You heard about the scientists who stopped using laboratory rats for certain experiments and began using preachers, didn’t you? The reason, they said, is because there are some things that even a rat won’t do. People do the most unbelievable things!
I read a strange article in a news magazine: The week of July 22, 2005, from Berlin Germany, a grandmother, Renate Dolle, 63, announced her retirement after 49 years as a streetwalking prostitute. Dolle said she was still attracting four or five clients a night, but wanted to quit so she could spend more time with her husband and granddaughter. What kind of family is that? What husband would put up with that?
As we continue our study through 1 Corinthians, here in chapter 5 Paul tells the church that they have a member there who is doing something that even the pagans don’t do. But worse yet, at least some in the church are reacting by being proud and boasting! Can you imagine? What kind of church is that? What Christian fellowship would put up with that in a member of the church? Paul says, “And you are arrogant about it!” Then in verse six he says, “Your glorying is not good!”
Instead of celebrating the deliverance of Christ by walking in holiness, they were celebrating by returning to and rattling the chains of sin! The church at Corinth was in spiritual crisis! Only a return to Christ and the Cross of Christ can cure this churches terrible condition. To return to Christ means a turning away from sin. Renouncing those spiritual chains of death and disease, the church must cleanse their hearts and lives and build up holiness in Christ, for without holiness no one will see the Lord! Those members who refused to embrace God’s grace but insisted on maintaining a sinful life must be put out of the fellowship.
Let’s pause here and take a look at where we live today and our world. What has happened to our culture in the past 50 years in regards to morality and discipline? One trend that has done a little good, but at least as much damage is this: There has come an awakening of satisfying and protecting what we casually call our “feelings.” The statement that has gone down as the hedonistic slogan of the age is this: “If it feels good, what? Do it!” Psychologists have joined ranks with this movement telling us that we ought to feel good. From the “free love” sixties someone discovered what we call “self-esteem.” Psycho-Cybernetics and I’m OK, You’re OK, became best sellers.
Whole churches got on the bandwagon too. There were even sermons about self-love, turning the second commandment inside out with this logic: If you are supposed to love your neighbor as yourself, you need first to work on loving yourself! While that sounds like wisdom, it has no foundation in the rest of scriptures. The person who focuses on loving himself or herself actually ruins his or her ability to fulfill the command. It takes denying self to accomplish this commandment, not affirming and gratifying the self. Self-seeking stands in the way of Christ seeking. Not self-love, but love for God is what we need to fulfill this second commandment! What is the message Jesus gave and the Bible teaches? Those that love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength are capable of loving their neighbor as themselves! Don’t worry about loving yourself. Just learn to love God and you’ll find yourself fulfilled and blessed and empowered for obeying the rest of the commandments.
But self-love is still the popular thing. Personal feelings have come to dominate and set the priorities of our culture. "I don’t feel good about this or that" is taken as seriously as the principles and facts about this or that. People even choose churches by how it makes them feel, instead of searching for the church that makes them more like Christ. Feeling centered focus has had a terrible effect on our homes. Parents, fearing that they may damage their child’s psyche if they hurt their feelings began to indulge their immature behaviors instead of training and disciplining them. Husbands and wives whose mates don’t satisfy their feelings often find themselves in divorce court. This has also had a terrible effect on the moral fiber and holiness of the church. Feeling focused churches will never be disciplined because, and get this, obedience is learned through SUFFERING. That’s how Jesus learned it, and that’s how it is learned still.
Let me stop here and make this clear: It is not that feelings are completely unreliable, they are God given indicators for well being or possible trouble. The problem is that they are very limited and indeed can be false and unreliable. We usually think of feelings as associated with what is in our hearts.
God’s word tells us in Jeremiah 17:7, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD and whose trust is the LORD. 8 “For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the hear comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought not cease to yield fruit. 9 “the heart is deceitful above all things and is desperately wicked; who can understand it?”
God speaks through the proverb writer to tell us: Proverbs 3:5 trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he shall direct your paths.
That’s not popular today. We are told in our culture to follow our hearts. As Obi Wan Kanobi told Luke Skywalker, trust your feeling Luke! Feel the force! And since the script was written by someone who wanted to promote that philosophy, Luke turns off his computer and trusts his feelings and it works! Wow! He hit the target and blows up the Imperial Death Star and rescues to galaxy! See! It works! Hurray for following feelings! But how often does this really work against us in life?
It was Pat Boone’s daughter, Debbie (back to the 70s) who sang, “You light up my life!” and included this popular line, “It can’t be wrong, when if feels so right.” Sorry Debbie, but it can and often is, unless those feelings have been informed by and submit to the truth of God’s word. Feelings – wantings – even with all our might cannot change truth or righteousness or make sin acceptable.
