The Church
The Church That Confronts Sin: 1 Corinthians 5
Paul’s rebuke in 1 Corinthians 5 exposes a church proud of its growth yet unwilling to confront blatant, high‑handed sin. A man is openly involved in sexual immorality, and the church’s silence has allowed him to remain under a false assurance of belonging. Paul commands them to “remove this man” and “cleanse out the old leaven,” warning that unchecked sin spreads through the whole body and corrupts its witness. Jesus Himself taught that forgiveness requires repentance, and Matthew 18 outlines a loving, restorative process for confronting sin. Church discipline is never about punishment—it is about salvation, holiness, and protecting the purity of Christ’s people. When practiced biblically, correction becomes an act of love that rescues wandering believers and strengthens the whole church.
1 Corinthians 5, and this is just from the English Standard Version. 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 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 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 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 of bread? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump. as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers and idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 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, a reveler, a drunkard or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one. For what I have, I too do with judging outsiders. Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. Let's begin in prayer. Father, Lord, you are good. Lord, you are powerful. Lord, you are at work here within us today. And so Lord, how I pray, Lord, you would just turn all of our hearts to you now. And by the power of your Spirit, would you help us to hear you? and would you help us to be changed by you. Do all these things through your spirit, Lord, in the name of your son, Jesus. We pray, amen. Beautiful. So, last week in doing the church. So, we're not gonna jump right into our passage just yet. I know you guys are really excited to talk about this incestuous relationship going on in the Corinthian church, but we'll get there. All right. I first wanna have a reading. from Revelation 2. Sorry, I didn't have time again to put my stuff into the computer, so you'll just have to listen to me or follow along in your Bible. Reading from Revelation 2 verses 19 to 21. This is one of the letter to the seven churches. This is the church in Thyatira. It's cool. So Jesus says to them, I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance and that your latter works seed the first. You're doing really well, he says, but I have this one thing against you. that you tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. So, here is Jesus speaking to this church, right? This is one of the last things that he ever spoke in the book of Revelation, right, in the canon, the books of the Bible that we have. And he's looking at these churches, and each and every one of them, he tends to offer an encouragement and then a rebuke. And to these ones, he says, you guys are doing so well, you're growing, your church is healthy, things are going really well, except you have one blemish, right? Imagine like a window that you've nicely cleaned, but then you know you've got that husband who just said you missed a spot, right? There's just that one spot on there and he says you guys still have to deal with that. You still don't have a clean window yet. And he says it is this woman Jezebel, probably not her real name, but definitely a real woman, right? A false teacher within their church who was leading people away, named Jezebel likely symbolically because of the woman Jezebel who, if you don't know, just go and read the book of Kings, she was not a nice person. But anyway, the thing I want you to focus on is that if you read, it have this against you that you tolerate that woman. Now the word tolerate there, They translated that way, but it's also the exact same word for forgive. Right? He say you continue to forgive this woman. And was saying, and basically what he's saying is, is that you have taken the forgiveness of the gospel, right? So you've taken the fact Jesus has died on the cross, every sin has been placed on there. but we've shortened the reality of forgiveness to simply being, oh well, we can just kind of slide that under the rug. Oh, it's just an excuse to kind of let all things slide, right? Because they're saying, look, look, look, Jesus, we're growing, look at all these things we're growing in. But yeah, just don't worry about that woman. She's off to the side, like, you know, just don't worry about her. Because they think that forgiveness doesn't actually require repentance. Right? Do you guys know what repent means? Right? You know the 180 degrees? Which inevitably people end up saying 360 degrees sometimes, but no, we're not going back the same way. We're turning around and going the opposite direction. And so you see, his problem that they had is that in this church, they said, look, Jesus, we're going so well, but yes, we just forgive her. Like she's not doing too bad. Like she's got some good things about her. No. He says you are not to forgive that woman. If she repents, yes. but she continues to walk in her immorality. Because what he is calling her to do is turn away 180 degrees and turn to something else, turn to Jesus. And so you see that is partly what we're going to be talking about today. You see, this is epidemic throughout the church. You'll see it