Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Opening Illustration: Woods of Sin

The great Puritan John Owen once famously wrote, “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.”

These words are at the heart of our text today.

When a person becomes a Christian they enter into a new life.

John Owen describes the condition of our soul before knowing Jesus as woods.

Now you might think of woods as beautiful, but in this image their overgrown and out of control.

When you become a Christian the Lord clears away a patch in the woods.

He takes away some trees and some shrubs and the brush of sin.

A little victory over sin here, new patches removed over there.

But there is still great woods to be cleared away.

The Christian life is eager to keep clearing away more brush, more woods.

If ever we cease the work of clearing the brush and the woods away they grow back ferociously, and threaten our entire soul.

Personal

What woods and brush of sin are you clearing away right now? Are you busy with the work of rooting out sin in your life, or is the brush and the woods slowly gaining ground?

What sin in your life are you actively killing in this season?

Context

Today we approach a turning point in the book of 1 Corinthians.

In the opening two verses of this chapter Paul calls out two very specific problems/siutations taking place in this Church in Corinth.

First, in verse 1, we see that there is a man who is having an affair with his stepmother.

This is an egregious sexual sin that ought not be tolerated among the people of God.

But the second problem we see in verse 2, is that the Corinthian Church is arrogant about it.

It seems to be the case that this Church is touting this man’s sin as a mark of their freedom in Christ.

It seems that they saw this man’s sin as an evangelism strategy to the world, “Look, Jesus has forgiven all of our sins, so you can do whatever you want.”

In our text today Paul addresses both of these problems and how the Church ought to handle them.

He essentially gives three main pieces of advice, and I want to walk through all three of them together with you.

Big Idea: Be killing sin or it will be killing you.

Advice 1: Do Not Tolerate Unrepentant Sin

First piece of advice from Paul.

Do not tolerate unrepentant sin.

1 Corinthians 5:3-5 “3 For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.

4 When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”

I Have Already Pronounced Judgement (3)

This langauge might strike you as odd, but it ought not.

The Church is a government unto itself.

When a person becomes a Member of a Church, which every Christian is obligated to do, they willingly submit themselves underneath the governing structures authorities of the Church.

When paul says, “I have pronounced judgment,” he’s saying that he, as an Apostle, has heard the case and made a determination what should be done.

This is the general practice of Eldership in the Church.

When we as Elders meet, cases are often brought before us that need discernment for how to handle them.

And the elders pronounce judgments, like a judge might do in a Civil Court.

The Judgment is Excommunication (4)

The judgment to be dealt out is excommunication from the community.

When he says, “Deliver this man to Satan,” it carries with the idea of a “herd of animals.”

When herds stick together, they are protected from wild animals who love to attack an animal from the herd whos strayed away.

So by casting this man out from the community, you are casting him into the Devil’s playground.

You’re causing him to leave the support of the community, to be all alone.

So that his spirit might be saved (5)

Why? “so that his spirit might be saved.”

Paul’s concern for this man is his salvation.

And so Paul sees this excommunication as a step of grace.

The ultimate end purpose is salvific.

Paul wants to see this man in heaven, and he’s concerned that if major action is not taken now, this man will never truly know Christ.

This Man is not a Christian

To our modern ears, most of you are probably thinking.

That man just needs to go to therapy, he doesn’t need to be kicked out of the Church.

But the problem is deeper.

The root problem is that this man is claiming to be a Christian.

He’s a member of the Church.

He’s claimed to have truly believed in Jesus, to have experienced the new birth, yet he’s continuing in sexual sin, a sort of sexual that even the unbelievers won’t have anything to do with, incest.

His behavior is revealing, that he’s never believed in Christ.

1 John 2:4-6 “4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.

By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”

Some of you might be thinking about sin in your life and saying to yourself, “Is this me?”

If you’re worried about ongoing sin in your life then this is not you.

The person that should be truly concerned is the person who has ongoing sin in their life, and they’re not worried about it.

Their sin is just normalized.

Illustration: NPR Podcast on Synagogue Discipline

A few years I was listening to a story NPR was running on Jewish communities.

And a story was told of a young man in a Jewish community who was punished for sin in his life.

The Jewish community excommunicated him from the entire community.

Nobody was allowed to talk to him.

It wasn’t just a Sabbath worship thing.

You couldn’t call him.

You couldn’t talk to him on the street.

This discipline process uprooted his entire life, because he was Jewish, and now he couldn’t buy his Kosher groceries from his butcher because his butcher was in his synangogue.

He couldn’t do anything.

He was put out of the synagogue and left in a place where he truly was alone.

And in that place he realized how desparately he needed his faith community.

And after two months he came crawling back to the community, repenting of his sin, and the community was restored.

We Forget We are God’s Temple

The reason I think Paul’s advice in this chapter falls on deaf ears is because we’ve lost our sense of communal purpose.

Too often the Church gets treated like a social club or a community center, a place to make friends.

I don’t want to minimize that because I believe the strongest friends you will ever make will be those that you make through the Church.

But the Church has a higher purpose.

Our highest aim, our communal sense of identity.

Remember what we saw in chapter 3, “We are God’s temple (3:17).”

The place on Earth where the glory of God dwells, not in a building, but in a people.

So when the world looks in on this community, Park South Loop, they ought to look in and say, “I see the glory of God on display.”

The Point

The point I’m making is that as a Church we ought not tolerate unrepentant sin.

Well before we get to excommunication (that’s an extreme that is rarely, if ever, used), we ought to be a community pushing each other, holding each other accountable, striving towards godliness together in love and charity towards one another.

Sexual Immorality

Let me deal with the sexual immorality for a second.

The word in verse 1 that is translated “sexual immorality” is the Greek word porneia which is the root word obviously of our English word Pornography.

The word in Paul’s day highlighted all sexual sin outside of God’s design.

The Bible has a very high and very clear sexual ethic.

Our culture today, and frankly many Churches today, falsely teach something like what this 1 Corinthians Church was saying.

Many people think that the God of the New Testament has nothing to say on sexual ethics.

Church—This is false.

There is no confusion biblically on this.