Sinners Made Saints — Not Even the Pagans are this Bad!

Text: 1 Corinthians 5:1-13

Theme: Jesus “raised the bar” concerning sexual sin, and so must the Church today.

Date: 08/21/2021 Title: 1_Corinthinas_09 ID: NT07-05

This morning’s text reminds me of a quote by the mid-forth century Church Father Augustin who famously prayed “Oh Lord, give me chastity ... but not yet.” He was describing his life before he became a Christian, when he was feeling the pricking of his conscience by the Holy Spirit. He knew he ought to confess Christ but was not ready to give up his hedonistic lifestyle. At least he was being honest.

If we’re going to be honest this morning, we need to confess that immorality and sexual carnality has become a plague within the Church. ILLUS. A number of years ago I received a phone call from a friend and fellow pastor I’ve known almost fifty years. He was in another state working with our North American Mission Board attempting to plant a church, and it wasn’t going well. We chit-chatted about twenty minutes about the work, how hard it was, and I asked how things were going with his family. Then he dropped the bomb-shell. “Dave,” he said, “I’m having an affair with a much younger woman.” He then preceded to lay out how they had met, and how the affair had started. After another twenty minutes of me mostly listening, my friend asked me, “Dave, what do you think I should do?” I literally shouted into the phone, “STOP IT! Just stop it!” His response? “Really?” I said, “Yes. Really. STOP IT! Leave where you are, go home to your wife and get your act in gear!”

As I look back on that conversation, I think the thing that astounds me most was not the affair itself, but his response to what I thought he ought to do ... “Really? You think I need to end the affair?” As if I would be understanding, and tolerant of his adulterous behavior. There is a time when intolerance is biblical.

Tolerance, of course, is the big “buzz-word” in our culture these days. Tolerance is “good,” and intolerance is “bad.” In particular, intolerance of anyone’s sexual behavior or sexual deviancy must be tolerated because one’s sexual rights now trump anything. The sexual revolution calls for tolerance, but is absolutely intolerant with anyone who won’t get on board with their agenda. Tolerance has become an absolute, and any notion of intolerance is to be discouraged and condemned at every level.

Tolerance is a wonderful virtue until the practice of tolerance brings harm upon ourselves or upon others. At that moment, we must become intolerant.

In this passage the Apostle is going to speak to

The Problem of Perversion

The Presence of Pride

The Prescription of Paul

I. THE PROBLEM OF PERVERSION

“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.” (1 Corinthians 5:1, ESV)

1. the abruptness with which Paul changes subjects is indicative that the reports about the problems in Corinth just keep on coming and just keep on getting worse

a. factions within the congregation are certainly bad, but flagrant immorality among the church members is intolerable

1) or at least you would think it would be

b. the report Paul receives is not gossip or innuendo ... it’s a relationship that virtually everyone in the Church ... indeed beyond the Church ... knows about and is talking about

2. the Apostle refers to an immorality taking place amongst the believers in Corinth that is not tolerated even among pagans

a. Roman culture was certainly not known for its moral restraint, but even the Romans had their limits

1) you might remember when I gave the introductory sermon on 1 Corinthians I shared a history of the city ... how it was a popular port city where all kinds of sexual “frivolity” took place ... how it was famous for its Temple to Aphrodite which employed hundreds of temple prostitutes who would fan out into the city each evening

2) here is Paul telling the church that even the pagans, the unbelievers in Corinth, the average Roman citizen who walked the streets of Corinth, the average Corinthianite who wasn’t a believer looked at the Church at Corinth and said, “Wow, you allow your members to do what?”

b. Roman society had an abiding set of moral laws called “the way of the elders” that was a basic code of sexual good conduct

1) it included a prohibition against sexual relations among family members, i.e. incest

3. now, we’re fairly certain that this man is in a sexual relationship with his stepmother

a. Paul uses the phrase, his father’s wife which was a Jewish idiom that referred to one’s stepmother

b. so they are not physically related but under both Jewish and Roman law such relationships were illegal and socially reprehensible

