Holding The Line Series

Holding The Line

1 Corinthians Series

CCCAG – 8-10-25

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 5 (CSB)

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Introduction:

I drive a lot in my new job. I’m averaging between 1000 and 1200 miles per week as I drive between here and Hudson WI, up to St Croix Falls, and usually spend about 5 hours of my work day driving.

It gives me a lot of time to listen to audiobooks, music, news, and sometimes I just shut everything off that is making noise and think.

This week I was thinking about today’s message. I thought about the world that the Apostle Paul was living in, and how it mirrors ours.

Granted, he didn’t have iPhones or social media. Motor vehicles won’t be invented for 2000 years. The closest thing he had to a calculator was an abacus.

But the social and moral issues that he dealt with in the first century church are actually very similar to what we will read about today.

Content warning- we will be dealing with subjects including sexuality and various subjects that just a few years ago would get our podcast banned from most platforms. This will not be a message that is appropriate to listen to if it’s on a speaker and there are young children nearby.

Like the Apostle Paul, we live in a time when the moral compass of society has been shattered.

What used to be considered immoral is now celebrated.

What was once shameful is now paraded and even has a month dedicated to it’s celebration.

Words like "tolerance," "inclusion," and "affirmation" dominate our cultural vocabulary.

But in his usual tactics, the prince of darkness has twisted the meanings of these words to promote evil.

Today, tolerance means silence in the face of sin.

Inclusion often means the church is expected to compromise its values. Affirmation demands we applaud rebellion against God.

This ideology, often called "wokeism," prioritizes feelings over facts and identity over truth.

It claims to liberate, but instead enslaves people to sin and confusion. It’s not just outside the church walls.

It’s creeping into the Body of Christ. Even into some in the Assemblies of God.

But this isn’t anything new. As the bible "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun” Ecc 1:9

Corinth was facing its own version of this.

Paul, in 1 Corinthians 5, calls out a shocking case of sin in the church—a man was having an ongoing sexual relationship with his stepmother.

We don’t know from the context if the father was still alive. The commentators are split about this.

Either way- it’s pretty messed up.

You know you messed up when Corinthians say that is a step too far.

And yet, the church in Corinth was doing nothing about it. Worse, they were boasting about it. They were saying that they were so forgiving that they would even let this go on in their church.

We are going to tackle this chapter section by section today, but lets start with a word of prayer.

Prayer- God open our hearts to see the truth. Let us examine our own lives for things that don’t please you. Let us all see when we have had wrong ideas, wrong attitudes, or wrong motives when we look at people outside the church. Create within us a heart that beats like Jesus.

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As we saw from the text, Paul doesn’t stay silent about what is happening in this church. He confronts both the sin and the church’s tolerance of it. Today, as we walk through this chapter we are going to draw out three powerful lessons:

1. The Church Must Be the Guardian of Bible Truth

2. The Church Must Call Out Sin

3. The Church Must Confront Sin with Redemptive Discipline

Let’s look at these one at a time.

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I. The Church is the Guardian of Biblical Truth

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that is not even tolerated among the Gentiles—a man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Shouldn’t you be filled with grief and remove from your congregation the one who did this? 1 Cor 5:1-2

Paul confronts a shocking case of sexual immorality in the Corinthian church—a man sleeping with his father's wife, a sin so egregious it's "not even named among the Gentiles" (v. 1).

But the real scandal? What really got Pastor Paul angry about this- The church's tolerance of it.

They're "puffed up" with arrogance instead of mourning (v. 2), essentially questioning God's clear standards on holiness from Scripture.

Paul demands they remove the sinner, handing him "over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus" (Vs 5)