Church Discipline And Sin In The Church

CHURCH DISCIPLINE AND SIN IN THE CHURCH

I Cor. 5

            In the first four chapters of I Corinthians the apostle Paul has dealt with the matter of divisions in the church. The church was divided. There were chisms in the fellowship. The seamless robe of the unity of the body of Jesus Christ had been torn and they were divided into a variety of groups of people. So, for four chapters he has been dealing with the problem of division in the fellowship. Beginning in chapter five he is going to deal with the subject of sin in the fellowship. There was a case of open, flagrant sin in the fellowship and the apostle Paul meets it head on. The Lord had used Paul to plant a church in the city of Corinth in order to change that city. That is exactly why God puts a church where he puts the church. In order that the city around it might be changed. But rather than the church changing the city, the city was changing the church. God intends for a church not to be a thermometer, merely registering the temperature, but to be a thermostat to change the temperature. Too many churches are merely the reflections of the society in which they find themselves. Instead of being salt, instead of being light, they allow themselves to be influenced by the society around them and they lose their distinctive Christian testimony. That was the danger in the church at Corinth. Here was a church that was on the very verge of moral collapse. It was on the very verge of allowing the world around it to so influence it that it would have absolutely no testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ. So, Paul, in these verses, lays before us what may be the most neglected 2 subject in all of the Bible- the subject of church discipline. This is not the only place you find it. This is not the only place you find it. Let me just give you a few Scripture references if you would like to read it on your own — Matthew 18:15-19; I Timothy 6:3-5; Titus 3:10; I Thessalonians 5:15; II Thessalonians 3:6; Romans 16:17. All of those passages of Scripture have to do with the subject of dealing with sin in the fellowship. The matter of church discipline is almost unheard of in the modern church. I started my days as a pastor as an 18 year old boy, pastoring country churches. Some of God’s finest people are members of country churches, back out on the highways and byways of our land. I spent several years in those early churches. One of the things I did was read the minutes of the meetings of the churches. I found some rather interesting reading sometime. I observed that in the earlier years many of these country churches exercised New Testament church discipline. From time to time a brother would be brought before the fellowship, open charges would be made against the brother and they would turn him out of the fellowship. In my research of the matter I found that that practice began to be discontinued even in rural churches in the mid-1930’s .Up until that time it was a common practice in churches, but from the mid-30’s on it is a rare thing for a church to exercise church discipline. In the reading of those church minutes, by the way, I found out why it discontinued. I found out that there was so much self that got involved in it — so much vindictiveness got involved in the matter that it largely fell in disrepute and was laid aside. For instance, I found that there would be family factions in a church. One month this family would bring charges against this family. The next month that family would be bringing charges against that family. It was 3 obvious that they were deviating from the New Testament pattern and using church discipline, not for its New Testament purposes, but rather as a way to get at somebody else they were grieved with. So, you have to be very, very careful in the matter of church discipline that you see what the Scripture has to say about it. Tonight, I’m custgoihg movecarefully through these verses of Scripture and show you that sin in the fellowship of a local church is a very serious matter and God does not intend that it be overlooked or that it be ignored. First of all - the report of sin in the fellowship. Paul begins by saying, “It is commonly reported.” He is simply saying there that there is no heresay about it. It’s not just heresay — not something that somebody is whispering on the edges. It is not a matter of gossip. It is something that is open information. This case is not a case of Matthew 18 which deals with church discipline as it relates to brothers in a fellowship who have had a dispute. But it is dealing with the matter of open sin. No question about it. Everybody knows that it exists. It has become a laughing stock in the city. It is hurting the testimony of the church. That’s the kind of sin Paul is dealing with here. “It is commonly reported that there is fornication among you.” We notice, first of all, the personal tragedy of it. Here is a believer — a member of the fellowship. There is a case of grievous sin in his life. The indications are in this passage of Scripture that this is what is going on. Here is a Christian who is involved in an incestuous relationship with his father’s wife — evidently his stepmother. Paul Says there has been nothing like this even among the Gentiles. It not only violated Jewish law and Gentile law — it 4 violated common law, natural law. It’s a tragic thing, but when Christians sin, many times they stoop lower than unsaved people do when they sin. You do know you still have your old nature, don’t you. You know your