everywhere. That the whole point of church, the whole point of the gospel has simply been boiled down to Jesus died on the cross to forgive us of our sins. to pay for the sins. And that's the whole story. There's nothing more to it. I'm not saying you shouldn't teach that to five-year-olds, but we should teach them there's actually even more to it as they grow older. There is more to be learnt. Because he's not just saying, all right, you you've got a bit of a gambling addiction, so you sit there on the pokies, you've racked up about, I don't know, $20,000 in debt or something like that, but Jesus has come along and he's paid the debt for you. So guess what? Now you can go back into the pokies and keep going because he will keep paying it. That is not the point of the cross. He didn't redeem you out of sin so that could just continue to keep walking back into it. He actually freed you so that you might be freed up to live the life you were meant to live. But you see, our culture has boiled down forgiveness to the point, and the devil loves this, that he just says, Jesus forgives all of it, Just keep walking in your sin, he doesn't even care. He died for you. He did. He died so that you might be freed, like he pulled the Israelites out of Egypt. Did he say, and now you guys are all good, if you wanna go back, you go back. No, they said, we wanna go back, and he said, you idiots, why would you wanna do that? I am taking you to the promised land where you're meant to be. And so understand that what we are talking about here is that, and what we're going to look at today is that biblical forgiveness requires repentance. And as a church, it requires us to confront sin. Read it here from Matthew 18. Jesus tells us how we should deal with sin in the church. Matthew 18, 15 to 17. He says, if your brother sins against you, Do you simply say, ah, all is good and well, you know, mate, it's all, don't you worry about, no, no, he says, inevitably, yes, some things are small, we don't need to go and talk to every single person we have a problem with. But if you genuinely have problems, says, go and tell him his faults. Between you and him alone, don't tell anyone else. And then if he listens to you, you've gained your brother. There you go, repentance, right? He's listened, as in, not just like, oh, I hear what you're saying, he's actually turned, he's actually repented, right? He said, you're right, I'm sorry, I will try to do better in the power of the spirit. And you'll pray together hopefully at the end of it. But then he says, if he doesn't listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. Right, this is amping up now, right, he hasn't repented. This isn't just like, you know, someone who's eating a bit too much morning tea and you don't really like that, right? This is actually something relatively serious. You bring two or three witnesses along. so that obviously there's evidence to this refusal to repent. And then he says, he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, bring it to the family. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Now, Jesus just told us as a church how we are to go about the whole thing of forgiving one another. Yes, again, sometimes I know it's small things, we will just, you just let it go. But when there are genuine things creating division between us, we are to confront one another, not in a bad sense, out of love. We wanna repair this brokenness. So you come, and definitely for the fact of when you see your brother walking off in sin, you don't just leave him there, you go and you confront him. Jesus doesn't say sweep it under the rug, He says bring it out into the light, that then it might be transformed. And so you see this is incredibly important. Because Jesus said the world will recognise his true disciples by two different things. On his final night, in John 17 he says, I pray that you would be one as I am one. Sorry, it might be John 16 in that. But there's another thing he says in John 15, where he uses the image of the vine and the branches, where he keeps saying, abide in me and abide in you. Abide in me, abide in me, abide in me, be in me. I am the vine and you are the branches. And what do vines produce? Grapes. fruit. And as he says at the end, John 15, hey, by this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. Right? We're talking about the fruit of the Spirit there. You are growing in, you know, what's another way to call the Holy Spirit? The Spirit of holiness. We are growing in holiness together as a church. Because you see, salvation isn't just about being pardoned of your sins. Right? We talked about this last week. We were talking about redemption. You're not just being taken out of the pit. Redemption isn't just about being taken out of something. You didn't just redeem your mistake. You're being brought into something else, right? The Israelites were taken out of Egypt into the promised land. So we've been taken out of our sin and into the kingdom of God, where we pursue holiness together and finally can now that we're not enslaved to sin. And so as a church, We are here to encourage each other in that pursuit. We grow in the fruits of the Spirit together. That was the whole point of last week. You can't do it by yourself. We need each other. We encourage each other. But also, as a church, we need to have a way to correct each other when we backslide. When at times we fall, well, I hope we're not falling away, but backsliding and I walk with Jesus, a loving friend comes beside us and corrects us. And so we need a way to do this. So