Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro:

Where we have been:

1 Corinthians chapter 1-4 dealing with division in church due to arrogance and pride over man’s wisdom and knowledge

Last two weeks:

Paul defines gospel ministry for himself and all believers in the church

Paul demonstrates the example of gospel ministry in admonishing the church over their sin

Where we are going:

The Need for Church Discipline: 1-5

The Picture of Church Discipline: 6-8

The Practice of Church Discipline: 9-13

Sin Cannot Remain Vibrant In the Body(v1-2)

God’s sovereignty always has a way of finding out the sinful desires and practices of humanity.

In his omniscience, God sees and knows all that we think and do that honors and dishonors his name.

Starting with the garden, we are made aware that God sees all and although our first parents thought in those moments of temptation that God would not know of their rebellion, which they displayed in hiding from God in shame, God still knew and was aware.

Do not think for one moment that when God asked “where are you?” to Adam and Eve, or “what have you done?” o Cain that the Lord is displaying some limited knowledge or understanding about all that occurs in this world.

Instead, the doctrine of God’s omniscience reveals that God is infinite in every way and his level of unlimitedness helps us apply that to other areas of his deity.

Therefore, in His infinite nature, we can see that he is infinite in knowledge.

He knows all things in himself and all things in his creation.

In our own lives, we must see and understand that God will not find our our sin eventually, He already knows the sinful thoughts and actions of our lives.

I am reminded of the time I got angry as a teenager and punched a hole in my sheetrock of my bedroom.

I covered up the hole with a Michael Jordan poster, thinking my parents would never think to look there.

They actually didn’t until years after I had moved out of that room and my brother moved in.

I got away with covering up the rage of my heart from my parents but the Lord knew my heart already.

Nothing can be hidden from him.

God uses circumstances in our lives to reveal that sin to us.

He uses circumstances to reveal what is within.

Maybe someone else’s road rage on I-40 reminds you of the anger in your heart.

I know your children’s struggle with sin is like looking in a spiritual mirror as you see your sin manifested in them as they grapple with that same sin in their lives.

Last Sunday, we learned that other believers also play a role in helping us see sin in us that we have overlooked or don’t see.

All these ways God is providentially working in such a way to bring that to the surface for us or others to discover so that radical action could be taken against our sin.

Paul, as an authority to the church in Corinth has discovered this sin in Corinth and he makes clear that “Sin among them cannot remain vibrant in the body of Christ” From afar, Paul addresses the sin that has gone unaddressed as he pleads for them to remove such corruption from among them.

Notice with me the sin that needs correction.

Man’s sexual immorality (v1)

This chapter’s purpose is not what you might think.

There are greater warnings against sexual immorality that Paul will give in 1 Corinthians than what is found here.

This chapter deals with sexual sin in the church but the greater message is how the church is allowing sin to remain within them.

This message is more about the failure of church discipline in the church than it is about the failure of this man to be practice sexual purity.

Nonetheless, Paul addresses the sin that we writes about to the church at Corinth.

Notice how Paul learns of this issue in the church.

It was “reported” to him in ways that we are not told.

Paul was not in Corinth, but this church had allowed this sin to exist within her midst and therefore, word traveled to Paul.

Look at what he says in verse 9

Paul states that he has already written a letter to them addressing sexual immorality which makes 1 Corinthians the second of 4 letters that Paul wrote to Corinth.

There could have been more than 4 but Paul references two mystery letters in 1 and 2 Corinthians which makes a total of 4. For a quick overview, Paul writes a “PREVIOUS LETTER” to them from Ephesus addressing issues of immorality among them.

It appears that three men , Stephanas, Fortunas, and Achaiacus delivered that PREVIOUS LETTER from Paul to them and then brought their response to Paul.

In their response, it is believed that the Corinthians challenged Paul’s authority over them and heraled their own wisdom.

This would be the reason Paul addresses the pride of Corinth in chapters 1-4.

