“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. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
“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, 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.
“Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 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.
“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—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. 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. 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.’” [1]
The Apostle to the Gentiles was not a particularly polished pastor by the criterion of contemporary congregational expectations. It is obvious that he wasn’t particularly concerned about feelings when those to whom he wrote were dishonouring the Master. What does shine through in all his missives is his deep commitment to speaking the truth in love. Unlike modern ecclesiastical politicians, Paul sought God’s glory, not man’s feelings of self-importance. In the text before us, it is difficult to believe that members of the Church of God in Corinth appreciated Paul airing their dirty laundry. But that laundry was dirty, and it was stinking, and the assembly had done nothing to clean up their act. Through his words, Paul emphasises the importance of church membership.
Scripture convincingly argues that a Christian must hold membership in a local congregation. Church membership is not necessary for salvation; however, membership in a local congregation is expected of all who seek a healthy relationship with the Saviour. One who professes Christ as Lord must honour Him by loving the church as much as Christ loves His Bride, and He loved her enough to sacrifice Himself for her. Remember Paul’s admonition to the elders of Ephesus, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which He obtained with His own blood” [ACTS 20:28]. Amen!
Elsewhere, the Apostle admonishes those Christian men who are married, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her” [EPHESIANS 5:25]. Christ sacrificed Himself for His bride, the Church of the Living God. Because we are provided His model of sacrificial love for His Bride, we know that men are to willingly sacrifice themselves for their wives, modelling their love for their own wives after the love Christ exhibits for the church. If you are a Christian man and you are married, you are responsible to willingly give your life for the welfare of your wife. Your wife, men, is the priority for your life if Christ Jesus is King of your life.
In light of these statements, be assured that it would have been unimaginable for one who professed love for the Risen Lord of Glory in the early years of the Faith to refuse membership in a local congregation. This is the import of the words of the writer of the Letter to Hebrew Christians: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” [HEBREWS 10:24-25]. The emphasis of those verses is upon the voluntary commitment of each Christian to the welfare of those who shared this holy Faith.
I am fully aware that people have different reasons for holding membership in a congregation. Throughout the years of my service, I’ve known people who united with a congregation simply because it was convenient to do so. Many of these souls weren’t particularly engaged in the life of the Body, but they did join. Often, they would be absent from the services except at Christmas and Easter; but they were members, and they would be offended if it should be suggested otherwise. Others join a church out of obligation, or perhaps as a social necessity. Such people aren’t particularly concerned about investing their lives in the assembly, but they have what they believe is a good reason to be a member of the congregation.
Pastor Mark Dever provides five reasons why a Christian should be a member of a local church. The reasons Pastor Dever provides are as follows:
1. Join a church for the sake of non-Christians.
2. Join a church for the sake of weaker Christians.
3. Join a church for the sake of stronger Christians.
4. Join a church for church leaders.
5. Join a church for God. [2]
Pastor Dever in this article does, of course, expand on each of these reasons for why a Christian should be a member of a local congregation. Though I won’t repeat all that he has written, I will seek in this message to provide a cogent rationale for why a Christian should join a church. I am reasonably certain you could think of other good reasons to be a member of your local congregation. I know I can think of several other reasons why a Christians should be a member of the local assembly, not the least of which reasons is that the Bible teaches us to accept the responsibility for our fellow saints. We are best able to fulfil this responsibility toward our fellow believers through open union with our church.
It is abundantly obvious that this present generation of professing Christians depreciates church membership, especially in the West. Contemporary churchgoers consider openly uniting with the assembly of the righteous to be optional at best and unadvisable at worst. Church attendance has been reduced to a matter of personal convenience both for those who profess to follow the Christ and for outsiders. Come if it is convenient; don’t feel constrained to be present when a better offer becomes available. One major reason for this lack of enthusiasm for membership in the local church grows out of a failure on the part of the pulpit to teach Christians what is written in the Word. It is equally possible that the resistance to uniting with the local congregation grows out of a spirit of rebellion that has thoroughly insinuated itself into modern society, even managing to infiltrate the sacred precincts of the Zion of God.
What cannot be denied in a broad sense, is that church membership and attendance at the worship services of a church, have become optional for vast numbers of professing Christians. Formally uniting with a congregation is not considered essential. One often hears, “I’m as good a Christian as you,” if the subject of church membership is brought up. An Anglican friend often referred to the “C and E” crowd; sounding as if he was referring to the “Church of England.” However, he referred to the Christmas and Easter crowd. While his reference may have appeared cynical to some, it was tragically accurate. Large numbers of Canadians claim membership in a church; but if attendance at the services of the church in which these Canadians claim membership is indicative, they don’t consider membership to be particularly important.
