Introduction:
1. Willie Nelson once owned a golf course. He said the great thing about owning a golf course was that he could decide what par for each hole. He pointed out one hole and said, “See that hole there? It’s a par 47. I birdied it yesterday.” 9
2. The truth is that we cannot decide what par for the course is, we don’t decide right from wrong; God does that. When we don’t measure up to His standards that is sin. Sin is a major theme in scripture. In fact it’s the reason Jesus came to earth.
3. The word sin that we read in the NT is typically the Greek word “amartia”, which was an archery term meaning “to miss the mark”, when we sin we literally miss the mark that God has set for us. Today, tolerance has become such a battle cry in the media and in political and educational circles that it has also affected the church. People say, “Well, who am I to judge? I sin too.” However, we must not let modern-day standards determine what is right.
4. Today, instead of missing the mark, people all too often shoot and then draw the target around their arrow. They may feel better, but the tragic reality is that they still missed the mark. God is the One who defines morality, not us.
Cell #1— I Corinthians 5 is on page 872 of the Bible in your pew.
5. Our society calls us to be open-minded. By open-minded our culture means being open to other beliefs and religions. Many today deny any absolute truth, but there are absolutes. Jump out of an airplane at 10,000 feet without a para-chute and you will die whether or not you accept the law of gravity. Today far too often we tip-toe around sin because we’re afraid of hurting someone’s feelings or appearing intolerant, but there right and wrong is still defined by God. I believe if sin was addressed more, and its’ consequences were highlighted more often people would do better. We are expected to be tolerant. However, tolerance often leads to worse problems.
6. Allow me to give you one example. Most of the couples getting married today live together before they officially tie the knot. In fact on one level it seems to make sense. With divorce being so prevalent you really want to make sure you know the person you’re going to marry very well before you get married. There is a problem though; God says living together should be saved for marriage. God’s standard doesn’t make much sense to most people because they want to be sure when they get married that it’s the right person. That trend began to be widely accepted in the 1960’s and has been gaining ground ever since. However, do you know what the research shows? Multiple studies done over many years have now consistently shown that living together before you get married significantly increases your chance of divorce, it doesn’t reduce it.
7. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians deals with what to do when those who are part of the church family know God’s rules but insist on doing their own thing in spite of what God says. Should we be willing to challenge them? What are the consequences if we don’t? In 1 Corinthians 5 Paul deals with these thorny is-sues. It isn’t a comfortable passage in light of today’s “everything goes” society, but it’s needed. Let’s read chapter 5 and then see what God says.
1 I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you—something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother.
2 You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow & shame. And you should remove this man from your fellowship.
3 Even though I am not with you in person, I am with you in the Spirit. And as though I were there, I have already passed judgment on this man
4 in the name of the Lord Jesus. You must call a meeting of the church. I will be present with you in spirit, & so will the power of our Lord Jesus.
5 Then you must throw this man out & hand him over to Satan so that his sinful na-ture will be destroyed & he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns.
6 Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough?
7 Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us.
8 So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness & evil, but with the new bread of sincerity & truth.
9 When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin.
10 But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that.
11 I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people.
12 It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning.
13 God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.”
8. Let’s pray and then we’ll get into what Paul has to say. PRAYER
Here is where Paul begins this part of his message, he says…
Cell #2—
I. We Must Be Willing TO CONFRONT SIN 5:1-5
1. The issue here is the challenge of what to do when those who are part of the church family insist on living in very ungodly ways. The specific issue here concerned a man in the Corinthian church who was having an inces-tuous affair with his stepmother.
2. This was so clearly wrong on every level. The OT made it clear in many different places that this was wrong, but it wasn’t just scripture that said it was wrong, the Roman law did as well. The phrase Paul uses to describe what was going on was, “sexual immorality.” It’s based on the Greek word “Porneia,” the Greek word from which we get our word, “pornography.” It’s used 5 times in 1 Corinthians 5.
