Kicked in the Gut

When was the last time you cried about someone else?

I don’t mean crying over someone’s death. I mean crying because you have come face to face with someone’s sin and it feels like you have been kicked in the gut.

9 years ago, I heard that a hero of mine admitted to adultery and then a year later was accused of sexual abuse of a young adult. I felt like I was kicked in the gut. His ministry caved in and he was kicked out of his church.

Many people in the Southern Baptist denomination are experiencing this feeling. There are a lot of tears. A lot of questions. Many people are leaving the faith because of allegations against prominent pastors. Allegations which are overwhelmingly true.

Unfortunately, we are all human. We all have the ability to sin. And we all are placed in situations where sin is so easy, and sometimes sin is very attractive.

In the situation of my hero, and the situation of these Southern Baptist pastors, men were placed on a pedestal. They were removed from accountability. When we as humans are placed on a pedestal and removed from accountability, we forget how we are called to live.

If you sit with me in Membership Class, you will hear me say that Calvary Bible Church does not have a hierarchy. I am not above you all. I need you to hold me accountable, and you need me and each other to hold you accountable. God has placed us together as a church to help each other live this life of following Christ, fighting the sin that so easily entangles us.

When a pastor is removed from accountability, bad things happen.

In addition, when a church stops holding each other accountable, when we stop feeling that gut punch about someone’s sin, bad things happen.

The Corinthian church had forgotten who they were, how Paul had described them back at the very beginning of his letter:

1 Corinthians 1:2 NIV

To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

The Corinthians, along with all of us, were called to be holy, even as God is holy. But, they were not living that way.

Let’s see what Paul says:

1 Corinthians 5:1–13 NIV

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, 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 people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

God calls his church to holiness. He wants us to be set apart from the wickedness around us. So that those outside can see something different, they can see God through us.

Calvary Bible Church. Let us be holy.

Pray

Two weeks ago, we talked about discipline. We said that Spiritual leaders, in addition to fathers, must discipline ungodliness, but we must do it from sincerity, out of love.

Paul outlines that disciple as three steps. Because of the holiness that we are supposed to have, here are three steps to take when there is sin in our midst.

God calls us to holiness, so we mourn

Paul writes:

1 Corinthians 5:1–2 NIV

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?

Culture of sin

The American church, steeped in our society of freedom, have become very flippant towards sin. We live among, and we have become calloused to it. So that, people who go to church, who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, have started living like the world around, because it is what is normal.

In a world that says pre-marital sex is okay, people will start embrace that reality, and pretty soon, pastors and priests will start living that too.

Our culture and the struggles in our churches are very similar to the days of Corinth.

If you remember how I described the city of Corinth on the very first Sunday in this book:

The temple of Aphrodite employed one thousand prostitutes. Immorality was so engrained in what people thought of Corinth that Greek literature began to coin phrase about it. Plato would refer to a prostitute, no matter where she was, by the phrase “Corinthian girl.” Another writer used the phrase: Doing Corinth for fornication.

This city was destroyed by Rome and was later rebuilt by Julius Caesar. It became of place of cultural and religious pluralism. Everything was okay there.

We don’t have any evidence of the temples of Apollos or Aphrodite being rebuilt. However, we know the worship of Aphrodite continued in shrines scattered throughout the city. Immorality was exulted, along with all sorts of other sins.

The Corinth of Paul’s day was basically New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas all rolled into one. It wasn’t a nice place to live.

This was not a good place to live. You were not expected to be faithful to your wife. In fact, you were regularly expected to visit the prostitutes and have a girl friend on the side, in addition to your wife.

We could talk about other sins. But, we won’t yet.

The Corinthian church should have been struggling against their culture, fighting the sin, convincing people to change their ways.

But, instead, they decided that we have freedom in Christ, therefore, we must boast in our freedom.

So, they boasted. Instead of mourning over sin, they boasted. It got to the point that a man started sleeping with his step-mom. And not just once, but the grammar here says that it was a standing arrangement. They had a continued sexual relationship. Everyone knew about it in church. Everyone knew about it in Corinth. Everyone knew about it in the surrounding area.

Everyone was shocked. Except for the people going to the Corinthian church and the guy and gal. They all were boasting about their freedom, their inclusion, their love.

They should have felt like they were kicked in the gut, and fallen on their face before the holy God, crying in pain that such sin was in their midst.

We should sympathize. Because, we live in America. And so often, sin is in our midst.

Purpose of mourning

What is the purpose of the mourning? The mourning reminds us and the person who sinned the seriousness of their actions, it shows those who are looking at us that we detest sin, and it protects us from following in their footsteps.

I think about Ezra. The people of Israel were slowly coming back to Israel after their exile in Babylon. Unfortunately, they had adopted many of the sinful practices of the nations around. A contributing factor of this was the intermarriage between the Israelites and the nations around. Unfortunately, whenever someone who is a follower of God marries someone who is not, more often than not, the one who is a follower of God will begin to change and stop following God.

Ezra heard about these practices:

Ezra 9:3–4 NIV

When I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled. Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me because of this unfaithfulness of the exiles. And I sat there appalled until the evening sacrifice.