I invite you to join me in what admittedly will be a too brief study of the importance of church membership as revealed in Paul’s missive to a dysfunctional congregation, the Church of God in Corinth. The focus of our study is the fifth chapter of the Letter to the Corinthians as the Apostle confronts the church for its failure to deal with sin among the members. Through recognising the failure of this congregation, we can be instructed in how we may please the Lord both individually and as a congregation.
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPS ACCOUNTABILITY. “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. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you” [1 CORINTHIANS 5:1-2]. Paul wrote that he had received a report and it didn’t appear to be a rumour. Moreover, he indicates that the report he received was assuredly plausible, and it was likely accurate! A member of the congregation was engaged in sexual immorality, and the immorality was generally recognised, even being known outside of the assembly!
Listen carefully—this is vital to know. One belonging to a healthy congregation cannot be unspiritual without the congregation knowing her or his condition. It is akin to an alcoholic in a home who cannot drink to excess without the knowledge of, or at least the strong suspicion of, his or her spouse being aroused. Likely, the spouse of that alcoholic knows what is going on. And if the relationship is healthy, the spouse will have confronted the drunk, demanding a change in behaviour. Similarly, the individual who holds membership in a spiritually healthy congregation cannot move away from the Lord, embracing wickedness without some among the membership knowing that such a drift is taking place. Of course, this emphasises the importance of exercising extreme care about what church you join. Your church membership is not inconsequential.
The Apostle makes an interesting statement as he teaches the saints to seek those gifts that build the Body rather than seeking what makes them feel good about themselves. This is what the Word of God says, “Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. In the Law it is written, ‘By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.’ Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers. If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you” [1 CORINTHIANS 14:20-25].
Canadian churchgoers seem often to have forgotten that we who are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we who have been united into the various communities of faith, are not merely individuals who just happen to have joined a church. Membership in your church is not like the situation that might prevail had you joined a fraternal organisation, as imagined by governmental bureaucrats. We who are members of a congregation have been placed in the particular local congregation to which we belong by the determinate will of the Spirit of God. As members of the particular body to which we are united, we do have rights, though they are not often the “rights” imagined by secular governments. As members of the Body of Christ we are responsible to watch over one another. We are responsible to seek the welfare of each member of the congregation.
To understand this point, consider the teaching that is repeated in Paul’s writings. One major example of who we are as a church is provided when Paul, writing the saints gathered in Rome teaches, “We who are many are one body in Christ, and individually we are members who belong to one another” [ROMANS 12:5 NET BIBLE].
As a member of this church, you are not simply a member of an organisation. In the truest sense, you belong to each of those fellow members who have been united by the Spirit of God, just as each of them belong to you. We are members who belong to one another. We cannot dissociate ourselves from the Body wherein Christ has placed us without injuring the whole! God has placed you within the assembly to which you belong, and you are important to the spiritual health of that particular congregation! Likewise, each of those who are united by His Spirit belong to one another so that He receives the glory, but each of us benefits from the participation of the whole. We are not unsympathetic to those outside of the congregation to which we belong, but we have special care for those with whom we share this life as members of the same Body.
Again, as he writes the Christians meeting in Corinth, the Apostle has written, “God has blended together the body, giving greater honour to the lesser member, so that there may be no division in the body, but the members may have mutual concern for one another” [1 CORINTHIANS 12:24b-25 NET Bible]. By divine design, the members of the Body have mutual concern for one another. It is only as we permit the old nature to overwhelm our spiritual sense that we exalt ourselves and depreciate the Body. It is only as we give ourselves over to our own fallen desires that we push aside our love for one another. God’s design is that we care for one another, that we honour one another, that we accept that the spiritual health of others is of greater importance than our own immediate desires. We must not surrender to what we imagine to be fulfilment of our own desires.
Weigh what is written in yet another of the Apostle’s missives. In the encyclical we have received as the Ephesian Letter, the Apostle admonished followers of the Christ, “Putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbour, because we are members of one another” [EPHESIANS 4:25 CSB]. Focus on the reason for the conduct that marks us as followers of Christ: “We are members of one another.” The Body of Christ, to which you belong as one who is placed within this Body by the Spirit of God, is not to be seen as an organisation; rather, this is the living Body of Christ. If we are walking in the Spirit, if we are living as Christ has called us to live, if we are honouring the Saviour in our corporate life, we are presenting a vivid picture of the Risen Saviour before the eyes of the watching world. When the residents of this darkened world see us, they should see Christ revealed through our interaction with one another. Ideally, those identified with this world, witnessing us as we conduct ourselves as followers of the Risen Saviour, will see Christ revealed in our attitude of serving one another.
