1 Corinthians 5:1-13, “Discipline in the Church”

[hmp_player playlist=’1Cor5:1-13′]

Sermon Notes Below:

February 16, 2014,

“Discipline in the Chuch”

As I mentioned last week, Corinth was a very progressive city, much like our civilization today in America; and as such, there was a cultural acceptance of sexual permissiveness, even in the church.

Paul is confronting not only the immorality in the church, but the fact that the church was allowing it to happen, refusing to do anything about it.

Verses 1-5… Alarmingly, the church was not responding to rampant sexual sins in its midst, and they should have known better, for they had been taught so by Paul.

The sexual sin Paul talks about is something that the pagans don’t even accept, that of a man a having sexual relationship with “his father’s wife” [i.e., his step mother, this was considered the same as sex with his mother].

Even Roman law prohibited incest, and the OT is very clear this was punishable by death (Leviticus 18:7-8, 29). The testimony of the church in Corinth was injured by this overt sinful activity, and it would seem that the whole church is aware of it. Paul calls for discipline.

The Corinthian church was displaying its arrogance by tolerating, perhaps even justifying, such sinful behavior; they should be mourning and repenting instead, in order to keep the church pure; for we are called to expose and remove sin from the church (Ephesians 5:3-11).

This man, refusing to repent, should be removed from the church, as Jesus taught (Matthew 18:15-20); for God disciplines His children because He loves them, and we ought therefore to love our brothers and sisters in the church enough to discipline them, when they are living in a continual pattern of sin, unwilling to repent.

Paul says (v. 5) this man should be “turned over to Satan,” i.e., he ought to be removed from fellowship, from the protection and provision of the believers, the church, until such a time as he repents.

If this man doesn’t repent and turn from his sin, he may suffer an early death caused by sin, like Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11), when they lied to God’s Spirit. Paul warns (1Corinthians 11:30-32), that some were showing contempt for the Lord’s death, actually taking bread and cup with sin in their hearts, without any remorse, “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.”

The loving thing to do with this unrepentant brother is to remove him from the support of Christian fellowship, perhaps then he’ll repent, receive forgiveness, and can be restored to God’s grace and the fellowship of believers; after all, he is a Christian brother, he isn’t to be despised, even when unrepentant, but he is to be disciplined, so that, through separation, he might turn from his sins.

2Thessalonians 3:14-15, “If anyone does not obey our instruction… take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.”

Verses 6-8… The pride and arrogance of the Corinthians was blinding them to their own sin and to this blatant sin in their midst; the erring brother must be removed before he poisons the whole church; just like one bad apple can spoil the whole barrel. He must be separated from them.

Yeast (or leaven) is used throughout Scripture to represent influence, it can be good or bad; here it clearly is evil. Just as a small portion of yeast will bring rise to a large lump of dough when mixed in, so also sin spreads rapidly throughout the church, bringing corruption.

At the first Passover in Egypt, the bread was made without leaven, as they didn’t have time for the dough to rise, but also, because the leaven was to represent their old life in Egypt, under slavery, before God freed them.

The leaven is symbolic, even orthodox Jews use leaven in their bread, but not during the Passover Feast. Paul is saying that when we come to Christ, we are to leave behind all evil and wickedness, and instead to live as sincere followers of Christ, in truth, for in Christ we are no longer slaves to sin, but we instead have become slaves to righteousness (2Corinthians 5:17; Romans 6:19).

Verses 9-13… Paul, in an earlier letter, commanded them not to associate with immoral people, i.e., not to be in intimate fellowship with “so-called” believers who are known to be sexually immoral, greedy (selfish, covetous), idolaters, slanderers (abusive & insulting), drunkards, swindlers. Paul is not talking here about one-time sins, we all sin; but he is saying that those who live in a lifestyle of sin, we are to avoid; even those who are idle and lazy (Galatians 6:7-10; 2Thessalonians 3:6-13).

Sins left unchecked will develop into patterns of sin; the loving thing for us to do is to confront the erring brother or sister, before it is too late (Galatians 6:1-5).

Those who are not believers, we are not to judge, God will judge them; but those belonging to the family of God we exhort them to do the right thing, to repent of sin, at the same time, we are not to grow weary of doing what is right and good, encouraging our brothers and sisters toward love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24-25).

We are are all parts of Christ’s body (1Corinthians 12); if you have gangrene on your foot, and you do not do anything about it, it will spread, if you do nothing about it, it could cost you your leg, or even your life.

When believers continue in a pattern of sin, when they stop struggling in the fight toward holiness; not only those who commit sins of immorality, greed, idolatry, slander and deception, but also those who are idle and lazy, who always have a hand out, or are wanting to take your time and resources for their own pleasures, but they are not giving back to God, or serving God’s people. We are told not to be in intimate fellowship with them, so that they may come to their senses and repent.

Paul closes this teaching by commanding that the wicked brother be put out of the fellowship of believers. Yes, we must, at times, turn away those who continue to sin, while at the same time we continue to try and encourage them to repent and do what is right.

Only with the help of God’s Spirit, according to the authority of God’s Word, can we maintain the correct balance of loving our brothers and sisters, even though we may need to separate from them for a time.

Pastor Mike <‘(((><