Sexual Immorality
Practical Church (1 Corinthians) • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Announcements
Good morning. Welcome to Southern Hills Baptist Church. Thank you for joining us today.
If you are a first-time guest with us, you will find a Connection Card in the pew rack in front of you. We would appreciate it if you would fill that out and place it in the offering plate. That gives us a record of your visit and allows us the opportunity of reaching out to you this week to answer any questions that you might have.
Online giving is available at our website, southernhillsbc.com. By clicking on GIVE, it will take you to our giving page where you can easily give by electronic check or credit card. You can also give during our offertory time or in the box at the info table. If you are a guest, please know that we do not expect you to give. Our members and regular attenders provide for the ministry of the church
See bulletin for Calendar Updates
If you are a guest with us, know that this is our weekly Family Worship service. Our children will remain with us for the entire service. We do have a nursery available for children under 4 just down the hall if you would like to use it.
Please stand as I read our Call to Worship.
Call To Worship
And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”
And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
Opening Hymn
Scripture & Prayer: SOMEONE Psalm 16
Song #1
Missions Minute: IMB Armstrongs- Guadalajara, Spain
Update on Olsens (Turkey)
Update on Tanners (West Africa)
Josh and Jennifer Armstrong and their 3 kids, Sarah, Joshua & Eliana serve with the International Mission Board, or IMB for short, in Spain. They were here with us at the end of 2024 during their furlough before returning to Valencia, Spain at the beginning of 2025.
In March, they relocated inland to Guadalajara, Spain—a suburb of Madrid—to be closer to the IMB team that they are working with. Josh works in technical support of IMB teams and the Armstrong family seek to support the local church in their mission field. There are over 400 towns in Spain that lack Evangelical churches and the IMB is seeking to engage them.
For Southern Hills, the Armstrong family is our assigned IMB Missionary Team. That is why we budgeted $2000 to support them this year within our missions budget. Recently, we donated $250 to their family to support a missions trip that their daughter Sarah will be taking to Northern Spain in April. This money will help them free up their budget for normal expenses.
The rest of the money that we budgeted will be used toward an exploratory missions trip that we have tentatively scheduled for October 5-12. As this is an exploratory trip to see how we can best support them in their new environment and in their assignment, I will be taking a very small team with me. If you are interested in coming along, have a valid passport, and are willing to pay for your travel, please let me know.
We have postcard reminders on the missions table to remind you to pray for the Armstrong family. I would encourage you to grab one and put it on the refrigerator or somewhere where you will see it often. I will send out an email this week with some prayer prompts for them.
Josh also made this quick video for you:
Offering & Prayer
Song #2 (Way Maker)
Lord’s Supper
Please be seated.
(beat)
Jesus is the Way Maker. He is the speaker of Truth—the One who explains rightly the Kingdom of Heaven and the way to it. Jesus spoke in parables, but He also spoke plainly at times. He spoke as one who had authority over the law. Surely, this caused conflict and consternation. But it also drew interest and intrigue—even from the Pharisees.
We’re going to continue our reading about Jesus from the book of John. Today we will start chapter 3:
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
At this time, I am going to have our ushers come forward. If you are a follower of Jesus, in that you have accepted Him as Savior, bowed to Him as King, and been baptized in obedience to His commandment, we invite you to participate with us. In just a moment, we will pass the plates. Please take a piece of bread and a cup and hold it until we take together.
Pass
Instruction from Jesus: Read Luke 22:14-20
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Prayer of Blessing on bread and cup
Song #3
Pastoral Prayer
World -
Country-
State- Dying churches, communities in need of faithful churches
City- sickness
SHBC- sickness
Introduction
If you have your bibles this morning, please turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.
We have been working our way through this letter in our series called Practical Church. Over the past several months, we have seen Paul as an encourager, a unifier, a mentor, a preacher, a sage, and an Apostle.
