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1 Corinthians: The Grime and Glory of the Church • Sermon • Submitted
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Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 5:1-13
Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 5:1-13
1 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. 2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. 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. 6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 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. 8 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. 9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 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. 11 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. 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 13 God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
In the 16th century the English Reformers developed a criteria by which every one was to know what a true church actually was. This criteria was called the Three Marks of a True Church.
The marks were as follows:
(1) The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel;
(2) The church makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them;
(3) The church practices church discipline for correcting faults.
Now, the mark that is particularly important for us is the third mark. THE PRACTICING OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE!!!
What’s really interesting is that we are living in a generation and a culture that for the most part has never even heard of it and it is one of the three marks of a true church!!!
In the pursuit to fill our seats in our church or to keep the right people in seats, we often avoid this mark of a true church, but to be a disciple is to be submitted to the process of discipline.
Sometimes that discipline is more formative and occurs through instruction, teaching, community but every once in a while when a member of the church loses the will to fight that discipline must become corrective.
This is what is happening in the Corinth church...
The Sin
The Sin
1 Corinthians 5:1 (ESV)
1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you...
In this chapter Paul turns his attention from his lengthy counsel about division to another very important matter that he has received word about and that has the potential of destroying the church: sexual sin
But Paul has a particular sexual sin in mind here...
a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife.
A typical read of the scholars take on this story is that this is probably a stepson sleeping with his stepmom. Many believe that Paul would have just stated clearly that this was the boys mom if that was the case.
Either way, Paul sees it is a TERRIBLE violation of God’s law.
It is sexual sin
It is a betrayal of trust
It is a desecration of not only marriage but of family.
It is present and ongoing.
And the church seems to be totally unconcerned about all of it.
This act, that this man is giving free license to engage in, is a clear violation of the Kingdom sexual ethics.
7 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. 8 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness.
But Paul doesn’t even fix his attention on the Kingdom ethic. He makes an even more interesting point
Even Pagans won’t tolerate this!!!
Caesar Augustus introduced Roman laws in the 18 and 16 B.C. that punished these kind of acts by banning to a remote island.
Paul is clear about his intent here. There is no reason that the church should meet this level of unrepentant sin with a yawn and a wave while the rest of the world takes decisive action.
So what does Paul call for?
1 Corinthians 5:2b (ESV)
...Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
The question is why? What does this accomplish? It sends a message of love.
Church Discipline when done right sends a message of love even if that message is not necessarily received, but how does it do that?
Church Discipline displays love because it roots out arrogance.
Church Discipline displays love because it roots out arrogance.
Paul’s immediate response to the news that the Corinthian church has done nothing to address this sexual relationship between this man and his step-mother is found in verse 2.
2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
AND YOU ARE ARROGANT!!!!
This arrogance can be looked at 1 of 2 ways, arrogance IN SPITE OF this situation or arrogance BECAUSE OF this situation.
Arrogance could be IN SPITE OF because as we’ve been discussing for several weeks, the Corinthian church was severely divided because of the prideful and arrogant attitudes flowing through the church at the time of Paul’s letter. Attitudes so messed up that they were more worried about which person they were following rather than the God they were following.
So, by saying “AND YOU ARE ARROGANT IN VERSE 2” he could be saying that even in spite of this crazy sin running through your church untouched, you still have the gall to walk around with your chest poked out!
Paul may have their pride in spite of this situation in mind, but I believe his ultimately pointing to the pride they have because of this situation.
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
PRIDE DISGUISED AS FREEDOM - Their unwillingness to confront this brother in his sin is probably being used as mark of their maturity: “Look at how free we are in Christ. Look at how merciful we are in Christ. Look at how loving we are in Christ.”
THIS IS THE CHURCH who has a willful unrepentant sinner tearing through the church and does nothing but insults anyone who asks for accountability. They respond with platitudes like “nobody’s perfect! We’re not legalist! Everybody makes mistakes! Only God judges!”
All the while the leaven of bad morals is leavening the whole lump of the church, dividing it and destroying it.
Their tolerance of this ongoing violation of the marital covenant and a profaning of the family is a complete twisting of Christian mercy, freedom and love. And yet the Corinthians don’t appear to be moved.
There is a kind of Christianized talk that presents itself as freedom but ultimately leads to bondage of sin rather than true freedom in Christ.
There is a kind of Christianized talk that presents itself as merciful but is absent of mercy because it robs those caught in sin of the opportunity to grow and mature.
There is a kind of Christianized talk that presents itself as loving but is absent of love because we all know that love requires that wrong be corrected.
If your best friend is a bully and a jerk the most unloving thing you can do for them is to continue to allow them to be a bully and a jerk without ever challenging them.