wife has it. You’re sure she has it, don’t you. You ladies are sure your husband has the old nature. I’ve got news for you, you have the old nature, too. Salvation does not eradicate the old nature. Coming to Christ does not improve the old nature. In fact, the Bible says in Romans 7 - “in my flesh dwells no good thing.” When you are saved you still have that old nature. You have received the new nature — the divine nature from God and those two are in a tug of war in your heart. There is only one way that you can deal with the old nature. That is to allow the indwelling Holy Spirit to give you victory over that old man. If you do not allow the Holy Spirit to take control of your life and be filled with the spirit and yield to the promptings and wooings of the Holy Spirit, you as a Christian, are capable of any sin that a lost person can commit. Don’t ever think you are beyond the point that you cannot sin and sin grievously. I only have to remind you of the example of David in the Bible. He was a man who was a man after God’s own heart. He was a man who wrote many of the Psalms that we read with such pleasure and profit. Yet, David sinned a grievous sin — the sin of adultery, the sin of lying, the sin of murder. The believer, outside of Christ, can somehow even go lower than a lost world when they sin. All around us scattered through our world there are cases of those who name the name of Jesus and they have open, flagrant sin in their lives. The personal tragedy of it. Then, notice Paul is also concerned because of the public testimony of it. What Paul is so disturbed at is the sin in the life of the 5 rbthara butt tha thing that really has him disturbed was the attitude of the church. He says in verse 2, “you’re puffed up.” That’s the fourth time Paul has said that to these believers in Corinth. Three times in chapter 4 he says you are puffed up. Now, he says to them, you have a case of open, flagrant sin you are tolerating in your fellowship. He said rather than being down on your knees mourning like you are mourning over a death, you are all swelled up with pride and bragging on yourself. That’s what has Paul so disturbed. He said, “You are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away (dealt with) from among you.” Sometimes the church fails to understand what a devastating reality sin is. From time to time the Lord has a way of letting us see just how devastating sin is. If we are not careful we will buy the lie of the devil that sin is not so very serious after all. Sin is a serious matter. Sin is a rattlesnake in your baby’s nursery bed. Sin is a maniac in a rest home where helpless old people are. Sin is the greatest tragedy in this universe and it is intolerable for a church to have a minimal attitude toward sin. We are living in a very tolerant day now. We are living in such an open minded day that we just tolerate most anything.  we don’t even know how to blush because of sin anymore. We are not even shocked because of sin anymore. It has become so common among those who name the name of Jesus and whose names are on church rolls that churches don’t even seem to get disturbed. Well, but you say, “Preacher, we have become broad-minded in our day. We are able to accept things better than they were back in the days of the Bibl-1” When it comes to a disease in my body, I’m not looking for a broadminded doctor. I’m looking for a narrow-minded doctor who is going to zero in on that disease and deal with it the way it ought to be dealt with. So, here is a report of sin in the fellowship. Secondly, Paul discusses the matter of removal of sin from the fellowship. In verses 3 and following he discusses how that sin is to be dealt with in the fellowship. First, he says there has to be a procedure that needs to take place. Look at verse 4 - “In the name of our Lord Jesus.” He is talking here about the serious nature of what we are dealing with. Here’s a person who has open sin. The church has been filled with boasting instead of filled with sorrow. So, he says it has ta be in the name of the Lord Jesus. The last part of the verse says “with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.” When you are gathered together. Paul is teaching here that there had to be a gathering together when sin go to this point in a fellowship. We have a large church here - approximately 20,000 members. I’m not sure the FBI could find some of them, but that’s our bragging figure. Of course, you know that because of that we are not able to do things in a way smaller churches could do. But there is a procedure that goes on right here in our fellowship. When it comes to our attention of sin in the fellowship it is not taken lightly in this fellowship. By the way, there is so much of the power of God in First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida, that if I were you and I were a leader - a deacon, staff member, Sunday School teacher, choir member, there is so much power in the fellowship of First Baptist Church, the moment some sin got in my life I’d deal with it, confess it and get it out of my life. Friend, you don’t have a chance in the world in this fellowship right here. God will expose it on you. It’ll come out on you. You may think nobody on the earth knows about it, but It will come out on you in the fellowship 7 of First Baptist Church. We have a gathering together. Sometimes it is a gathering together of a Sunday School class and there is a brother there who has sin. At other times it may be the gathering together in another situation. But we do not slough over sin in our