He started to pray, out loud, in front of these people who gathered, confessing the sins of the people and weeping.

Ezra 10:1 NIV

While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites—men, women and children—gathered around him. They too wept bitterly.

This session of mourning deeply over sin started a revival in Israel, where people turned from their sins. The nation actually sent representatives to make a covenant before God. It all started when Ezra and then a group of people mourned over the sin in their midst.

The response is not anger. It is not hatred. It is mourning, because we realize the weight of the sin and we realize the result of the sin. Our heart breaks because of the pain that has been caused and the brokenness in the future.

What to mourn over

What are we to mourn over?

Paul in this passage has several lists of sins. Verse 11 is the most complete, though he has longer lists in other passages. He talks about the sexually immoral, which is a blanket term for any sexual sin, from pre-marital sex, to adultery, to homosexuality, to pornography, he talks about the greedy person, which is the person who is not content with what they have, the idolator, which worships other things rather than the one true God, the drunkard. This is an interesting word. It speaks not just of the act of getting drunk, but speaks of the result of getting drunk. This is a person who gets drunk and allows the drink to control his actions so that he is a jerk. Paul talks about the swindler, the person who cheats others. He talks about the slanderer. I don’t like that translation. I prefer “verbally abusive.” The word describes someone who is continually tearing other people down with his words.

Paul condemns all these actions as well as others. He firmly believes that the followers of Christ are called to be holy and sinful behaviors are not fitting for those who claim to have been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Now, in this list, he uses very interesting grammar. The grammar that he uses does not mean a single action.

We as humans will sin. We are called to repent and turn away from our sin. Single actions happen, to our shame, but they happen.

Paul’s grammar speaks of repeated action. He is speaking of someone who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ but who repeatedly lives a life of sin, whatever the sin is, whether it is Gossip, or disobedience to parents, or verbal abuse, or sexual immorality.

When we come face to face with such blatant sin, we as a church are to mourn. We should be crying when we hear of this, because we understand the weight of sin, the pain that has been caused, and the brokenness in the future.

When someone purposefully drives through a fence and cuts cookies throughout a field of corn, that action is felt for years afterwards.

The same is true for someone who repeatedly sins without repenting.

God calls us to holiness, so we mourn.

God calls us to holiness, so we judge

Hopefully, when someone is faced with a church mourning over his sin, he will repent and change his ways.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t often happen. Most of the time, we are sucked into our sin and we don’t want to change. I’ve been there. I’ve been the one who is sinning and didn’t want to change, or didn’t know how to change.

So, when faced by mourning, we keep sinning, because it feels good in the moment.

When that happens, God still calls us to holiness, so we are called to judge.

1 Corinthians 5:3–8 NIV

For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

We are called to name the sin what it is.

We are called to name the sin what it is.

It’s amazing what happens when you sit in a circle of men who struggle with internet purity, how many different ways one can say “sin”: I fell today. I struggled over the weekend. I stumbled. I sticked my toe in and then jumped out.

We as humans have a hard time saying: I sinned against God and you. And my sin deserves the fires of hell. I acknowledge that. We want to soften the blow and make ourselves feel better. But a soft blow does not make us holy, it just makes us want to head right back into that sin.

King David was called “A man after God’s own heart.” Have you ever wondered why? Because when confronted by his sin, he owned it. He didn’t sugar-coat it.

Psalm 51:1–4 NIV

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.

Leaven

In our passage, Paul uses a very interesting illustration about leaven. He is not speaking of yeast. We have yeast in our refrigerator. It is nice and clean, in a sealed bottle. That is not what Paul is speaking of.

He is speaking of sour dough bread leaven.

My roommate in seminary made sourdough. He had a jar with raw bread dough. It was rancid and discolored. It smelled horrible. He would use that as a starter to make fresh bread. It didn’t take much. That little bit of who knows what type of mold, would make the loaf really puff up.

Paul says: your sin is like discolored, rancid, moldy bread starter. Understand what it is and do something about it.

God calls us to holiness. We must name the sin. We must judge it.

While so many people do not want to name our own sin, we definitely do not want to name someone else’s sin.

We might be around them, and they smell spiritually like a jar of moldy bread starter. We can’t stand being around them. But, we can’t stand the idea of calling them out on their rancid sin.

Sometimes, we spiritualize our weak spine. We say: Well, we are not called to judge. Quoting Jesus in Matthew 7 1-5

Matthew 7:1–5 NIV

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Jesus is talking about hypocritical people. Individuals who have not repented of their sin and are trying to pick apart everyone else.

Paul is speaking to a church that is called to be holy and has covenanted together to keep each other holy.

To them he says:

1 Corinthians 5:12–13 NIV

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

We are called, before God, to name the sin in our midst and to call it out, after we mourn over it.

The process

There is a process for that.

Jesus details it in Matthew 18 15-20

Matthew 18:15–17 NIV

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

When a community needs to call out the sin in its midst, we always start privately. Then we move to the small group. Then, if necessary, we bring it before the whole group.