this is where we come now to our passage for today. So let us read the first five verses together. He says, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that isn't even tolerated among the pagans. For a man has his father's wife, that's mother-in-law, and you were arrogant. you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit. And as of present, I've already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a When you were assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus. You are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the law. Now, when you look at that first verse, when it says it is actually reported among you, what the Greek really is saying there is that this is not just gossip, this isn't slander, this is card hold truth, right? Paul's not even there, but he's received so many reports about this that he's like, this is plainly the truth. This is something, this guy is just flaunting it in front of everyone. This is open and blatant sin and very high-handed sin at that, very public. And so these are verified truths. And now Paul confronts them, right? He says, for you guys are arrogant, or do you not rather to mourn? He says, look, this is just like the church of Thyatira, right? They're saying, look, look how we've grown. Look how healthy we are. You read the rest of the book of the Corinthians, the letter that Paul wrote. Oh, they love boasting, right? These are the guys that were taking all the supernatural gifts of the spirit, the tongues and the healing, the prophecies and lifting them up because they were the important things. They were the things that made them look impressive, but paying little attention to the gifts that maybe weren't so impressive because they love to boast, but they would do it to the neglect of the things that actually matter. They didn't have a complete Christianity. They were lopsided. says, you're boasting here. He says, you ought rather to mourn and to remove this man from among you. So he's saying, you guys get together, come together, and then you were to do, well, I guess back in the day, you'd basically call excommunication. But better way to put it is just to say it as verse five says, you were to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Does that mean as a church we get to deliver people to Satan? Wow, that's a new one. There you go. Interesting things you read in the Bible, Some things that you sit there and you're like, know what the church is about, I know what the church is like. Apparently we deliver people over to Satan sometimes. Put people up in a little letter in a big poster's box and you send them in the Oz post. You can have them to Satan now. It's not quite that. So you see what we mean by delivering over to Satan here. is because you see this man has been walking around in the church family, right? Because the whole reason, the whole problem of this, if he's sleeping with his mother-in-law, yes, it would be a problem in any society, but the particular problem is that he's continuing to attend church, continuing to gather with the Christians, and they're not saying anything. So they're continuing to affirm the fact, hey buddy, it's all good. Nothing wrong, yeah, you're following Christ just like we are. And so when they're saying they're delivering someone to Satan, You understand, right, Jesus is the King of the church. This is His kingdom. Where is the kingdom of Satan, right? If you go to 2 Corinthians 4, 4, He's called the God of this world, right? This place here. What are you doing in deliverance? You're simply putting them in the category that this fellow already belongs in, the world, right? He's continuing under this delusion that He's like, I serve Jesus, look at me. Yeah, like, I know my mother-in-law, she's a hot piece of, So if you see it, you get it. But no, He is not serving Jesus in that moment. He's serving Satan. He's deluded, thinking he's serving God, but in truth, he is not at all. And so he's there simply saying, don't continue to let him have the delusion, remove him from it, saying, buddy, you can't continue to live in this sin and follow Christ, two things don't go together. And so they simply to treat him, as you would any unbeliever. Any of those people who are in the kingdom of Satan, those who do not believe in Christ. But understand, but then you focus here, so you're like, wow, okay, right, we can hand people over to Satan for the destruction of their flesh. This seems pretty harsh, but then focus on the, when you come to the end of verse five, it says, that, right, this is the reason that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. You see, this man has been able to keep, because this is the whole thing, right? He can continue to keep up the positive benefits of being part of the family. It's a great thing to be a part of a church, be part of a church family, but he's getting the benefits without actually committing to the truth of the gospel, without actually being a follower of Christ. He's not actually part of the family while getting the benefits of being part of the family. That's not how it works. And so the hope is that as they hand him over to the world, as they cast him out, because of his choices, his failure to not repent, his failure to repent, sorry. They say, you go experience a world, see if it's really that good. And hopefully he would then see it's actually not that great out here. Right, I was actually happy in my life because I got the benefits of church, but also got to live in my sin. But now I'm just left with my sin and now I'm actually