It is not quite clear WHY they’ve given him a pass. Some scholars suspect, given the Corinthians tendency to put more attention on cultural status, power, popularity, and wealth, that he may have a strong standing in the community. Oftentimes, we’re willing to disregard terrible sins when a person with standing in the community, or power, or wealth is the source of the sin.
One thing for sure…Paul is not impressed.
While the church celebrates their passiveness and leniency in letting a willfully sinful person continue to willfully sin. Paul says that they should be mourning that such a thing has happened in their midst. THEY SHOULD BE SAD!
Paul continues in verse 3 with a false humility basher “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.”
Contrary to what we have been telling everyone who wants to listen there is a type of judgment that is absolutely necessary in the body of Christ. The judgment that must come forward in the church disciplining a wayward sinful member.
2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
PREVIOUS WARNING - Another reason for his frustration is because it appears this is not Paul’s first attempt to address sexual sin with the Corinthians
9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—
It appears that in a previous letter that we do not have access to, Paul laid out how the church should handle cases of sexual immorality and not only do they appear to be NOT doing it, but they appear to be boasting and gloating in not doing it.
GLOATING INSTEAD OF GRIEF
One more reason why this appears to really upset Paul. Because they’re gloating over sin instead of GRIEVING over sin.
This word here for grieving is a word often used for mourning that comes after someone dies. It’s as if Paul is saying this ongoing sinful conduct should be felt not with a cavalier smirk but with the weight of a life in our church being taken. Why do we so rarely feel that weight in the midst of unrepentant sin...
APPLICATION: ONE REASON IS BECAUSE OUR LIVES ARE SO ATTACHED TO A CULTURE THAT IS LITTERED WITH SIN AND WE ARE CONSTANTLY BEING SO BOMBARDED BY IMAGES, WORDS, AND THOUGHTS OF SIN DAILY THAT ARE SHAPING US AND DULLING US TO SIN’s IMPACTS and SERIOUSNESS.
When we are devoting 2-3 hours of our lives to grow in Jesus but devoting the other 110 waking hours of our week to the world, what other choice do we have?
The harm of sin will not be big to you until the beauty of Jesus is big to you and we grow deeper in our appreciation of the beauty of Jesus ONLY when we are spending time with Jesus.
Do you grieve over the unrepentant sins of your Christian brothers and sisters?
Do you grieve over your own sin that you still struggle with?
The absence of that grief probably reflects a need to be formed more in the image and likeness of Jesus; to spend time with Jesus in prayer and in Scripture, in service and in community with your church.
Discipline done well is a humble reflection of a people who are growing in Jesus and thus beginning to see unrepentant sin in the same lens as he does…in a way that grieves them and moves them to action.
Church Discipline is loving because it is commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Church Discipline is loving because it is commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 5:4–5 (ESV)
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.
When discipline is done right it is done in the presence of Jesus with the power of Jesus.
We know this to be true because Christ clearly commands the church to discipline its members locked in a pattern of unrepentant destructive sin
Jesus’ own words in Matthew 18
15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
So, to not perform discipline is to undermine the authority of Jesus himself and to truly miss out on what it means to love Him!
We also know that when discipline is done right it is done in the presence of Jesus with the power of Jesus, because Jesus defines love with the call and command to obedience.
Our obedience to Him is love for God: John 14:23-24
23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
Our obedience to Him is loved by God: John 15:10
10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.
So, the irony is that while many may choose not to execute Church discipline because of their “Love For God.” According to John 14, they may in fact be choosing not to execute church discipline because of their LACK of love for God!
When discipline is done right it is done in the presence of Jesus with the power of Jesus
Church discipline is loving because it preserves the whole church.
Church discipline is loving because it preserves the whole church.
When we look towards verses 5-8, we see that God is using discipline for this particular reason…to protect and preserve His church.
Here is what is interesting though. The preservation that He is aiming for is for both the transgressor and for those who have the ability to negatively impacted by the transgression.
First, Paul turns to the transgressor...
hurch discipline a reflection of our love for God but church discipline is absolutely one of the greatest reflections of our love for our brothers and sisters because discipline is an action done to preserve their soul!
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.
You may ask how so? Do you look at a child whose parents carefully but deliberately discipline their child for disobedience worse or better then you look at parents who let their children run wild and free to do whatever they want to do with no consequences for their actions.
I’m almost certain you look at the disciplining parents better.
Well guess what? So does God!
[TEXT: Hebrews 12:5-14] - And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. 6.For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." 7.It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8.If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9.Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?
The Lord uses a number of ways to discipline his children. He disciplines us through the Holy Spirit working in the preaching and studying of His Word, he disciplines us firmly through the hands of suffering and pain, and as we see here in chapter 5, He disciplines us through the hands of the church.
