Divine Stimulus For Holy Living - [1 Corinthians 5:6-8]

I regularly wonder how can a solid Bible -teaching church go liberal?

Does this happen overnight? You have a good, solid, Gospel -preaching church, and then years go by and then they begin to ordain, practice homosexuals in the ministry.

How does that happen? How do you get from Gospel -preaching to, well,

I guess it's okay for unbelievers to join the church and have a few unbelievers maybe speak once in a while from the pulpit.

How do you get there? One day the

Bible's preached forcefully, verse by verse, and then the next day, well, we can attract a better kind of crowd if we have drama in the church.

Oh, by the way, as everybody's settling down and I'm trying to get my bearings, did you see the camel that was in the church for the

Christmas pageant, and then the camel fell over onto the people in the congregation?

When the Bible -preaching's not enough, nothing's enough. Camel was slain in the

Spirit, walking. I mean, if you're going to have a camel doing an altar call, you might as well get slain in the

Spirit. That's a better start. Okay, now I feel better. It's a ringing in the ear you just can't get rid of.

Let's just get into the text. That'll make it easier for me. Turn your Bibles, please, to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

Why do churches start off good and then go south? There are many reasons, but one is when a church begins to tolerate unrepentant, flagrant sin, that church is surely on its way to liberalism.

When a church says God isn't quite as holy as He is, and man isn't quite as bad as the

Bible says he is, you are on a slippery slide to liberalism.

And similarly with how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How does a church go from Christ exalting to having bingo in their church?

The answer is when you devalue God and when you exalt man, you have a lot of problems.

It's a good time for BBC. It's a good season. Trying to buy the land and trying to sell this building.

But we want to be careful as well. We want to be careful that we don't become prideful, self -focused, allowing even sin here.

We don't want to do that. And this morning as we look at 1 Corinthians 5, we're going to deal with this church discipline case, but also

I think it's going to be important for you to see the principles that are in 1

Corinthians 5 applied to not just church discipline but your own life. It's going to be good.

It's too easy to look at 1 Corinthians 5 to say, this is about that unrepentant sinner and how the church handles that person.

That's true and that's the primary intent of the passage, but it's also going to be good for all of us today as I've studied the passage this week to say, you know,

I don't want to live an unholy life. I don't want to live a life full of pride, lack of sincerity, lack of truth.

I don't want to have the sin in my life contribute to the negative aspects of the local church.

And so today we'll look at 1 Corinthians 5, verses 6 through 8. And in my mind

I keep saying over and over, so I'll say it out loud. I didn't know if I should say it out loud, but I will. This passage makes you buckle up to take sin seriously and not just to say, oh yeah, remember a month ago we had to discipline someone out of the church and isn't that bad and don't we feel sorry and how could all that happen?

But you know what makes me feel that I want to live a holy life? In light of what Christ has done for me,

I want to live a holy life. In light of what Christ has done for you and granted you great forgiveness, don't you want to respond with holy living?

People struggle with all kinds of sin. This passage should help you when it comes to the inner man, the inner woman to deal with sin.

So let me read you the first several verses to give you a context before we look at the outline in 1

Corinthians 5. Verse 1 of chapter 5, it's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and a kind that is not tolerated even among the pagans.

For a man has his father's wife. Now remember this is Corinth and Corinth had all kinds of horrible, licentious, sinful promiscuity.

So much so that you'd have the temple of Artemis on top of this big mountain. By the way, it was fascinating to see that a few weeks ago.

There's this huge mountain, the temple's on the top and then regularly the 1 ,000 priestesses would come down to commune, to worship with, to sleep with anyone who wanted to worship the god

Diana. And so can you imagine having a city in such a gross place?

It was actually a seaport as well and so you can imagine all the people that got off the ships and had just contributed.

It was this kind of cesspool of sexual sin.

And then the Corinthians have been saved out of that. What does he say in chapter 6? You've been washed, you've been cleansed, you've been made different.

And so the church is a group of people who are, yes, sinners, but they've been saved from their sins.

They've been washed. They're different. They're new creatures in Christ Jesus. And now, inside the church, there's this horrible sin.

