Take your Bibles with me and turn to 1 Corinthians 5. 1 Corinthians 5.

We are getting into a section of 1 Corinthians that covers some really heavy stuff. We are going to be talking about sexual immorality a lot over the next several weeks - so you need to understand where we are going.

But you also need to understand that Paul was addressing a world where sexual immorality was pervasive. Sexual immorality was the norm in Corinth. It was such a sexually immoral city that the writers of the day used “Corinthianize” as a verb for sexual desensitization. And so God led and inspired Paul to write about this stuff.

And I think we live in a Corinthianized world today.

• We live in a world where sexual immorality is the norm, not the exception.
• We live in a world where a third of the country defends drag queen story hour for kids at public libraries.
• We live in a world where people routinely walk around in what would have been considered underwear a few generations ago.
• We live in a world where we are quickly getting to the place where more children are born outside of wedlock than inside of wedlock.
• We live in a world where polyamory 41% of Gen Z said they were considering polyamory - or a lifestyle with multiple partners.
• We live in a world where 76% of marriages are preceded by cohabitation.

I think we live in a world that is so sexualized that it might have made the Corinthians blush.

And so we need this. We desperately need to hear God’s wisdom for living in a Corinthianized world.

And even if we didn’t, the point in this chapter isn’t really about sexual immorality, its about the church’s attitude toward sin. So even if we wanted to skip over stuff that is uncomfortable to talk about, we need to cover this so we understand what the Bible says about churches and sin. So with all that in mind, let’s read this chapter.

[1] It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife. [2] And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. [3] For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, [4] In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, [5] To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. [6] Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? [7] Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: [8] Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. [9] I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: [10] Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. [11] But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. [12] For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? [13] But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person. --1 Corinthians 5 (KJV)

This is the classic passage on church discipline, and that is the lens we are going to use to talk about this chapter tonight. Church discipline. I believe the main point this chapter is making is that:

Churches cannot tolerate ongoing sin, and must remove members who are outwardly sinning and refusing to repent, both for the good of those sinners and the good of the church.

So we are going to break that down into three areas as we cover this chapter tonight:

1. The Responsibility of church discipline
2. The Target of church discipline
3. The Purpose of church discipline

Let’s pray and we’ll get into it.

(Pray)

The first thing I want to talk about tonight is...

1. The Responsibility for church discipline

You see, what was happening in this Corinthian church is that they had gross sin in their midst. There was a man in their church who had an ongoing and public sexual relationship with his stepmother.

Now that is gross. That is clearly condemned by several scriptures in the Old Testament and it would have been too much even for the world of that day.

But I want you to see something - Paul’s biggest problem in this chapter isn’t this man who was living in the sexual sin; it is with ==the church’s handling== of this man who is living in the sexual sin.

90% of this chapter isn’t directed at this man, it is directed at the church.

• It is the church who is puffed up,
• it is the church that is letting leaven in the lump,
• it is the church that is glorying,
• it is the church that should have judged this man.

Paul isn’t upset that this sin happened. He is upset that this sin wasn’t dealt with by the local church.

And so the principle here is that the church has a responsibility to practice church discipline.

And that responsibility hasn’t gone away. Church’s today still have the responsibility to practice church discipline. We still need to judge those within the church, and if necessary, to disfellowship people.

That doesn’t mean most churches do this. In fact, most churches ignore this command. These are hard commands.

• They are hard because it sounds unloving to discipline someone.
• They are hard because church discipline is misunderstood and misapplied in truly hurtful ways.
• They are hard because today, people can blast stuff on Social Media.
• They are hard because today, someone can just get in their car and drive across town or go forty-five minutes away to another church.

These commands are hard - but they are still commands. The church still has a responsibility to discipline.

But that begs the question - who do we discipline? What sins are worthy of church discipline?

And that leads us to our second point:

2. The Target of church discipline

So in this chapter, Paul makes it pretty clear who we are to discipline. It isn’t everybody.

Paul says “it is reported commonly” - so that is the first hint at who church discipline is for...

The sin must be public.

Or if it is secret, it must be a sin that affects the church’s reputation. I do not think that Paul had in mind that we perform church discipline on everybody who has an angry outburst or everyone who struggles with anxiety.

But this was a sin that was public - everyone knew about it, and it was a sin that was affecting the church’s witness and reputation - so it had to be dealt with.

I think a second qualification for who get’s church discipline is...

The sin must be unrepentant.

If you look at verse 5, it says:

[5] To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. -- 1 Corinthians 5:5 (KJV)

One of the purpose of this church discipline was that this man would be saved. That he would see that his sin was wrong and want to make it right.

I do not believe that if this man had just did this thing once, and confessed and repented that he would be put out of the church. That’s not what church discipline is for. This man was sinning and refused to repent.

So, if someone in our church has an affair on his wife - that is a serious sin, a public sin that could affect the testimony of the church. But that doesn’t mean he gets put out. If he repents and tries to make things right. That is a different situation.

But if he continues in it, and refuses to repent and makes excuses for himself - then the church has to act.

A third qualification for who and when we practice church discipline is very important. Not only must the the sin be public and unrepentant, but...

The sin must be from members.

In other words, we have no authority as a church to judge the world. That is what Paul is saying in verses 9-13:

[9] I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: [10] Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. [11] But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. [12] For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? [13] But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person. --1 Corinthians 5:9-13 (KJV)

What Paul is saying here is interesting, because this is exactly the type of judging most Christians like to do - they like judging the world. They like to act surprised and shocked when lost people act like lost people. But Paul says that isn’t our business. God will judge the lost. Our business is us.

