1 Corinthians 5 - Part C

Jesus never intended that we as Christians live cloistered lives away from the pagan world. He knew that we would be surrounded by people who have a different value system, and we would always be tempted to want to be as cool and heavy and fit in as they are, even though he said, be holy, be different, don't be like them. But he never wanted us to remove ourselves and live in a monastery.

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Call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Now we're in 1 Corinthians chapter five as we join Skip Heitink for today's teaching. He who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one. Do you know there are times when a judgment is not only legitimate, it's mandated?

It's mandated. Paul wrote to the Galatians and said, you know what? Though we or an angel from heaven preach to you any other gospel than the one that you have received, let him be accursed.

That sounds pretty judgmental to me. So what does Paul tell him to do to excommunicate them when you're gathered together in the power of our Lord Jesus, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus? What I think that means is cast the person out of the protective umbrella of Christian fellowship to the sphere of the world, the domain of Satan. Jesus called Satan the God or the prince of this world. Paul called Satan the God of this world or the God of this age. The world is his sphere. There is a certain protection that happens to believers within the fold of the church to isolate somebody from the flock of God.

Isolation is never good, never good. It's always against what Jesus had in mind for his church. So to take a person to say you are no longer welcome within the protection of the body of Christ, all of the gifts that hold us accountable and strengthen us, when you are living in that isolated realm and your choice in sin has made its full effect in your life in that realm. What we hope happens is that the flesh is destroyed. The flesh that controls you, the fleshly nature that dominates you, that you were given over to, that gets dealt with and that grip on you gets destroyed so that you can be reunited in restoration with the body of Christ and with the Lord. We call this church discipline and unfortunately there have been times in our history when we've had to do this. We've actually had to write letters of disfellowship when a person lives and decides upon a course of action that is blatantly immoral and decides to live in that no matter what, shunning all counsel and accountability, then we have to remove them from the fellowship.

Now that would be hopefully something that would shake a person and I've seen it shake a person. I've seen so many come back and say I was wrong, I want to be reinstituted, I want to be right with God, I want to be right with you. That's the goal.

It doesn't always work that way. Sometimes people harden their heart and they say well I'll just find another church that lets me do whatever I want and unfortunately there are plenty of churches that will let you do whatever you want. Yeah we just want you to come to our church man, more tithe for us, come on in. We won't hold you accountable, we don't care what you do, we don't care what your belief system is, do whatever you want. Now if we know what church that person has gone to to do that, we will contact the leadership and say just so you know here's the backstory, you should hold them accountable.

Sometimes they go I didn't know that, we will. They're not welcome here till they get right with you and right with God. But too many just say we don't care what he's done or what she's done or if they're living in sin, they're coming to our church now. But back in those days there was only one church at Corinth, there weren't 15. So Paul says deliver one to the realm of Satan to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Now there's another interpretation I gave you what I believe is the right interpretation, but some believe that this could mean that he's saying that when you deliver a person to the realm of Satan, God might kill them like he did with Ananias and Sapphira, right?

They fell over on the spot for their hypocrisy. That would be the exception rather than the rule and it sounds here like Paul is kind of setting the tone for a rule rather than an exception, that it's deliver them to the realm of Satan, that the grip of the flesh would be destroyed in their life and there would be a full restoration back into fellowship, that his spirit would be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. By the way, Paul practiced what he preached. He wrote a letter to Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter 1 and he spoke about a couple of false apostles, one named Hymenaeus and the other Alexander. He said, of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander whom I have delivered to Satan that they will learn not to blaspheme.

So he, Paul, pushed them out of the Christian fellowship for their false doctrine. Verse 6, your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump, therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump. That's what God wants us to be, a new lump.

Now I want to explain that. For indeed Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast not with old leaven nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Now he is using a metaphor that is a Jewish metaphor. He's using a metaphor to the Corinthian church of the Jewish feast of Passover. And if you know anything about the Jewish feast of Passover, it takes place every spring, right around April. And Passover in the Jewish calendar was the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan. And on the 15th day of Nisan, for seven days after that, after Passover, was a feast, another feast called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. So the feasts were always together, Feast of Passover, followed by the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread. For those two joint feasts, there was a ritual in every Jewish home, still takes place to this day, called in Hebrew, Bedikat Chometz.

You will not be quizzed on that. Bedikat Chometz, or the search for leaven, the search for leaven. So the idea is you go through the whole house, make sure there's no yeast, no leaven. Now typically, mom hides a little piece of bread or a little batch of leaven so that the kids can find it.