1) it would have been considered an incestuous relationship

ILLUS. This is “Caligula stuff.” Caligula was the third Roman Emperor and ruled the Roman Empire just as Christianity was beginning to expand outside Israel. He ruled about a decade before Paul wrote this first letter to the Church at Corinth, and his sexual appitite was notorious. His licentiousness was off the scale. He would frequently sleep with the wives or Roman Senators and force the husband to watch. He had incestuous relations with both his sisters. Even the Romans were appalled at Caligula’s sexual exploits. A Roman historian wrote, that Caligula “had not the slightest regard for chastity, either his own or others'”.

2) even his fellow Romans thought his sexual exploits “over the top”

4. how times have changed — today any condemnation of any sexual activity is considered “intolerant” and intolerance is the GREAT sin within our culture today

A. SEXUAL IMMORALITY HAS BECOME A SERIOUS CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCH

1. There Is the Challenge Within the General Culture

Like the city of Corinth, we live in a highly sexualized culture. In 2005, New York Times columnist, author, and speaker, Pamela Paul coined the term pornification to describe what is happening in American culture. She writes that we live in an era where performances by entertainers like Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga blur the line between porn star and pop star. Their songs address issues like oral sex, bisexuality, and lesbianism. The result is that our children, who endlessly watch their videos, trying to emulate them, are being sexualized at earlier and earlier ages.

The church is dealing with a variety of moral issues that are coming at us with a velocity that is almost impossible to imagine. And most of our churches are just not ready. In a spectacularly short amount of time, Americans have made an unprecedented moral shift in their views on homosexuality in general and homosexual marriage in particular. Not too long ago, the majority of Americans were against homosexual marriage. Now, a majority of Americans are in favor of it. ILLUS. In 2001, certainly not ancient history, only 35% of Americans favored homosexual marriage. In a Gallup Organization poll taken in June (2021), an all-time high of 70% of Americans believe that same-sex marriage is morally acceptable. This has been an astounding worldview lurch in our culture.

The Biblical teaching on sexuality and gender is under assault by secularists and liberal religionists alike. Gender, marriage, and family are all being redefined to be whatever the practitioners desire these things to be. Biological reality has been one of the sad casualties of the sexual revolution. A mere twenty years ago, the news of a transgender woman running for governor of California would have drawn blank stares.The Christian worldview that affirms that fact that gender — that God created "male and female"— is an example of the goodness of God's creation is now considered transphobic.

a. we live in a culture that is normalizing the abnormal and the aberrant and mocks the normal and traditional Judeo/Christian morality

1) when the sin of the church shocks the world, such as in Corinth, we’ve got a problem

2) we’ve got a bigger problem — it’s not our immorality the shocks the world any longer, but our morality that shocks!

b. but it gets worse ...

2. There Is the Challenge Within the Broader Church

a. how do we maintain a Biblical sexual ethic when so many within the church culture are in agreement with the secular culture on sex, sexuality, gender and marriage?

ILLUS Fifty percent of all professing Christians say casual sex — defined as sex between consenting adults who are not in a committed romantic relationship — is acceptable behavior. Six-in-ten Catholics (62%) take this view, as do 56% of Protestants in the historically Black tradition, 54% of mainline Protestants and 36% of evangelical Protestants.

When it comes to sex between unmarried adults who are in a committed relationship, (57%) of professing Christians say it is acceptable. That includes 67% of mainline Protestants, 64% of Catholics, 57% of Protestants in the historically Black tradition and 46% of Evangelical.

b. virtually every moral perversity is tolerated in many churches today

ILLUS. It should be concerning to us when Christian clergy show up at an abortion clinic to “bless it” as a place of “ministry.” We should be concerned when Methodists in Illinois approve a Transgender drag queen for ordination. We should be concerned when Episcopalians, and Methodists and some Presbyterians ordain practicing homosexuals as pastors and bishops. We should be concerned when churches surrender the authority of the Scriptures for the authority of the culture and all the crazily depraved nonsense that comes with it.