Last week, we finished chapter 4, where Paul had made clear the roles of Apostles and his duty as their spiritual father. He was trying to admonish the Corinthian believers gently by calling them to submit to the wisdom of God, which was available to them through the Holy Spirit and through the gospel that he proclaimed to them. It was, after all, the gospel of Jesus that laid the foundation of the church in Corinth.
Every church member was built on the truth of Christ and was ultimately accountable to Him. And so, by reminding them that he was their spiritual father—the one who brought the gospel to them—Paul was re-establishing his authority over the Corinthian church.
In doing so, he hoped that they would willingly submit to him and that he would not have to come with the rod of discipline. He now carries that hope forward into chapter 5, where he will begin to address areas of serious concern beyond the division of the body.
[TITLE SLIDE]
In today’s passage, Paul will attempt to use his re-established authority to discuss unrepentant sexual sin within the church body in Corinth. In doing so, he will not be revealing secret sin. This sin is so well known to the congregation that the news of it has found its way to Paul in Ephesus.
Let’s look at what Paul writes in chapter 5, starting in verse 1:
[MAIN PASSAGE SLIDE x7]
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. (/)
For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, (/) you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? (/) Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, 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 sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. (/) But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? (/) God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
Paul’s is using this unwelcome news to help the congregation understand that they are not acting as a faithful church of Jesus. It seems that he had sent them a letter before this to warn them of associating with the sexually immoral. And yet, they have disregarded his warning. And so, he now calls the Corinthian body of Christ to action.
As one who has authority over them as their spiritual father, he tells them to do three things. The first thing he does is to instruct the body to exercise church discipline.
[POINT 1 SLIDE]
Exercise Discipline (vv 1-5)
Church discipline could be described as self-policing. When a local body understands their responsibility to protect the congregation and realizes that unrepentant sin irreparably damages the church, they will begin to hold each other accountable.
These believers have not reached that point, so Paul is trying to help them understand their duty to fight for the health of the church. Go back with me to verse 1:
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife.
Paul says that he has received a report of some sexual immorality among them that is so obscene that it is not even tolerated within the culture at large.
The Greek myth of Oedipus is said to originate around the 13th century BC. It was passed down by oral tradition until the 5th century BC, when it was written as a play by a Greek playwright named Sophacles. He told the story of Oedipus as a tragedy in this way:
There once was Greek king in the city of Thebes named Laius who married a young woman named Jocasta. For years they attempted to have a son, but remained childless. As they worshipped the god Apollo, Laius went to see one of his oracles—a prophetess, if you will. The oracle told him that he would have a son, but that he would die by his son’s hand. This caused him immense fear.
So, when Jocasta finally gave birth to a son, King Laius had the baby’s feet nailed to the side of a mountain so that the child would die from exposure. But a shepherd found the baby and took him to his employer, King Polybus of Corinth. They named the child Oedipus because the name meant “swollen foot.”
As Oedipus grew up, he also went to visit an oracle of Apollo, as was common of those coming to age. The oracle prophesied that he would kill his father and commit incest with his mother. Fearing that this could actually happen, he fled Corinth to keep the prophecy from being fulfilled, not knowing that those who raised him were not his biological parents.
As he approached the city of Thebes, he had a confrontation with a charioteer who refused to yield for him. In the fight, Oedipus killed the chariot driver and his passenger, King Laius. Soon thereafter, Oedipus rescued the city of Thebes from a Sphinx monster and won the crown along with the queen.
Years later, after having a family with his own mother, Oedipus finally learned the truth, which horrified them both and led to their demise.
Sophacles adapted this myth to build into his rotation of tragedies that he would put on stage. You see, even to the Greeks—known for their bizarre and twisted sexual deviancy—incest was abhorrent. The tragedy of Eudipus was as much his unclean relationship with his mother as it was the downfall of this Greek hero.