And you'd think you'd have a funeral -like attitude for this gross sin in the church that's unrepentant.

But it says in verse 2, the Corinthians were what? You are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn?

Let him who has done this be removed from among you. 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. When you are assembled in the name of the

Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man, who's in this unrepentant, flagrant sexual sin, to Satan.

Why? For the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the

Lord. Now Paul does something very interesting. He puts this little illustration here.

It's very timely and apt, and it's from daily life. And he talks about leaven and unleavened bread and Passover, verses 6 through 8.

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Cleanse out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened.

For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Let me give you for our outline today, four ways you can stimulate purity in your life, for the church and in your own personal life.

There's a lot of talk about stimulus programs in our economy, stimulus packages.

I don't know if they'll work or not, but this stimulus program from the

Scripture, I think will help you, especially if you're struggling with sin, personal sin, or struggling with church sin in the church.

Let me give you the first stimulus to purity, number one. Get this truth down pat.

Sin contaminates. Sin contaminates. Look at what happens in verse six.

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Paul says you should know, everybody knows that. Church, don't you know that sin contaminates, sin permeates everything?

It's toxic. And you're boasting. It's not like they said, well, you know, we'll just kind of acquiesce to it, kind of live and let live, let him without sin cast the first stone.

We have to love people. Maybe if we just love them. Just kind of let it go. They didn't just say that.

That would have been bad enough. But they're boasting. They're boasting, oh yeah, we're better than that.

We can handle sin. It was probably sin in a leader too. And so this sinful leader is going on, and we're just going to boast about it.

It's no big deal. Paul says when you deal with sin, you shouldn't snuggle it.

Ever have one of your favorite little blankets? Kids have their favorite blankets. I was up getting all the

Christmas stuff out of the attic, and I was opening up the boxes to see what were in them, and then I saw

Haley's first blanket. And there was, actually Luke had one of his special blankets up there too.

I saw those and I go, remember those special blankets? You want to get them so close, and they just felt good.

And you just kind of snuggled them. You're all looking at me like, that guy is sick.

Sin isn't to be snuggled or embraced. Sin is to be dealt with, because sin contaminates.

It's not something where you say, well, I'll just see how close I can get to sin. And whether the sin is the sexual sin in a church where they will not deal with this person, or if it's your own sin.

Maybe it's an obedience issue. Maybe it's pornography. Maybe it's whatever sin you're dealing with.

You say, well, you know, it's okay, I'm forgiven in Christ, and I can just kind of dabble with it a little bit.

The church of Corinth was dabbling with this, and they should have been saying, red alert. The truck is backing up.

You ever seen one of these big waste management trucks, and they back up, and it's beep, beep, beep, beep, and they're not dealing with sin.

They should be on top of this. How conceivable is it for churches to somehow celebrate sin?

It happens all the time. So what does Paul do? He uses a very common illustration.

He uses a kitchen illustration. He uses an illustration right from the kitchen.

Very well known and familiar. And he talks about leaven. How much leaven does it take to permeate and transform the dough?

A whole bunch or just a smidgen? Just a little bit. And so Paul is saying, if you look down at verse 6, do you not know that a lot of leaven leavens the whole lump?

What's he saying? Just a little bit. Just a little bit of toleration of evil causes pollution of the whole.

Leaven diffuses. Doesn't look like much. You might not even really be able to see it once it's in the batter or in the dough, but it contaminates everything, and you can see what

Paul's doing. You're going to allow sin that's flagrant and unrepentant, and worse than what the pagans do, be in your church, it's going to corrupt other people.

How many bad apples does it take to spoil the whole bunch, girl? Once a year the

Jews would get rid of all their leaven, because it could contaminate everything else, and so they have to get rid of it.

Garland said, a piece of bad leaven will pass on to taint the next batch, and so on. The only way to break the chain of baking bacteria laden bread was to ditch the whole batch and start afresh.

Thomas Strayhorn said, souls to souls are like apples. One being rotten, rots another.

Yes, you deal with sin. The person who's sinning in church discipline, you deal with them because you want them to repent, but you also deal with them because you don't want this sin to spread in the church.