They have to go through everywhere and whoever finds it gets a little prize. But the idea is you want to rid the house of leaven. And because on Passover, remember when the children of Israel were leaving Egypt, God said, get out, get out of town now. You don't have time to pack your bags. You don't have time to let the bread rise. Just grab the flatbread, the unleavened bread. That'll be your food.

Get out the door. So because of that, they would always remember that Passover, by seven days of unleavened bread, there was no leaven in the house. Now you know that leaven is what causes your bread to rise. It is yeast. That when you cook bread, if any of you bake, use a little bit of starter, it has yeast in it, from another batch. And as the gases, or as the dough begins to ferment or rot, literally, it emits gases. And the rising of the bread is the emission of those gases in the substance of the dough that causes the bread to rise. So when the bread rises, the rot is spreading throughout the bread.

That's what the rise of the bread is. That's what leaven is. So leaven, just a little bit of leaven goes a long way.

It'll cause the whole dough to rise, the whole leaven, the whole batch to be exposed. So in the Bible, leaven was often and typically a symbol of evil or a symbol of sin. So the metaphor he's using is just like the feast, when you search for leaven after the Passover, which was, Passover was the feast where we celebrate the fact that we've been redeemed by the blood of the lamb.

Lamb blood was on the doorposts and lintels of the house. We remember what happened with the lamb on Egypt on that night. So too, we Christians look back to our Passover, Christ. He died for us.

His blood was shed. We have been set free. But even as we have been set free by his blood, just like the second feast of unleavened bread, let's live unleavened lives, pure lives, unadulterated lives. It's more than just, I've been free by the blood of the lamb. You've been set free to get rid of the old leaven. You've been set free to get rid of the old leaven, to purge the old lifestyle. So get rid of that. By the way, you may not know this, our idea of spring cleaning comes from the idea of betikat chometz, the search for leaven, getting rid of it.

That's where that began. So we as the church, we've been saved by Christ in Corinth, but let's take some spring cleaning to our assembly. And let's get rid of the old leaven in our hearts, in our congregation, and with the bread of sincerity and truth, verse 8 and verse 9. Verse 9, I wrote you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.

Now he's talking about the first letter that we don't have. He's writing in 1 Corinthians, I wrote you in my epistle, the letter we don't have. So that was 1 Corinthians, this is 1 Corinthians, this is 2 Corinthians, this will be 3 Corinthians, you follow me. So I wrote you that we should not keep company with sexually immoral people.

Now he qualifies it, yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. Imagine if the Corinthian Christian thought when Paul said don't keep company with immoral people, that means I can never have a conversation with an immoral person. You couldn't live in Corinth. You couldn't shop at the 7-11 in Corinth, or at Target in Corinth, or you couldn't work for the government of Corinth. It's all tainted. He said, I didn't mean of this world, otherwise you and you'd need to go to the Dagobah system where Yoda lives.

You couldn't even live on this planet. But verse 11, now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even to eat with such a person. Jesus never intended that we as Christians live cloistered lives away from the pagan world. He knew that we would be surrounded by people who have a different value system and we would always be tempted to want to be as cool and hip and fit in as they are, even though he said be holy, be different, don't be like them. But he never wanted us to remove ourselves and live in a monastery. He prayed in John 17, Father, I pray not that you would take them out of the world, but that you would keep them from the evil one. So here is the church in Corinth.

Not a problem. What is the problem? When Corinth is in the church. We're in the world, no problem with that, but when the world gets in the church, that's a problem. That's a problem. Sin in the world, I hope you by now realize that shouldn't be newsworthy to you. I can't believe it. A sinner sinned. Okay, next.

That's what they do. Sin in the world isn't our issue. Sin in the church is. Sin in the church unchecked, unmonitored, being loose, being tolerant of it, being prideful of all sorts of different sexual orientation.

Don't be proud of that. That's problematic. Happens in the world? Sure does. Always has, by the way. The idea of genders and sexuality goes back.

We're not going forward, we're going backwards. It's been going on for thousands of years. 14 of the 15 Roman emperors were homosexuals.

Most of them had young boys, even if they were married to women, they had young boys, underage boys that they were sleeping with. So today we go, we're moving forward in sexual. No, you're going way back to paganism.

Nothing new about that. But verse 11 is very important. He said, anybody who says, yeah, I'm a believer, man, I'm a brother in Christ who is a fornicator that is unrepentant, sleeping around, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. Don't even eat with such a person. If somebody is living that flagrant of a lifestyle, doesn't say it's wrong, I'm struggling with it, just like whatever, I can kind of do whatever I want.

