Discernment Gone Wrong

00:00:05.000 | Discernment is a good thing. It's an essential thing in the Christian life.

00:00:09.000 | But there's also a discernment gone wrong, something Pastor John addressed in his sermon on Romans 16, verse 17.

00:00:15.000 | What follows is a clip from his sermon, "Watch out for those who lead you away from the truth," preached on November 5, 2006. Here's what he said.

00:00:24.000 | How can dividing from a false teacher who rises up in the church promote unity?

00:00:32.000 | How can dividing promote unity?

00:00:34.000 | Which is what he evidently believes it does, because he says, "Watch out for those who cause disunity.

00:00:39.000 | Withdraw from them. Divide from them. Watch out for the dividers. Divide from them."

00:00:45.000 | The only way you can make sense out of that is to believe there's some kind of division that's right and some that's wrong.

00:00:51.000 | What's wrong is the kind, or what's right is the kind that's based on those people having left the doctrine.

00:00:58.000 | So Paul's strategy here for preserving unity that he so long swore in the first part of verse 17 is to call for another kind of disunity,

00:01:08.000 | namely, that doesn't hang out with people who are on their way away from the doctrine.

00:01:16.000 | With regard to the command, "Watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you've been taught,"

00:01:28.000 | it's possible to go overboard with that watching out. It's possible to go overboard.

00:01:34.000 | I'm really hesitant to even say this, because I don't think we live in a world where that's our sin, by and large.

00:01:40.000 | Some churches, some people, maybe it's not America's besetting sin.

00:01:45.000 | So I'm hesitant, and yet I know that it happens.

00:01:49.000 | And so I want to warn you against it and summon you back to a biblical balance.

00:01:55.000 | What I mean by going overboard with watching out is that you can become so obsessed with doctrinal error

00:02:05.000 | that you lose the ability to rejoice in doctrinal truth.

00:02:10.000 | You can. I've seen it. I've seen it. You can become so obsessed with purity, you cannot rejoice in the truth that should undergird it.

00:02:24.000 | I thought, it's like one of those dogs, they're beagles usually, who are trained to sniff out drugs at the airport.

00:02:35.000 | And they're trained, maybe, I don't know, I've never seen one on his off hours.

00:02:41.000 | They're trained so completely to sniff out drugs that that's all they do is sniff out drugs.

00:02:47.000 | If you come into their house, they just go sniffing at you, sniffing at your purse,

00:02:51.000 | and sniffing at your pockets, and sniffing at anything you have in your hands.

00:02:54.000 | Well, this is not a way to welcome people in the church.

00:03:00.000 | So, it's possible to become so obsessed, to be so trained in drug sniffing, that all you do is sniff drugs.

00:03:08.000 | I mean, sniff trying to find them.

00:03:20.000 | And I don't want us to go there as a church. I don't want to be there as a person.

00:03:24.000 | When I read the book of Romans, you step back and look at the whole book of Romans,

00:03:27.000 | yes, Paul pauses, chapter 3, chapter 8, these places he pauses and he draws attention to the mess people are making of his teaching.

00:03:37.000 | The sin that grace may abound, and he warns, but in the big picture,

00:03:41.000 | Romans is just a magnificent display of the work of God in Christ for our salvation.

00:03:47.000 | It's a magnificent display that should cause us not mainly to say,

00:03:51.000 | "Now I've got ten weapons with which I can destroy enemies, but rather, I'm saved! I'm saved!

00:03:59.000 | I've got a solid rock under my feet! I'm going to heaven, I'll see Him someday!"

00:04:04.000 | So, let the spirit of delight in the truth be the main thing people taste at this church.

00:04:12.000 | And then pray, especially for the elders, that we do have a good beagle nose

00:04:17.000 | for any kind of slippage or any kind of movement that would be away from the apostolic teaching.

00:04:24.000 | That was an excerpt from John Piper's sermon, "Watch Out for Those Who Lead You Away from the Truth,"

00:04:28.000 | which was preached on November 5, 2006.

00:04:31.000 | You can find the full sermon at DesiringGod.org, just search for the title there.

00:04:36.000 | And related to this, on the centrality of emotion in the Christian life,

00:04:40.000 | be sure to check out episode number 239 in this podcast series,

00:04:43.000 | which was titled, "Why Stoicism is Toxic."

00:04:47.000 | Well, when it comes to joy and obedience, which comes first?

00:04:51.000 | Does obedience come before joy, or does joy come before obedience?

00:04:56.000 | Hmm. We'll ask Pastor John that very question tomorrow.

00:04:59.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:05:03.000 | [ Silence ]