Maybe another metaphor instead of leaven, I'd use this metaphor. How about gangrene? Sin is like gangrene.

The only way you can deal with a gangrenous foot is to amputate it. Yes, but you don't really understand.

We don't want to be legalistic at the church. I've often been called a legalist, and I never want to be a legalist because legalism is just as bad as licentiousness.

But let me ask you this question. If you obey the Bible, are you a legalist? In light of what

Christ has done for you and you obey, is that legalism? So if you're going to deal with sin in the local church, are you a legalist?

You're not adding anything, you're just trying to do what the Bible says. But other people look and say, you know what, that's legalism.

The church, of course, is probably saying, you know what, we're so super spiritual because we've been taught by the super apostles that we can deal with this sin.

Other churches might not be able to, but we can. We're beyond church discipline.

We're more sophisticated, we're different. This sin won't affect us. Well, let's kind of tell it to a small group, maybe deal with it over here.

We don't really have to do the whole church discipline thing. Paul says, you know what's going to corrupt the whole church?

Show me a church that doesn't do church discipline and I'll show you a church that doesn't understand the corrupting, polluting influence of sin.

And I'll show you a church that is arrogant because they have a better way than what the

Bible says to do. Say, well, you know, that's not my love language.

I have a different love language than kind of dealing with this. I think your love language should be in light of the cross, obey

God. Sin isn't trifling, it's not minor. Think about now in your own life.

You're dealing with a certain kind of sin and you think, well, it's not as bad as other sins. I don't do it as regularly as some other sins.

There are a lot of other people who do worse sins than I do. Sin always defiles.

It's never a trifling issue. And whenever I have a problem with sin,

I realize I have a problem with my view of God. I don't know about the holiness of God like I should. God, who

Isaiah 57 says, whose name is holy. God who is so holy, if he's around things, they become holy.

The burning bush, the holy temple, holy habitation. How many sins did it take for God to kick

Adam and Eve out of the garden? How many sins did it take for Moses to be excluded from the promised land?

How many sins did it take for Elisha's servant to be leprous? How many sins did it take for God to kill

Ananias and Sapphira? Just one. Just one.

Sin permeates. Let's see what Jonathan Edwards said. Almost every natural man that hears of hell flatters himself that he should escape it.

He depends upon himself for his own security. He flatters himself in what he has done and what he is now doing or what he intends to do.

Everyone lays out matters in his own mind how he should avoid damnation and flatters himself that he contrives well for himself and that his schemes will not fail.

Now, unbelievers do that when it comes to hell, but Christians do that with their own sin. Not that their sin brings them to hell, but sin isn't really that big of a deal.

I'll just figure out a way that I can kind of live with this sin. Maybe I can put it this way.

Fathers, when you go on a camping trip, do you tell the kids, now we're going to instruct you about the poisonous animals, and when we find one, we're going to go pick them up and kind of cuddle them.

Let's go maybe finding the box jellyfish.

I was looking at poisonous animals because sin is like poison. The box jellyfish has venom so powerful that most human victims in the water, when they get stung by it, die or drown in the water because of heart attack.

They don't even make it to shore. So, you know what kids, I know we've got the little kiddie pool in the back, but there's only one box jellyfish in here.

It's okay. How about the blue ringed octopus? It's the size of a golf ball, has enough venom that it can kill 26 adults within minutes.

No antidote. Okay kids, let's go have a jacuzzi in the backyard. There's only one little tiny cute little octopus there.

The stonefish, venom that is so painful that people scream out if they've been cut, they've been bit in the arm, cut my arm off, it hurts so bad.

Okay, let's have a little tub, Johnny. Hop in the tub, there's only one little stonefish in there. How about the poison dart frog?

Enough poison on the dart frog to kill 10 adult humans or 20 ,000 mice.

Come on, it's only one little frog, it's cute too, it's blue. I've been to different countries before and I always think if I go for a walk or some bike ride, what's poisonous?

Avoid them. And you know, if I do get bit, I just hope I can get my mouth to that part of my body to suck the juice out because, you know, what am

I going to do? You know, you get bit on the back and you know your days are done. Why is the local church, and I'm not saying we aren't because I think we're understanding the

Scriptures and God isn't treating us as a church, but our attitude about sin should be like our attitude about poison.

