. We just didn't add that to the Constitution because it's already in the statement of faith. Alright. Section for admission beginning in verse 55 through 58. To be admitted into membership applicants must be recommended by the elders for admission and accepted by two-thirds of vote for the members at any members meeting and shall at that point relinquish their membership in other churches. This is Still not changing really anything other than the fact that it's the elders who are making the recommendation, not the deacons. The two-thirds vote is, well, it's not as an arbitrary number. We didn't want to simply be a 51% because it is a commitment to one another. But, well, so far we've functioned as a rare Baptist church in that we've had 100% votes. And I would love for that streak to continue forever. but we're sinners and so we're not going to have a 100% vote on all things. So we felt the two-thirds vote was a high bar but not necessarily a difficult or maybe an impossible one there. I want to go back to the first Corinthians 5 because it's important that this is a great declaration here in this part of the Constitution. We are a congregational church. We have a congregational church government. I think that may be new for some. Lord willing, we will be elder-led. We are and will continue to be a congregational church. That means the final authority lies in the congregation. Because the congregation votes in their elders who lead, the congregation votes in the church members. So you have the authority as to And the responsibility, let's actually emphasize that, the responsibility concerning who's in, how you care for them, and then who's out. So 1 Corinthians 5, I think, is one of the clearest passages concerning that because when you assemble, you're removing those brothers or sisters who are not repentant. Well, again, the logic is if they have the authority and responsibility to vote them out, they have the authority and responsibility to vote them in. And so, I believe that God has given great authority to the congregation. Matthew 18, the keys of the kingdom, or the power to bind and to loose, I believe is given to the church there. It doesn't say the elders of your local church, it says the church. So, there's great authority. Together, we have a lot of authority, but let's always look at that as responsibility. And the last thing I'll say before taking a time of questions, at that point you shall relinquish your membership in other churches. You can't have two churches. That would be confusing for you, us, and everyone else. Any questions about that short little section on admission? Very similar. That's what we do now. All right. Well, next section. Seeing no questions regard discipline. I'm going to read the next two paragraphs together, so you'll just have to flip down. Formative discipline is the objective of much of the Church's activity. Indeed, we are charged by our Lord to make disciples. However, because of the presence of sin in our lives, occasions do arise where it is necessary for the Church corporately to call upon individuals or groups to repent of certain actions. The purpose of such corrective discipline is for repentance, reconciliation, and spiritual growth of the individual discipline, for the instruction in righteousness and good of other Christians as an example to them, for the purity of the Church as a whole for the good of our corporate witness to non-Christians and supremely for the glory of God by reflecting His holy character. Any member consistently neglectful of his or her duties or guilty of conduct by which the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be dishonored and so opposing the welfare of the Church shall be subject to the admonition of the elders and the discipline of the Church The elder shall follow the biblical guidelines for corrective church discipline as outlined in, and there you have some text that we'll walk through and you can study later. So, yeah, there's a whole trajectory of what discipline is here. Discipline, typically in our language, Or typically, in certain groups' language, when we talk about church discipline, they always refer to really what the bottom part is referring to, and that's excommunication. Whereas, I think it's helpful to renew the beauty of the word discipline in that everything we do is actually discipline. Sunday morning, we're all being disciplined by God's Word. Discipline is a good thing. Discipline trains us up. Discipline purifies us. Discipline points out our sin, points us to the glory of the cross. So, formative discipline is the object of much of what we're doing. So, I'm always wanting to encourage you in the gospel. That's a way of disciplining you. That's a way of making disciples. We're always wanting to challenge one another and scare one another. That's a way of discipling. And as the Constitution alludes to, this is part of the Great Commission. We're supposed to be making disciples. We also see that God disciplines those he loves. It's a good thing. So it's not just excommunication. And that's kind of what we're hoping to do with this whole section is, well, we're trying to define our grammar. As we're a body, and we're going to be talking to one another, When we talk about discipline, we're not talking about removing people. We're talking about caring and discipling. Discipline is a bigger picture that includes much more. So we can look at 61 through 63. However, because of the presence of sin in our lives, occasions do arise where it is necessary for the church corporately to call upon individuals or groups to repent of certain actions. Here we see that discipline oftentimes requires hard conversations. This is where the admonishing, correcting, and possibly the eventual excommunication takes place. Some verses that you can look at are related to this kind of correcting, admonishing. James 5.20, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. 