This pagan perception of incest did not die with Greece, but influenced the morality of the Roman Empire. Not only was incest forbidden by Roman law, but it was punishable by exile to an island (Similar to John’s punishment for his proclamation of Jesus as Lord rather than Caesar). Unlike Egypt, where incest was common within the ruling dynasty, Greeks and Romans were repulsed by the thought of incest.
Paul is saying that “even the pagans around you—who engage in every kind of sexual deviancy imaginable—look down on incest.”
The Israelites had viewed incest similarly. Looking back to the law, we see what Moses records in Leviticus 18:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE]
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness.
And not only was the act forbidden for the Israelites, but the law goes on to explain that it was punishable by death.
Paul makes clear that this unnamed member of the church has been openly engaged in a sexual relationship with his step-mother. We are given no other details. We don’t know if his father has died or if the two of them have been married. Obviously this information is known to the church. But all we know is that this man is publicly engaged in this relationship with a woman that he is related to.
Yet, the church allowed it to remain in the body. And even worse, it seems that they are boasting about it. On to verse 2. Paul continues:
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
Notice that Paul’s attention stays on the church rather than this wayward church member. His rebuke is corporate in nature. This wasn’t a passive failure of the church, as though they weren’t paying attention. Instead of removing this unrepentant sinner and mourning over the sin, they apparently began boasting about it instead.
Most scholars believe that the church had fallen into this trap based on their leaning into worldly wisdom. In Roman culture, if a social elite who carried a lot of influence and money strayed from social norms, it would be foolish to excoriate them and thereby lose their proximity to power and wealth.
It seems, then, that the church was happy to welcome such an elite into their fellowship, but hesitant to rebuke him later when he entered into this sexual immorality. Apparently, he had misunderstood the nature of his newfound “Christian freedom.” Paul will go on to quote what seems to be a slogan in chapter 6, where he says, “all things are lawful.”
It may be that in the promotion of such a slogan, “all things are lawful,” that the church had drawn some from the Corinthian elite who were abusing this idea of Christian freedom. And instead of correcting this man, the church went along with the sin—even going as far in to boast in the breadth of their so-called freedom.
The text is not clear whether the church was divided on this issue or not, but it appears that no faction within the church is willing to speak up about it. Whether they are afraid of the repercussions of doing so or simply worried about losing a significant donor to the church, none are willing to rebuke this man and his outrageous sin.
This whole ordeal reminds me of the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen. If you are not familiar, the story goes like this:
Two con artists arrive in a rich kingdom where they masquerade themselves as weavers, claiming to the whole kingdom that they are the owners of a new magical yarn. The cloth that they make from this yarn isn’t affordable for the common man and appears invisible to anyone who is unworthy of seeing it. The Emperor hears about this and becomes intrigued. He believes their promise of a magnificent garment and offers to pay them handsomely for it.
The word spread throughout the kingdom of this amazing new outfit that the Emperor had commissioned. Several days later, these scammers deliver an invisible outfit to the Emperor. They help him to try it on, and his servants all praise it, not seeing anything but afraid that in failing to do so, the Emperor will find them incompetent and unworthy of their roles in his court.
The Emperor himself—also seeing nothing—hears his servants praising the outfit, and becomes afraid of what they would think of him if he revealed himself as unworthy of seeing it. Being encouraged by his court, the Emperor begins his grand parade through the kingdom to show off his fabulous and expensive new suit.
As the con artists escape town with their loot, the Emperor sets out down the streets of the town wearing nothing at all. Afraid to reveal themselves as unworthy subjects, the crowds cheer for this new outfit, building the bravado of the Emperor. Until one little boy shouts, “he hasn’t got anything on!”
The bold honesty of this young boy helps everyone realize what they were all too afraid to say: that the Emperor is naked.
(Beat)
This influential man of Corinth is like the Emperor in the story. Everyone is afraid of speaking the truth because of the consequences that may come from doing so. Instead of speaking up, they allowed someone powerful to abuse Christian freedom.