Oh, it's just a brown recluse, I'll kill it in the morning, no big deal. If that's what

I'm about, I mean, I'm kind of afraid of poisonous things. So if I'm afraid of poisonous things, why would then

I say, but when it comes to poison, spiritual poison, I want to get close. We ought not to experiment with sin, we ought not to lust after sin, we ought not to get close to it, we ought to kill it.

As Watson said, Thomas Watson, be killing sin or it will be killing you. So for the

Church of Corinth, they needed to know that this sinful, unrepentant person could affect everyone, so deal with sin.

I think a good application is for our own life. What about our own sin? Can't that hurt the local body too?

Stimulus to purity number two. Number one was sin contaminates, don't forget that. Number two, now listen to me carefully because I've worded this precisely.

Live a clean and holy life because you are clean and holy. Live a clean and holy life because you are clean and holy.

Here's what Paul's going to do. He's going to say, you're a Christian, saved by the blood of Christ, confirmed by the resurrection, so act like it.

You're washed and you're a new creation in Christ, so act like it. Be who you are. Have conduct befitting an officer.

And so he says, basically, here you're a Christian, therefore act like it. Cleanse out the old leaven, verse 7, that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened.

You are spiritually clean, therefore act like you're spiritually clean. Paul talks this way a lot.

And he says, you know what, your position in Christ Jesus should motivate you to remove evil from the

Church. Cleanse it. This is where we get the word catharsis, to cleanse.

And just as a Jew would go search around that house and make sure there was no leaven in the house before Passover, some even with the tradition would walk around with a candle to make sure there's no little bits of leaven around.

He says, so too, Christian, get the candle out and look around the house of your life to make sure there's no little hiding sins there.

Why? Because you're already a Christian. You're a Christian, therefore act like a

Christian. That's what he's saying. Every crumb gone, a search to make sure no leaven in the house before the

Passover lamb was slain. Act holy because you are holy.

You're positionally holy, set apart by God, therefore act practically holy. Become what you are.

I went through a list and found a few of these. Did you know if you're a Christian you have a new relationship to God?

You used to be an enemy and now you're a friend. Do you know you're a new creation in Christ Jesus, therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new what?

He's a new creature, so act like it. Christians have new appetites,

Bible reading, new friends, new priorities, new goals, new destiny, new allegiance.

Paul says everything about you is new. You aren't who you used to be, so act like a

Christian. Cleanse out the old leaven that may be a new lump as you really are unleavened.

Get rid of that old yeast. So for you, you say, alright, how do I deal with sin?

How do I deal with personal sin in my own life? The context is getting rid of this person who's sleeping with his mother -in -law, stepmother.

But in my own life, how do I deal with sin? Here's your homework assignment. Read Romans chapter 6.

Read Romans chapter 6. When I have to deal with sin in my life, here's what I do too often. I just need to stop doing such and such and just stop it.

Is it good to stop it? Yes. But the way you deal with sin as a

Christian is you say, I have to stop doing the negative thing. I start doing the positive thing.

So if I steal, then I ought to work. If I lie, I ought to tell the truth. If I'm selfish,

I ought to be selfless. But I do it only through one instrument, and that is remembering who

I am in Christ. That I can obey, that I have the power to obey. Romans chapter 6 is so good because I'm a to -do list guy.

Since I've not been feeling well, my to -do lists are really short. They're basically, preach a sermon on Sunday.

That's about all they contain. But I wish they were longer because I like to get things done. Don't you like to write things down?

Remember, I have one of my children, and they have a list of things to do around the house.

And then I go look at the list sometimes, and I want to check off that list. Okay, good, he did that, she did that.

You know what one of my kids said the other day? Dad, don't check it off. I want to check it off.

It doesn't feel good to check those things off, and you say, yes. And for the Christian, we're too works -oriented sometimes, even as Christians.

If I just do this, this, this, and this, therefore, I can clean up my act. And Romans chapter 6 says this.

