Corinthian COVID

Corinthians  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  34:38
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Masks - What You Do Affects Me

That’s a funny mask. Let’s play spot the goat. It’s a trick, they are all goats wearing masks.
If I had told you one year ago today that masks would be all the rage in a years time, you would have called me a crazy person.
Now it seems rare, scandalous even, to see the lower half of someone’s face. Ooooh, we must be family.
I understand some people hate masks, some people can’t wear them… but I suspect they aren’t going away. Like has already been the case in some places in Asia for many years, seeing people going about in masks is just the way life is now.
And we can see it as a government imposition… I get that.
But we can also see it as an act of love, even. I love you, I want to do anything I can to keep you from being sick. I am one who can wear a mask… so I will. Happy to do it. I’ll try and have fun with it (or be nerdy about it as is the case with my masks).
Here’s the reality… this was always true, but Corona has brought it home writ large.
What we do affects one another.
What I do affects you. What you do affects me.
Obvious? Yes. But this kind of flies in the face of our other great value “personal freedom” or “my liberty.”
How dare you tell me I have to wear a mask! How dare you tell me what I can and cannot do!
I get that. To be honest, I feel that. Ask me all day… but tell me what to do or what not to do and my hackles rise. “They will never take… our freedom!” (The irony of that movie, the English totally took their freedom after William Wallace died).
If you have the ‘Rona and you cough in my face… that’s likely to impact me, my life, my family. Of course it is.
Why are we talking about this?
There is a virus affecting the Corinthian church. It is one they aren’t acknowledging, one they aren’t dealing with… in fact they are laughing it off.
But it has the power to tear them apart.
They aren’t taking it seriously. And there is a yawning pit before the modern church… everything about our 21st century culture is setting the same trap. Christians and churches and whole denominations are falling in and falling apart.

Sarcastic Papa Paul

Paul has been “reeducating” the Corinthians on godly wisdom vs. wordly “wisdom”… and on godly servant upside-down leadership vs. arrogant boasting.
He just brought the sarcasm “Look how wise you are… you are kings… you’re so smart...”
Sarcastic Paul… but not to shame:
1 Corinthians 4:14 ESV
I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
Not to shame… but to admonish. Okay, maybe a little shame. But he’s going to turn to some harsher admonishment, and he wants to make sure they know it is coming from a place of love.
It wouldn’t be loving to leave them alone in their confusion… or in their sin.
1 Corinthians 4:15–16 ESV
For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me.
Paul is their spiritual father, he first preached the gospel to them, he loves them like a father.
1 Corinthians 4:17 ESV
That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.
1 Corinthians 4:18–20 ESV
Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.
1 Corinthians 4:21 ESV
What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?
I should try that line with my kids.
Trick question? Paul’s gearing up.

Sin in the Church

1 Corinthians 5:1 ESV
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife.
“father’s wife” might imply that it isn’t his mom. But a step-mom. But either way, gross, and either way, Paul calls it “sexual immorality.”
We are going to focus in on the “sexual sin” aspect of this next week. But, just for the record, “eeeeeewwww”.
The Romans and the Greeks, famously sexually immoral… even they were looking on and saying “ew.”
“Has” not “had”. This is an ongoing situation, not a past-time or one-time mistake.
But the church… they:
1 Corinthians 5:2 ESV
And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
“Arrogant”. Maybe they’re even bragging about it!
This is absolutely crucial to understanding this whole passage. You have ongoing unrepentant sin… and instead of that grieving their heart, they are bragging about it.
Maybe we can guess what the “bragging” might be like. Look how great is our freedom from sin! Look how radically accepting we are. Look at the power of grace… even this guy is welcome among us!
Or as Paul said to the Romans:
Romans 6:1 ESV
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
“This is a theology that misunderstands the power of grace and turns it into license” -Piper.
And if I say it that way. Something like “look how great our love is, how much grace we can show...” Sinners welcome!
Pieces of that resonate powerfully with us. There is great truth there.
But (as we’ll talk last week) there is a world of difference, maybe even an eternity of difference, between a repentant sinner and an ongoing, unrepentant choice.
And the church is “arrogant” instead of “grieving.”
Their “arrogance” was the basis of tolerance. Doesn’t that strike our “sensibilities” as backwards? When you hear someone has been excommunicated from a church, might you assume that it is because that church is arrogant and prideful? But this is the opposite.
It is their arrogance that leads them to think “oh, this is fine.”
It is their arrogance, perhaps, that might lead them to say “Oh, that’s not that sinful… or even, that’s not sinful at all.”
It is the height of arrogance for us to decide what is sinful and what is not, what is holy and what is not, what is “right” and what is not. We have guesses, we have ideas, but when our Creator speaks and says “that’s wrong...” we have to humble ourselves to admit that the one who made it all knows best.
That’s the situation. What’s the solution?
1 Corinthians 5:2 ESV
And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
What does this mean that this guy should be “removed” from among you???
This is one of those places where we get a picture of something like “individual church membership.” There’s a few others. Possibly related to this, there’s a “majority punishment” mentioned in 2 Cor 2:6. Here there is an “in” and an “out”.
And Paul counsels them. Put this unrepentant sinner “out.”
I don’t like the way that sounds.
I don’t like the way that feels.
This is “judgmental”, no way around it. Paul doubles down on it.
1 Corinthians 5:3–4 ESV
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. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus,
Wait… what? “pronounced judgment???” That sounds like some OT nonsense. The church assembled and passing judgment and
1 Corinthians 5:5 ESV
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.
WWWHHHAAAATTT??? Seriously? Did you know this was in here?
Satan - the adversary. (That’s what it means literally).
For the destruction of the flesh? What does that mean? They seem to be praying that his body would suffer, get sick, that something, anything would change in order to bring him to repentance… in order that his spirit may be saved.
More about that next week. We don’t want anyone to suffer unnecessarily. Stacked against eternity… I understand how he’s getting there. I still don’t like it, this is dangerous territory.
I think that’s why Paul puts himself out there. “I’m making this call.” He says. This requires incredible wisdom, great caution, this is church discipline.
I think of Job being “handed over”. Paul says something similar in Timothy concerning two others.
Why are they doing this? Why would they? To save their reputation, to serve as a cautionary tale, an example to others to stay away from sin?
No. “That his spirit may be saved.”
The intention of putting him out of the community is that he would realize his sin, confess, turn away from it.
But there is another reason. Paul reaches for an old metaphor, as old as the Exodus from Egypt. Leaven in bread… the leaven = sin.
1 Corinthians 5:6 ESV
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
A little yeast goes a long way, it multiplies, it can change the whole chemistry of the whole loaf…
It is a visual representation everyone would be familiar with. It’s a household magic. Add a bit of this… and watch the dough completely transform.
The metaphor breaks down because bread is delicious. But the danger is real!
Let this kind of ongoing unrepentant sin fester in the church… it’s going to change the chemistry of the whole community.
Or what you do affects me. What I do affects you.
This is the Corinthian COVID. COVID ‘52.
So not only for the good of this particular sinner… but also for the good of the whole church:
1 Corinthians 5:7–8 ESV
Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
This metaphor is weird to us, but he’s tying it to the Passover crackers… they didn’t have risen bread because they fled in a hurry and didn’t have time. It’s why we use “flat bread” (unleavened bread) for communion.
The bread of sincerity and truth.
If it wasn’t clear enough, Paul lays it out categorically.
1 Corinthians 5:9 ESV
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—
But didn’t Jesus hang with prostitutes and sinners? He did, the very worst of sinners. Paul’s not talking about sinners in need of Jesus,
It’s the sinners all “cleaned up” and dressed for church.
1 Corinthians 5:10 ESV
not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
1 Corinthians 5:11 ESV
But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
Woah. Really? Yup.
What is the difference between this list and all of us? Don’t we all struggle with sin?
In addition to a bastion for the Kingdom… isn’t the church also a hospital for people in recovery? A place where we can confess our sins, before God and to one another, receive grace and love and forgiveness.
“bears the name brother.” Note: not really a brother or sister in Christ. Someone passing themself off as Christian.
The vices listed are characteristics, continuous practices - not lapses or mistakes.
Ongoing, continuing, unrepentant sin.
And again, this isn’t about judging outside the church… it’s about being radically honest about ourselves. With one another. For one another.
1 Corinthians 5:12–13 ESV
For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