1 Timothy 5.20, as for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear. 1 Timothy 5.20, Luke 17.1-5, And Jesus said to his disciples, Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and turns to you seven times, saying, I repent, you must forgive him. 2 Timothy 4.2 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, Reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching. Titus 1.13, this testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith. Titus 2.15, declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. And then, as you can see, 1 Corinthians 5 is a very foundational text for us as we think about church. For though absent in body, I am present with you in spirit. And if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord, you are to deliver this man for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. So, I list those verses and I'll just kind of focus here on 1 Timothy 5, 20. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear. So, we're going to get into the motivations, but one is that there's a model of fear of sin. And this is why it says, rebuke them in front of all. Luke 17, 1-5 really is articulating what I hope becomes our everyday language with one another. repenting, forgiving. We must always be repenting and forgiving, repenting of our sin, forgiving those who sin against us. But there he makes it very clear, rebuke. Pay attention to yourselves. If a brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. So all that to say that discipline, our call to make disciples here with one another, it requires hard conversation. Any question or comment on that? If you want those verses, I can give them to you afterward. Sections are the lines 63 through 67. Show us the good end for discipline. It shows us if we have these ends in mind, then that means that our discipline, our care, our admonishing They're going to be done correctly. So, this gives us the end goal. The purpose of such corrective discipline is for the repentance, reconciliation, and spiritual growth of the individual discipline. We see that in the Luke 17 teaching of Jesus. They repent, you forgive, you're reconciled. For the instruction in righteousness and good of other Christians as an example to them. That is really the 1st Timothy 5.20. Rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear. for the purity of the church as a whole. This is where our Regenerate Church membership, our desire for that, really is a doctrine that guides and directs us, believing the church is supposed to be made up of believers. I believe it was Basil Manley, Jr., one of the founders of Southern Seminary, he was talking about revivals that were taking place in South Carolina, and the report from the revival that was a great success was that five people removed from the church. Now, who's ever thought of a revival like that? But, they're excited because the local church now greater reflects the universal church. The Holy Nation, the Chosen Race, the Royal Priesthood, the Kingdom of Priests, it reflects better than the one who has called them. Our goal is to be a committed body of believers. And then, for the good of our corporate witness and non-Christians, churches that sweep under the rug a husband cheating on his wife, acting not doing anything, they can't preach the gospel. If you're not taking sin seriously, you can't really take the gospel seriously. If you lose the hard sin, If you lose the difficulty of sin and you act like it's not a big deal that this woman has now lost her husband, this man has gone and broken his covenant with God, with her and with the church. If you ignore that, not disciplining him, you can't preach the gospel. You're not taking sin seriously. You have no need for grace and you don't have the gospel. So church discipline is evangelism. It's evangelism because you're telling the world we take sin Seriously, we see how dangerous it is. It's also evangelism and it makes the body more effective because, well, the worst thing for a church is to have non-Christians trying to influence it from within. Non-Christians trying to influence a church from within will misguide it and misdirect it. And this is why I am for the supreme glory of God by reflecting His holy character. Discipline, admonishing, correcting sinners who are Christians and removing those who are demonstrating that they're not, is a way of glorifying God and having the church reflect his character. Before I get into the more difficult focus on excommunication, any questions about those purposes? You all aren't asking questions tonight. All right. Any member Line 68, any member consistently neglectful of his or her duties are guilty of conduct by which the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be dishonored and so opposing the welfare of the church shall be subject to the admonition of the elders and the discipline of the church. The elders shall follow the biblical guidelines for corrective church discipline as outlined in Matthew 18 15, where we've already seen, go to him, if he doesn't respond, take someone else. If he still doesn't respond, take him to the assembly. The focus there is on the church's authority and on the unrepentant. Matthew 12, 8, seek to be peaceful with all men. That's really going to be a... 12, 18, seek to be peaceful with all men, really seeking to bring peace to the situation. 1 Corinthians 5, 4-5, we've already read a number of times. 