In the letter, Paul is the little boy shouting for everyone to wake up because this man is naked! He has exposed himself for what he truly is and he is unrepentant of his sin. It’s time for the crowds to speak up.
In allowing grievous sin to remain in the body, the church was effectively endorsing it. And so, Paul is calling them to understand their corporate responsibility—as a body of Christ—to remove the sinner and keep the body holy. Failure to do so will bring God’s judgment upon them. Look at what Isaiah says to Judah in Isaiah chapter 3:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE]
For Jerusalem has stumbled,
and Judah has fallen,
because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord,
defying his glorious presence.
For the look on their faces bears witness against them;
they proclaim their sin like Sodom;
they do not hide it.
Woe to them!
For they have brought evil on themselves.
The consequences of sin come to both to those outside the church and within it. Jesus says that God “sends rain on the just and the unjust.”
God’s church will be holy and set apart. It doesn’t matter if this man is hosting the church or holding it up financially, he must be removed for the sake of the Name. This man must be judged by the church. Paul continues:
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.
Paul says that he, as their spiritual father and chief disciple-maker, remains present with the body in spirit and that they should follow him in pronouncing judgment on an unrepentant believer.
This idea of being present in spirit was common in the Ancient Near East. It speaks of his intimacy and solidarity with the community that he is writing to. By his wording, he is asking the congregation to link arms with him in declaring truth and pronouncing judgment on a member who refuses to repent of his sin.
Verses 4 and 5:
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
Paul calls the church to come together in unity—as the assembly of God—remove the man from the body, and deliver him to Satan.
They are to do so for two reasons. First, to protect the body of Christ. Paul’s primary concern is the state of the church, not the individual. His concern for the spiritual health of this individual is secondary.
But that is his second reason, so that the unrepentant man’s fleshly nature will be destroyed and so that he may be restored to the body before the final judgment. We practice judgment within the body now so that our members don’t face final judgment unprepared. Only God can affect this individual’s heart. But that may come through that consequence of the church giving the man over to his sin.
Paul is asking them to engage in what we would call excommunication. It is the removal of an individual from the body of the church for the purpose of exposing this person to the natural consequences of unrepentant sin. In this way, God uses His church as His mighty arm of discipline.
Effectively, you are turning the unrepentant member over to his true father—the devil. John speaks of this in his first letter to the church:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE x3]
Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. (/) Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. (/) No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
The purpose of church discipline is to maintain holiness in the church and to restore a brother after he has learned the full extent of the consequences of his sin. The removal from the church—that is, from God’s presence—is the natural consequence of his choice. He has chosen the love for sin over his love for God. In this way, the church practices the binding and loosing on earth as in heaven. Church discipline is the local church is exercising God’s authority that has been given to them.
And this was a practice that God’s people had engaged in since the law was put into place with Moses. Unrepentant sin could not be tolerated within a holy community of God’s people living in God’s presence. It must be cleansed or removed.
God’s holy church must engage in church discipline to protect the body from the cancer of unrepentant sin and to maintain its witness to a lost and dying world. And so, if we—as a local church body—must practice church discipline like the church at Corinth, how do we make this practical for us today?
First, we must understand the need for the practice of meaningful membership. That is—that we, as members, all belong to Christ and therefore are covenanted with Him and with each other. We bear the responsibility to protect the church, and each other, from wolves who may try to enter and from those who have masqueraded themselves as part of the flock.
Second, we must understand the call to holiness. Both individually and collectively, our words of truth have no power if they are not accompanied by good works and the Holy Spirit. Church, I submit to you this morning that the Holy Spirit will not continue to dwell in a place that does not fight to maintain holiness. We are called to be a light on a hill in a good way, not a blight on our community.
And third, we must understand the need to be faithful to King Jesus no matter the consequence. If that means that if we must remove our wealthiest and most powerful members, then so be it. For faithfulness is found in the hearts of the church’s members, not in its bank account.