church, even though it be a very large situation. We do it in the name of the Lord Jesus and with the power of the Lord Jesus. We know that we are dealing with a very delicate matter. We try to deal with it delicately behind the scenes before it gets to be a public matter. One thing about our fellowship is that because of the size of our fellowship things can happen and a lot of folks in the church will never know it. When you sin, you think everybody in the world knows it, but the fact of the matter is they don’t know it. God knows it and that’s the One that really counts. But in a church our size - you can have one crowd here and another over there and you’ll don’t even know each other is coming to church. Some of you folks have been sitting here and thinking about some of them over there and wonder what has happened to old Bill. Haven’t seen him in six months. Nothing has happened to Bill, he just moved from here to there. A lot of times things are not known in the fellowship as they were known in the Corinthian church that was evidently much smaller at this particular point. But steps are taken and initiatives are made and spiritual leaders go to work when there is sin in the fellowship that would hinder us from being what we ought to be. So, there is a procedure that is followed. In Galatians 6, the Bible says “if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual (notice that) restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted.” There have been occasions in our fellowship here when a group of spiritual brothers have been able to sit down and talk with another brother and restore that brother and get him right with God and nobody else in the fellowship ever knew about it. There have been situation when brothers have had conflicts with one another and they have set down together and prayer has been offered. Great agony and great heart-rending has taken place. But fellowship has been restored. Oh, how sweet it is when discipline works in the fellowship of the people of God. That’s the procedure. Then, he says there is a purpose. Paul is saying to turn this brother out of the church. If you will look at the language it is rather severe. Look at verse 2 - “that he may be taken away from you.” verse 5 - “to deliver such a one.” verse 7 - “Purge out, therefore.” verse 13 - “put away from yourselves that wicked person.” This thing had gone to the point that the only remedy that was available to the fellowship at this point in time was the withdrawal of fellowship from the unrepentant sinning brother. It is a very serious matter. What was the purpose of that? Why did Paul say that a member needed to be dealt with like this? verse 5 - “to deliver such a one unto satan for the destruction of the flesh.” I Timothy there is a similar instance there. I Tim. 1:20 - “Of whom is (talking about people who have made shipwreck of the faith - deviated from the faith) Hymaneus and Alexander who I have delivered unto Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.” What does it mean to deliver unto Satan? As I understand it, he is trying to say that when you deal with a brother who refuses to repent you are putting him in a position where he can see his sin as it really is. The sinning church member who openly flaunts his church’s standards, who openly defies the life that God expects a believe to live and is not confronted in his fellowship, now has a shield behind which he hides. He is hiding behind his church membership. Every time somebody talks to him he says, “Oh, yes, I’m a member of such and such a church.” He has a false security. He thinks everything is fine because he has his name on a church role. You can have your name on the church role of First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida and be just as lost as a ball in high weeds. You can have been baptized so many times in this baptistery that every bull frog knows you by name and still be lost and split hell wide open because you have never received Jesus Christ as your Savior. Yet there are people who have open sin in their life and they think because their name is on a church role and they are a member in good standing that everything is alright. But when the brother is confronted and when he is faced with his sin and when he is turned out of the fellowship as they did this brother, his false security has been removed from him, he is startled and stunned and sees his situation. He is in a dangerous situation. Some say that Paul was saying, “Put this man out there and he is going to be exposed to the destructive powers of satan in his body.” Here is a man who if he doesn’t get right, won’t live very long. “Do you think when a believer gets sin in his life it can cause him to die? I certainly do. I Corinthians 11, Paul deals with some folks who had gone this far in their life. He is talking here about the fact that some had taken of the Lord’s Supper unworthily. They were allowing sin to linger in their lives. Paul says in verse 30- “for this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep.” That doesn’t mean “now I lay me down to sleep.” That means they are dead. There is an example of that in the New Testament. Do you remember Ananias and Sapphira? They were members of the First Baptist Church of Jerusalem. They were having a Building Fund offering one day. They had been thinking about building a little place on the lake and were thinking about what they were going to give. They decided they would hold back part of it and lie to their church. They openly and boldly lied to their church. When church time came