For what purpose? For THE PURPOSE OF PRESERVING THE SOUL AND CONFORMING IT INTO THE LIKENESS OF CHRIST!
So to not execute discipline against an unrepentant sinning member in the church is to not love Him as Christ does because not only does Christ command that we discipline, but he also disciplines through His own exclusive means as well with one of the major reasons being to preserve that Brother or sister’s soul until the day of salvation or to win that brother or sister’s soul over to salvation. NOW THAT’S LOVE! THAT’S TOUGH LOVE BUT IT’S LOVE!
EXAMPLE: THE CHILDREN’S APPRECIATION FOR TOUGH LOVE LATER ON IN LIFE!
Paul instructs the church to deliver this man to Satan…No one knows for sure what Paul is saying here, but I think we can reasonably assume that what’s Paul is requesting is not something good at all.
What are we to take from this?
First, by this man being removed from the care of the church, he is now automatically in Satan’s backyard, no longer in the fellowship of the church.
Second, we are to assume that sin to the professing saint can create pain and Paul is saying don’t try and shield them from that pain if they are unrepentant because it is that pain that God will use to draw them back it is that pain that Paul is referring to when he says “the destruction of the flesh.”
Good discipline is an act of love for the transgressor in the same way that it is an act of love for our children when we discipline them. We are hoping the momentary suffering, the careful withdrawal, or the pain of sin will remind them of the grace of God and draw them back with repentant hearts.
However, as I mentioned, discipline is not just for the transgressor though. It is for the transgressed. It is for the church.
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 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.
There is a couple of things I want to draw your attention to here.
To resist to exercise good and healthy church discipline when necessary is to leave the entire church at risk.
It could be the influence of the transgressor…Unrepentant adultery could give the church the impression that adultery is ok.
Unrepentant scheming and incessant greed could give the church the impression that scheming and greed are ok.
We can say a thing is dangerous and serious but if we have no action to emphasize the danger, our words will always have trouble being heard over the silence of our actions.
So discipline is an effort to protect the souls of the flock from the influence of the transgressor...
However, in certain instances, discipline is also an effort to protect the souls of the flock from the harm of the transgressor...
ILLUSTRATION: I’ve mentioned this before but I want to take a moment and mention it here. Sexual abuse has received a lot of attention lately in the news and many churches within our own convention have faced a great deal of scrutiny for the way they have chosen to handle issues of abuse. There has been a refusal to hand the one over to Satan when a person is in the process of grave unrepentant sin. Instead skating over it and dealing out very light penalties only to find that person just a year later or in some instances even months later harming another dear soul...
Discipline is for the preservation of the transgressor and discipline is for the preservation and protection of the transgressed
5 Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure—not to put it too severely—to all of you. 6 For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, 7 so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. 9 For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. 10 Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, 11 so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.
To resist to exercise good and healthy church discipline is to basically ignore the sacrifice of the Passover lamb. We celebrate the sacrifice of Christ by striving to keep the bread of the church free of leaven!!!
Paul calls the Corinthian church to honor God and honor the sacrifice of Christ by cleaning out the old leaven…The old leaven being the unrepentant man
Donts of Discipline - BOASTING
YOUR BOASTING IS NOT GOOD...
A warning to love (not witch hunting; not legalism; but discipline with the end game to win the soul to Christ) 2 Corinthians 2:5-11
5 Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure—not to put it too severely—to all of you. 6 For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, 7 so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. 9 For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. 10 Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, 11 so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.
JUDGING THE OUTSIDE
9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 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. 11 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. 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?
13 God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
Can love hurt?
Let me try and answer that question by asking another question.
Is removing an body part from someone’s body a loving act?
It is not if the body part is being removed from a completely healthy person in order to sell on the black market to the highest bidder.
That is not a loving act. In fact, it is deeply unloving, heinous, and criminal.
However, what if that same person has an infection that has the strong possibility of spreading throughout their body and killing them if that same body remains in their body but removing that same body part could stop the spread of the infection?
Taking that body part now is not only an act of love but it is an act that is totally legal and totally welcomed!
In other words, oftentimes, THE ACT that may appear unloving can in fact be proving LOVING based on the intent behind the act and the effect of the act.
Without discipline we must even ask the question if we are a church after the heart of God. If a church stands by and idlely watches unrepentant sin continue without.
John Leadley Dagg, a 19th century author of a well-known church manual wrote the following regarding the importance of Church Discipline “It has been remarked, that when discipline leaves a church, Christ goes with it” If so, and I fear it must be so, Christ has abandoned many churches who are blissfully unaware of his departure”