We follow this process, first because Jesus told us to, second because our goal is not to ridicule or shame the person who sinned. Our goal is to call them to repentance, to bring restoration.

We don’t want anyone to continue down the path of sin that leads to destruction. We want to save, to bring them back to truly following Jesus Christ.

God calls us to holiness, so we mourn, so we judge.

God calls us to holiness so we purge

Many times, when approached about our sin, we will repent and turn from it. At that time, there is rejoicing and celebration.

Sometimes, unfortunately, that doesn’t work. In those moments, we are to do the drastic.

God calls us to holiness, so we purge.

Paul uses three pictures of this purging.

Three pictures

First, he speaks of putting the man out of the fellowship.

1 Corinthians 5:2 NIV

And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?

This picture is repeated more forcefully in the last verse

1 Corinthians 5:13 NIV

God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

The fellowship was an understanding of who was a follower of Jesus Christ and who wasn’t. Those who were in the fellowship had confessed to have placed their faith in Jesus Christ for the salvation of their souls. They had showed their faith by public baptism. Because of their confession of faith and public baptism, they could join the church in the activities of the church, namely the Lord’s supper. They could take part in the teaching of the church, in the discipleship of others, etc.

When someone was put out of the fellowship, they were treated as someone who was not a believer.

Jesus said it this way in Matthew 18 17

Matthew 18:17 NIV

If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

Someone put out of the fellowship could not take communion. They could not teach. They could not disciple others. Basically anything that was kept from a non-believer, would be kept from this person.

It’s pretty drastic.

Second, Paul uses the metaphor of leaven for this.

1 Corinthians 5:7 NIV

Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

We take the sin, and we throw it out. Paul uses this metaphor to show the seriousness of this action. Old leaven will corrupt the taste of the bread, and all future breads. When that leaven is thrown out, new leaven is used, which will create a better tasting bread and will influence all other breads.

When someone is repeatedly sinning without repentance, they will influence others to sin. For the sake of the holiness of the assembly, for the sake of new Christians and children who are susceptible, and for the sake of everyone’s consciences, the sinner must be removed before the entire church follows down that path, bringing God’s judgment on everyone.

The third metaphor is found in verse 5:

1 Corinthians 5:5 NIV

hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

I don’t have time to unpack all the parts of this metaphor. Basically, Paul is saying, when we start treating someone like an unbeliever, because they are acting like an unbeliever, we are transferring them from the protection of God’s family to Satan’s kingdom.

We do this hoping that his flesh will be destroyed. Paul is not referring to his death. This isn’t a murder ceremony.

Paul uses flesh to speak of our sinful desires. We treat someone like a nonbeliever, forcing them out of the fellowship of Christ, so that they will finally see the seriousness of their sin, kill their sin, and come back to us.

Practical

What does this look like for us practically?

It means we do not associate with these sinners.

Now, Paul is only referring to Christians. He is not talking about the sinners who are not Christians who live next door, or possibly even in our own house. We are called to befriend those, allowing God to judge them.

However, Christians who are blatantly repeatedly sinning, who have seen us mourn and who have heard our judgement but refuse to repent. These sinners, we treat like non-believers.

So, how do you treat non-believers? That’s how you treat this person.

Paul adds to these verses in 2 Thess 3 14-15

2 Thessalonians 3:14–15 NIV

Take special note of anyone who does not obey our instruction in this letter. Do not associate with them, in order that they may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard them as an enemy, but warn them as you would a fellow believer.

We don’t treat a sinning brother or sister as an enemy. We hold them accountable. We don’t ostracize them, but we don’t trust them with our kids.

During times of Christian fellowship, we don’t allow them to come. But, during times of evangelism, we welcome them in.

We do this, so that they will feel ashamed, so that they will finally see the seriousness of their sin.

As I sometimes tell my kids, if you want to act like a baby, I will treat you like a baby.

If someone wants to act like a nonbeliever, I will treat them like a nonbeliever.

As a spiritual leader, this is a big deal for me. I am held to a high standard by God and am expected to keep that standard.

I have struggled with addiction in the past. I have gone through addiction programs and have compiled a group of accountability partners to help me stay clean.

Several weeks ago, I asked an elder at a church in Norfolk who I respect to join that team. After talking, he looked at me and said: “You know, if I see you do anything that would disqualify you from the ministry, I will tell Brook and your wife. Are you okay with that.”

I said “yes” because I was. But, I was very grateful for him saying that. It reminded me, as we all need reminding, the seriousness of our lives, the seriousness of our sin. We all need someone who is willing to hold us to the line of holiness, for the sake of our lives, our families, and our ministries.

My sin is not a secret. If you want to know more about my past and what Satan could use to rip me from the ministry, set up an appointment, and we’ll talk.

God calls us to holiness, so we mourn, we judge, and we purge sin.

All these steps point to the hope of restoration, which we will talk about next week, as we discussion our individual response to sin.

For now, remember, when we repent, when we stop our sin, this cycle of discipline halts. Confession is hard, but freedom comes when we repent and join our brothers and sisters in seeking holiness, supporting and strengthening each other until Christ calls us home.