that morning, Brother Simon Peter stood up to preach. “Ananias, did you sell that land for so much?” He lied and when he did he fell over dead. The ushers came and took him out and buried him. In a little while his wife came in. It was getting quiet at church about now. When the ushers start hauling folks off and burying them, it’s getting serious. Sapphira came in. Simon Peter went through the same thing. She told the same lie. He said the feet of those who carried out your husband, I hear them coming in the door, they are going to carry you out too. She died. It’s a serious thing to allow sin in your life in a fellowship. God wants a pure church. That’s why I have said there is so much of the power of God in First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, if you are a leader with open sin in your life, you better watch out you are in a dangerous, dangerous situation. “Deliver them to satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” Notice in verse 6: “Your glorying is not good.” He says you are going around here all puffed up, bragging about yourself, open sin in your church that you won’t deal with. Don’t you know a little leaven leavens the whole lump. He now uses an illustration that was very understandable to them. It was the illustration of the passover feast. The jews had what they called the passover feast that has been beautifully fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. They would slay the passover lamb, apply the blood over the door post, eat the lamb. But before they celebrated that Jewish feast of passover, the woman of the house would take a candle and a broom and search the house thoroughly and be sure that there was not one tiny bit of leaven anywhere in the house. They were not to observe passover if there was leaven in the house. In the Bible leaven is a picture of evil. Leaven is a picture of sin. Sin is just like leaven. What leaven does is that it gets into the loaf of bread secretly. Then it begins to expand and grow and permeate. Then it puffs up. Next thing you know it totally consumes the whole loaf of bread. That is exactly the way sin works. That’s why God says you have to deal with sin in the fellowship. If you tolerate it a little leaven will leaven the whole loaf. You and I are the loaf. The church is the loaf. Christ is the passover lamb. Jesus shed his blood for our sins at calvary. We are to purge out the leaven. We are to get rid of that sin in our fellowship. Get rid of that sin in our heart. When a Christian allows sin in his life, it simply means he doesn’t understand what calvary was all about. I almost leap every time we sing that second stanza of It Is Well With My Soul. It says my sin, oh the bliss of this wonderful, glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole. Was nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord oh my soul. That’s glorious. How then can I allow that leaven or old life to permeate and grow. How can I allow sin in my heart to taint the fellowship of God’s born-again believers. He said a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Purge out the old leaven. Notice in verse 8 he talks about the old leaven. He calls it malice and wickedness. Then he talks about the unleaven bread of sincerity and truth. That means transparent to the light and truth. In other words when you and I come together to celebrate what Christ did for us at calvary’s cross. There should be no sin our lives whatsoever. 12 The purpose of this severe dealing with sin was in order that the brother might be restored to the fellowship. Church discipline is not the punishment of a criminal, it is the correction of a child. I don’t love my child if I am unwilling to discipline my child. I always operated on the basis of confrontation in my family. I just dealt with it as it arose. I had open confrontation. I’d rather just go ahead and get it out on the table and just deal with it. “Preacher, did your children ever go through rebellion?” Sure they did. I just had a bigger rebellion. When they rebelled I just rebelled bigger. When they got upset I just got upset more. We just had open confrontation. I didn’t do that because I hated my children. That’s not the easy way to deal with them. The easy way is kind of like some of you do. You just put it in neutral. “Bless junior’s heart - anything he wants to do.” You are growing up a juvenile delinquent. Because you haven’t got the courage and the love to confront your child when he is wrong. A church loves its members when it confronts them with their sin. I couldn’t sin against your soul and not tell you what God tells you in the Bible about sin. I’d be unfaithful to you. I’d have to stand with shame before the Lord Jesus Christ if I didn’t faithfully stand in this pulpit and preach sin just like it is — just the way the Bible teaches it. It’s an expression of love when we deal with sin in the fellowship. Thirdly, think not only about the removal of sin in the fellowship, but think about the remedy of sin in the fellowship. There is a threefold remedy in the remaining verses. Number one, you must have an attitude of hatefulness toward sin. Not the sinner. By the way, he does an interesting thing here. He has been dealing with the sin of fornication — sexual immorality and incestuous relationship between a 13 church member and his step mother. Now, in verse 11 he adds to the list and mentions not only a fornicator, but he talks about covetous, an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. I could deal with all of them, but I’ll pick out the word railer. It