Mark 8:36 “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”
Southern Hills, God has not placed us on this hill for 60 years to look like the world. He has not called us to lure people in with fancy services and baristas in the lobby. He has called us simply to be holy, faithful, and consistent.
And, as we respond to that call, God will be faithful to us and His Spirit will lead and guide us as we seek to make His name known in this neighborhood and throughout Siouxland.
But we can’t remain holy and faithful without being vigilant. We can’t remain holy and faithful without being willing to exercise church discipline when the time comes.
The Corinthian church could have made a giant impact on their metropolis, but instead they floundered, continuing to fight with sin and pride. 40 years after this letter, Clement of Rome would write them another letter similar to this one. Their disunity kept them from being effective in the mission that Jesus had given them.
Let us be resolved, then, not to turn into Corinth, but to seek true unity as a faithful local church. When we find unrepentant sinners within our family, let us not be afraid to remove it. For the sake of the Name of Jesus, and for the soul of the individual—who, by God’s grace, may repent and return to the family of God.
That is the second thing that Paul calls the Corinthian church to do: to repent.
[POINT 2 SLIDE]
Repent (vv 6-8)
As the church, we exercise discipline. And we hope that through experiencing the separation from God’s presence and blessing—which is the natural consequence of sin—that the individual will repent and return to the church.
But when we—as the local church—fail to hold ourselves accountable to God’s call to holiness, we must also repent. And this is what Paul calls the Corinthian church to do. Go with me to verse 6:
[PASSAGE SLIDE x2]
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
He tells them that they must repent from their boasting in sin. Instead of rebuking and removing an unrepentant sinner, they have been encouraging it. He uses an illustration of leaven bread.
At the risk of making you hungry—to me, there is nothing better than fresh sourdough bread. I don’t need butter. Just give me the loaf and a quiet place to enjoy it. When I first went on a keto diet, I would sit at work and daydream about sourdough bread.
Now, I don’t want to describe it in too much detail or you may just leave for lunch and miss the end of the message.
But, sourdough uses yeast to allow the bread to rise and give you a soft, fluffy inside, filled with air pockets to trap its wonderful aroma. But what is interesting about yeast is that you only need a tiny bit. In fact, you can use less than a 1% yeast to flour ratio and still get the desired result.
And Paul uses yeast—here—as a metaphor for sin. The goal of the church is to be unleavened bread. If we fail to cleanse out the old leavened flour jar before we put new flour in, we run the risk of yeast permeating the new flour.
Sin, left untreated, will work as yeast in the body of the church. Even a little—that remains uncorrected—will be quickly multiplied. Why do you think it is that we have so many unfaithful churches with members who claim to be the body of Christ and yet sit in their pew each week, unrepentant in their sin? It’s because their fellow church members refuse to hold them accountable. The church at large has failed in their duty to discipline the body. And soon enough, the sin permeates every pew because it is allowed to multiply. If I were to double the metaphor, I would say that sin, like yeast, multiplies like rabbits.
You see, what we model for those around us will be duplicated. A church body that models holiness with multiply holiness. And a church body that models sin will multiply sin. And I declare to you that the church modeling sin will not be a church very long. The Spirit will leave them in the wilderness as a natural consequence of their unfaithfulness. Or, in the words of Jesus, he “will come and remove [their] lampstand from its place, unless [they] repent.”
Church, it is not enough to simply change our actions. We must look to the Passover lamb that has been sacrificed in our place for our sin and submit our hearts to Him. He has taken away our sin forever. To hold onto it is to be ungrateful for His gift. It is only proper that we respond to His mercy with the bent knees of loyalty and obedience.
Verse 8:
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Paul speaks metaphorically of the festival of Passover. That is—that we should celebrate Jesus taking away sin by partaking only of the unleaven bread.