Sin and Judgment and Purging

Oh my!
I want to go on record. I don’t like this. I want to focus on love and grace. I want to be accepting in every way. I respond to the ideals of tolerance, of forgiveness.
And there is truth in that.
But the Corinthians had a fundamental misunderstanding of holiness.
God’s grace and forgiveness does not mean that God can or ever will compromise with sin. He can’t. It is anathema to His person, His character, His ontology. It doesn’t work.
God’s grace and forgiveness, the blood of Jesus, it offers us the opportunity to repent and be forgiven, to confess and be clean before God in every way.
Jesus is a lifeguard, saving us from drowning in sin and death.
He isn’t a scuba suit, allowing us to go deeper into sin and death. To bathe in it.
God is infinitely patient in our lapses, in our struggling to get whole, to get clean, to seek forgiveness again and again…
Again more about that next week.
This week, we have to acknowledge… what I do, my sin, it affects you. Profoundly. What you do affects me.
Sin is a big deal. It hurts all of us when any of us are shackled and encumbered by sin. So we are accountable to one another. We have to be.
This is a big part of what it means to be “church” together. I’m bound to you, in covenant, in spiritual contract… so your leaven is going to reshape my life. And vica versa.

Church Discipline

Love for the sinner, for the church, and for the glory of God
This is true of sin at the deepest levels. Dang it!
What we do in community impacts one another. Always. As a "covenant community", that means we are responsible to and for one another.
It also means that there are times where the most loving thing we can do for individuals and the community is to turn someone out (aka over to Satan). Yikes.
That’s church discipline. The sad reality is, and what stops most churches from practicing this, is that in today’s world of the Church Divided there will always be another church down the road that either doesn’t know or doesn’t care.
That’s not great. That doesn’t mean we are excused from doing what is ultimately the most loving thing for both the sinner and the church.
I don’t like it. We don’t have to like it. This is one of those hard things that we do because we are called to love big. To love radically.
I don’t like to punish my kids. I do it because I love them.
I don’t like to have hard, confrontational talks with my friends or my family. I do it. I struggle to… but I’m learning. I do it because I love and I want to love better and bigger.
I can tell you. If the day comes that I know you are living in ongoing, unrepentant sin, choosing it, boasting in it. You have asked me as your pastor to call you on it, counsel you on it, confront you on it.
By entering into covenant with us, you have invited the church to call you on it, counsel you on it, even challenge you on it.
This, too, is what it means to be “church” together. This is among the “one anothers.” This is what you have signed up for, what you are signing up for. What have you done???
God give us the wisdom...
God give us the courage....
God give us the humility to chase after holiness. Righteousness. The salvation of sinners and the saints.
Above all… give us the humility before the throne of God.
The humility to even begin to learn His holiness. His righteousness.
They aren’t saved by my tolerance. They are saved by His grace.
God, teach us this humility. That you are God, that you are holy, that you are love, that you are good… and that what you say is right and good is all that is right and good.
Teach us to treasure your holiness and righteousness. Bring us to repentance, always.
Show us, Lord, how to love one another radically… even in such a way as to call one another to repentance.
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