Authority (Part 1)

No Compromise Radio. Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.

I've been in and out of a lot of doctor's offices in the last couple weeks and I noticed one thing very interesting, nobody really says Merry Christmas anymore, Happy Holidays, Happy Holidays and I talked to one lady at Fallon and she said, thank you for saying Merry Christmas, I'm not allowed to say Merry Christmas unless you say it, then I'm allowed to say it.

So I thought, what you can say in a doctor's office and what you can't. Then I walked in to have some blood taken from me with the operative word taken, I wasn't just going to give it, they had to actually take it from me.

And there's a special kind of blood culture where they take smaller kind of beakers, fill both up, put a bunch of iodine on, it's not just a regular test and then she's like this over by the trash can with the iodine and she looked over at me and she, you know, sheepishly said, I know, I feel like a Roman Catholic priest.

I thought, you can't even say Merry Christmas but you can talk that way and then there's this kind of a buzz in the room and I said, I don't know, I'm not Roman Catholic and some other person with a needle in their arm said, oh I was for a long time as a leader and I'm not in that anymore.

And then it just began to catch on like wildfire. Then the other lady said, well I'm the chairman of the deacon board at my congregational church and I thought, well I guess in this game of one-upmanship, here we go.

So I said, I'm a Baptist pastor. Only Mark would say amen to Baptists. If I said independent, fundamental, not affiliated, master seminary trained, they wouldn't know so I just say Baptist. Boy there was a kind of hush.

Really, I had the authority. It made me think, when it comes to Christianity, we have one authority. There is one person who can speak clearly, definitively, authoritatively and when there's controversy, theological controversy or behavioral controversy, we have the Bible.

We know what to do. We know how to solve the problems. How do we deal with all the issues in life, with sinful people, with the sinful world if we didn't have the scriptures? And the people at Corinth were caught in kind of a sticky wicket.

They had a situation where someone was in unrepentant sin. This particular man was sleeping with his mother-in-law, his stepmother, and he didn't want to repent and he didn't care about it. And the church began to walk on a tightrope and the tightrope was this, well, we don't want to really be too aggressive because after all, we're all sinful.

Let alone, if we have to kind of deal with sin in the church and we have to kick out sinners that are in the church, does that mean we can never go outside and have friends that are sinful people? We just have to be in monasteries?

What do we do? We just have to balance. Tightrope walking isn't very popular today, is it? They used to do that all the time in New York City and, you know, you could fall over on either side. It's kind of like with Christianity.

If we talk about the sovereignty of God too much, then what about human responsibility? At Corinth, there was sin in the church. The world was invading the church and Paul needed to tell them specifically, authoritatively, what do we do with sin in the church that's unrepentant?

And he helps us walk that fine line so that we don't underdo things or we don't overdo things. So let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 5 as we wrap up chapter 5 today, special Christmas message next Sunday, an evangelistic style message, and then to chapter 6 the week after Lord willing.

1 Corinthians chapter 5, I'm going to try to be very nice today. Someone said Friday night after the concert that when we have lots of unbelievers and visitors at the church that I'm on my best behavior and I'm very kind and I'm very gentle and I have a different delivery.

And they said, but when you get up and preach to us regularly on Sundays, you just let us have it. I didn't know which one I was supposed to do today. We only had the chairman of the deacons of the congregational church to tell me I might know.

So I'm going to try to be very, very kind and very sweet today as I deliver this message. 1 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul is writing to this church to lovingly correct them. Remember it's a Solomonic wisdom that when we're doing the wrong things, God comes along and helps us.

The wise one or the foolish one hears from the one who is exhorting them with truth and says, I'll listen and I'll obey. And so that's what we want to do today. I don't think we have problems in the church to the degree of 1 Corinthians, but we have some of these things popping up.

Matter of fact, even a month ago, six weeks ago, we had to deal with an excommunication in our own church. And so how do we deal with the family that was excommunicated? How do we deal with the person who is excommunicated?

Do we have fellowship? Do we not have fellowship? What do we do? Now if we poll the church, we might have some people say this and some people say that, but the great news is the Bible is clear. How do we treat people that have been excommunicated?