How crazy is it? Last October (2020) the Episcopal bishop of Albany, New York — The Right Reverend William H. Love — was forced to resign after a disciplinary panel found that he violated church rules by NOT performing same-sex weddings, and ordering clergy in his diocese to do the same.

c. what do you do when the Church calls good evil and evil good?

3. the greatest obstacle to the overt sexualization of the culture is the Confessing Church

a. we’re a threat because we still actually believe the Scriptures to be God’s revealed plan for human flourishing in all areas of life — including human sexuality

b. and we must be crushed according to the sexual revolutionaries!

ILLUS. We live in an era when government has declared that florists, wedding planners, photographers, and cake bakers are guilty of violating nondiscrimination laws if they exercise their religious liberty convictions. In many of these cases the courts have declared that these people must surrender their Christian conscience, and religious liberty rights in order to promote the LGBTQ agenda against their will on pain of jail, fines and losing their business.

4. unfortunately there are two rival Christianity's in America

a. one Christianity is committed to biblical authority, is committed to the great doctrines of the faith, is committed to the faith once delivered to the Saints, and bears the name Christian because it is

1) this Christianity is ridiculed, demeaned, and repeatedly told that it’s on the wrong side of history

b. the other Christianity is no longer based on biblical authority, no longer committed to the great doctrines of the faith, no longer committed to the faith once delivered to the Saints, but bears the name Christian because it claims it

1) they put crosses on their steeple's, their church name above the door, they organize themselves into denominations, and tell us that "God accepts you just as you are" despite your perversity, and anyone who would judge your perverse lifestyle is, themselves, perverse

2) this other Christianity is no longer Christianity, but something else altogether

5. when you no longer accept the authority of the Bible as the word of God, you can pretty much say as the Corinthians did, "All things are lawful for me"

B. SEX IS GOD’S GOOD GIFT RESERVED EXCLUSIVELY FOR MARRIAGE

“And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” (Matthew 19:3–8, ESV)

1. this is everything Jesus said about sex, gender and marriage and divorce

a. frankly, after this, there’s not much left to say

b. any sexual activity outside the scope of legal, public-sanctioned marriage is simply illegitimate and sinful ... period ... end of story

2. as Confessing Christians, we either bring our sexuality into obedience to the Scriptures or we live in disobedience to our Savior and Lord

a. there is no middle ground on this

... Here Then, Is the Problem of Perversion In the Church

II. THE PRESENCE OF PRIDE

1. almost as big a problem as a church member committing a scandalous act of sexual immorality without remorse or repentance, is the congregation’s attitude toward this lascivious liaison

a. the majority of the Christian congregation at Corinth believe that this man’s behavior was merely an assertion of his Christian liberty!

A. THEIR ATTITUDE — THEY ARE ‘PUFFED UP’

“And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.” (1 Corinthians 5:2, ESV)

1. most modern translation translate vs. 2 using the word arrogant or prideful; it’s a word that literally means puffed up as to be swollen up with hubris

2. the Corinthians’ attitude about this situation was as great a sin as the man’s sin itself

a. rather than mourning over the man’s sin and it’s affect on the church’s reputation, they took pride in it

b. “Look how progressive we are!”

B. THEIR ABOMINATION — THEY ARE BOASTING

“Your boasting is not good. ... ” (1 Corinthians 5:6, ESV)

1. here was a church boasting about how open and receiving and affirming they were

a. when churches begin priding themselves in their progressiveness toward the sexual revolution of our day, and boast about being on the right side of history, I can almost guarantee you that they are on the wrong side of Jesus!

