Not Sparing the Rod

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Well, let's stand, continue to stand, and open up our Bibles together, and we're going to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 5, and in a little different mode this morning, we're going to read the whole chapter.
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I do not intend to give an exposition, but I am going to give an overview of the chapter this morning, and then our exposition is going to come in the weeks ahead.
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It is an exposition, but it's more of an overview this morning.
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First Corinthians chapter 5 is relatively short, only 13 verses, and it begins with these words.
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It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not even tolerated among pagans.
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For a man has his father's wife, and you are arrogant.
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Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
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For though absent in the body, I am present in spirit.
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And if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.
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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 to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
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Your boasting is not good.
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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.
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And for Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.
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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.
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I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.
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Not at all meaning the sexual immoral of this world, or the greedy, or swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
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But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother, if he is guilty of sexual immorality, or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one.
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For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.
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Purge the evil person from among you.
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Can we pray? Father, as we open the word together to study, I pray that you would first and foremost, especially, Lord, this morning, maybe more than ever, keep me from error.
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Father, this passage can easily be twisted into all types of fallacy, and I don't want to do that.
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I pray for your protection for me, for the congregation, and I pray that our study would please you, and I pray that we would glorify you in this time.
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And I ask all of this in Jesus' name and for His sake.
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Amen.
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Well, I want to start with a little bit of an admission.
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I've been anxious about this passage ever since I started 1 Corinthians.
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There's a few places in 1 Corinthians that I'm anxious to preach about, and this just happens to be one of them, because it deals with a subject which is, to put it mildly, rather disturbing.
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All immorality is unsavory, but as Paul mentions in this text, this particular instance of immorality is one that's not even tolerated among the pagans.
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And it's interesting that if you happen to look back at the history of that particular time in Roman culture, there was all kinds of sin that was tolerated.
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There was all types of immorality that was allowed and was even celebrated in the ancient Roman world.
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Sometimes I think we think that today it's just more immoral than it's ever been.
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We don't often hold a candle to some of the immorality that was allowed in the ancient world and was celebrated in the ancient world.
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However, even the rank pagans had their standards.
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Even the rank pagans had things that they considered to be a bridge too far.
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And one of the things that was not allowed, even in ancient Roman culture and Greek culture, was incest, and it was considered even among married relatives.
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Meaning that once two people were married, they became family.
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And so when that family was established, if anyone else were to try to relate into that person or be with that person, that was considered still incest, even though it wouldn't be biological incest, it was still considered familial in nature and still considered wrong.
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And that's what we're going to talk about here.
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And as I said, not a comfortable topic, not a fun one to deal with.
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But here's how I'm going to handle it.
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I'm going to read the text.
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I'm going to explain the text and I'm going to apply the text.
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That's what preaching is.
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That's all it is.
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And on the uncomfortable parts, we'll just be a little uncomfortable for a minute and then we'll move on.
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I will say this though.
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In the weeks ahead, I'm going to dig into some certain parts of this because there are some issues that are here that need to be addressed further than I can get to today, such as this.
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This text does explain the necessity of church discipline.
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We're not going to really talk about that today though.
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This text talks about the danger of tolerance of sin within a body.
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We're going to get to some of that today.
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This text talks about the dangers of immorality.
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We're going to talk about that some today.
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But the one thing that we're going to get to in the weeks ahead is the issue of shunning.
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Is shunning a biblical concept? And what does it mean? And how should it be practiced? What is that even? I mean, probably the only time you've ever heard the concept of shunning would be maybe in the Amish.
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Right? And yet there is a text here that deals with that concept and we have to understand what it means.
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So there's a lot.
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Like I said, this is a mountain of data.
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And we only have today.
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It wouldn't be enough.
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We're going to be doing this, looking at this over several weeks.
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And I promised at the beginning of the year, I wasn't going to try to belabor every small point, try to get through the text.
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But this is one of those times where we have to park and talk for a few minutes.
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Because again, as I said in my prayer, there are some places in here where if it's misunderstood or misapplied, could be a danger to the church.
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And here's the thesis of the text.
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I believe the overall thesis of the text is this.
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There is sin in the church which is going on unaddressed and it's the product of Corinthian arrogance.