What do we do along this tightrope walk where we say, we don't want to underdo things and we don't want to overdo things. We don't want to be loose with sin, but we don't want to be legalistic and overbearing and caustic and hypocritical.

So what do we do when there's sin in the church? So let me read chapter 5 verses 1 through 8 as we set up ourselves today for verses 9 through 13 and dealing with this issue. Do we associate with sinners or don't we?

That's the question of the day. Do we associate with sinners or do we not? But to make sure we understand the context, Paul is dealing with problems in the church, problem of disunity, and now the problem of immorality that's unrepentant in the church.

Verse 1 of chapter 5, it's 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 and 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, Paul, said, 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 to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. For a reason, a hopeful reason, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? With great Jewish figurative language, 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 old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Would you bow with me and let me ask God's blessing on our message this morning. Father in heaven, we now as a church would ask your spirit to be present and we might learn from your scriptures. May he with great generosity, illumine our minds so that we can understand sin, forgiveness, the church, Christ Jesus, his death, burial and resurrection.

Father, we pray that you would help us. We would like to act more like who we are. That is, we'd like to act more like Christ every day. We're so thankful that we have your son's perfect righteousness given to us, credited to our account freely, graciously.

You lavish that great obedience of your son on us for no charge to us, but it costs Christ everything. And so we thank you, Father, today for your son and for your spirit and for your word. And so now teach our church.

Teach us. Help us to be thankful. Help us to be pure. Help us to be clean and help us to be biblical in our thinking. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, I have a very simple outline today for 1 Corinthians chapter 5, 9 to 13.

Here's the outline. Number one, don't associate it with those who are excommunicated. Don't associate it with those who are excommunicated. And number two, do associate with those who are sinful people in the world.

So we're going to look today at the passage. The passage is going to say, watch out for this excommunicated person. How do we deal with the person? What can we do? What can't we do? Then I also want to remind us from another passage that we're supposed to associate with sinners.

We don't want to go so far to say, well, we've got to move to Montana. We have to move to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We've got to get away from people. How do we do this tightrope? And so two points. Let's look at the first one.

Church Discipline and the Meaning of Excommunication

Do not associate with a person who has been excommunicated. And so let's pick it up in chapter 5, verse 9. Get some insight here to what's going on with the Church of Corinth and Paul's correspondence.

There are more than just 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians as letters to this church. Paul says in verse 9, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. This letter that he's talking about is not 1 Corinthians.

This letter is not 2 Corinthians. This is a letter that was not meant to be part of the Bible. But it was a correspondence between Paul and the Church of Corinth. And he wrote to them and told them what to do about sexually immoral people.

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with these kind of people. We don't have this letter anymore. Probably never know what exactly was said in the letter besides this. But Paul is writing to the church and he's saying, I've already written to you.

And by the way, that should have been enough for the church to know. If someone's in flagrant, disobedient, unrepentant sin in the church, well, you have to lovingly discipline that person. Hopefully, they'll repent.

Hopefully, they'll be restored. Hopefully, the church will embrace the repentant person. He said, I've already written to you and they have not heeded his advice. We don't know why they didn't heed his advice.

Maybe it was because this person was rich. Maybe this person was a leader. Maybe they said, you know what? I guess we're not supposed to deal with any people who are sinful. If we have to do that, we can't even live in Corinth, so he must be going overboard.

Paul's too harsh. Paul's not practical enough. What do you mean we're supposed to leave Corinth? We're not sure why, but it was enough from Paul. It was enough that they should have understood, if you've got someone in the church and they're acting impurely and they won't repent, it's problematic because it contaminates things, and you should be getting rid of this person.

And he says, I've told you before, look at verse 9, not to associate. That word is very interesting. It means to have fellowship with. It means to have social contact with. It means something more than mingle.

It means to accept as part of the family. Now, you go across the world and you meet other Christians and you think, this is like family. We sit down, have a meal together, and we love one another, and they're just part of the group.

He says you ought not to do that. You ought not to do it because it shows them your sin has consequences. It shows the world that we aren't going to tolerate unrepentant sin. I remember years ago with all the Swaggart scandals and the Baker scandals, I can still remember news reporters saying, the church of Christ is shamed because they can't even deal with their own sin, and yet they're pointing to our sin.

