Striving for Holiness with Church Discipline: The Picture

Intro:

Junk Drawer in my house. Hate it because it is always full of misplaced things and items that can really be thrown away. I hate more what it represents…not dealing with the problem. I am guilty of using it so let me just say my frustration is with myself as anyone. We throw things in that drawer for the sole purpose of out of sight…out of mind. Instead, of culling that stash, figuring where the items actually belong and what needs to be thrown away as trash.

The junk represents the problem that is addressed by Paul in the church at Corinth. You can call it sweeping it under the rug or tossing it in the junk drawer, the church must deal with sin. This is Paul’s point about the man in Corinthian church who living in sin and the church’s failure to act in holiness towards this situation.

Last week, we looked at the need for church discipline as a means for God leading his church to holiness. The depravity of sin is a reality in the world, and its effect are still engulfed in a wrestling match

1. The danger of contamination (6)

The pride of Corinth

Paul once again ID’s the arrogance and pride of Corinth in allowing sin to dwell in their midst and so arrogantly mishandling such weighty matters in the church

The purpose of leaven

Leaven or more specifically yeast is the component added to bread dough to make it rise. When baking, bakers would preserve a portion of the risen uncooked dough to mixed in with a new batch of bread to make the next loaf rise. The process was completed each time bread was made.

For Israel, this practice took on great meaning in the story of God when he rescued them from the captivity in Egypt. Israel was commanded to commemorate the salvation provided for them by the Lord with the Feast of the Passover and the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. Passover was one day where the lambs were sacrificed annually along with household removing leaven from their homes in commemoration of their exit from Egypt in haste. During the feast of Unleavened Bread, they ate only unleavened bread and would begin afresh with new yeast in their bread-making after the feast concluded.

Read Exodus 12:14–20

This was Israel’s instruction by the Lord and it was practiced by families on an annual basis.

The reason that Israel practiced the removing of leaven in their homes carried two reasons:

It provided healthy hygienic cleansing of any bacteria in the dough that might make the family sick.

It provided spiritual imagery of the cleansing of harmful corruption from God’s people by the Lord in conjunction with Passover lamb.

The power of leaven’s corruption

Paul uses the imagery of leaven to warn Corinth of allowing sin to threaten the health of the church. In his warning, he reminds them that leaven has great power to corrupt. Not only does the little lump that is preserved make the entire dough rise, but any bacteria in that lump spreads to entirety of the dough as well.

Therefore, Paul’s reminds us this afternoon how powerful sin remains in its effect. If we don’t turn from when it visits, then sin can become an unwanted and yet long-standing resident in our lives. Let’s consider that application on many levels of application.

Individual Sin

When we flirt with sin, allowing it to make base camp in our lives, then it corrupts the healthy parts of ourselves. Its like a disease that attacks healthy cells that cannot go unnoticed. This could be sinful thoughts that we give more mental attention to. This could sinful acts that we are not putting away from us. This could be sinful influencers who are leading us down a path of destruction.

In my years of counseling couples, I learned that in many if not most cases of those seeking divorce, there was always one influencer who had the ear of the wife or husband who was seeking divorce. Its always some embittered man or woman who just wants a companion in singleness instead of giving wisdom about the importance of marriage.

The point is to identify the areas of sin or temptation

Church Sin

Similarly, Paul tells the Corinthians that their pride has led them to ignore the sin among their corporate body and therefore that sin will not just affect the man and woman involved, it will spread throughout the church because the sin is not addressed.

One example that I think is not talked about enough in the church is the sin in church polity. At some point in SBC church history in America, the church shifted from elder run churches to deacon run churches. This polity in the church is sinful because it goes against the way that the Lord had designed his church to function. God never intended for deacons or boards of trustees to run churches. We have gone away from how the Lord wants the church to be structured and we end up with SBC churches all over the US operating against what the Lord wants.

We saw this in India, at the church we were meeting in. The Pastor there was a godly man, who loved the Lord, but he accepted a church where a board of Trustees, who did not even attend the church, made decisions about his ministry and the property where that ministry functioned. He was enthralled by the teaching from Catalyst because we lay out a biblical church structure as the Lord designed it.

That seems subtle, but when you consider the effect it has had on churches, the sin is actually great. Unqualified men are leading churches that God has not called them to lead.

There is more blatant sin in the church than that one example, one that we might say is more damaging to the name of Christ…but doesn’t all sin dishonor the glory of Christ. That’s our problem is that we categorize sin, then we place the so-called less offenses on the bottom shelf so that we are only dealing with the “big ones.” All sin is an offense to God and requires actions of repentance against it or as Paul said, it will corrupt the whole.

2. The call to cleansing (7)

The foundation of our cleansing is Christ

Secondly, in Paul’s call pictorial call to action, he calls the church to “clean out the old leaven” which is a reference to Israel, first removing the leaven from their homes in preparation for Passover. I love that the first Passover event already occured in the exodus of Egypt, the act which points forward to the work of Christ. That Passover was followed by a feast, an act of faith by God’s people to remember their salvation by the Lord, and therefore act by faith to commemorate the event. Their act of faith included:

cleaning out their home of leaven

sacrificing the Passover lamb

abstaining from work on during the feast’s first and last day

All acts of faith and worship done to remember past works of the Lord. So this points to Christ, who has already been our sacrificed,

“so Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed.”