3. It wasn’t always easy to convince relatively new Christians like the Corin-thians, many who were from completely pagan backgrounds to change their sexual habits. Paul, however, believed this break from their former pagan lifestyle was crucial. What stunned him about the news he had just heard about the believer sleeping with his step-mother was that it defied not just biblical restrictions but even the standards of those who weren’t believers. In fact…
Cell #3—
Paul was as appalled by the church’s Acceptance of Sin as he was by the Sin. (2)
4. As shocked as he was at the sin, Paul was even more shocked by the atti-tude of the church toward the sinner. They had acted as though there was nothing wrong with what was going on and done nothing about it. They were proud of how open-minded they were. Paul said that instead there should have been mourning, sorrow and shame. The word Paul uses for “mourning” is the word typically used for grieving for the dead. 7
5. Back in the late 1980’s the national media went wild when it came out that well known televangelist Jimmy Baker and Jimmy Swaggert had both had affairs. We respond very differently to religious leaders doing the same thing that many others do all the time and that’s actually appropriate. Everyone knows, even those who aren’t part of the spiritual family, that those of us who are believers should be living godly lives. None of us do that perfectly of course, but we are to do our best to live godly lives.
6. Paul informed the Corinthians church that he didn’t even have to be there to let them know that this situation had to be dealt with. This incestuous relationship had to be dealt with at once. Paul said they needed to expel this man from their fellowship.
7. Churches today need the spiritual determination to deal with major moral failures like this one because they affect the whole church. Excommunica-tion as a form of spiritual discipline should be used very rarely. It should be an action of the church body, not just one or two people. Its’ purpose was to be redemptive and restorative, not vengeful or vindictive. 6
8. You can tell that by the attitude with which it was to be done. Look at verse 2 again. It was to be done with an attitude of “mourning,” “sorrow” and “shame.” It wasn’t just grief that such horrible behavior was happening, it was concern for the believer who had wandered so far from God and what was right. I think the well known pastor and author Warren Wiersbe got it right when he said…
Cell #4—
“Church discipline is not a group of “pious policemen” out to catch a criminal.
Rather it is a group of brokenhearted brothers and sisters seeking to
Restore an Erring Member of the Family. (5)
9. Let me illustrate with an example from a family I know very well. I’ll call the young man in my story Sam. A couple years ago Sam started making some very poor choices. He didn’t have the best relationship with his parents and his grandparents were always there for him. Sam started drinking and began to get into drugs. Instead of being appreciative and showing his grandparents the respect he should have, Sam went into their house and stole from them. On another occasion he stole gas from them. Another family member was there when Sam stole the gas. When his grandparent’s found out what he had done they contacted the authorities and with their help set up a camera to catch him when he returned to steal again. They worked with the authorities and got him into a treatment program. Their goal was to help him learn from his mistakes and make things right with God. In Sam’s situation it worked. He apologized to his grandparents and is making better choices today. Their tough love helped him become the man he was meant to be. That is what is intended here as well. Notice the final statement in verse 5, Paul’s goal is stated at the end of the verse, “he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns.”
TS— That brings us to the second point of 1 Cor. 5. Not only must we be willing to confront sin…
Cell #5—
II. We Must Be Willing TO REMOVE WHAT’S EVIL 5:6-8
1. Verse 6 is interesting. It begins with Paul telling them that their “boasting” was terrible. What could they possibly have been boasting about? They were willing to accept anyone no matter how ungodly they were. Their pride was very bad because they weren’t thinking in a godly way.