Before you do anything, it's all about your mind and who you are in Christ. And you realize that when

Jesus died, you died with Him. You realize that when Jesus was raised from the dead, you were raised up with Him.

It's all about your relationship to Christ. I can put it this way, since I know who you are, and I've preached this to you before.

To deal with sin in the Christian life, you have to remember, one, indicative, statement of fact that Jesus Christ has conquered the power of sin in your life.

Then imperative, in light of who He is and what He's done, therefore, live it out.

And so Paul says here in 1 Corinthians, he says, you are clean, act like you're clean. He says the other way around, be clean because you are clean.

The key to Christianity for the Christian is, of all things, Jesus. We never want to be the kind of people that say, well,

I've got that whole thing down. I did the altar call. I did the sinner's prayer. Jesus died for my sins. He was raised from the dead.

He's coming back. I repented and believed. And now I can put that little component over here. And now I'm on to the deeper things in life and maturity.

These two things are always and forever linked. Your life, your growth depends on your relationship to how you think about who you are in Christ Jesus.

All right, I'll show you what I mean. Number three, stimulus to purity, number one. Remember, sin contaminates.

Stimulus to purity, number two. Live a holy life because you are holy. Three, focus on the sacrificial love of Christ Jesus.

It's all about Christ. Paul thinks of unleavened bread, and what does he do? Well, now he's got to bring up Passover.

For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

Did you know? I can say it true or false, I guess. You already know it's going to be true.

Did you know, true or false? Christ's death is supposed to affect the way you live morally and ethically as a

Christian. The answer is, true. How should

I live in light of a risen Savior who's made me born again and changed me from an enemy to a friend?

How do I live? What motivates you? Say, well, you know, other people do more than I do around the church, and therefore

I better man up. Well, maybe that might be good for a little while, but it's not going to last.

But if you remember how bad your sins are, and how great Jesus' death was, and he's been sacrificed for you, that's the motivation for the

Christian life. How does someone at Corinth say, you know what, we can just deal with this guy.

He's unrepentant, and he's had this horrible kind of sexually lewd sin, and he won't repent from it.

And so, I don't know, should we deal with it or should we not? Don't forget about the leaven, but more importantly, don't forget about Jesus who's been sacrificed.

Think about who you are in Christ Jesus, and the free, sovereign, distinguishing grace that you have received.

He has been sacrificed as our Passover Lamb. How much theology is in that?

Listen to what Spurgeon said. This is rich. You're going to email me and say, where's that quote?

When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself. And though I sought the

Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is first aware of this.

I can recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths into my own soul.

When they were, as John Bunyan said, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron.

And I can recollect how I felt. I had grown all of a sudden from a babe into a man.

I had made progress in scriptural knowledge. Though having found once for all the clue to the truth of God, that Jesus sovereignly died for me.

Spurgeon said, one week night when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher's sermon, for I did not believe it.

I hope none of that is applying to you this morning. So, if you don't believe the guy's preaching, then

I guess you think of other things. And here's what Spurgeon said. The thought struck me. How did you become a Christian?

Oh, I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment.

I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek

Him. I prayed, thought I. But then I asked myself, how came

I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the scriptures. How came

I to read the scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it.

And that He was the author of my faith. And so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me. And from that doctrine,

I have not departed to this day. And I desire to make this my constant confession. I ascribe my change wholly to God.

That is the best. If you've been changed, you've been changed by the sovereign decree of God. And if He's changed you, what's your response?

Well, I'll get around to acting wholly a little bit later. When the kids are gone. Kids are growing up, then

I will. No, what do you say? I deserve hell and I get heaven? Lord, I'm yours. Out of gratitude,

I'd love to obey. Jesus Christ was sacrificed, not because we let

Him be sacrificed, but He chose to be sacrificed in the eternal counsel of the Godhead.

And Jesus fulfilled the command that the Father gave Him. John 17 says, By going, taking on a body that we read about in Hebrews 10, to die on our behalf.

And you say, that's been done for me? Then I'll follow Him with all my being.

What if you met someone who rescued your son from drowning? When I was growing up, there was a house next door.

The people moved out. We lost our friends. Some new people moved in.

