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1 Corinthians 5:1-6:8
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION BEFORE SERMON:
A) A prominent man in the church is caught
in gross sin.
What’s the loving thing to do?
What’s the arrogant thing to do?
What does the cross mean in this situation?
B) You buy a car off a Christian in your
church, they knew the car was on its last legs but they kept all its
problems secret. Within a month
it’s ground to a halt. What do you
do?
Here are two situations in the Corinthian church
that Paul turns to address. In
both cases the Corinthians were showing a lack of judgement. In chapter 5 we see the Corinthians
failing to sort out blatant sin among its members. In chapter 6 we see the Corinthians
failing to resolve disputes among its members. In both they fail to bring the wisdom
of the cross to bear. That’s what
Paul’s been teaching for the last four chapters. He begin his letter with – Yowsers,
you’re conding INCEST – guys get a grip.
Probably that’s how you or I would have began the letter, but Paul
begins by teaching them the wisdom of the cross which is different from
the wisdom of the world. They’re
going to need it because these next two problems – sin in the church and
disputes in the courts – all stem from ignoring the wisdom of the cross
and embracing the wisdom of the world.
Let’s look at this first problem. In chapter 5 there’s a man, v1, who is
having his father’s wife. This
almost certainly means his step-mother (if it was his mother, I’m sure
Paul would have said he’s having his mother). So it seems that a prominent member of the
congregation is either cohabiting with his step-mother or carrying on an
affair with his step-mother. And
people know about it – not just in the church, but in Corinth people know
about it. And they’re shocked.
I keep saying it, but Corinth is a sailor town
and the culture of Corinth betrayed classic sailor town vices. But even pagan, liberal Corinth looked
on at this church and blushed at the sin going on.
What was the church’s response? Verse 2: They were proud.
It’s not hard to imagine their boasts. “We are a progressive, liberal,
accepting, inclusive community.
We’re not the judgemental types – all life-styles are welcome
here.” That’s the pride of the
Corinthians.
And Paul says, v2, “Shouldn’t you rather have
been filled with grief and put out of your fellowship the man who did
this?”
Paul says the Corinthian’s emotions and their
actions are completely wrong. They
were proud when they should have grieved.
And they promoted this sinful situation when they should have
expelled the man.
And it’s so important that we see both the
correct emotion and the correct action.
Paul’s not talking about a self-righteous witch-hunt. This is not about gleefully finding the
bad man and zealously running him out of town. The Corinthians should be in mourning. They should be deeply grieving over
this matter. Because in the
community of Jesus there’s no room for self-righteousness or ‘I told you
so’s. The proper response to such
sin is grief. When such sins
become apparent in the church it’s time for sombre reflection on
everyone’s part because we’re all capable of such sins. I am capable of the most horrendous
sexual sins, and so are you. I am
capable of terrible sins and when I see it in others my reaction is not
‘Aha!’ it’s ‘There but for the grace
of God go I.’ And we mourn –
collectively we all mourn.
But we also act.
And Paul says – put the man out of your
fellowship.
Jesus said the same thing back in Matthew
18. Stick a finger in 1
Corinthians 5 and turn back to page 985 to hear what Jesus said on the
matter: Matthew 18:15-20
15
"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just
between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother
over. 16 But if he will not listen, take one or two others
along, so that`every matter may be established by the testimony of two or
three witnesses.' 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it
to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him
as you would a pagan or a tax collector. 18 "I tell you
the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and
whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19
"Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything
you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20
For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with
them."
There’s a four-stage progression, do you see it?
First, v15, go to the person just privately. Then, if they won’t listen, v16 – take
two or three others with you. (An
intervention if you like). Then
stage three: v17, if that doesn’t work, tell the whole church. And if they won’t listen to the church
then, stage four is very serious.
Verses 18-20 belong together with the preceding
verses and they speak of the church coming to a decision in these church
discipline matters. And Jesus
says, if you faithfully follow this discipline process you’re not just
doing something earthly, heaven is behind you on this decision and I am
there with you as you discipline.
Stage four is very serious – heaven is behind the church and Jesus
is with the church that faithfully follows church discipline.
And what does stage four entail? Verse 17 ‘treat him as you would a
pagan or a tax collector.’ Do not
treat such a person like they are a brother or sister, treat them like a
pagan or tax collector. Now Jesus
loved pagans and tax collectors, but He loved them AS outsiders to the
kingdom. And Jesus is saying, if
you persist in flagrant sin, if you won’t be corrected by the Christian
community, then you should not bear the name of a Christian. You should stop thinking of yourself as
a Christian and the church should stop thinking of you as a Christian.