Garland said, to refuse to have dealings with moral profligates testifies that such persons have no affiliation with the church and that their behavior, listen to this, is incompatible with the gospel.

We're not going to associate with the excommunicated person because their behavior is incompatible with the gospel. So Paul says don't associate with them. Don't bring them along like family. Now if you turn to 2 Thessalonians 3 for a moment, flip on over, it's to your right.

This word associates only used one other place, and it's in church discipline context. 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 14. And I think it would be wise for us to go there because it's one more passage that talks about loving, obedient discipline of people who are unrepentant in their sin.

And I'm going out of my way today, because I'm being nice in my sermon this morning, to say unrepentant over and over and over. You don't get kicked out of a church for sin. You get kicked out of a church for calling yourself a Christian and being in unrepentant sin.

And so this word associate, what does he mean, associate? Does it mean I can't go have a cup of coffee with you? What does it mean, associate? Well, let's find out what this one talks about in 2 Thessalonians 3.

Let's get the context, so back up to chapter 3, verse 6. Now, you can get kicked out of a church for sexual sin, but you can get kicked out of a church for not working, too. And that's the context here.

Men that should be working, can work, have the ability to work, but don't work. Verse 6. Now, we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 6, that you keep aloof from every brother who leads an unruly life, not according to the tradition which you received from us.

This is court language, edict language. Here is a court order Paul is giving the very excellent church at Thessalonica. And he says in verse 7,. For you yourselves emphatically know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you.

Paul says, look at me, look at the apostles, how did we act? Verse 8. Nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship, we kept working night and day so that we might not be a burden to any of you.

Not because we do not have the right to this, he could have said, we're apostles, you can pay us for preaching the word to you. He could have done that, he could have did that, but he said, no, we're going to work hard, not because we have a right to this, verse 9, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you that you might follow our example.

Paul said, you know, apostles aren't freeloaders, apostles aren't loafers, apostles work. It's good to work. Matter of fact, did you know there was work before the fall? And did you know there will be work in heaven?

It's amazing. 2 Thessalonians 3 .10. Here's a verse that even unbelievers can recite. Unbelievers can quote this, they can quote, judge not lest you be judged, and they can quote this one. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order.

Hear that kind of language? By the way, this was found also in Homer, and other writers, Pythagoras. If anyone will not work, say the rest. Let him not eat. That was good ESV English of you. Verse 11.

For we hear, we're hearing right now, present tense, the rumor has started, we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Don't you know it?

One sin leads to another. Now such persons we command and exhort, this is exactly like the language in 1 Corinthians, in the Lord Jesus Christ, to work, quiet fashion, not this busybodying stuff, and eat their own bread.

As for you brethren, those that work, do not grow weary in doing good. Jesus went about doing good, you keep doing good, even though some people might be taking advantage of you. And now here comes our word again, from 1 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 9.

Associate. Only used two places in the Bible, 1 Corinthians and here. Verse 14. And if anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that man. Do not, what? Associate with him, so that he may be put to shame.

That's amazing. And yet, do not regard him, verse 15, as an enemy. We're doing this in love, we're doing it because we want to admonish him as a brother. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Paul had already written, he's written to the Corinthians, and he said, if there's unrepentant sexual sin, you've got to deal with it, and you excommunicate him, and then you don't keep associating, like everything's just the same.

Yeah, you're kicked out of the church, but everything else is good. No, there's a severing, there's a cutting off. It's no different than a father who has to say to his son with tears down his eyes, son, if you're not going to obey the house rules, you're going to have to live on the streets.

Doesn't mean it's not bringing sadness to the heart of the church. But what did Paul not mean, verse 10? Not at all, 1 Corinthians 5 .10, meaning the sexually immoral of the world, and he gives some other things that the church of Corinth did often, are the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, because if you can't associate with sexually immoral people, where are you going to go?

Answer? Mars, I guess. And then you're there, right? Then we're there. But you would need to go out of the world. Paul is now correcting. They wrote the first letter, they twisted it with good motives or bad, and now Paul is saying, let me make myself clear.