2. Paul reminded them of a truth they already knew but were ignoring—a little yeast soon spreads through the dough. A little cancer can eventually kill you. The need for church discipline is based on the same principle. Sin in the church is like that. If you don’t deal with it, it will take over. 2
3. The word “yeast” or more literally, “leaven” when it is introduced into a batch of flour soon changes everything it comes in contact with. It is changed from what it once was to something new. Although both yeast and leaven spread through dough to lighten bread, people in the 1st century didn’t add new yeast to each new batch. Rather, they held back a portion of the leavened dough to mix with the next batch of bread. This process continued each week until, at least for Jews, all the old leaven was thrown out once a year for the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
4. With very few exceptions, in Jewish literature leaven stands for an evil in-fluence. It was dough which had been kept from a previous baking and had fermented. The Jews identified fermentation with putrefaction; and so leaven stood for a corrupting influence which over time spread far beyond itself to affect everything around it. Spiritually, here is the point that makes this such a significant principle. 6
Cell #6—
When sin is allowed to go unchallenged in the church it’s only a matter of
time until that sin is Accepted by the Church. (6-7)
5. Paul challenged the church in Corinth to radical action. They were to re-move the person from the church. Now remember, from the previous sec-tion the goal was to ultimately restore the one who had sinned, but this section takes it a step farther, it was to also protect the church from going becoming confused about right and wrong.
6. He reminds believers at the end of verse 7 that Christ, our Passover Lamb was sacrificed for us. He said Christ was our ultimate sacrifice and had to die for us because of our sin. To begin accepting the sin that cost Jesus so much is completely unthinkable. To accept sin as okay undermines the sal-vation we have been blessed with through Christ’s death.
7. Paul wasn’t talking about little sin here. On the one hand, all sin is equal, because every sin separates us from God. However, not all sin has equal consequences. Gossip about someone and you hurt them. Shoot them dead and their life here is over and in a very real way your life is freedom is as well. Even spiritually speaking, some sins have greater consequences. God can and will forgive all sin, but some sins have a greater affect as well. That’s what He was talking about in this passage.
8. Now, let’s be honest. We all sin and because we all sin we can relate to others who do. I’ve never cheated on my wife, but I understand sexual temptation. I have never murdered anyone, but I have been really angry at someone before. Here is the point…
Cell #7—
Sin is often Understandable, but that doesn’t make it Acceptable. (6-8)
9. We celebrate and honor God and our faith when we live a holy life, not when we continue with a life that cannot honor God or our church. We are to live lives which illustrate “sincerity and truth.” The word for “sincerity” refers to something that has been examined under clear sunlight and found to be clear or clean. Our lives should be able to examined and shown to honor Him and the church as well.
10. UCLA sociologist, James Wilson, has observed an interesting fact about crime in our cities. The crime rate goes up dramatically on streets where broken windows aren’t repaired. His study showed that the failure to re-place windows makes an announcement to the public by saying the stand-ards have been lowered and authority has been abandoned. Wilson sees such practices of disrepair as an invitation for crime without the threat of consequences. What is true on the street is also true in the church. If we allow serious sin to go unchecked, we are inviting destruction.
TS— And now the final point. Not only must we confront sin & remove what’s evil…
Cell #8—
III. We Must Be Willing TO EXAMINE OURSELVES 5:9-13
1. Paul informs them that he had written to them before telling them not to associate with those who indulge in sexual sin. The past tense here refers to a letter Paul had written to the Corinthians earlier. The problem is we don’t have that letter. It’s called by some scholars, “the lost letter.” In that letter he had told them when someone insists upon sinning in major ways and is unwilling to repent you aren’t to hang out with them.
2. Paul’s statement had caused confusion in the church. Some Corinthians understood it to mean if you had friends who weren’t believers and who sinned, you were to get rid of them. But look at verse 10. That’s not what he was saying. Our focus isn’t to be on how the world is messed up. Our primary job as a church, is to be kind of church God wants and to live the kind of godly lives we should live.
3. But if a Christian brother or sister is openly sinning– opening rebelling against the revealed will of God in His word – then our actions should be different. This person should know better – we should avoid them. “Hey, I’m headed down to the bar to get really wasted after Bible Study, why don’t you invite a bunch of people from the Fellowship and we’ll go to-gether.” No. Again, its not saying that everyone has to be perfect – but that open rebellion against God will infect us if we let it. Here is the principle for us as a church. 8
Cell #9—
We must be willing to accept people where they are, but as followers of Christ we are not to Ignore the Sin In Us. (9-10)
4. He’s saying we as the church must guard against the church family dis-honoring God. Someone who is in open rebellion against God who isn’t try-ing to honor God, well, we don’t need to hanging out with them. Our re-sponsibility is to make sure we as a church are doing what we’re supposed to. We have to leave judging those outside the spiritual family to God.