And the neighborhood didn't really like them, because they didn't look like the old people. And they were not the same color as everybody else.

And so everybody kind of looked like, you know, we don't know about these people and they're not like us.

Well, there's a big drainage ditch out in front of our house. And there was a child playing by the drainage ditch and slipped in during a huge storm and went straight down the drainage ditch to his sure doom, literally.

And this next door neighbor, who was in the Navy, quick jumped out, ran down to the edge, and as the kid was going to go under, literally, to die, he reached his hand down and pulled that kid up and saved that kid.

Well, if you're that kid's dad or mother, what,

I won't say, what would you do? Let me say it this way. What wouldn't you do for that person? I mean,

I'd probably hug, kiss. I'd probably kiss the guy on the lips, probably.

Greet one another with a holy kiss. That'd be a sight to see. I think it was the medicine that just made me say that, so.

This person has saved my son. The response is gratitude. Debt.

Thanks. Praise. And I guarantee you that if that person called

Mr. Floyd today and said, by the way, excuse me, if Mr.

Floyd called that person today and said, by the way, there's been a tragedy in my own life and I need a favor, do you think

I could have a favor? We know the answer. The initiating grace of God in the heart of the believer should make that believer say,

I want to deal with sin. I will deal with sin. And for Spurgeon, he realized salvation had nothing to do with him.

I think for some, probably even in this room this morning, the reason why your life is still with too much sin and not enough gratitude and thanks and service, the answer lies not because you're not a

Christian, but because you don't ascribe your Christianity wholly to God's sovereign, initiating, distinguishing grace.

You somehow think you kind of partnered along with God. You let God save you.

You kind of, you know, you did the first thing. But when you realize that you ascribe your change wholly to God, then it motivates service, thanksgiving.

I don't know if you know the story of Drew Garner, but it's too good for me to pass up. He was a

Southern Baptist with a huge church, a mega church, thousands. And a visitor came on a

Sunday, and so he thought he'd make a house call. So he knocked on the door on Monday, and in his own words he said this, the ugliest man

I have ever seen appeared unshaven and in his dressing gown. Well, I'd only like to talk to you for a little bit, the pastor said.

Do you make altar calls? The ugly man growled. Of course I do. Why do you make them?

Well, to give people a chance to decide. Do you think that people have to have a chance?

Does God save by chance? Drew, the pastor, said this in his memoirs,

What kind of nut have I got on my hands? The ugly man said,

I would like you to see my library. And he brought him over to show him all his theological books and all the books that he had gotten from great

Puritans. And then he picked out two books and said, Pastor, I'd like you to read these two books,

A .W. Pink's The Sovereignty of God and Lorraine Bettner's The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination.

Pastor, read these two books. Went on a couple more calls, went home.

His wife said, a strange man called this morning on his way to work. He said he was new to the area and would like me to read

John chapter 6. Drew said, was he big and ugly?

Yes! He's a nut! This man's theological tank was running low.

He said, I guess I can't hurt, I might as well read the books. Two days later, the account reads,

Suddenly his eyes were opened. He saw it all in an instant. Leaping in the air, he shouted as loud as possible for a man to shout.

The whole plan of God, His sovereignty and His purpose had fallen into place. He rushed out to share it with his wife

Frances. She had seen it too in John 6. They rejoiced together. Life had begun anew.

The theological desert, the barren spiritual wandering, the doubt and skepticism had all gone and gone forever.

A new life had begun. Friends, if you believe that Jesus Christ was slain by His free choice for you, on behalf of you, it should revolutionize your mind.

Like in Hosea where God says, I have loved you freely. So Paul's answer to sin in the life of the church and my answer to you through Paul for sin in your own life is the

Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ. It's not something to get over and then move on in your

Christian life because that can never be. David Brainerd, the missionary to the Indians, I never got away from Jesus and Him crucified.

And I found that when my people were gripped by this great evangelical doctrine of Christ and Him crucified, I had no need to give them instructions about morality.

If you see Jesus dying for you and you have it in your mind, then you don't need to be told, serve, give, pray, evangelize.

Brainerd said, I found that one followed as sure and inevitable fruit of the other.