His blood brought atonement for our sins so that the wrath of God will passover all who by faith trust in Him alone. He was the final and last Passover lamb needed to be destroyed so that others can experience freedom. The lamb in Moses’ day sacrificed by the Jewish family, was supposed to be unblemished, pointing to our Passover lamb and his sinless perfect life. That perfect life, that holy life, not only brought us righteousness, but it gave us the goal posts of holiness that we are striving for and that we are being made into by God’s grace.

What Christ accomplished empowers what we accomplish in holiness

“Clean out the old leaven, so that you may be a new lump, just as you are unleavened.”

What a powerful statement about the application of Christ’s work:

“Clean out” is a powerful imperative from Paul, not just to the corporate body when sin remains among us, but generally about all sin in our lives. Israel removed by faith the old leaven, so you and I are called to admit to the corruption around us and remove that which brings disease.

Jesus gave the warning about the individual response to personal sin.

Matthew 18:9 NASB95

9 “If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell.

We must seek to examine what area of our lives is exposed to corruption and we must remove that from us before it corrupts the whole person. Jesus calls for an aggressive removal. For some of our adults and students in the room, that might be friends or influencers online that do nothing but lead us down the path toward sin. Remove them from your midst!

“so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened.”

This is such a cool statement because it highlights the action required of us to strive for holiness as people and as a community of people belonging to God through Christ. You clean out the leaven, you remove the eye causing you to sin, you cast out the sinner from your church body, so that practically you may be what Christ already did in you by making you unleavened.

(Gordon Fee)

He reminds them that what they must become is what they already are by the grace of God. Paul is simply too steeped in the religious heritage of the OT to allow a divorce of ethics from the gift of God’s favor. But he has been too badly burned by his former pharisaism to allow that ethics lead to that gift of favor.”

Therefore, your new lumpiness is a work of Christ in you that compels you to not allow sin to remain and your Christian life is made up of a continual battle with sin within you as you are being made day by day into the image of Christ

Romans 8:29 NASB95

29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;

The Lord Jesus bled and died to conform you to his holiness byt first making you holy in his sight, day by day empowering you to remove the old grave clothes of this earthly life, fitting you for an eternity in heaven when He returns.

You can then act in faith, act in faith to fight sin, knowing the Lord has already gained the victory for you. He displayed his greatness over your gossip, your lust, your greed, your discontentment, when he bore those sins on himself on the cross. His victorious resurrection shows us that what he already put to death in your spirit, can be manifested in your flesh. He will give you victory when you rest in him and act against sin! Clean it out and for you have been cleansed by Christ.

3. The hope of the celebration (8)

1 Corinthians 5:8 NASB95

8 Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Immediately, as you read this verse 8, you may wonder if Paul is calling the NT church to observe OT feasts. The answer is a hearty NO. He is speaking spiritually, following along the course of the context. His imagery of the OT feasts leads him to see those things all fulfilled in Christ, so there is no longer a need for those feasts to occur. They served their purpose in driving the OT Jews to faith in YHWH and revealing the promise of something greater in the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

Jesus as our Passover Lamb, as Paul says, has become the reason for those feasts and therefore, we come to celebrate Him. What does it mean then to celebrate the feast in our New life in Christ:

Worship with joy and thankfulness

What major celebration do you approach that does not include joy and thankfulness? Birthdays, promotions, weddings, anniversaries. All of these events, which include gathering around food, rejoicing over what the Lord has accomplished all include a joy and a thankfulness for the Lord moving in that areas.

The Jews were instructed to celebrate because of all that God had done. These feasts were not just cold rituals but they were vibrant celebrations that reflected an attitude of joy and worship towards God from the people.

Exodus 12:25–27 NASB95

25 “When you enter the land which the Lord will give you, as He has promised, you shall observe this rite. 26 “And when your children say to you, ‘What does this rite mean to you?’ 27 you shall say, ‘It is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but spared our homes.’ ” And the people bowed low and worshiped.

Psalm 81:1–4 NASB95

1 Sing for joy to God our strength; Shout joyfully to the God of Jacob. 2 Raise a song, strike the timbrel, The sweet sounding lyre with the harp. 3 Blow the trumpet at the new moon, At the full moon, on our feast day. 4 For it is a statute for Israel, An ordinance of the God of Jacob.

I don’t know about you but music brings joy and hope to any celebration. Our remembrance of the Lord’s Supper may seem solemn but it is meant to lead us to celebration in our hearts for all Christ has accomplished for us.

2. Worship with obedience

Secondly, celebrating the feast in our new life in Christ means that we are committed to daily obedience to God’s word. His path for us leads us to follow His word. It is not merely the light to our path, it is our path toward holiness and godliness.

Holy living is the practices of faith where he turn from wickedness and malice and live by truth and purity of mind. Paul is using synonymous terms to draw a contrast of the evil of sin and the the goodness of holy living. The truth that we must live by is Christ and with Christ, he grants us sincerity or purity of our motives. These items of holy living are what drive us forward to holiness.

All of these pictures of OT past point the church forward to a present and future where as individuals and as a corporate body, we are removing sin from our midst. This was a perfect illustration by Paul to use to lead the Corinthians toward holiness through church discipline instead of contaminating others in the family of God.

Lords Supper

1 Peter 1:9 NASB95

obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

1 cor 5