Sermon Tone Analysis

The Imperfect Church – 11

The Immoral Church

Introduction

The Sunday before Easter is traditionally referred to as Palm Sunday.

It gets its name from an event in the life of Jesus that took place the week before he rose from the dead, called the Triumphal Entry.

As Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem, the crowd met him with shouts of worship, laying down palm branches on the road (typically done for the coronation of a King).

Hence, the name Palm Sunday.

It represents the triumphal procession of the King into his domain.

Ironically, this past Palm Sunday there was a different kind of triumphant procession taking place.

This one was in Augusta, GA [pic – 18th green], as Tiger Woods secured the victory at The Master’s.

Those who are fans of golf, regardless of whether they are fans of Tiger, rejoiced and celebrated such a phenomenal moment in the history of the game.

The last time Tiger won a major tournament was the 2008 U.S. Open.

Since that victory, he endured a highly-public, and highly-publicized divorce in 2010 after discovery of marital infidelities.

From that moment, his life and career seemed to spiral to nothingness.

He has endured multiple knee and back surgeries, unable to even swing a golf club as little as a couple years ago.

But now here he stands once again at the top of the sport.

The number one word used to describe his incredible feat by the media is “redemption.”

[pic – trophy] One news outlet phrased it this way: “With the cool stroke of a putter under ominous clouds hovering over the 18th green at Augusta National, Tiger Woods put an emphatic finishing touch on the most redemptive victory in sports history.”[1]

We all love a good redemption story.

We love it when someone is “redeemed.”

We love to throw around words like that, but do we really know what they mean?

What does it mean for a person to experience “redemption?”

According to our text today, it certainly means more than winning a golf tournament.

TS – Since we have taken a couple weeks off of 1 Corinthians, let me remind you of where we are in the letter.

After setting up the foundational truths of the Gospel, Paul now applies them to issue after issue.

The primary problem facing the Corinthian Christians is their inability and/or unwillingness to “be the Church,” to live out the reality of being the “called-out ones” from the world.

They have not severed ties with the wisdom and practices of the unchristian world around them.

Their thinking and their actions seem to be no different than those who do not know God at all.

Nowhere is that more clearly seen in their church, and among Christians today, than in the sin of sexual immorality.

Though he already dealt with a rather extreme example of sexual sin in chapter 5 that was something even the pagans don’t participate in, now in chapter 6 he will show that their thinking and their actions are right in line with the non-Christian life all around them, the life that they supposedly had left behind.

– 9 Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves.

Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.11

Some of you were once like that.

But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

I want to camp in these verses for a few minutes before we move on to how he deals with sexual sin specifically.

“Don’t you realize that those who do wrong…” The phrase “do wrong” is the Greek word adikos, an important word that guides what he is teaching us here.

Its root word is dikaios, meaning “righteous” or “just.”

So an “a” dikaios (a – no, dikaios – righteous) is someone or something that is unrighteous or unjust.

Those who do wrong are those who are unrighteous (un-right) in what they do.

Paul has already used this word in 6:1 when he called the court system “secular.”

It’s unrighteous, it’s not Christian, it is without justice.

So people who are characterized by doing wrong (unrighteous) are not Christians.

They “will not inherit the Kingdom of God.” Meaning, they are not sons and daughters of God who will receive the inheritance from their Father.

It is a bold, in-your-face, uncompromising declaration.

Notice what he says next….

“Don’t fool yourselves.”

That’s the problem in Corinth, and around much of the American Church today.

We have fooled ourselves (the word means led astray or deceived) into believing that we can claim Christ and live however we choose.

It simply is not true.

He goes on now to list a description of those who are adikos, centering much of it on sexual sin because of its prominence in their lives.

- “indulge in sexual sin” – Gk. pornoi – literally means a committer of sexual sin.

It is a generic word that covers over all varying types of sexual sin.

Though he will get very specific in types of sexual sins, this one is the cover-all to ensure no one gets left out.

Anything outside of God’s design for human sexuality in covenantal marriage between one man and one woman, all of that falls under this word.

- “worship idols” – the largest building in the city of Corinth was the Temple to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love.

Housed in this temple were over 1,000 temple prostitutes.

To worship Aphrodite, you would visit one of these prostitutes.

Idolatry and sexual immorality literally towered over their city.

- “commit adultery” – those who dishonor God’s design for marriage by violating their vows of faithfulness they made before the Lord and before their spouse.

- 4 Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage.

God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.

- “male prostitutes” – this word means “soft or effeminate.”

It was used to refer to men who wanted to be women (so those who would violate their God-given gender), and it referred to the passive partner in a homosexual relationship.

- “practice homosexuality” – this word was used to refer to the active partner in a homosexual relationship, and is the general word for anyone committing a homosexual act.

- 10 The law is for people who are sexually immoral, or who practice homosexuality, or are slave traders, liars, promise breakers, or who do anything else that contradicts the wholesome teaching 11 that comes from the glorious Good News entrusted to me by our blessed God.

clearly tells us that a primary sign of God’s passive wrath and abandonment of a society is the promoted practice of homosexuality.

It is adikos.

- “thieves” – Gk. kleptai, where we get kleptomaniac.

This one and “greedy people” and “drunkards” are pretty self-explanatory.

The word he uses for “abusive” is the word for ‘slanderer.’

It is someone who hurts people by attacking their reputation behind the scenes.

He ends the list with those who “cheat people,” a reference to the previous section about lawsuits and those who manipulate the system for personal gain.

That’s quite a list.

And what do they all have in common?

Those who commit such sins, though their sins are quite different, are all driven by one thing: selfishness.

They are oriented around, and are solely in pursuit of, personal pleasure.

Those who live like this are adikos, unrighteous.

Notice how he ends v. 10…”none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.”

Those who choose to continue down this path in life are walking away from the Lord and towards ultimate destruction.

This is the point where people like to argue.

They read the Bible and see it condemn a sin they are committing, so they do all they can to justify their actions.

Here are two of the main arguments we hear:

1) Didn’t Jesus hang out with the kinds of people on that list?

How could you condemn them?

Yes, Jesus was known as a “friend of sinners.”

His first followers were a ragtag group of misfits.

He seemed to be more welcoming to prostitutes than the religious elite.

He welcomed all kinds of sinners.

But let’s not forget one thing…he welcomed all kinds of “sinners.”

He invited the worst of the worst to be with him.

He did not do that to affirm their sin.

He did that because they were those most in need of forgiveness, and those who were most aware of the reality of their sin.

2) Passages like are from Paul, and he condemned sins like homosexuality.

But Jesus never talked about it.

Two problems with that: first, Jesus affirmed the foundation of sexuality in marriage between one man and one woman.

Second, we cannot limit God’s revelation to only the words in red.

The Bible is God’s Word.

Jesus is God.

Therefore, the entire Bible is what Jesus talked about.

So if anything in Scripture condemns any sin, it is Jesus doing the condemning.