2. the Apostle points out that instead of celebrating this idiotic interpretation of Christian liberty they ought to be mourning over this man’s sin

a. they ought to be seriously considering removing him from the fellowship of the church

C. THEIR ADMONISHMENT — A LITTLE LEAVEN LEAVENS THE WHOLE

“Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” (1 Corinthians 5:6, ESV)

1. the Apostle uses an illustration everyone would have understood

ILLUS. Paul refers to yeast (also called leaven), which in his day consisted of dough retained from the time of the last baking. Liquid was added to a piece of this dough and was mixed with flour to start the process of fermentation. But if the yeast became infected with harmful bacteria, it would threaten the physical health of the people eating the baked bread. Hence, the cycle had to be abruptly broken by discarding the yeast.

a. the Christians in Corinth, and especially those of Jewish descent, knew that at the time of the Passover celebration, every bit of yeast had to be removed from homes, and for an entire week Jewish people ate unleavened bread

2. Paul’s point is obvious ... If the Corinthian Christians do not act swiftly, the evil of immorality in their midst will affect them all

a. no matter how small sin might be, like cancer, it can and will grow to the point that it destroys the whole body

3. in vs. 8 Paul tells the Corinthians, “Look, if you’re going to celebrate something, don’t celebrate wicked behavior like this, (represented by old contaminated yeast), but celebrate the fact that you are a ‘new batch’ of unleavened bread leavened that comes from your faith in Christ who is our Passover lamb”

III. THE PRESCRIPTION OF PAUL

“When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 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. 6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” (1 Corinthians 5:4–6, ESV)

“God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”” (1 Corinthians 5:13, ESV)

1. this language is as harsh and stark as any found in the New Testament

a. it is reminiscent of Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount saying, “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (Matthew 5:30, ESV)

2. if the Church won’t judge this man’s sin, it doesn’t matter, Paul already has

“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.” (1 Corinthians 5:3, ESV)

a. sometimes it takes outside intervention to help a congregation understand it’s responsibility to the broader Body of Christ

ILLUS. Many years ago I wrote one of the hardest letters I’ve ever had to write to a sister church in our local association of fellow Baptist Churches. One of our associational churches had called for the ordination of the man serving as their pastor. I had the privilege of being on the ordination counsel. It’s always a joy to be part of the ordination process of a man into gospel ministry. We heard his conversion testimony. We asked him about doctrine and theology. We asked him about his view of the church and pastoral ministry. At one point, our director of missions asked this man point blank if there was anything in his life that would bring reproach to himself or to his church. He answered “No.” That was a lie, as we would soon come to find out. Within weeks it was discovered that he was having an affair with a woman in the church. He had been having an affair with her for months. He was having the affair when he was pointedly asked if there was anything in his life that would bring reproach to himself or the church. He apologized for the affair, but refused to step down as pastor. I wrote a letter, as did others, encouraging the church to revoke the man’s ordination, which they ultimately did. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever seen a congregation do.

b. I’m certainly not claiming any “apostolic authority” like Paul, but sometimes judgment has to be passed down on a sin that threatens the reputation of the Body of Christ, and threatens to rupture the Church

1) Paul did have apostolic authority and tells the church to exercise church discipline

3. Paul’s command to hand a person over to Satan is the act of excommunication — a withdrawal of fellowship, denial of spiritual support, and a denial of the Lord’s Supper

a. this is the only way to purge evil from the church

ILLUS. In Matthew 18 Jesus tells his disciples that if a believer is caught in sin and will not listen to believers attempting to correct him they are to take the matter before the entire congregation, and if the offending believer still will not repent than they are to be treated as a pagan or a tax collector. That’s Jesus language for treat him as if he is not even a believer.