I've got liberty, I've got freedom in Christ, I can live any way I want. Paul said, don't even eat with them. Now, what does that mean, don't eat with them? Probably a reference to the Lord's Supper. I don't think it necessarily means you can't discuss things with them over a cup of coffee and a biscuit. I don't think that's the idea. I think you don't share the Lord's Supper because He's going to get to that in this book, in a few chapters.

You don't share that with Him. For what have I to do, verse 12, with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? Those outside the church, it's not my purview. Now, that's why I really don't want to get sucked into mudslinging against secular leaders that I disagree with, and believe me, I do disagree with them, a lot of them. But I don't want to spend my time or my Instagram account or my Twitter account mouthing what I think is wrong with the world.

The world is unsaved, man. I don't expect much out of it. And that is not my purview nor my concern. But they're taking away my freedoms. Okay, you can deal with that on another level.

I'm not saying that that's bad. But as a Christian pastor, I have much deeper concerns. That's for His people, His flock, those people who name the name of Christ.

And so Paul says, you know, look, I don't judge those who are outside, and I hope you guys are judging those who are inside. In the parables, Jesus spoke about the tares and the wheat. Remember that little parable? It said a man had wheat, and somebody came in the middle of the night and sowed weeds, Darnell. It is called, looks very much like wheat, so that in the next day, if you were to look at the field, you couldn't tell by looking which is true wheat and which is a weed.

They look very identical almost. You have to get really close. So Jesus says to His disciples, leave them alone. Let God sort it out, basically, with His angels on the judgment. Don't go after unbelievers. Don't judge them. The Lord will judge them. Don't expect the world to act like Christians. But if somebody says, I'm a Christian, I name the name of Christ, great.

We're going to hold you, though, now to a different standard. Now, I know, I've heard all the slogans. I've heard all the rhetoric, and I believe the church is not a museum for saints.

It's a hospital for sinners. I believe that. I've said that, and I believe it.

But at the same time, I'll say this. God loves you just the way you are, and He'll take you just the way you are. And if you're a filthy sinner who has committed every vile thing in the world, God loves you still and He'll forgive you for everything you've done.

But though God loves you the way you are, God loves you way too much to leave you the way you are. Okay, that's called sanctification. And anybody who names the name of Christ has the name of Christ, that sanctification is given another term in the New Testament.

We call it fruit. And every tree Jesus said is known by its fruit. And if you have a tree over there saying, I'm a fruit tree, but it's never bearing any fruit whatsoever, I hope somebody with the New Testament comes along and goes, huh, maybe not a fruit tree. Verse 13. But those who are outside, God judges. Therefore, put away from yourselves that wicked person. So He's specifically dealing with the sexual immorality of incest in the church of a man who says he's a believer, as his stepmother, they're in some kind of relationship, they're coming into fellowship all the time and Christians are greeting them, the elders, all the people handing them bulletins, hugging them.

Yeah, man, come on. New judgment here, bro. Paul goes, I'll judge and I'm coming to judge.

Kick him out, put him out. Now I did tell you, and I want to end on a good note, that the purpose of that disfellowship isn't to go be all smug and self-righteous. The idea, the hope is that it would provoke real repentance that leads to restoration. And do you know that is exactly what happened in the book of 2 Corinthians?

Paul writes this. Now I'm reading 2 Corinthians, and since we're not going to get to it for a while, I'll read it in advance. He says in chapter 2, verse 3, I wrote this very thing to you, lest when I came, I should have sorrow over those from whom I ought to have joy, having confidence in you all that my joy is the joy of you all. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote to you, speaking of the letter that we are now reading, with many tears, not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have so abundantly for you. But if anyone has caused grief, he has not grieved me. But all of you, to some extent, not to be too severe, this punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for such a man, so that on the contrary you ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow.

Therefore I urge you, reaffirm your love to him. Verse 10, now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. So it is supposed by that, that that is the very man he wrote about in 1 Corinthians, chapter 5, saying disfellowship him from the church, do it officially, but there was repentance. And so, because there was repentance, Paul says, okay, now come alongside him, man, bolster him, now come alongside him, man, bolster him, restore him. Don't let him be swallowed up by that sorrow, bring him in and assure him he's a brother, he's reinstated, he's in fellowship, there has been repentance.

That is so healthy when that happens. And that is a New Testament church, and I have to say, sadly, it's rare to find churches who will step up to the plate and say, we'll do that, we'll do that, we'll hold people that accountable, but it's so healthy. That's the church I want to be a part of, Jesus too.

That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series Expound, 1 Corinthians. Now, we want to tell you about an opportunity you have to take your knowledge of God's Word to a deeper level. If you're ready to study God's Word beyond going to church and personal Bible study, you're ready for Calvary College. Take your learning and your life's purpose to the next level with an education in biblical studies.

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