I find my Indians begin to put on garments of holiness and their common life begins to be sanctified even in small matters when they are possessed by the doctrine of Christ and Him crucified.

They're possessed by it. So you say, I struggle with sin. Paul says to the church of Corinth, behold the

Lamb. BBC, you struggle with sin in your life? If you do, the answer is found in the sacrificial, initiating love of Christ Jesus.

And lastly, number four. Let's look at 1 Corinthians 5, verse 8. This is language like I never heard

Paul say. Simulus to purity, number four. Remember the joy that comes from a life cleansed from sin.

Remember the joy that comes from a life cleansed from sin. Simulus to purity, number four.

Now, verse 8. Let us therefore celebrate the festival. Let us celebrate the festival.

Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil. See this great figurative language he's using?

Getting the Jews that were there to think, reminisce about the

Old Testament. Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Jesus died to make the enemies friends, but He also died to cleanse the sinner.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I look back to 1989 when God saved me, and I realized how bad

I was, and how many sins I had committed against God, and what those sins deserved, but Jesus Christ stood in my stead and in my place and on my behalf, and absorbed the holy, just wrath of God in my place.

It was hard to get over. I couldn't stop thinking about it, and then to think, I'm clean.

I'm clean. Now, when you go back to your salvation, do you remember how bad you were, and then how you are in Christ Jesus, you have

His perfect righteousness, and then is there a joy or a depression about a clean life?

I know people, my father, when he, he was a drunk, and so before he died, he didn't know he was dying at the time, but he committed himself to a 30 day dry out.

And so they lock you in the hospital, and you can't drink for 30 days. You know, my father came out, how do you think he felt?

He felt clean. He felt good. I thought to myself, now, I have a real father now.

But he felt just so good. Paul is saying this, celebrate the festival. You know what celebrate the festival means to Paul, to the church of Corinth?

Celebrate the festival, it's your Christian life. It's one of the reasons why

I don't really care about Christmas services and Easter services, because every day for the Christian is supposed to be what? It's the festival.

Why are we not, it's fine to have a Christmas service. This is the disclaimer, you know, for the visitors today.

It's fine to have a service. It's fine to have a Resurrection Sunday service. Put up a

Jeremiah tree if you want to bow down to the evergreen tree. You do whatever you want. I'm just kidding.

Put one up and remember the tree. If you don't want to put one up, you don't have to. But why don't you see in the

New Testament, these kind of Old Testament celebrations. Do this and then that.

Remember the Passover. What about Yom Kippur? What about unleavened bread? What about the kind of Feast of Purim?

What about all these kind of things? Because the Christian life is a festival. Every day is the festival.

Cleanse from sin. I was laying in the MRI tube this week, and I just thought,

I am so claustrophobic. How many people don't make it through? They said one out of five. And then my pride kicked in.

I'm going to make it. Put some kind of big face thing on, and then they jam the headphones on your head.

Can I listen to something? It's like, yes, 104 .5 horrible music. Okay. Don't, don't, don't.

I'm just laying there thinking, celebrate the festival. I was trying to make myself think through that.

In five minutes when they take me out, and they say, all right, we're going to put the

MRI contrast in. One out of 40 ,000 people die on the spot. Okay.

39 ,999 out of 40 ,000 is pretty good. But if this is the time,

I'm cleansed. I'm forgiven. I have hope. I've been reconciled. The wrath of God against me has been propitiated because Christ has stood in my place.

And the worst thing that can happen to me is I don't die. It would be nice to have another

Christmas. It would be nice to preach again. My life is cleansed.

Now, this is not, we don't have to deal with evangelism. We don't have to deal with all these other issues. But your life should be a festival.

Celebrate. Come to the table of God and eat and drink and be merry. For Christ has died in your place and has been raised from the dead.

You say, well, I'm really happy. Well, show your face. Tell your face. Show your face. Cut off the tape.

That's what I should be saying. The festival. This is not some kind of giddy, you know, emotionalism.

And we always have to be up. But this is that deep joy. The kind of joy that Paul says of the church of Philippi, rejoice always.

He tells them with a command. Has anybody ever come to you for counseling and you've said, do you know what?

