Church in the City – Chapter 5
Sin in the Church
September 15, 2024
Did your life change when you decided to follow Jesus?
Should believers inside the church live different lives than those outside the church?
Remember, in Corinth, there were very few sexual boundaries.
This sexual freedom was beginning to affect the people of God in the local church.
1 Corinthians 5 1-2 NIV
“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father's wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this?
Perverse, unrepentant sin, especially among believers, should grieve us.
V.1b – “A kind that does not occur even among pagans”
Paul is talking about sin that everyone knows about, but no one wants to confront.
V.5 hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.
We want to help everyone, but not everyone wants help
Let them live their life on their own, until they are exhausted with their foolishness and then return to God.”
Paul is not cursing them with sickness or death.
1 Corinthians 5:6b-7a NIV
“Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast — as you really are.”
Paul isn’t talking about people struggling with sin.
Paul is talking about people who have surrendered to their sin and celebrate their sin.
Luke 12:1b-2 NIV
"Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 2 There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known.”
1 Corinthians 5:9-13 NIV
V. 9 I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
We should be discerning, and we should hold each other to a Godly standard.
When we discover someone else’s weakness, we should grieve and not gloat!!
V.12-13 – What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside…”
The church and the world are to be judged differently.
Good News!!
Jesus has already taken our judgment for us!
Jesus gets the last word for all of us!!
Ephesians 2:4-8 NIV
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
