An excellent sermon entitled “Have We Left Our First Love,” was delivered by Paul Tautges at my home church, Immanuel Bible Church, on January 30, 2011. Excerpts from the sermon are below, but I would strongly recommend that you listen to the whole thing by clicking on the link:
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=130111255579“A faithful pastor is one who understands that he ministers not by his own authority, but under the divine care and protection and authority of God and the word of Christ. He is a man who knows that ultimately he will stand before Jesus and give an account for his ministry… He carries out his ministry under the sovereign authority and accountability of Jesus Christ. That is a sobering reality and if a man does not get that, he ought to get out of the ministry. He doesn’t belong in a pulpit if he doesn’t understand that.”
(11:40-12:40)
“Jesus walks among us. There’s no room for cheap Hollywood marketing and entertainment in the life of a church where Jesus is walking. No room for it. Jesus has the authority and the right to inspect our church when he wants to, he can walk through this sanctuary whenever He wants to, He is walking among us right now by virtue of the Holy Spirit, He is inspecting every heart and every mind in this room.” (14:30-15:00)
“There is another quality that Jesus commends them for, and that is that they were intolerant of immorality. Now that flies in the face of everything in our culture, doesn’t it? That Jesus would commend a church for being intolerant? Oh, but we live in the day and age of tolerance! The only thing we cannot tolerate is someone who is intolerant! Jesus COMMENDS them for being intolerant of immorality. Look what He says, ‘you cannot endure evil men.’” (18:30-19:10)
“The church is a family as well, and when there is sin in the family it better get dealt with. If it doesn’t get dealt with then it’s going to infect and affect everybody else, same way it does in your own family” (20:45-21:05)
“That’s the responsibility that Christ places upon the local church–to judge it’s own people. We have no business going out into the world and judging unbelievers, God will take care of that. We have the business of judging each other, right here in the church! and if there’s open scandalous sin within our own local assembly and we are unwilling to deal with it, we are about to recieve the chastening of God, The judgement of God.” (25:20-25:50)
“Is this easy? Not on your life is this easy! I’ll be the first leader in this church to admit that the past four to five years have been extremely difficult and draining because of the Biblical necessity of church discipline. During this time period, five men have been removed from our church for habitual, unrepentant fornication, marital unfaithfulness. Men leaving wives and children for other women, two who have since divorced their wives.” (26:05-26:45)
“loose, immodest, seductive, women wreck families.” (27:50).
“If we are going to be faithful to Christ, then we have no other choice. If we are to remain true to Jesus, we have no other choice. Looking away from gross sin is not an option in the church. It’s just not. It might be what some of you choose to do, out of cowardice, or out of buying into the mentality of the independant American Christian that what is someone else’s business is no business of yours. You may choose to be unfaithful to the Lord, and not correct one another, but in the end somebody in this church has to stand and has to do that kind of very difficult work.” (28:45-29:35)
“But perhaps we can help each other. Perhaps we can stop each other from ruining our lives. If we are courageous and loving enough to care. I will stand on record before you this morning as giving you permission to gently point out any sin patterns that you see in my life. I need you to do that. I’m just like you, I can be blind to my own sin just as you can be blind to your own sin.” (30:40-31:10)
“So I ask you, what about you? Do you give permission to the brothers and sisters who are sitting around you to speak into your life? Or are you going to be one of these proud, arrogant, independant Christians that cannot be touched by anyone? If that’s not the kind of relationships that you want in the Christian life, then let me assure you that Immanuel is not the church for you. It’s just not. Because we will get in each other’s face, not because we like to act like jerks, or because we like to throw our weight around, but because we are striving to love each other enough to say ‘this is wrong, this will destroy you, you must turn back.’ Are we going to love each other enough to rescue each other before sin destroys another family? (32:15-33:10)
“Perhaps you are wondering what’s going wrong in our church? Why have so many people been disciplined out of our fellowship in the last four to five years? Why are so many marriages crumbling before our very eyes? What are we doing wrong? Perhaps as a member you are concerned. Let me just give you this principle, maybe it will help you: the ABSENCE of church discipline in a local church, not its presence should be a cause of great concern to you as a church member. That should be a much greater concern to you, if we were a church that did not believe in discipline. If there are other churches in town that do not faithfully pratice church discipline, than they must answer to God. They must answer to Jesus. If they choose to sweep sin under the rug because it involves a well-liked leader or prominent community leader or generous giver to the church, that is something that they’re going to have to answer to Jesus for, but we have to do what God has called us to do as a local assembly. And I would rather be small and pure and pleasing to God, than a mega church that’s filled with open, scandalous sin. And I also must say, as difficult as these years have been, how thankful I am for the courageous men that God has surrounded me with, to walk through these difficult things together because I believe that God commends them, and I believe that you should commend them too. Even if you don’t agree with anything else the leadership team does, please, at least recognize that we are redeemed sinners who are striving to please God, and thank God for the spiritual fortitude that these men have to handle some very difficult situations, to do the best that we know how, according to scripture. Be thankful for the tears that they have shed, be thankful for the weight that they carry upon their shoulders. (34:45-37:20)
“No you are not free in Christ to do whatever you please. You and I are free in Christ to do whatever pleases HIM.” (41:45-41:55)
“If you do not understand that, go home this week and read I Corinthians 8, 9, and 10, over and over and over until you get to the understanding that love always triumphs over liberty. What that means is my love for you must be greater than my love to defend my own personal rights to do what I want to do. If I’m not willing to surrender some of my personal rights for your sake, then I don’t love you, no matter how much I might claim to.” (42:25-55)
“In holy Christian love, there is room for hatred of evil. Now that may sound odd to you, but it’s true.” (43:15-25)
“See, a church can only exist for so long in a loveless state. Without love, it ceases to be a living church. It begins with our love for Jesus, which then spills over into our love for each other.” (54:10-54:30)