You begin to get the idea that church membership is quite different from the way in which many professing Christians have thought of it. Membership in a church of the Lord Jesus Christ means that you have been placed within that assembly by the will of the Spirit of Christ. It means that you were uniquely gifted so that you would make a major contribution to the function of the Body into which you were placed. You cannot be the head, since Christ is the Head of the church. You can, however, be an eye, or an ear, or a hand, or a foot. This is what the Apostle instructs us as believers concerning our placement within the church and the value of our individual functions.
Recall how the Apostle has written, “The body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” Then, making the revelation relevant for each of us, Paul writes, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” [1 CORINTHIANS 12:14-27].
Let’s weigh what the Apostle has written. Your participation in the congregation in which you now serve was not happenstance. The Spirit of Christ made a deliberate decision that your presence here was best for the assembly and best for you. Moreover, He specifically equipped you so that you would be an asset to the congregation, making the whole Body stronger by your presence. Moreover, others who are sharing in the life of this Body are placed here for your benefit, so that only together can you make the strongest possible Body in the midst of this life.
You did not choose what your position would be, but God determined what was best for you, for the membership collectively, and for His glory. Undoubtedly, you can aspire to mature and grow, and you can seize the initiative to grow in the knowledge of Christ the Lord, but the gift or gifts you possess were given to make the Body stronger and to ensure that Christ would be revealed through the Body as it works together. The world sees Christ through the congregation working together as the Body of the Lord.
That we are to strive to grow stronger becomes evident as we read what Paul wrote in the Ephesian Encyclical. As members of the Body, we are responsible to speak “the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” [EPHESIANS 4:15-16]. Our aspiration is to grow, always building the congregation, the Body to which we have been joined.
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP ENFORCES DISCIPLINE. “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, 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” [1 CORINTHIANS 5:3-5].
As followers of the Christ, it must be the aspiration of each member of the assembly to ensure that the Body is healthy. We are each responsible to maintain this focus. Untreated wounds, especially wounds suffered in an unclean environment, are a source of danger should they become infected. Wounds can cause continued discomfort and can even lead to death. Living in this fallen world, we are in an unclean environment, and injuries are susceptible to infection. Just as a serious infection can weaken the physical body, so the assembly of the righteous will be weakened if the infection is ignored and left untreated. In extreme cases, amputation of the diseased body part becomes necessary to save the individual. The same holds true in the Body of Christ. Infection and inflammation left untreated can lead to amputation in order to save the Body. Therefore, it is always preferable to apply antiseptic to the wounded part, seeking to heal and restore to full function. In our fallen condition, it is not unusual for us to view discipline as punishment rather than maintaining the focus on restoration.
According to the Apostle, the congregation in Corinth was responsible to unite in taking action against the member who was sinning. And that action was meant to bring the wayward member back to a productive walk with the Saviour. I suspect that the reason many of our churches no longer practise discipline is because we are more attuned to the prevalent culture than we are attuned to the mind of the Saviour. We have trained ourselves to believe that how our neighbour lives is none of our business. However, in the assembly of the righteous, in the church of the Risen Saviour, we must never imagine that we can ignore sin. We are responsible to bring back the one who has strayed for the good of that individual and for the health of the church. Better still, we are to intervene so that the individual who is tempted to wander away does not do so without the members of the assembly expressing their love for that individual! How many of the saints of the Lord that wander away would be kept from facing divine discipline if as a congregation we took seriously our responsibility to admonish those who are prone to stray before they ever took the first step away from fellowship?
Let’s think about this business of discipline for a brief moment. In a missive that was penned by an unknown spokesman for the Risen Saviour, we read this admonition: “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? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 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? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” [HEBREWS 12:7-11].
It is high time that we realise our need to begin thinking of discipline as training rather than punishment. To be certain, punishment may be necessary if we refuse to train ourselves to serve—and the Lord is well able to administer the required discipline. Shifting attention to the aspect of training, anyone who has spent time in the military can speak of the reality of what this writer says. Discipline is required if we are to fulfil the responsibilities we are assigned. Discipline speaks of the training we must endure to reach the goal of effective service. In the context of the message before us, the congregation participates in administering discipline through teaching, through training, and through holding one another accountable.