We can’t break fellowship with every lost person who acts like a lost person - that is monasticism.

But when someone who is in the church, someone who is called a brother and a Christian acts like a lost person, we can’t bless that man’s action with continued fellowship. We can’t pretend like their lifestyle is ok.

If you are claiming to be a Christian, and we are backing up that claim with church membership, and you are living in public, unrepentant sin - we have a duty to do something about it.

By the way, there is a pretty good list of sins Paul has in mind here for church discipline:

• fornicator - that covers all kinds of sexual sins
• covetous - that covers all kinds of financial sins
• idolator - that covers all kinds of religious sins
• railer - this is a word that means “character assassin” or “verbally abusive person”- this covers all kinds of interpersonal sins.
• drunkard - this covers substance abuse sins
• extortioner - this covers sins of taking advantage of others

You should get a good idea here of the kinds of sins Paul has in mind. God wants a holy church - a sanctified church - and that means we can’t let sin just go. We have to deal with it.

So we’ve talked about the Responsibility for church discipline and the target of church discipline, let’s look at our last point...

3. The Purpose of church discipline

Why would we do this? I mean, the world thinks this is unloving and intolerant. It’s risky - it could open us up to attack - so why do it?

The obvious answer is because the Bible teaches us to. And even though that is good enough, that is kind of like a parent saying “because I said so.” God usually gives us a reason.

I think there are two reasons we can see in this chapter why the church should practice church discipline:

We practice church discipline for the good of the sinner.

I think that is what Paul was saying when he said “Deliver such a one to satan” - there isn’t’ some kind of necromancy going on here. It isn’t as hocus pocus as it sounds.

What he was saying was put him out of the church. Put him out of the protection of the church. Basically, the church is God’s domain, the world is Satan’s domain. So Paul is saying “we are going to remove him from God’s domain and move him into Satan’s domain” - why? For the salvation of the spirit.

Paul was doing this to shock this man into realizing the gravity of his sin. One purpose of this was to bring the man to repentance. For his own good.

We forget sometimes that sin is destructive. Sin kills. If we let sin grow in someone’s life - 100x out of 100 it will destroy them. You wouldn’t let a bunch of kids play with poison in the name of “tolerance” and we shouldn’t let sin go in the name of tolerance - because we are really hurting people when we do.

The hope was that this man would repent, and come back. And when we practice church discipline - the goal is that the person will repent, and come back.

Last year I read a book about how Charles Spurgeon ran his church - and they examine the list of the people who were put out in church discipline. And do you know what, they rejoiced that several of those people eventually came back into the church.

Remember, it is church discipline, not church punishment. We aren’t trying to punish people. We are doing it in part for the good of the sinner.

But that’s not the only reason we do church discipline...

We practice church discipline for the good of the church.

Paul spent several verses here talking about leaven and the passover. During the passover, faithful jews had to get rid of all of their leaven, all of their yeast. They didn’t eat unleavened bread all the time, but during this feast they would get rid of all of their sourdough starters and any leaven in their homes for the feast of the passover.

If you take some sourdough starter, and you mix it into dough, a little bit leavens the whole lump of dough.

And Paul is saying here that if we let sin go in our church, it’s going to leaven the whole church.

What does leaven or yeast do to bread? It puffs it up. These Corinthians were puffed up, they were glorying - part of that was probably because they let sin go and didn’t practice church discipline.

We are called to be saints. We are called to be holy. We are called to be an unleavened loaf. Positionally, we are already that in Christ - but God wants us as a church to live that out.

So we have to deal with sin, we have to do church discipline. We have a responsibility to do it.

So what do we do with all of this?

Let me give you three takeaways from this chapter:

First, we need to take sin seriously. We live in a world that has normalized what God calls sin. But just because the world accepts it doesn't mean the church can. Sin is destructive - it destroys individuals, it destroys families, and it destroys churches. We can't be casual about it.

Second, we need to understand that biblical church discipline is actually loving. The world will tell you that discipline is hateful and intolerant. But think about it - what's more loving: letting someone destroy their life with sin, or caring enough to intervene? What's more loving: letting sin corrupt the whole church, or dealing with it biblically?

Third, we need to create a culture of grace and accountability. The goal of church discipline isn't to kick people out - it's to keep people in by dealing with sin before it gets to that point. We want to be a church where people feel safe to confess sin and get help, where we can lovingly confront each other when we see someone heading down a dangerous path.

In our Corinthianized world, the church must be different. We must be holy. We must be pure. We must be unleavened bread - sincere and true. And that means sometimes we have to do the hard thing of practicing biblical church discipline - not because we're harsh, but because we love God, we love each other, and we want to see people restored. Let's pray.

Annotations: 0,15594 SHA-256 150943a966d281a82e4bbed5bee35d6c
&Writing Tools: 754
@: 761,649 1419,27 1466,618 2085,2 3843,4 3868,211 4253,94 4350 4387,4 4394 4423,4 4430 4458,2135 6596 6624,755 7510,5 7539,892 8432,153 9241,4 9272,913 10195,42 10245,45 10298,45 10349,124 10474,3 10485,38 10534,378 10915 10943,3187 14164 14217,3 14257,2 14508 14510,2 14593,2 14868 14870,2 15065,2 15235 15592,2
...