2 Corinthians 2, 6-7, be quick to forgive and comfort them. Don't overwhelm them, especially those who are repentant. Galatians 6-1 calls us to restore those who are caught in transgression. Be gentle with them. And then 1 Timothy 5, 19 and 20, if you're accusing an elder, make sure there are witnesses, and making it public is a warning for the well-being of others. So that is, we're actually beginning really the excommunication. Corrective Church disciplines in the back, and here we're going to walk through the, what we want to make sure we're walking through is as clear as possible how it will happen. Corrective church discipline should ordinarily... Yes, Paul. Yeah. The one time I didn't ask for questions. I think I understand the guilty of conduct portion at the beginning, but when you say his or her duties, are you referring to the covenant that we promised to keep or something broader? The covenant is where we'd start. What will it be? To just quote scripture, regularly assembling with one another. If someone is just refusing to come for whatever reason, we've gone to them, we encourage them to come, and we've gone with two, they encourage them to come. If they refuse to have any affiliation with the body, they're not part of another church that we know, then that would be not doing their duty in terms of being with the church. But again, there's lots of duties in church. In scripture, there's some that just make it so obvious that there's something going on. There's unrepentant sin. I think it would be a good idea if it were spelled out a little bit more, even by adding a slight phrase like his or her duties as a Christian, because it's just too To me, it's too vague in general. The way it's phrased now, it could it could be construed as. You were supposed to usher a new myth, so now we're going to, you know, church you. I keep Brian taking notes. So, yeah, I just think it needs to somehow be a little more specific. OK, I'm very comfortable with your answer and supportive of church discipline. Yeah, but focusing on what those duties are would be helpful if if beyond the covenant and so forth. So good. Good observation, gentlemen. Alright, I'm going to start again. Very good. First, section 74, line 74. Corrective church discipline should ordinarily be contemplated after individual private admonition has failed. So again, we're making it very clear. We're now just trying to apply Matthew 18, Jesus' own teaching on how this happens. Anyone with a charge against a fellow member shall attempt to address the concern in accordance with Jesus' instructions in Matthew 18. Should one's brother or sister in Christ refuse to listen, the concern shall be taken to the elders." Now, I want to stop right there. And the reason we say that is that if you go individually, we're recommending that you then bring an elder. The next person that will go with you is an elder. And then the elders will be able to give you advice and clarity on what's happening. So there's a bit of an interpretation in just saying, The people that may be able to best help the reconciliation admonition would be the elders. The elders shall be entrusted with the responsibility of pursuing both formative and corrective discipline, including admonition, suspension from the Lord's table, removal from ministry service and teaching responsibilities, and if necessary, recommendation of removal from membership. A two-thirds vote at any members meeting with two weeks notice is required for dismissal. So we already see there the two-thirds, whatever is voted to bring in, that's what's voted, that's what's required to remove, especially with the recommendation of removal. Now this isn't like a trajectory list. These are the things we're going to start doing along the way. This is just the number of things giving the elders a clear right to remove from the offender. The last one It's simply the last thing we want to do, but maybe the best thing for the person is a recommendation to the body that they would vote to remove them. So that list of corrective discipline, suspension from the Lord's table, removal from ministry or service or teaching, those are just giving the elders the right to just remove those opportunities and responsibilities from the person while reconciliation is being sought if they're unrepentant. Does that make sense? Alright. Line 84. The church shall recognize the termination of a person's membership following his or her death and may do so by a two-thirds vote at any members meeting following his or her voluntary resignation or joining with another church or by discipline. So, just to make it clear, there's four ways you can leave the church. One's by dying. Then you're in the church. And your shepherd is fantastic. You join the church, triumphant, very good. You can voluntarily resign. You can join another church, or you are excommunicated. So those are the four options. the church of authority to refuse a member's voluntary resignation or transfer of membership to another church either for the purpose of proceeding with a process of church discipline or for any other reason the church deems necessary or prudent. And so I know there's been lots of discussions in the past year. We've had a few since I've been here about the prudence or wisdom of a voluntary resignation. The key here is, if that remains in the Constitution, is that the elders and the church have the right to refuse that volunteer resignation. So I always use the word Bill, or I use the name Bill for those of you who may have named Bill and wonder if I'm talking about you. Bill wants to transfer membership because he's being pursued for discipline. He thinks that's kind of the way out of this awkward situation by going and joining another church that doesn't really care. Well, we have the right to refuse his resignation here. And we'll be in communication with that church he's trying to join with. So you can't escape the care of the church in that way, because the church has authority to refuse a member's voluntary resignation. And that's actually a beautiful picture. Because if that person is put forward to request transfer, And the church all votes, no, we're not letting you out of our care. How much you want to leave it. It's a beautiful declaration of love and care for that person. So that's why congregational is so beautiful. It's the whole church making a declaration. Yeah, Ann? I just have a question. In that situation, if that person is wanting to leave because he's being disciplined and he doesn't want to deal with it, and we say no, eventually, if he doesn't want to deal with it and he's refusing to repent, is it that eventually we would make him leave, right? We would vote him out. Yes. I mean, if he were to continue unrepentant, then that would be a situation where it would inevitably, I assume, I can't imagine a way it would