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I'll say it again.
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There is sin in the church.
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It is going unaddressed and it is the product of the Corinthian arrogance.
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That's Paul's point of this whole chapter.
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And that's what we're going to see.
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But to lead into that, I want us to go back to chapter 4.
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If you haven't been in the study with us, you might not remember what has led up to this.
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Paul has since the first chapter of Corinthians been dealing with the issue of division in the church.
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And what brought about the division? Pride.
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Remember, we've talked about that.
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The people believe themselves to be spiritually supreme or spiritually superior to one another.
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They were establishing for themselves cliques within the body.
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They were dividing for themselves and creating for themselves leaders.
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Some say, I am of Paul.
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Some say, I am of Apollos.
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Some say, I am of Peter.
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You remember those cliques that had developed and they had created division within the body and those divisions had created a sense of spiritual superiority.
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And then in chapter 4, Paul begins to tell them about themselves and about the situation and the problem.
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And he describes to them the issue of comparing himself with them.
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And he said, you guys see yourself as super spiritual.
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You see yourselves as royalty, as kings.
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And we, the disciples, are seen as the scum of the earth.
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So he makes that comparison.
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But then he says, I'm telling you this because I love you.
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I'm telling you this not to bring you shame, but to admonish you, to correct you, as it were, just like a loving father would.
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And then in verse 18, chapter 4, verse 18, he says this, Some are arrogant as though I am not coming to you, or I were not coming to you.
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But I will come to you soon if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people, but their power.
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For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power.
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Interesting text.
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Paul says this.
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He says, I'm coming to you.
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And there are some people in the church who are arrogant, and they have said, I'm not coming.
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Let me say this about that.
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If the Lord wills, I'll be there.
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And when I get there, I'm going to be able to distinguish between those who are real and those who aren't by one simple way.
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I will know them by their power.
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And you say, wait a minute, that sounds kind of charismatic.
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You mean he's going to come in and look for spiritual gifts and all kinds of effective power? So he's going to be expecting people to prophesy and speak in tongues and all kinds of powerful examples? No, the power he's talking about here is the power to live a holy life.
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When the Bible talks about God giving us power, that power is almost in every case the power to live a life that is pleasing to God.
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And when you come into a place and you see people with all kinds of craziness, and they're claiming the power of God, but they're living in immorality, they don't have the power of God.
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And Paul says, I'm coming to you, and I'll know them not by their talk, but by their power.
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I'll know them by their life.
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And then he asked this question.
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The last verse of chapter 4, he asked this question.
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And you might say, how do you know he's talking about the power to live, the immoral and all this, because of what's coming next? The power he's talking about is the power to deal with sin.
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But look at verse 21.
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He says, what do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with a spirit, or with love and in a spirit of gentleness? Let me ask you this question.
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What's Paul talking about here? Well, this is the title of today's message, Not Sparing the Rod.
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He says, shall I come to you with a rod, or in a spirit of gentleness? What he's saying is, I'm coming.
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There are some people there who say, I'm not coming.
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They're very arrogant people.
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They are the ones who are creating the divisions.
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They're a problem.
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They say, I'm not coming.
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If the Lord wills, I'm going to be there.
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But when I come, I'm going to come in one of two ways.
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I'm either going to come with a spirit of gentleness and love, or I'm going to come with the rod of correction.
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And guess who gets to choose which Paul comes? You.
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How many of you grew up and your mom would say, wait for your dad to get home? And you know what he was saying when he said that? What your mom was saying? She's like, dad is going to come home with one of two dispositions.
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He's either going to come home in a good mood, and he's going to come home and be gentle and loving, or he's going to come home with belt in hand.
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And guess who gets to determine what comes through the door? That call I make right before he leaves the office.
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Because if dad calls me or I call him right before he leaves the office, and I say, those children that you gave me have made my day miserable, guess which dad's coming through the door? Well, we know, right? Maybe modern context can't understand this, but there was a time where this made sense.
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And dad would come home either with a gentle hand or a hand of correction, and the kids get to choose.
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Paul says the same thing.
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He says, I'm coming.
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Lord willing, I will be there.
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And he said, and when I come, you get to choose which Paul comes.