And that’s the point of church discipline. It shows a person where they really
stand. If I commit some gross sin
and I keep sinning and it doesn’t matter what you say, it doesn’t matter
what my home group says, if I continue in that sin and won’t admit I have
a problem, if I won’t seek help, if I won’t put it right, then we’ve gone
through stage one and stage two.
At the next Souls at Seven Neil should instigate stage three. He should get up in Church Family News
and say ‘Glen has been unrepentantly doing such and such in spite of
everyone’s warnings. Glen we
grieve over this sin and we call on you now to admit that this is sinful
and to repent of that sin.’ That
is stage three. And it’s
serious. If I respond by saying ‘I
don’t think it is a sin, I don’t think it’s a big deal and I’m not going
to change’ Then we are at stage
four and you should conclude that I’m not really a Christian. You should think of me as a
non-Christian – and verses 18-20 mean that heaven also thinks of me as a
non-Christian. Jesus Himself and
His Father think of me as a non-Christian. And the church should therefore treat me
as a non-Christian. You should
love me, plead with me, evangelise me by all means but never let me think
that I can call myself a Christian when I’m living in complete
disobedience to Christ.
That’s Jesus’ teaching on church
discipline. And as we turn back to
1 Corinthians 5 we see that Paul has this teaching in mind.
3 Even though I am not
physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed
judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. 4
When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in
spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, 5 hand
this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and
his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.
Do you see how Paul uses the same language about
the presence of Jesus in the midst of church discipline? The bible insists that church
discipline is not simply about the decisions of a few individuals who
have got their backs up about some misdemeanour. This is Jesus ruling His church through
church discipline. Paul also says
he’s present since he was the founder of this church and the one calling
for discipline. So he is present
in spirit, Jesus is present in spirit, the Corinthian church should meet
and enact stage four.
It’s clear that this man hasn’t responded to the
first three stages of discipline because the whole church already knows
about his sin and he (and others) are still proud about it. So Paul says, it’s time for stage four.
And these are the words he uses, v5: “hand this
man over to Satan.”
Hand him over to Satan? Well yes, in the thinking of the bible,
the church is the realm in which Jesus rules, outside is the world where
Satan rules. And there are just
two sphere’s – Christ’s and Satan’s.
If you are booted out of the church you are handed over to
Satan. So Paul says ‘Make it clear
that this person is not in the realm of the church anymore, not under the
protection of Jesus anymore, they should be considered simply as a member
of the world ruled by Satan.’
This is a severe action. But look at the motivation for this
church discipline. Verse 5: “so
that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the
day of the Lord.”
The intention is for the man to get a cold sharp
shock, to realise his predicament.
He can’t live like this and consider himself a Christian. Maybe he’s not actually a
Christian. And whether he’s not
actually a Christian or whether he’s just a really back-slidden Christian
the man should realise he’s in trouble.
He needs to seek Christ, he needs to be saved. The point of this is so that the man
will be saved.
I asked earlier what is the loving thing to do
when someone is caught in sin. We
might naturally think the loving thing is to keep quiet about it and
carry on regardless. Paul says the
loving thing to do is to be deadly serious and confront it head on. If it gets to stage four, handing them
over to Satan is the loving thing to do.
Hopefully it will snap them out of their self-delusion and bring
them to their senses.
I also asked what is the proud thing to do in
this circumstance. So often people
say it’s arrogant to judge others.
Paul says, in this circumstance, it’s arrogant not to judge. Verse 6, ‘Your boasting is not
good.’ The Corinthians has been
proud of their liberal attitudes, proud of their tolerance of sin and
Paul says ‘That’s the real arrogance.
Condoning sin is incredibly proud.
It says that God’s standards are petty, we know what’s
reasonable.’ Not to judge is
proud. Exercising discipline –
that is the path of humble, grieving, faithful obedience.
The third question I asked was how the cross
relates to this situation. And you
might think that a church shaped by the cross ought to be a church where
sin is forgiven. You’d be
right. Because of the cross, there
is endless forgiveness for anyone who repents of their sin and trusts in
Jesus. But at the same time –
because of the cross there can be no tolerance for unrepentant
sin.
That’s what the next few verses are about. Perhaps you wondered when they were
read what verses 6-8 were about, talking about yeast and bread and
Passover and festivals. I think if
we understand these verses we’ll understand so much of Paul’s thinking
and so much of the Christian life.
So turn with me back to Exodus 12.