Protestant Christianity holds that there exists three marks by which we can tell a true church from a false church. Evangelical Christians, and surely it is true for Baptists as well, generally agree with this view. These marks of a true church are as follows:
• A true church preaches the gospel.
• A true church faithfully administers the ordinances in accordance with God’s Word.
• A true church practises church discipline.
If a church does not preach the Gospel, they are excluding a major reason for existing. If the ordinances are not observed, or if they are abused and treated in a manner that denies what is written in Scripture, how can that congregation have any right to call itself a church? In the same manner, to ignore church discipline is to deny the right of Christ to direct His church. That congregation has exalted the individual above the Lord of Glory.
No less stalwart than John Calvin spoke of the importance of church discipline in the monumental “Institutes of the Christian Religion.” In that work, Calvin has written, “In such corrections and excommunication [as required by church discipline], the church has [several] ends in view. The first is that they who lead a filthy and infamous life may not be called Christians, to the dishonor of God, as if his holy church were a conspiracy of wicked and abandoned men. For since the church itself is the body of Christ, it cannot be corrupted by such foul and decaying members without some disgrace falling upon its Head. Therefore, that there may be no such thing in the church to brand its most sacred name with disgrace, they from whose wickedness infamy redounds to the Christian name must be banished from its family.” [3]
It is difficult to walk in a froward fashion when those with whom you associate are walking in an orderly manner and living in such a way that they strive to honour the Risen Saviour. And if those with whom you associate are in a spiritually healthy environment, they will gently remonstrate with you if you persist in walking contrary to righteousness. The healthy congregation will hold each other accountable as each member takes responsibility to admonish those who are beginning to stray.
We are provided with an example of just such concern during an incident that occurred among the tribes of Israel after the conquest of the land which God promised. The tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh were returning to their homes. Before crossing over the Jordan to their own land, they paused to build an altar on the banks of the river. This act was neither commanded by God nor sanctioned by Joshua, but these men built the altar nonetheless.
The remainder of the tribes were certainly not impressed. In fact, they were prepared to go to war to rid themselves of any hint of disobedience to the commands of the LORD Who had given them success in possessing the land. The tribes who were offended in the action of these tribes which had crossed over the Jordan made one very wise decision. They sent a delegation composed of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, and ten chiefs representing the tribes of Israel.
Confronting the leaders of the tribes suspected to be errant, this delegation said, “Thus says the whole congregation of the LORD, ‘What is this breach of faith that you have committed against the God of Israel in turning away this day from following the LORD by building yourselves an altar this day in rebellion against the LORD? Have we not had enough of the sin at Peor from which even yet we have not cleansed ourselves, and for which there came a plague upon the congregation of the LORD, that you too must turn away this day from following the LORD? And if you too rebel against the LORD today then tomorrow he will be angry with the whole congregation of Israel. But now, if the land of your possession is unclean, pass over into the LORD land where the LORD’s tabernacle stands, and take for yourselves a possession among us. Only do not rebel against the LORD or make us as rebels by building for yourselves an altar other than the altar of the LORD our God. Did not Achan the son of Zerah break faith in the matter of the devoted things, and wrath fell upon all the congregation of Israel? And he did not perish alone for his iniquity’” [JOSHUA 22:16-20].
The words were stern, but not combative. They were a plea for the people thought to be errant to explain what they had done. The tribes who were being accused responded by appealing to the LORD as they explained their actions. They responded, “The Mighty One, God, the LORD! The Mighty One, God, the LORD! He knows; and let Israel itself know! If it was in rebellion or in breach of faith against the LORD, do not spare us today for building an altar to turn away from following the LORD. Or if we did so to offer burnt offerings or grain offerings or peace offerings on it, may the LORD himself take vengeance. No, but we did it from fear that in time to come your children might say to our children, ‘What have you to do with the LORD, the God of Israel? For the LORD has made the Jordan a boundary between us and you, you people of Reuben and people of Gad. You have no portion in the LORD.’ So your children might make our children cease to worship the LORD. Therefore we said, ‘Let us now build an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice, but to be a witness between us and you, and between our generations after us, that we do perform the service of the LORD in his presence with our burnt offerings and sacrifices and peace offerings, so your children will not say to our children in time to come, “You have no portion in the LORD.”’ And we thought, ‘If this should be said to us or to our descendants in time to come, we should say, “Behold, the copy of the altar of the LORD, which our fathers made, not for burnt offerings, nor for sacrifice, but to be a witness between us and you.”’ Far be it from us that we should rebel against the LORD and turn away this day from following the LORD by building an altar for burnt offering, grain offering, or sacrifice, other than the altar of the LORD our God that stands before his tabernacle’” [JOSHUA 22:22-29]!