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I'm the father of the, you know, we talked about last week, what he meant when he said, I'm the father.
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He doesn't mean he thinks he's God, but he does have a relationship of authority in this church as an apostle, as the one who founded the church.
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And he says, and when I get there, I'm going to come like a father comes, and I'm either going to come with a spirit of gentleness and love, or I'm going to come with a hand of correction.
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But either way, when I get there, you get to choose.
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So that's the situation that leads up to this.
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Paul is telling them, okay, what do you want when I get there? Now, chapter 5.
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All that, we get to chapter 5.
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And he says, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you.
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So right now, right off the bat, before we go any further, what are they, what should they expect? The rod.
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They should expect the rod of correction.
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Why? Because they're misbehaving.
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You say, how are they misbehaving? There's sexual immorality in the church, and it's going undealt with.
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There's sexual immorality in the church, and it's going undealt with.
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Unaddressed.
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There's sexual immorality in the church, and I will argue from the text, that it may even be being tolerated.
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And they may find their pride in that toleration.
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Did you know people actually do that? People pride themselves in tolerating sin? There's a whole movement out there that's sinful, and what is it known as? The pride movement.
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People find their pride in toleration.
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Look how super spiritual we are.
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We can tolerate sin.
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And Paul says, I'm coming to you.
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I'm going to come with a hand of gentleness or a hand of correction, but I'm coming, and you get to choose how I come.
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But let's examine one instance of issue that's going on right now, and it'll tell you how I'm going to come.
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How you deal with this is going to tell you how I'm going to come.
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I have an outline today.
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I usually don't do this, but I actually have an outline with alliterated.
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So it's one of those alliterative mornings.
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There's four parts to chapter 13.
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There's the report, the response, the reasoning, and the reckoning.
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The report, the response, the reasoning, and the reckoning.
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So that's the four parts we're going to look at, and we'll look at first the report.
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This is verse one.
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Verse one is the report.
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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.
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Okay, that's the report.
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Now, where is this report coming from? Remember at the beginning of 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul said that some people came from Chloe's people.
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This is a person in the church who has sent a group to Paul to tell him about all that's going on, and these people are coming to Paul to report to him that the sin that is in the church is rampant.
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There's issues, there's divisions, and this person has made her name known.
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Her name is Chloe.
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Apparently, she is a woman of prominence in the church, and she has had these people go and tell Paul, this is happening and nothing's being done.
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So this is where the report is coming from.
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And Paul says it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality.
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Now, that word is the word in the Greek, pornea.
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Pornea is translated sexual immorality.
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If you have a King James Bible, it's translated fornication.
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It actually originates from the word for prostitute in the Greek, but it's not limited to prostitution.
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It just happens to have that origination.
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Gordon Fee says this, he says, quote, the word had been picked up in Hellenistic Judaism always pejoratively to cover an extramarital sexual sin and aberration.
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It's just immorality.
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It's sexual in nature, and it's immorality.
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That's what pornea is.
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It's where we get the word pornography.
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Pornography means an image that is sexually immoral or a sexually immoral image.
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Grapha being writing or picture.
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We get the word photograph means light writing, right? So pornograph means sexually immoral writing, right? And sexual immorality can run the gambit.
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I heard somebody say recently, actually, somebody told my son, the Bible never says that sex outside of marriage is a sin.
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I said, who is this guy? I said, what in the world? You remember that? And even my son? He's like, yes, it does.
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What you talking about? Willis? No, it does say it.
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It's right there in the word.
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It's inherent in the word pornea.
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It's immoral behavior that is sexual in nature.
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What makes it immoral? Well, God has established one place for there to be proper and righteous sexual behavior, and it's in the bounds of marriage.
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And it's in the bounds of a righteous, godly marriage.
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That means it is a marriage between a man and a woman.
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And that's the only place where it can be in the bounds that are righteous.
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Anything outside of that boundary is unrighteous.
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It's pornea.
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So when Paul uses the word pornea here, he's using a very generic word.
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He says, there is pornea among you.
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And it's of a pornea that is not even tolerated among the pagans.