Based on what Christ has done for you, I command you to rejoice. That's exactly what's going on here.

Celebrate. It's a command. Celebrate the festival. What is the festival? It's figurative language about the

Christian life, forgiveness, cleanness. Can you imagine when you see the prostitute cleansed, forgiven of all their sins in the

New Testament? Wonder what they feel like. All those horrible sins.

Forgiven. Paid for. That's why Paul says in Philippians chapter 3, he says,

I'm running the race looking one direction. If you ever look back at your old sins, friends, do it only long enough so you remember what you deserve, and then you fix your eyes on where you're going.

Christ died to cleanse sins. Transform them. The Christian life to Paul was a festival.

A celebration. And if you're going to have a religious celebration under the Lord, it should be a clean celebration.

A moral celebration. By the way, he says in the command in verse 8, it's present tense.

Let us keep on celebrating the festival. This is not once a year. This is not the new calendar.

This is not the new year. This is all the time. Celebrate. So now let me just read these verses again.

Now that you know what they mean. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our

Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival.

Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Paul says you don't tolerate sin because it corrupts. And you shouldn't be tolerating sin in the church because you should be celebrating forgiveness found in Christ Jesus and celebrate with holiness.

Turn to Revelation chapter 2 and I end with these words. The words of Jesus Christ, the risen

Savior. And if you go to Revelation chapter 2, there's a church that tolerates sin.

And the church that tolerates sin is taken to task by Christ Jesus.

I want to read you these to show you that Jesus Christ, since it's His church, wants the church to be clean.

To celebrate the festival. And when a church tolerates sin, Jesus leaves.

So I don't know about you, I'm willing to accept, it would be sad, but I'm willing to accept every person here to leave.

But I don't want Jesus to leave. So we'll obey the Scriptures and celebrate the feast. And thankfully most of you will stay.

To the church of Thyatira, Revelation 2, verse 18.

In this great book about Jesus, we hear from Jesus, and to the angel of the church in Thyatira write, the words of the

Son of God. Apollo is not the Son of God. Caesar is not the Son of God. These are the words of the

Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire. He sees everything. Whose feet are like burnished bronze.

I know your works, your love and faith and service and patience and endurance. You've even got more love than Ephesus.

And that your latter works exceed the first. You just keep on serving. You're a church that has love, faith, service, patience.

But I have this against you. You cannot just be standing up for what you're for.

You've got to be against sin. That you tolerate that woman. You can see the finger stick out.

That woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants,

Jesus says, to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. You can have love, faith, service and patience and endurance, but if you tolerate sin,

Jesus has a word for that church. Verse 21, And I gave her time to repent. You can even see the patient love

Christ has there. But she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. And what's worse than sexual immorality?

A refusal to repent of it. Behold, I will throw her onto a sick bed.

If she wants to be in a bed, I'll give her a bed. A sick bed. And those who commit adultery with her and her adulterous doctrines,

I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works. And I will strike her children dead, all her followers.

And all the churches will know that I am He who searches minds and heart. I will give to each of you according to your works.

There are some who have been faithful by the grace of God, but to the rest of you in Thyatira who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some have called the deep things of Satan, to you

I say, I do not lay on any other burden. Only hold fast what you have until I come.

The one who conquers and who keeps My works until the end, to Him I give authority over the nations.

He will rule them with the rod of iron as when earth and pots are broken in pieces.

Even as I myself have received authority from My Father, I will give Him the morning star.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Let's pray.

Father, today, I ask that You'd work in the hearts and the minds of the people here. I pray that You would remind them afresh the greatness of their salvation.

Just how great it was for Jesus to condescend in love, to cloak

Himself with humanity, to die at the hands of His own creatures.

And Father, today, I pray that since the Spirit would love to stir in our hearts and minds the truth about Christ crucified,

I pray that the response from the heart, from the Spirit of God's working, would be joy, be a celebration.

And Father, out of all the people who take away Christ for Christmas, help

Bethlehem Bible Church to celebrate the fact that we have a risen Savior and that He is actually here in our church.

Father, help us to love sinful people, but help us never to tolerate unrepentant sin in this church.