not lead to excommunication, in which there you're just looking at the church's authority and it causes lots of confusion and difficulty. But this church has to do what its responsibility is, according to scripture, and that is to care for him, hoping that that word would actually get to him and he would see the danger he's in and repent. So it's a matter of us as a church doing it the proper way, not just letting them go off on their own. I don't know how many stories I've heard of, I mean I use the example of a man leaving his wife in a church not exercising discipline over them. Just saying, oh well, you know, I don't know what their excuse is, but they say, we don't believe in that, we believe in grace. And we don't believe in excommunication and discipline, we believe in grace. No, you don't, as I explained earlier. But it's not caring for the wife. It's just letting this man go off and possibly do it again. There's no correction there. So that's why it's important for us to say, if Bill leaves his wife and thinks he's going to just kind of scoot out and go to another church, we're going to do everything we can. Now, he may not care if we do it or not, but we're going to do everything we can out of the authority that God's given us to care for her and to care for him, and giving him a warning He's handing his life over to Satan, hoping that it would come out purified. This is spiritual authority we're talking about. It's ours, based upon 1 Corinthians 5 and Matthew. So if a person, sorry, if a person is excommunicated from the church but repents eventually, like say two, three years down the road, you know, then what? Can they come back or how does that work? No, we would hope they would. Absolutely. There's nothing more beautiful than a reconciliation between someone who's been removed by discipline and then repenting and coming back and fellowshipping and that's a rejoicing. We pray for that rejoicing for those who have been excommunicated. Ron? In that situation, I'm not sure that it's the same person who was disciplined in 1 Corinthians that Keith read about the man having something that even the pagans wouldn't do, having relationships with his mother. But I think it's in 2 Corinthians. But anyway, it says, whether that's the same man or not, but it says if that person repents who's been removed, And we shouldn't add to it. We shouldn't put a whole bunch of hurdles for him to come back. We welcome him with open arms graciously. And that was the second Corinthians six passage that was listed to six. Yeah. All right, last one over. Yeah. Any other questions, the last little section here? Any member having moved out of a local area who has not already transferred membership to another church shall be removed from membership in this church after six months unless the elders recommend continued membership due to particular circumstances. Now this kind of goes along with the idea of a voluntary resignation, which we hope that really never happens, but here It's really just recognizing the reality that if someone has moved out of Virginia, let's just say they have moved out of Virginia, there's just no real way we should continue to pretend that we have any real care for them. And so it's giving a period that I think is generous in the sense that they should be able to find a church in that time period, unless apparently they're going to Vermont, which you have some options. But the idea here is that we can't pretend that we're still covenanting with someone who is removed from us permanently. The idea here is permanent residential movement. Keith, there is a problem there if the person is in the military and they go away for a year's tour. Yeah. That's why the permanent resident, like if you sell your home here and you're buying a new home somewhere else, without any idea that you're ever coming back here, then that would happen. An example of how this wouldn't happen if this Constitution was voted in would be the Bowmans, who plan on coming back. They'll be gone for more than six months, but they would actually have the option of not resigning their membership just because it's a special circumstance. This is just because some folks, even though our covenant will say you'll find a church like-minded as soon as possible, that doesn't always happen. And it makes it very difficult on elders and well right now on deacons and I in that we're still trying to encourage folks from years ago to find the church. When I'd be quick to remove them, but if they've moved out of state, they sold everything, military would be one of those exemption possibilities. Do you have a question? All right, so that's membership. I mean, the heavy one there is, you know, the discipline. The authority that's given to the church. The body. Not a pope, not a vicar of Christ, not even the elders, I think the elders have authority in the church, but not the church is the authority. So we're. Lord willing, going to be a congregational church. Any questions or comments? What about responsibility of members next week? Yes. Yeah. The next the next section, we responsibility of the various parties, one responsibility of the members. And that actually may be where we define that duties more. Stephen Paul, that may be that why that section comes in handy, make it cross-reference. Elders and deacons, so yeah. This was just pure membership. Membership proper and then we'll get into membership responsibilities. Yes, Brian? We actually discussed adding a separate section, and instead of doing that, we determined that we thought given the covenant, which describes the responsibilities that you're committing to, and the description that we'll talk about next time in terms of the role in government and in service that members have, that those two sections would provide the background for that without a separate section or duties on membership. Any other questions? We're right at time, depending on whose time we're keeping. Maybe we're over time. Somebody's time. Well, let me pray for us and feel free to ask any questions about this privately.