(p68)
Here we are in Egypt. The Israelites are slaves but Moses is
going to lead them out of darkness and into the promised land where they
can worship the LORD in freedom.
How is the LORD going to free His people? Actually He visits 10 plagues on Egypt
and with the tenth plague, Pharaoh will finally let the people go.
The tenth plague is the Passover. At Passover, the Israelites were meant
to sacrifice a lamb. Verse 7:
7 Then they are to take some
of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door-frames of the
houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to
eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread
made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in
water, but roast it over the fire--head, legs and inner parts. 10
Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you
must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your
cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in
your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD's Passover. 12
"On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every
firstborn--both men and animals--and I will bring judgment on all the
gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. 13 The blood will be a sign for
you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass
over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. 14
"This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come
you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD--a lasting ordinance. 15
For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day
remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast
in it from the first day until the seventh must be cut off from Israel.
So the Lamb saves you from judgement. And then you eat the lamb in haste with
unleavened bread because that gives you the strength to get up from Egypt
and go.
And you don’t want yeast in your bread because
you’re in a hurry. That’s
explicitly said in verse 39:
39 With
the dough they had brought from Egypt, they baked cakes of unleavened
bread. The dough was without yeast because they had been driven out of
Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves.
Yeast in your bread means you’re bedding down in
Egypt. It means you don’t really
want the freedom that your lamb paid for in blood.
Can you imagine an Israelite sheltering under
the blood of the lamb, enjoying feeding on the lamb, but while everyone
else was getting up and leaving slavery, they stayed and said ‘I’m just
going to stay here, kick back, relax and enjoy my food.’ Such a person shows that they haven’t
understood what Passover’s all about.
The lamb died so that you could be free from slavery, free from
darkness. But you want to enjoy
the lamb AND enjoy Egypt. The
bible says it can’t be done. If
you benefit from the death of the lamb it means you have had it with
Egypt, you’re coming out, you’re not going to linger, you’re leaving
darkness.
And so in the Israelite calendar the next thing
they celebrated after Passover was the feast of unleavened bread. And they’d scour their houses clean of
any yeast and for the week after Passover they ate nothing with yeast in
it. Because they were saying – if
we’ve been liberated at Passover then we want to show that nothing in our
lives is keeping us in Egypt.
That’s why the festival of unleavened bread followed from
Passover.
Now turn back to 1 Corinthians 5:6-8
Don't you know that a little yeast works through
the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast that you
may be a new batch without yeast--as you really are. For Christ, our
Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep
the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness,
but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.
Do you see now?
Christ is our Passover lamb.
When He died on the cross it was to save us from judgement. The judgement of God has passed over
the Christian because we have sheltered under His blood. But just like the Israelites – we’re not
going to take advantage of the Lamb’s death and then hang around in
Egypt. We’ve been liberated and we
don’t want anything to do with our old ways, our slavery to sin, our
darkness and rebellion. The
Christian scours themselves clean of yeast. The Christian community scours itself
clean of yeast. Not literally
yeast – but anything that keeps us in Egypt – malice and wickedness.
Because of the cross we have forgiveness for
sins. But also because of the
cross we are DONE with sin. If
someone points out sin in our lives, we see it and we hate it. We take steps to get rid of it
immediately because did you notice in v7 the words “as you really
are.” We really are new in Jesus. We really are His new people. That really is our identity so that
when sin does arise we hate it as something alien – something to be
cleansed from among us.
So the cross bring forgiveness for sins
yes. But the cross also brings
freedom from son. Do you realise
that the cross does both things? Forgiveness
but also freedom.
There is endless forgiveness for any repentant
sinner, yes. But if there is
unrepentant sin in the Christian community, then the cross of Jesus
stands in total opposition to it.
Christ says to us ‘I died as your Lamb to free you from the old
life. I shed my blood to bring you
out of that darkness – how can you make your home in the darkness when I
died to liberate you??!’
All of this should lead us to a complete
opposition to sin in our communities.
We should be like the Israelite keeping the feast of unleavened
bread – determined to expel all the stuff that binds us to our old life:
9 I have written to you in my
letter not to associate with sexually immoral people-- 10 not
at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy
and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this
world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not
associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral
or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With
such a man do not even eat. 12 What business is it of mine to
judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13
God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among
you."
Paul’s
not interested in cleaning up the world.
He doesn’t care about cleaning up Egypt and making it more
moral. He cares about the people
of God – the people who shelter under the blood, the people freed by the
Lamb – they should be vigilant against, v11, sexual immorality, yes but
also less scandalous sins like greed or slander or swindling people out
of money. That should be like the
yeast that we throw out of the house to show that we are DONE with the
old life.