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Now, if he stopped right there, we could probably run our minds to try to figure out what he's talking about, right? If that's all he said, there's pornea among you, and it's a pornea that's not even tolerated among the pagans.
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We could probably imagine some crazy mess going on in Corinth, right? There's all kinds of things that that could mean, because that word simply is generic for sexual immorality.
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But then he gives us the particular.
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He doesn't make us wonder or have to imagine.
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He said, a man has his father's wife.
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Now, let's talk about that for a minute, because it's been wildly misunderstood, I think, in some places.
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I believe that it means stepmother.
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And let me explain why.
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Because there was a different way of saying mother than stepmother in Greek.
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And if you wanted to identify the mother, if it said a man has his mother, that would have been the way it was said.
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But it was specific to say a man has his father's wife, which means this, that whoever the man has engaged in this relationship with is married to or was once married to his father, but is likely not his mother.
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If it is his mother, that's wild, even to the point of crazy.
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And maybe that is it, because Paul says it's of a nature not even allowed in pagan society.
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But I don't think so.
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And you say, well, where do you base that on? Hold your place in 1 Corinthians, go back to Leviticus 18, because Leviticus 18 is where we get the holiness code of God, and he describes sin and what makes up sin in regard to sexual sin.
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And in Leviticus 18, we have this phrase in verse 6.
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I'll give you a chance to get there.
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This is actually where we have the ban on incest in the Bible.
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Leviticus 18 carries a ban for incest, and it says in verse 6, it says, none of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness.
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The word uncover nakedness there involves engaging in sexual immorality, but it's a colloquial way of saying sexual immorality.
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No one is to have a sexual relationship with a close relative.
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I am the Lord.
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Verse 7, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother.
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She is your mother.
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You shall not uncover her nakedness.
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Okay, right there is the law.
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Don't uncover the nakedness of your father, which is your mother.
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Don't have relationships with your mother.
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Okay, that's easy enough.
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But then it goes on in verse 7.
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I'm sorry, verse 8.
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You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife.
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It is your father's nakedness.
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You see, it makes a distinction between verse 7 and verse 8.
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Verse 7 says, don't uncover the nakedness of your mother.
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But then in verse 8, it says, don't uncover the nakedness of your father's wife.
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Indicating what? Well, in that culture, remember, a man could have two wives.
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A man could have a third wife even.
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There were men that had multiple wives.
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And even though the Bible does not sanction such a thing, the Bible sanctions marriage between one man and one woman.
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We know that there were men like David, and there were other men in the Bible who had multiple wives, right? And when a man took a woman as his wife, even though she wasn't his son's mother, she was still considered to be off-limits.
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It was still considered to be incestual.
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Like I said, this is a fun conversation.
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I can just see your faces.
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You're so excited about having me say these things to you this morning.
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But here's the point.
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When Paul says specifically a man has his father's wife, I believe he's borrowing the language of Leviticus here to describe the stepmother or to describe a man who has multiple wives, which again would still identify somewhat of a stepmother.
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I think that the point is not that the man has his mother, but the man has a woman who was married to his father.
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All right, back to 1 Corinthians now.
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He says this man has his father's wife.
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A couple of things just to note on this.
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One, the father is probably dead.
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You say, well, how do you arrive at that conclusion? Because if the man had his father's wife and the man was still alive, it would have been called adultery, not fornication.
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Because at that point, it would have been adultery.
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But it's not.
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It's called fornication.
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So there's likely here an indication that the father's dead.
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Not certain, but we're conjecturing some based on the text.
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So here's a man who had a father who had a wife, a second wife, or maybe the mother died and he married another woman.
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This man essentially is his stepmother.
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The man has decided after his father has left the picture, probably through death, that he's going to have the same woman.
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And he's going to be in a relationship with her.
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This is something that the law of God forbade.
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It said, no, no, don't do this.
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This is wrong.
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And yet the response of the church was what? Nothing.
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The response of the church was crickets.
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And here's the thing.
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It wasn't a secret.
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It wasn't like this man and this woman.
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And by the way, she's probably an unbeliever.
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He said, well, how do you arrive at that conclusion? Actually, John MacArthur pointed this out.
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He said if she was a believer, she'd be included in this issue because she'd be part of the church too.