means a slanderer. It means someone who is abusive of others with his tongue. Is that a serious sin? It’s a very, very serious sin. When believers in the fellowship are abusive with their tongue they do great damage. There must- be an attitude of hatefulness toward sin. Love the sinner, but hate sin. Number two, there must be an attitude of helpfulness toward the world. Paul says, don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying here that you are not to company with fornicators in the world. Verse 9 he says I wrote you an epistle. We don’t have that one. It’s not in our New Testament. He said I wrote you previously not to associate with fornicators. Verse 10 he says I’m not talking about the world. As a believer you have to associate with all kinds of folks in this world. You are going to get up and go to your job and you will be dealing with all kinds of people on the job. He’s not talking about that. Paul says if you didn’t associate with those kind of people in the world, you would have to be taken out of the world. Praise God you will, one of these days. We’ll get out of this mess. Wouldn’t it be something if in the morning as you get ready to go to work. Those people smoke and smell up my clothes and tell those dirty jokes and make fun of me as a believer. Wouldn’t it be something if you would be heading into work tomorrow and just about ready to open the door and step in the office and the Lord said, “Come on home, it’s all over.” That’s the only way you are going to get away from sin in this world. You can’t escape it. You are living in a sinful world. He says I’m not saying you can;t 14 associate with them. You have to. In fact, the only way you are going to win them is to get around them. Not to compromise with their sin, but to be a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. Our attitude is that we are not to condone the world, not to condemn the world, but we are to confront the world. WE are not investigators, we are witnesses for Jesus. The way you win lost people to Jesus is not by isolation, not by integration, but rather it is infiltration and don’t forget the insulation. That’s the way you do it. Get insulated with the power of God, separated for the Lord Jesus Christ and then infiltrate the lost world for the Lord Jesus Christ. So, there is an attitude of helpfulness toward the world. Then there is attitude number three. Not only of hatefulness toward sin and helpfulness toward the world, but holiness toward the church. This is going to be a tough word but I’m giving you what the Bible says. He says in verse 11, “Now I have written not to keep company if any man or woman is called a brother.” They are supposed to be a believer in these things --fornicator, sexually immoral, covetous, idolator, railer, abusive in speech - drunkard. He says, “with such an one, no not to eat.” That’s pretty strong words. It is saying if you know a brother in the fellowship and they just spend all their time talking and criticizing and minimizing or they have these other things in their lives, don’t even go out to Ryan’s to eat with them. You start palling around with those kind of folks and either they are going to influence you or your are going to hurt your testimony. You are going to be sitting there some night in a restaurant and they will be carrying on their abusive, slanderous talk and some lost person will look over there and know where you belong and know where your membership 15 is and you are going to ruin the testimony of your church and your Jesus with that lost person. Don’t you pal around with them, let them see where they really are. He says God is going to judge those who are without. God will deal with the lost world. Our responsibility is to deal lovingly with those in the fellowship. How do we go about doing that? You don’t start off being a spiritual detective - snooping on all the other members. It’s not your job to be a spiritual detective. You are niot to ealy on- your own private it,tlw investigations I havp heard enough rumor and stuff told to have wrecked about half of you folks if I had believed it all. It turns out not to be true. I don’t believe anything I hear. When you come to me you better have names, places, dates. You better know what you are dealing with or you are in big trouble when you come to me. It’s not your job to be a detective snooping around trying to find somebody in sin. It’s not your job to have binnacles looking to see if you can catch some member in sin. What you need is a microscope. Where you start is not with your brother, search me, o God and know my heart and see if there be any wicked way in me. To be honest with you, in my Christian life, the further along I’ve gotten, I have found that there is so much to deal with in my life as a believer I really haven’t had a whole lot of time to be checking up on others. If old Jerry can keep himself straight, that is such a full time job I don’t have time to try to keep all the other brothers and sisters straight. God will deal with those who are without, too. Lost person, God will deal with you. If God is this serious about sin in his own people, what do you think it’s going to be for those who are without. Simon Peter said it is time for judgment to begin at the house of God. He said if it begins at the house of God what shall the end be of the ungodly? Where does that leave you, lost person, who have rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, whose sins nailed Jesus the lovely son of God to the cross. You need Jesus Christ desperately tonight. You need to be saved.