What we witness is a wise administration of discipline. Those who were offended sought clarification of what had taken place. They treated their brothers with respect, extending the courtesy of hearing the explanation that could relieve tension and remove even a hint of pain. This is the ideal that God has for His people gathered as churches.
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP FOSTERS PURITY. In the remainder of the text before us today [see 1 CORINTHIANS 5:6-13], the Apostle makes an impassioned plea for purity in the church. Paul has written to the unconscious congregation in Corinth, “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 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.
“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—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. 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. 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.’”
“Purge the evil person from among you!” Some may imagine this charge to be overly harsh. However, in the Apostle’s view, one who is sinning against the Lord is an “evil person.” You, should you live in rebellion against the Risen Saviour, and especially when your rebellion is displayed openly, are an evil person because what you are doing is evil. Your rebellion threatens the health and welfare of the entire assembly.
You may recall the account of one man in Israel who rebelled against the Lord. Jericho was to be devoted to destruction [see JOSHUA 6:21]—all livestock and all residents of the city were to be killed. However, there was an unseen problem. The next chapter opens with these dark words, “The Israelites, however, were unfaithful regarding the things set apart for destruction. Achan son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of what was set apart, and the LORD’s anger burned against the Israelites” [JOSHUA 7:1 CSV]. One man sinned, and God stated that the entire assembly was unfaithful. Achan’s rebellion brought judgement on the entire camp.
The Israelites next came against a small town only to suffer a devastating defeat. We read in Joshua’s account that “the hearts of the people melted and became as water” [JOSHUA 7:5b]. When Joshua sought to learn what had happened, the LORD confronted him, saying, “Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them” [JOSHUA 7:10b]. All Israel was held guilty because of one man’s sin! This is the reason the rebel is said to be an evil person.
Until Israel dealt with the presence of one rebel, they would no longer know the blessings of the Lord GOD. They would suffer defeat before their enemies, and people would be killed in combat. They would be terrified before their enemies. So long as the evil person was tolerated in their midst, the LORD would not bless them. To fail to put the openly rebellious person out of the assembly of the righteous is tacit admission that mortal friendships are of greater value than is purity and fellowship with the Lord. To tolerate the evil one in our presence is to ensure that we exclude the Living God from our midst. And when He is no longer among us, we are at the mercy of the wicked one.
The strength of a nation is the conviction of God’s blessing. Israel would learn this lesson in a most ignominious way. We would do well to learn, as did Israel,
“The king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
The war horse is a false hope for salvation,
and by its great might it cannot rescue.
Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love.”
[PSALM 33:16-18]
Oh, that each of us who hear the message this day would hold to the conviction that,
“Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
They collapse and fall,
but we rise and stand upright.”
[PSALM 20:7-8]
As a nation is made strong by the presence of the Lord, so a congregation is made strong and enabled to stand by the Lord’s presence. And as a congregation is strengthened by the presence of the Lord, so we as individuals are made strong in the Lord. And we grow stronger still as we strengthen one another through fellowship together.
Scripture teaches the godly, “The one who associates with the wise grows wise” [PROVERBS 13:20a NET BIBLE]. The corollary to that affirmation warns the follower of Christ, “A companion of fools suffers harm” [PROVERBS 13:20b NET BIBLE]. As the assembly walks in unity with the Spirit of the Lord, they will know the blessings He alone can confer. And among the richest blessings with which our Lord graces His people is the wisdom imparted by the Spirit.
Paul alludes to this wisdom on multiple occasions in his letters. For instance, writing the Corinthian saints, Paul challenges them to weigh what God has done in them. “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” [1 CORINTHIANS 1:20-25]. God has revealed His wisdom in us who are saved.
Then, to make the point stronger still, the Apostle points to the wisdom of God revealed in us as He works in our midst. The Apostle testifies, “Among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory” [1 CORINTHIANS 2:6-7].
In the assembly of the righteous, we who are united in Christ, we who have joined our hearts as one, reveal the wisdom of God and glorify His Holy Name. The call of this message is for the people of God to accept responsibility for one another, and that means holding one another accountable to walk in righteousness and to eschew all evil. Let the people of God choose holiness. Amen, and Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] I am unable to find the source for this citation. It was included in my notes for sermon preparation without attribution.
[3] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, John T. McNeill (ed.), Ford Lewis Battles (trans.), vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY 2011) 1232