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It would say this man and this woman are both engaging in sexual sin.
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But the fact that he is the one that's the point and she is not likely indicates that she's not a believer.
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She's not a part of the church.
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She's not the...
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See, unbelievers don't fall under the issue of discipline, in case you didn't know that.
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We can't discipline unbelievers.
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The church can't discipline unbelievers.
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But Paul's going to talk about it later.
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He says, what do you expect the world is going to act like the world? Sinners are...
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Wretches are going to wretch.
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Sinners are going to sin.
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You can't expect the...
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This is why people get...
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Can you believe those unbelievers acted like unbelievers? Yes.
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All the time.
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I'm absolutely never surprised by the amount of ways that people are able to demonstrate their own depravity.
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But it's in the church that it's a problem.
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Sin in the church is unacceptable.
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So here's the response.
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That was all verse one.
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Verse two.
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And you are arrogant.
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Ought you not rather to mourn? Why are they arrogant? Well, again, I believe the reason why they're arrogant is because they're arrogant by not dealing with it.
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And there's two reasons why they're not dealing with it.
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One of two reasons.
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Either they're not dealing with it because they're afraid of the controversy that it would create.
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And I would say this.
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In a lot of churches, that's the biggest problem.
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Oh, we can't say something to sister so-and-so because, my heavens, it'll just create such a scene.
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So we can't say anything to brother so-and-so because, oh, my goodness, you know how mad he gets.
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So in an attempt to not create a scene, the church decides to not say anything.
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And you could argue there's arrogance in that because they would rather keep peace than deal with the issue.
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And in doing so, they're considering themselves smarter than God because God says you're supposed to deal with it.
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And if they don't deal with it, that's a type of arrogance, right? So that could be the arrogance that Paul's talking about when he says you are arrogant, ought you not rather to mourn.
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He could be saying, aren't you being arrogant by thinking your way is better than God's way because God's way is deal with it.
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And you're not dealing with it, so you're being arrogant.
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That could be the answer.
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And I'm not discounting that as a possibility.
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But the other possibility, which I tend to lean toward, is the arrogance here, is the arrogance of toleration.
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They are proud of what they're allowing.
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Look at how tolerant we are.
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The pagans don't tolerate this, but we do because we're so loving.
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Tell me you don't see that.
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Tell me you haven't seen that now.
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As I said, whole churches that pride themselves on what? Tolerating sin.
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Come to us.
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We take you and your brokenness and we keep you broken.
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And we celebrate how broken you are.
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We don't try to restore.
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We celebrate brokenness.
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And we tell stories about the value of crackpots and all those things.
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All that's great.
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Here's the problem.
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When it's sin that's going unaddressed and you're tolerating it and you're proud that you're tolerating it, that's a problem.
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If you're proud that you're tolerating sin, that's an issue.
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And I think that's more in line with Paul's attack here because I don't think it's so much they're afraid to deal with it, even though that could be the case.
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I think they don't want to because they're proud that this is something that they are celebrating in the church.
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They're proud of the fact that they are tolerant.
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He says, are you not arrogant? Ought you rather to mourn? Instead of being proud of yourselves, shouldn't you be broken over this? Shouldn't you be broken about how bad the attitude towards sin is in the church that it actually allows this to go on and it's not being dealt with? Shouldn't you mourn? And then he goes on.
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Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
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By the way, when we talk about church discipline in the weeks to come, we're going to talk about excommunication.
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Man, I talked about shunning, now excommunication.
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I tell you what, I'm going for radical church bingo here because these are some big ideas that people would say are really radical.
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And I will say this, there have been times in church history where these concepts have been absolutely misused.
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And there have been times in church history where these concepts have been so abused.
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During the Inquisition, these concepts were abused.
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Even during the Reformation, these concepts were abused and misused.
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So we do have to come to this with a spirit of willingness to understand that there's places where we need to correct, but there's also we need to understand that God has called us to be loving in all things, even loving in our separation from someone who's in sin.
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So we have to deal with this in a right spirit.
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I think some people get excited about church discipline because they like the controversy of it all.
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They like the discord that it causes.
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Some people live for discord.