Here's what I mean. I'm talking about don't associate with the person who says they're a Christian, and you've gone through formal church discipline, step 1, 2, 3, and 4, Matthew 18. And then you say, I can't associate with that person.

We're not saying you can't associate with pagans of the world, because then you're going to have to leave the country. And he gives a list. Sexual immorality, do you see it? Greedy people, do you know greedy people?

By the way, I could turn this into a list of people that you should associate with. I can make this a little mini-sermon. Four kinds of people you should associate with in the world. You should associate, number one, with sexually immoral people.

By the way, we don't like to hear that, do we? Because we've gotten saved out of sin. And sin is gross, and sin is heinous. Sin is defiling the holiness of God. Sin contaminates. Don't you sometimes wish the Lord would come back soon, so you don't have to deal with all the sin in the world?

And yet we're supposed to be walking in this world, friends with sinners? Ooh. Paul said, you know what? You should be, indirectly, be fellowshipping with. It's not Christian fellowship, but it's association with immoral people.

How about greedy people? The word means, in the Greek, you'll find this interesting, those that must have more. How much is enough? I don't know, but I don't have enough. I've got to have more. They're possessed with possessions.

Swindlers, people who steal by violence. How about idolaters? They have a wrong relationship to God, and they worship not the God of the Bible, but the God of the world. Let me give you one of the most beautiful prayers in all the Bible.

I won't tell you where it is yet. I just want to read it, and you'll get the flavor of what we should do, and what Paul was telling the church of Corinth. I have given them your word, Father, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth. Aren't those beautiful words right from Jesus Himself in John 17?

He's not saying, Father in heaven, would you just take these people, rapture them out, translate them like you did Enoch, because it's just a messed up, sinful cesspool of a world. No, He just is saying, don't let the world seep into them.

That's exactly what He's telling the church of Corinth, too. It's not wrong to live in a cesspool of a country, or a city, or a town. It's just wrong to let that cesspool leak into the church. Yes, that's exactly what He's saying.

I thought to myself, we could be at Corinth. I love America, but this is a wicked, idolatrous, greedy, immoral place. And our options, beloved, are not ever monasteries, Montana, or the Amish. I guess there goes my alliteration.

See, Mark, I wouldn't be a good Baptist pastor in that regard. Always alliterate. So, we can't retreat, because we take us with us. And by the way, are we not supposed to be the salt of the world? The world is corrupt, Jesus said in Matthew 5, so we're salt.

Salt helps stop the corruption. Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 5, you're not just salt that helps the corrupting world. You're a what? There's a dark world, and so you're a what? He says to the apostles.

You're light. So, we're salt and light, because the world's dark and corrupt, or corrupt and dark. And so, how are we going to give the gospel if we're all in monasteries? See how the tightrope begins?

Because the world says, you know, we say the world is gross, so we run too far over. And we say, you know what? We're going to go, I saw some of these places in Greece, by the way, up on these mountains.

How do you even get up there? Let's just run from the sinful world, except you take you with you. We are to live as shining lights, bright lights. Just imagine, in your own salvation, if you're a Christian today, what if the person who kept preaching the gospel to you was living in a monastery in Montana?

You wouldn't have heard. I know it's hypothetical, because if you're an elect person, God's going to get you the gospel. But we are the salt and light of the world, and we are not supposed to hide our Christianity under some kind of bushel, to get away from the filth of the world.

Now, we shouldn't embrace the world and its filthiness. I remember our dog once, Jetty, I found her, and she was rolling on a dead possum. I thought to myself, ooh, dead possum. And she was rolling on it.

She was thinking it was good. She was thinking this was going to be a nice fragrance for the owner, for the other neighbor dogs. Wow, man, she smells great today. Now, of course, even though we're supposed to be living where we do, we're not supposed to be rolling in the world thinking, you know what, this is just good.

If I can just become more worldly, then my worldly friends will think I'm kind of cool, then I can preach the gospel. We're not supposed to do that.

Christians in the World but Not of the World

No Compromise Radio, with Pastor Mike Abendroth, is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church, firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.