Therefore, 1 Corinthians, is the third letter of correpondence between the apostle and the church.

Stephanas, Fortunas, and Achaicus (1 Cor 16:15-17) would have then delivered Paul response after bringing the letter from the Corinthians to Paul.

What I want us to see is the time that this sin existed among them.

The time it takes for Paul to have already addressed this type of issue in one letter, then Corinth responds to Paul and then Paul responds agin to them in our recorded 1 Corinthians.

That amount of history not only sets the stage for our understanding but it is a glowing red light of the indwelling sin that has encamped in the body of Christ.

It is a growing and festering sin that has not been dealt with in a long time.

Paul uses the word PORNEIA which means sexual sin of any kind outside of the marriage covenant.

For the Greek culture, the word was used simply of prostitution but as the Jews were hellenized by the Greek culture, they began to use the term more broadly to speak of not just prostitution, but incest, extramarrital affairs, homosexuality, etc. Porneia became the key term for any sexual thought or act outside the marriage relationship.

For this unnamed man in Corinth, His porneia was the sexual relationship with his step-mother.

It is unclear as to where his father’s is, but this man, who is clearly professes Jesus Christ as Lord, is living in an incestuous relationship with his mother by marriage.

In the OT, God told Israel that such a blatant sin of incest would result in stoning.

Look at Lev 18 with me.

Notice how the Lord states that the warning against immoral relationship begins with his name…I am the Lord your God.”

This is the foundation of our striving for holiness in our sexual relationships.

They are bound to the Lord and therefore should live holy as he is holy.

Secondly, look at the distinction stated in Lev 18:3.

The immorality in Egypt and Canaan was blatantly obvious to Israel.

They are to live distinct in holiness from the sexually immoral cultures of the other nations.

From v 6-23, areas that the Lord prohibits includes all detestable areas of sexual immorality including:

incest (6-17)

adultery (18-20)

child sacrifice(21) **Molech, god of Amalekites- sacrifice to temple prostitution instead of sacrifices to burned by fire

homosexuality(22)

bestiality (23)

God, who never changes, has clearly stated in these passages in Leviticus what he defines as sexual immorality.

It is disgusting and reprehensible to his holiness and it doesn’t belong in his creation.

We have grown so accustomed to seeing it that we forget that it doesn’t belong in this world.

It is a rebellion against the natural order of God’s creation and therefore it doesn’t belong among any of humanity.

But the corruption of sin led to humanity rebelling against God and his plan for sexual relationship to be enjoyed in a healthy marital relationship between husbands and wives.

That corruption led to discontentment in marriage in the form of sexual relationships or impatience and therefore that immorality progressed to the lust and fulfillment of that desire for other heterosexual or homosexual partners, multiple partners, animal partners and adolescent partners.

All of it is gross and an abomination to God.

Paul addresses this in 1 Cor because this man is having an ongoing sexual relationship with his step-mother.

We are not told if this man is married and he is committing adultery with this woman Lev 18:8 clearly teaches that having sexual relations with your father’s wife is an abomination before God and an attack on your father, if he is alive.

The Lord literaly says “it is your father’s nakedness.”

In other words, a wife’s body belongs to her husband to enjoy and her husband alone.

Let me admonish you church to flee sexual perversion and immorality in every way.

Flee :

thoughts that encompass these areas

TV shows that encourage it

music that promotes it

jokes that encompass it

internet pictures that expose it

daydreams that magnify it

companies that sponsor it

friends that indulge in it

Flee these things because the Lord has called his people to separate themselves from it.

He is our Lord and such sin is an abomination to his holy name.

God’s people are under constant attack with temptation to live like the world in this way and God will judge them.

He will judge these heterosexual immoralities in the church.

Church’s neglect of the spiritual well-being of its people (v2)

In a Jan 2021 article, Micheal Chancelor stated that:

68% of churchgoing men and more than 50% of pastors view porn on a regular basis.

Of young Christian adults 18-24 years old, 76% actively search for porn.