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I heard somebody say one time, there has to be a complaint box in heaven because somebody up there has got to be complaining because they won't be happy if they couldn't.
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But the reality is we have to deal with things like excommunication.
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We have to deal with things like separating ourselves from unbelieving people or people who call themselves believers, but are behaving like unbelievers rather.
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Paul says, let him who has done this be removed from among you.
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Literally, let him be excommunicated.
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Verse three.
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For though absent in the body, I am present in spirit.
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And as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.
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Here's Paul.
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I have already decided this is wrong.
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I have already made a determination.
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I have already pronounced judgment on this thing.
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Then he says in verse four, when you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present, that does not mean some kind of mystical thing.
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That simply means Paul has told him his judgment.
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So his spirit is with them in judgment.
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When that happens and they gather together with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 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.
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Literally what he's saying is this man has to be put out because if you continue to leave him in with you, he will not understand the error of his sin and he will continue to live in it.
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If you put him out into the world, it is with the hopes that he will recognize the excommunicated state of his soul and that he will repent and return to the Lord.
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People say, if you put them out, they won't hear the word of God anymore.
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How can they hear the word of God if you put them out? You can't put them out because they can't hear the word of God anymore.
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Listen, they know what they're doing is sinful.
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They don't need Bible studies to tell them that.
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You say, I don't understand what you mean.
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I'll give you an example.
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Had a man call me one time and I knew this man was living in sin.
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He was living in unrepentance and he called himself a Christian, but he was living in unrepentant sin.
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He was living in a state of continual, habitual, unrepentant sin.
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Even though I'd already called him to repentance, I'd already encouraged him to repent.
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He told me he wasn't going to repent and he called me one day and he said, hey, I'm looking to find a really good study Bible.
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Can you recommend a study Bible for me? And I said, listen, I said, are you still living in sin with that woman? And he said, yes, I am.
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I said, you don't need a study Bible.
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You need to repent.
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You don't need to be doing word studies.
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You need to repent.
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You might think I'm harsh and you might think that was the wrong thing to say, but I'm telling you the truth.
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Some people spend all their time in study to keep themselves from having to repent.
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Sometimes people spend all their time learning all these Greek words so that they can find a way to not have to repent.
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They fill up their mind so that they can empty their heart because their heart is full of conviction.
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There's a great video online.
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Francis Chan put it out of a little girl sitting on the couch and her father comes in and he says, honey, did you clean your room? And she says, you know, I thought about it.
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And he said, but did you clean your room? She said, well, actually I had some friends over and we discussed it.
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And he said, but did you clean your room? And she said, you know what I did? I learned how to say clean your room in Spanish.
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And she said, blah, blah, blah.
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You know, she said it in Spanish.
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And he said, what are you talking about? She goes, well, I've listened to what you said and I've studied what you've said.
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He said, but you didn't do it.
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You understand the problem? Some people fill their minds and have empty hearts.
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They know how to quote scripture.
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They know all these biblical words.
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They know all these biblical functions and all these biblical concepts but their heart is far from God.
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There were no better theologians in the world than the Pharisees and they were far from God.
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So Paul says, put them out of the church.
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Excommunicate them because in doing so you demonstrate to them the seriousness of their sin.
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They have forfeited their fellowship because of their sin.
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I don't know how to say it any clearer.
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I don't know that Paul could say it any clearer.
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When you talk about putting someone out, people get so upset.
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And I know it's difficult to discipline the modern church.
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I'm running, I'm getting close to the end here.
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Discipline is difficult in the modern church for this reason.
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Because if we happen to discipline someone, if somebody's living in unrepentant sin, we call them to repent.
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They refuse to repent.
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We bring them before the church and we excommunicate them.
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They're just gonna go right down the street to the next church that doesn't practice church discipline.
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They're gonna join that church and they're gonna continue living in sin.
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And it's hard to enforce.
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And I'm gonna talk about that a little bit in the weeks to come too.
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Should the difficulty to enforce the discipline mean that we shouldn't practice it? No, but it does make an issue though.
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It does, it raises an issue, right? It raises the issue of how do we functionally deal with these people? And I do know, as I said earlier, I know some churches have misused this and some churches have used it to the point that they're disciplining people every week.