What
about us? There’s no-one here at
stage four of church discipline (or they wouldn’t be here!). No-one at stage three I don’t
think? But what about stage
one? What about even before stage
one? Are you loving enough and
humble enough to care about your brothers and sisters? And therefore loving enough and humble
enough to ask them about their walk with Jesus? Are you prepared to point out to a
brother or sister where they are going astray? On the other hand, are you prepared to
listen to a brother or sister if they point out sins to you? We should all have a holy vigilance and
an intolerance to sin because the cross of Jesus means not only the
forgiveness of sin but our freedom from sin. Let’s help each other ensure that we
don’t enslave ourselves again to the old ways.
More
briefly, let’s turn to chapter 6.
Now if the problem in chapter 5 was failure to judge within the
church, chapter 6 shows the problem of going outside the church for
judgement.
I asked
the question at the start about what you’d do if a fellow Christian
knowing sold you a bad car. What
would you do?…
Here’s
the Corinthians’ answer in a word: litigation. They sued each other back and
forth. They went to the local small claims court and they aired their dirty laundry before the
world and Paul has two things to say.
Firstly, (verses 1-6) keep it in the family. If you want to settle this – settle it
within the church community.
Here was the irony, the Corinthians claimed to
be so wise and yet they apparently didn’t have the discernment to judge a
few petty disputes. Paul says,
Christians will judge the world.
We’ll even judge fallen angels.
I don’t know quite how that works but in places like Daniel 7 and
Matthew 19 it says that believers have a part to play in the judgement of
the world. Maybe we’re in the
jury, maybe we’re all sitting on thrones beneath Christ’s throne, I don’t
know but we are going to have a hand in sending down wicked humans and
wicked angels. Awe inspiring
stuff. And Paul says ‘Don’t you
know who you are? How can you go
to court, don’t you realise who you are.’
And this is why all this stuff about wisdom has been so key in
Corinthians. Christians need
wisdom. We need to be able to
exercise church discipline and we need to be able to resolve disputes. We should keep running to the world to
do this for us.
So first of all Paul says keep it in the family.
But his second piece of advice from verses 7 and
8 is this: Drop it. Just drop it. Don’t seek for recompense.
And Paul knows how the Corinthians will
respond. They’ll say ‘But we’re
being wronged! We’re being
cheated!’
To which Paul says in v7:
Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be
cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you
do this to your brothers.
Again it’s similar to Jesus’ teaching in
Matthew.
38
"You have heard that it was said,`Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'
39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone
strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40
And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your
cloak as well. 41 If someone forces you to go one mile, go
with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do
not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. (Matt 5:38-42)
The way of Jesus is not the way of demanding,
it’s not the way of standing on your rights, it’s not the way of seeking
justice. If Jesus demanded from
us, if He stood on His rights, if He sought justice He never would have
saved us He would have simply judged us all as sinners. Jesus prefered mercy to justice. He prefered to give up His rights rather
than insist on them. He forgave
His enemies and was wronged in ways we will never understand.
And Jesus calls His followers to do the same.
If someone sues you for your tunic, let them
have your cloak as well.
In the example of buying a faulty car, did
anyone suggest going to the Christian who sold it to you, telling them
you weren’t going to raise a fuss but was there any help you could give
them? Could you go and give up
your time or money to help the person who defrauded you?
Wouldn’t that be powerful? Wouldn’t that be the way of Jesus?
“Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be
cheated?” Paul seems to think that
Christians should be so soaking in the wisdom of the cross that they
RATHER be wronged than seek justice.
They would PREFER to be cheated than to insist on their own
way. Because when we do that we
are very much walking the way of Jesus.
What a community church could be if we followed
Paul’s teaching here.
A church where Christians look out for each
other’s holiness, where we are open to the correction of others, where we
grieve over the sins of each other, where we take bold steps to confront
sin in the life of the community.
A church where Christians resolved their
differences amicable, where we sacrificed for one another in
extraordinary ways, where we followed the way of the cross PREFERRING to
be wronged to insisting on our rights.
Let’s bow our heads. Perhaps look over the verses and see if
there’s any way we need to put this teaching into practice:
- Do we need to speak to another Christian caught in sin?
- Do we need to respond to the correction of others?
- Do we need to be open to this?
- Do we need a greater hatred of sin and determination to be
free from it
- Do we need to stop insisting on our rights, turning the other
cheek, following the way of Jesus?
Let’s pray.
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