Churches—like individuals—should respond to the gift of Jesus with sincerity and truth. Truly understanding the depth of the gospel and God’s love for us should lead us to repent of our disobedience and sin and seek to live sacrificial lives of holiness—both individually and corporately.
That is Paul’s call to Corinth. He has called them to exercise discipline and repent of their disobedience to Jesus. And now he calls the church to seek holiness:
[POINT 3 SLIDE]
Seek Holiness (vv 9-13)
We have covered the topic of holiness already this morning, but I want us to see what Paul has to say at the end of this passage. Once again, it is not just individual followers of Christ who must seek holiness, but the church collectively.
[PASSAGE SLIDE x2]
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. (/) But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
Paul says that he warned them in his last letter to stay away from sexually immoral people for this idea of the yeast of sin ruining unleavened dough. But now he clarifies that he was speaking of those within the church.
Obviously, it would be impossible to win the world to Christ if we stay away from those who sin. Rather, it is those who call themselves brother or sister—and yet continue in unrepentant sin—that the Corinthians should avoid.
And by avoid, we now understand that Paul means their removal from the church. That—when they are excommunicated from the holy body of Christ—the body should no longer meet with them, not even for coffee, until they have repented and returned in repentance.
Paul then closes this argument with verses 12 and 13:
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
In chapter 4, Paul has just warned the Corinthians about judging before the Lord comes. So, how do we now reconcile this with these comments? Are we to judge or are we not to judge?
First, let us clear the table. It is clear that Paul declares that only God judges outside of the church, so we have limited our scope to church members. Are we, as church members, to judge other church members or not?
To understand this answer, we will need to go back to the context of chapter 4. There, we find that Paul is rebuking a division of the Corinthians for their judgment of him as an Apostle. This is not so much a judgment of his faithfulness to God, but of the authority that he carries as an Apostle of God. He tells them that God—as ultimate judge—will render that answer.
Here in chapter 5, it is clear that Paul is calling the church to evaluate their members based upon the fruit of their actions. Notice that he is not speaking of individual church members judging and removing other church members. Jesus, Himself, addressed this issue in Matthew 18, where He lays out the full understanding of church discipline.
Let’s look at what Jesus says:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE x2]
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. (/) If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
Brothers and sisters should love each other enough to approach those that hurt them and seek reconciliation. They should confront sin and gently seek restoration.
But when a sibling in Christ refuses to repent from their sin, then it is the church’s duty to judge them accordingly and exercise church discipline.
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
God judges those outside the church. But you, Corinth, “purge the evil person among you.”
It is the responsibility of the local church, as the corporate body of Christ, to seek holiness by faithfully proclaiming the gospel, making disciples, baptizing them into the church, and teaching them how to follow Jesus. And along with that mission comes the call to holiness—to keep sin from damaging the body by correction, reproving, and—sometimes—by removing it.
Local churches must repent and seek holiness, exercising discipline as needed to maintain their status as faithful bodies of Christ. A local church that looks like the world (or worse than it) will not draw people to itself and will harm the witness of itself and the global Church.
[PREVIEW SLIDE]
Application
Church family, we have a responsibility to be faithful and holy. That is our calling. Failure to do so comes with severe consequences.
This morning is a moment of reflection for us.
Are we holding ourselves accountable to the call to be holy?
Are we helping each other in that task?
Is there unrepentant sin amongst us?
And if we find it, do we love Jesus and that individual enough to do something about it?
The exercise of church discipline should always be done in hope of restoration. Failure to practice discipline gives people false hope of eternally dwelling in the presence of God. And unrepentant sin will spread throughout the church like wildfire.
Stay vigilant.
Fight for holiness.
Invitation
If you don’t know Jesus this morning as your Savior and King, He invites you to follow Him now. He is the rightful King of all things. Will you recognize that and come be part of His family?
CLOSE IN PRAYER
CLOSING HYMN
CONGREGATIONAL BLESSING