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And they get excited about it and they get happy about it.
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It's a shame to have to exercise discipline.
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But Paul is saying it's necessary.
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He is saying it's absolutely necessary.
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And he goes on in verses six to eight.
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I'm gonna do a sermon on this, just that section.
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He talks about the fact that the whole reason behind this is the leaven principle.
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And you know what the leaven principle is? A little leaven does what? Leavens the whole lump.
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When sin is allowed in the church to go undealt with, what does it do? It spreads like cancer within the church.
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And now you don't have one person that needs discipline, but you have a whole group of persons that need discipline because the whole church is allowing sin to run rampant.
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And that's the reasoning.
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And then the reckoning is verses nine to 13.
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Because what I mean by the reckoning here is he's going to tell them, he's gonna say, listen, I am making a distinction here.
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Because Paul did something earlier that a lot of people take offense.
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Paul judged someone.
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Notice that going back, he goes back verse three.
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He says, even though I'm absent in the body, I'm present in the spirit.
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And if present, as if present, I've already pronounced judgment.
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Some people might run back to Matthew seven in verse one and they'll say, but Jesus said, judge not lest ye be judged, right? So who is Paul to exercise judgment? Listen, this is so important.
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Jesus didn't just say, judge not lest ye be judged.
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Jesus said, judge not lest ye be judged for with the judgment that you judge another, that same judgment will be used against you.
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Judge with righteous judgment.
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There's actually a command to judge, but it's to judge righteously, which means it's done properly.
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That's why in Matthew where Jesus said, if a man sins against you, you go and tell him privately.
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You don't go and tell six friends, you go and tell him only.
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And if he repents, then you've done what? You have won or gained your brother.
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You've won your brother, you've brought him back.
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And now guess what? The relationship's restored.
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Now you don't have to tell six people because yes, you had this problem.
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It's solved and now it's over.
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Nobody has to know.
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But he says, if you go and tell the person their sin and they don't repent, you get two or three witnesses and go, why do you think you need to do that? Because you might be wrong.
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You ever thought about that? You ever thought about the fact that sometimes when you think somebody else is in sin, it's because you are? And you go get those witnesses to demonstrate the fact that you are the one who's in the right.
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And when they come with you, they're witnesses to the sin.
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And that small little group becomes the voice of God to that person.
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In fact, you've heard that verse before where two or three are gathered, there I am in the midst of them.
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You know, a lot of people use that to talk about the church.
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Hey man, the church is anytime two or three are gathered, that's when the church is together.
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That is not what that verse is about.
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That verse is in the context of discipline.
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Jesus is talking about the fact when two or more come together for the purpose of discipline, Christ is there.
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He's administering the ministration of that discipline.
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Didn't know that, some of you, because I can see your eyes.
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That doesn't have anything to do with prayer meetings, Bible studies, or how small your church is.
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That's got to do with discipline.
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And two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them for the purpose of what? To help administer this discipline.
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And then when the person repents, those three people, four people, however many have come, have gathered around that person and won them.
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But then what happens? What's next? The person refuses to repent.
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They're brought where? Brought before the church.
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Why? Because there is a place for the body in all this because the body bears witness to the person that we know that you are living in sin and we're calling you to repent.
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And if you refuse to repent, the relationship that we have is over.
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You say, that's harsh.
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You know what Paul says? He said, in this situation, we shouldn't even eat with them.
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Some people have taken that to mean communion, that basically what that means is if you're under discipline, you can still be a part of the church, you just can't take communion.
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I don't think that's what this means.
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And I don't think that that's what the text is saying, but I'm going to bear that out more in the weeks ahead.
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The point of the matter is this though.
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It only applies to believers.
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Because Paul says, if you say that an unbeliever is sinning, so you're not going to spend time with that unbeliever, then you wouldn't be able to spend time with any unbelievers because they're all sinners.
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The difference is in the church and outside the church.
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It really is.
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The difference, where do you get to judge? In the church.
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You can't judge the unbelieving world further than this.
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They're unbelieving.
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But in the church, we have to be honest.
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And we have to say, okay, here is sin.
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It's going unaddressed.
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It must be addressed.