5. We have a responsibility to examine ourselves and make sure we as a church are honoring our God. This man’s sin was bad enough that it af-fected not just him and the rest of his family, but it affected the church as well. Paul said, we must look at ourselves and not ignore major ungodly behavior. If we ignore obvious rebellion against God in the church others may understandably have the attitude that if that is how Christians live it’s not something they want or need.
Cell #10—
Our main job isn’t to root out evil in the world; but that doesn’t mean we can ignore major
Sin in the Church. (19-20)
6. The danger here is that when we refuse to ignore sin in the church we can become judgmental. That’s not what God wants. I once knew a family that loved to point out how others were wrong. They delighted in putting others down. That’s not what Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians 5. We have a responsibility to confront our own sin and serious sinfulness in the church, but if we take pleasure in putting others in their place we’re wrong even if we’re standing up for what is right.
Conclusion:
1. I want to conclude with a personal story from my own family. None of you ever met my Grandpa Richards. I knew him as a hard working successful busi-nessman who loved God and was regularly in church, but when I was a young boy it wasn’t like that. In fact, my mother remembers going to church when her and my father were dating and the leaders of the church brought up that Grandpa was having an affair and they voted him out of the church. They were right, Grandpa Richards was having an affair. They were right, what he was going was wrong. However, they were also wrong. Their goal wasn’t restoring him their motivation was punishing him. They did it with my grandmother and my mother there. No one from the church had talked to him before they took this extraordinary step. Instead of helping my grandpa deal with his moral failure and recommit himself to God, they ran him and his entire family, including my hurting grandma away from that church.
2. Let me be abundantly clear. What happened at the Springhill Baptist Church was nothing like what Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 5. It’s easy to read a passage like the one we’re looking at this morning and skip right over it because it’s not a comfortable topic, but as followers of the Lord we don’t have the right to do that. We must understand that God knows better than we do.
3. What Paul was talking about here is only to take place in extraordinary situa-tions, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t at times happen. When it does, it should take place with much prayer, much love and a desire to help a fallen brother or sister find their way back to God.
4. God wants us to be godly not have to have our brothers or sisters confront us about how we aren’t honoring God with our lives. Each of us need to examine ourselves and ask the hard question, “Are there things in my life that are dis-honoring God? Are there sins in my life that I need to confess to Him and turn from this morning?” If there are would you confess them to God right now and ask for His helping in overcoming them? Let’s pray.
1 Warren Wiersbe, Be Wise: 1 Corinthians, (Colorado Springs, CO: Cook Communications) 2001.
2 John Walvoord, Roy Zuck, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: 1 Corinthians, (Colorado Springs, CO: Chariot Victor) 1983.
3 Jack Cottrell, Tony Ash, Richard Oster Jr., The College Press NIV Commentary: 1 Corinthians, (Joplin, MO: College Press) 1995.
4 William Baker, Ralph Martin, Carl Toney, Philip Comfort, The Cornerstone Commentary: 1 Corinthians, (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale) 2009.
5 Frank Gaebelein, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: 1 Corinthians, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan) 1981.
6 Bruce Barton, Greg Asimakoupoulos, Jonathan Farrar, Linda Taylor, Dave Veerman, Neil Wilson, Life Application Bible Commentary: 1 Corinthians, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale) 1999.
7 William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible: 1 Corinthians, (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster) 1975.
8 Tom Fuller, Dealing with Sin, (Newberg, OR: Calvary Chapel, Sermon Central) 2003.
9 Jason Cole, Our Response to Sin in the Church, (Falls Mills, VA: Christian, Sermon Central) 2006.
10 Chris Appleby, Freedom and Morality, (Surrey Hills, Australia, Anglican, Sermon Central) 2003.
Russel Brownworth, The Choice Between Church Growth and Church Health, (Seagrove NC: Methodist, Sermon Central) 2001.