I wonder, on the night Jesus was betrayed as he was praying in the garden, how did going to the cross feel? Did it feel right? Was Jesus following his heart and feelings? I can tell you, it wasn’t feelings that Jesus followed that night, it was the Father’s will. Through faith in that same Father, we learn to say no to our feelings and follow His will in spite fo them and often against them. We walk not be feelings, but by faith – Faith that is informed by and accountable to the word of God!
By that same faith we overcome the world and say no to sin and yes to God’s will. By that same faith we stand with the righteous character of God’s holiness and require it of each other and ourselves. We work to build up the character of Christ, and if there is anyone who has claimed the name of Jesus Christ as Lord and master who stands against the will of God, we must deal with them according to God’s will. We may feel bad and we may make them feel bad. But there is much more at stake than hurt feelings.
When we are more afraid of hurting someone’s feelings than we are of helping them walk in Christ’s authority, we have a problem. Not that we should have no concern for the feelings of others, of course we should! But not at the expense of right and truth! Truth trumps feelings! God’s authority and holiness trumps feelings! Faith, guided by God’s word trumps feelings! When that doesn’t happen – watch out!
Look at Corinth! What is their priority system? What on earth are they thinking that they would be proud of themselves for putting up with a man who is having a sexual relationship with his father’s wife?
It is the same priority system that will allow a church to disregard openly sinful practices of her members and take no action against it. Fear of men, fear of hurt feelings, not fear of God!
What has happened in the church at Corinth that allows them to be proud of themselves for putting up with gross immorality?
Paul addresses this head on doesn’t he? You have to remember, Paul didn’t start with chapter 5. He has worked hard to build up to this point. He has addressed their problems one at a time, building up to here. The order is important. The process of getting to this point needs to be observed and followed carefully.
Let’s take a quick look at what he has said up to this point:
He actually started this letter by describing them as saints in Christ. He speaks highly of their spiritual giftedness and eager expectation of Christ’s coming. He reminds them of their calling!
Then he immediately calls their attention to their need for unity in Christ. He builds his case for unity in Jesus death, their baptism, and the wisdom of God that seems so foolish to men, that being the cross. He argues that the world looks at God’s wisdom as folly, but the real fools are those who reject Jesus. The world looks at Jesus’ death as weakness, but in reality the cross is the power of God for salvation to all who believe. He reminds them of God’s choice among them: God chose the weak to shame the strong, the foolish to shame the wise, and the cross to provide salvation for all.
He tells them that the source of God’s truth is God’s spirit and that spiritual people receive it while unspiritual people can’t. Then he tells them that they are unspiritual! Their behaviors prove it. They can’t get along. He reminds them of Jesus Christ as the foundation and to be careful how they build upon this foundation. He reminds them that the church is the temple of God and that God will destroy those that desecrate it.
They like to boast in men and in worldly wisdom and worldly power. They seem to have teachers and guides who are leading them astray. Paul argues that he is their father in the gospel and that they must imitate him. He tells them that he is coming to see them and asks: What would you prefer, should I come with a rod or a spirit of gentleness?
That reminds me of the big black and white billboard sign that is supposed to be God speaking that says: Don’t make me come down there!
It is not until Paul has made this warning of his coming in power and discipline that he brings up this terrible situation of sexual sin and their arrogance about it.
He comes on strong in this chapter and the next.
Why? What is at stake? God’s temple, the church, is being defiled! Division, pride, jealousy, strife, sexual sin beyond what pagans would do, boasting in their tolerance of it… these are destroying the temple! God will destroy those who do this, and Paul is instruction them to take action while it can be taken. This is serious action, and it is purifying action, and it is saving action.
Jesus said, “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you, for it is better to enter life with one eye than having two eyes to be thrown into the fires of hell. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut if off and cast it from you. It is better to enter life having one hand than with two hands to be thrown into the fires of hell.” Did Jesus mean that?
You know, if my hand or eye had cancer, and it would save my life to lose my eye or my hand, I wouldn’t question what I had to do to live. I would grieve the loss and do what I could to save that hand or eye, but I know that saving the rest of my body is more important than that one member, and that’s just for a few more short years on earth! In the same way, is life eternal life not more valuable than an eye or a hand?
What did it cost Jesus for you and me to have eternal life?
If one member of the church gives himself or herself to open sin, and the church takes no action to cut off that member of the body, the whole body may be at stake. To take no action is like saying that Jesus’ sacrifice is not worth it. It is to place more value on allowing sin to remain than on Jesus’ death for our sins on the cross.
Look at verse 7. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. How then do we keep the feast? Not with the chains of bondage to sin, but with the deliverance and freedom of righteousness!
Do you have that victory in your life? Do you want it? Jesus is the only way. His way is the highway! Come to Him now.