4. such action is never, ever meant to be punitive, but always restorative in nature

a. church discipline is always meant to bring a wayward believer to repentance, correction and full fellowship within the church

1) when a church has done everything it can to bring a sinning member back to purity of life, but is unsuccessful, that individual must be turned over to their sin and shame — indeed they must be turned over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh

b. but Paul is blunt Are you not to judge those inside? (i.e. inside the church)

1) it’s a rhetorical question, to which the Corinthians are expected to answer in the affirmative

2) yes, there are times when a believer’s sin is so shameful that the congregation is to sit in judgment of their sin

c. one of the ways we do that is not to associate with sexually immoral people

1) now, when Paul says that he quickly backtracks a bit and says I don’t mean those outside the church — we can’t blame them for living the way they do since they don’t know Christ

“For what have I to do with judging outsiders? ... ” (1 Corinthians 5:12, ESV)

5. but God’s people are different; they know better and should behave differently

IV. THE BELIEVER’S RESPONSE

1. Jesus confronted sexual sin head-on and so must the Church today

a. in his sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” (Matthew 5:28)

1) the Lord publicly raised the bar far higher then the Torah which only condemned the actual act of adultery

2) Jesus not only condemned sinful sexual behavior, but the thoughts and attitudes that lead to the behavior

2. there are three ways the Christian must respond

A. 1st, WE MUST EVALUATE OUR OWN BEHAVIOR and repent when necessary

1. few types of sin are as effective at dragging the heart away from God as sexual sin

2. we live in a “corinthianized” culture that offers myriads of cheep imitations to God’s design for sexuality and healthy sexual expression

a. when believers yield to these temptations, our characters are demeaned, our brains become addicted, and our witness is lost

3. there is much for the Church to repent of—

from the full-blown sexual scandals of priests and pastors preying on children and teens ...

to the sexual indiscretions of high-profile evangelical media personalities ...

to our utter silence on sex and sexuality from the pulpit that has allowed an entire generation of children and youth to mature without hearing a consistent message on the biblical understanding of God’s good gift of sex gloriously expressed in the marital covenant between a man and a woman

4. speaking forcefully about sex and sexuality is an area where the church as lost the saltiness of its salt

ILLUS. Francis Schaeffer nailed it several years before he died when he said that we’ve become more concerned with comfort, security, and personal peace, than with following hard after Jesus Christ. And a major symptom of this slide into the abyss of irrelevance has been the church’s acceptance of sexual disobedience.

a. unfortunately, just like the Corinthians, our views on human sexuality have been tainted by the culture in which we live rather than molded by the Savior whom we now serve

b. we must repent

4. the battle is in and for our minds — We must Evaluate Our Own Behavior

B. 2nd, WE MUST OFFER A GOSPEL OF GRACE TO THE BROKEN

1. in this highly sexualized culture, we’re told that one’s sexuality and expression of that sexuality is the most important part of one’s character

a. any way in which you choose to express that sexuality — regardless of how offensive or how perverted — must be accepted, yes even celebrated, by the rest of us

b. the discussion that one can actually change one’s sexual behavior is a subject that is increasingly being taken off the table in our culture

2. the Apostle Paul clearly asserts what has become an inconvenient truth in this culture — God changes sinners, which means that, by the Spirit, believers control their sexual impulses, not the other way around

a. God takes sinners — including those immersed in sexual disobedience and perversity, and washes them in the shed blood of Christ, he sanctifies them through the washing of the word, He sanctifies us through the united work of the Godhead — Father, Son and Holy Spirit, He makes us a new creation with a new ability to overcome sin — including sexual sin

b. and this washing is complete — when God forgives a repentant sinner he clears the record of guilt

“If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” (Psalm 130:3–4, ESV)

C. 3rd, WE MUST CONFRONT A HIGHLY SEXUALIZED CULTURE WITH THE TRUTH OF SCRIPTURES

1. we need to be Salt and Light regardless of the cost ... regardless of the ridicule ... regardless of the censure by the culture

a. our calling is to proclaim the truth of the gospel in an intelligent, sensitive, and thoughtful way

b. we must seek to influence on all fronts

2. this is what it means to be salt and light

a. and even if we lose the culture war to the sexually deviant — as I’m confident we will — the responsibility will not be on the church for our silence, but on the culture for its disobedience

May we each dedicate ourselves afresh to sexual purity and to be Salt and Light, and in doing so reveal to a lost world that God can change lives.