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Paul says that if it isn't, when I get there, I'll do it.
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But it won't be nice and it won't be pretty.
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You should be handling this.
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You should be dealing with this.
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You shouldn't have to call an outside consultant to come in and deal with it.
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You should be dealing with it.
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It's serious.
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It's very serious.
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So let's make an application for today for all of this.
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First of all, the application would fall to us each individually asking ourselves a simple question.
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Um, do I tolerate sin in my own life and make excuses for it? Or do I live a life of repentance? Because here's the thing.
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If I come to you, even if you're in gross sin, here's the beauty of it.
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If this man who was in a gross sin, if this man would have repented of his sin, guess what the church would have been bound by duty to do? Accept him in.
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Even in the grossness of that sin, even in the immorality of that sin, had that man stood up in the midst of the people and said, I wronged God and I've wronged my father and I've wronged this church and I repent, the church would have been duty bound to say, brother, welcome home.
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Like the father of the prodigal son, we are thankful that you've repented.
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And that's why I say every Christian, nobody here lives a perfect life.
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Nobody here didn't sin yesterday.
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Nobody here didn't sin Friday.
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Nobody here didn't sin today.
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Maybe while I've been talking in your mind.
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So I ain't saying we're perfect in any way, but when you choose to live in habitual, unrepentant sin, you open yourself up to correction.
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And if correction does not bring repentance, it can lead to discipline.
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And so that's what we ask ourselves first.
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Am I harboring unrepentant sin? Do I need to repent? And now the next question I would say as application, am I aware of sin and I'm tolerating it in pride? Am I saying, yeah, I know that the sin's going on, but I'm pretty proud of myself because I'm not willing to say anything.
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Or maybe even the other side, maybe you're tolerating it out of fear.
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I don't want to say anything to brother so-and-so because I don't want to hurt his feelings.
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I don't go around kicking people in the shins and stepping on people's feet on purpose.
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But I will say that some of the sweetest moments in my life, some of the most precious moments in my life, pre-ministry and since becoming a minister, have been the times where people have been honest enough with me to say what needed to be said and call me to repentance.
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Beloved, somebody might not like what you have to say, but if it's done in a spirit of gentleness and love with an eye toward not only correcting them, but to preserve them and protect them, they may not like it.
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But if you go in the right spirit, I know that you'll know you did the right thing and ultimately a blessing will follow.
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If it's only the blessing of you know you did the right thing.
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So we examine ourselves first.
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Jesus said, how can you see to take the speck out of your brother's eye if you have a log in your eye? First, remove the log from your own eye.
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Then you can see to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
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See, Jesus didn't say, because you've got a log, you can't help the other person.
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He said, first examine yourself.
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So the sermon, any sermon on discipline has to begin with self-examination.
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I've gone over, I'm gonna draw to a close, but just know that this is not ending now.
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In the weeks ahead, we're gonna examine this further, but I wanted to set the stage today, explain the text, and we'll move on with more application in the weeks ahead.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for the word.
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I thank you for the truth.
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And Lord, there's so much here that needs to be said that hasn't been said.
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And I pray God that you would, by your mercy and by your grace, give us grace in the weeks ahead to truly understand this, to understand the relevant texts that go with it from Matthew and other places.
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And also Lord, to understand that this does not give us the right to be fruit inspectors, walking around, knocking people's trunks to see if good fruit falls out.
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Lord, we're not that.
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We're not to be nitpickers and persnickety with all of our fellow believers.
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But there are times, Father, we know when people are in sin and they need to be called to repentance.
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And sometimes we're afraid.
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Sometimes we're afraid to be labeled judgmental.
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Sometimes we're afraid to be labeled hard and inconsiderate.
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Sometimes we're afraid because we don't wanna interrupt a fellowship or a friendship with another believer.
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And so we'll let them remain in sin because we're more concerned with our relationship with them than we are with their relationship with you.
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So I pray, Father, for a spirit of righteousness to overcome us, not self-righteousness, but a love for holiness in the body and that we would desire to see your church holy, pure.
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And we thank you, Lord, for the word.
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Give us now a spirit of love for one another as we move to the table in repentance.
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In Jesus' name, amen.