Sermon Tone Analysis

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.