serving Satan. I don't like. Because the reality is when you confront someone with the fact with, buddy, you are actually walking the road to hell. Suddenly they're not quite so content in their sin anymore. So the primary motive for discipline, for correction in the church is salvation, right? This isn't the Old Testament, okay? We're not in the, because what did they do back then? You think this sounds harsh. You know one of the first laws that they enacted? A fellow was out on the Sabbath picking up sticks. You know what they did? They stoned him. Right? We're actually gonna get, well I'm not gonna go that specific example, but we're actually gonna see in a bit in the next section why that had to be the case. Why evil must be removed from among us. But you see, now in this day and age, we're not looking at retributive justice, right? Getting eye for an eye. It's about restorative justice. We want this person to come to repentance, and they're not gonna do that by keeping up this illusion. So we remove the false assurance they have and expose the danger of the road they are walking, because they will not do it for themselves. And so you see, one of the first things that we must understand, that handing someone over, it is actually for their sake. It's actually for the good of the person, right? We're doing this for their benefit. When we correct one another, it's not because we're trying to hurt one another. Yes, and I'm not talking about the snarky comments we make. I mean, genuine in love coming to someone and confronting them. Correcting them, it is for their benefit. Because otherwise it will continue to invade every part of their life and God forbid that they may actually be walking away from God and towards... And so now, this obviously comprehends the fact you're like, well, oh, you know, yeah, okay. They had it pretty bad in their church, the Corinthian church, but we're the chinchilla church. We don't have such people like that here. Well, I surely hope no one's sleeping with their mother-in-law. Hands up if, no, okay, cool, good. Just glad that would have been a real worry. but something that we must comprehend. So we often underestimate just how far we can fall. Do we need to look at a better example than King David himself, right? Few of you guys have had enough faith to go up to like an however tall David was, a very tall fella, muscle covered in armour, with five stones and a sling and no armour on. This guy's a man of God. He's a man after God's own heart as it describes him. And yet what does he do? We all know what happens, right? Bash Eba. He kills one of his loyal friends because he slept with his wife and got her pregnant. That's King David. Sorry, none of you guys are him. Not even close, I think. I'm sorry, you guys are great. But if David can fall so far, you have to realize the same sinful heart that made him do that. The same sinful heart that made this man pursue his mother-in-law, which is just disgusting, is the exact same heart in all of us. And so understand that this confrontation is an urgent act of love, right? Just as a parent will often tell their child, don't run out to the road. And if that child decides to run out to the road, that might involve yelling and grabbing a child. Well, that seems harsh. shouldn't grab your child nowadays, you know? Well, you should if they're about to run out in front of a car. And so we do the same for those who are walking into something far worse. than a car. So let's continue on now. We'll read from verses six to eight. So as your boasting is not good, do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened, sorry, bread of sincerity and truth. So Paul. is now pulling at, right? We've looked at for why we must do this for the sake of others, for the sake of the person walking in their sin. But now we must see that it must also be done not just out of love for them, but also the love of the church. That actually to not remove this person is actually unloving to the family itself. And Paul here to do this, he uses the image of Levin, which if you know anything about Old Testament stuff, We just nowadays call it yeast or yeast is a type of leaven anyway, right? It's the rising agent in bread. Okay? If you go back to the Exodus, right? God said, you can't put any leaven in your bread because you're not gonna have enough time for it to rise. Okay? We're gonna be going so quickly. That's what that's talking about with the Passover lamb stuff. We're not gonna have time to jump into that today. But understand, right? It was this yeast that they would put into the bread. And what was the typical process they would do? They would mix it in. And then as they would go to bake, right before they throw it into the oven or fire or wherever they're baking it, they would take off, they'll pinch a little bit of the bread off. And then what would that be? That would be the starter for the next loaf. And then they would mix that into the dough and you could just keep going. And then that tiny little starter, that little pinch of bread, would be able to work its way through the entire loaf all over again. And that would be sufficient yeast for it again. And so you see, one of the most important things about leaven that he's trying to paint here, and one of the things that it's used biblically, while Jesus, you hear him in the gospel, he says always, beware the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod. Because he's talking about this thing that it might seem like a little bit, but then you start and then it gets mixed in and he's... Then he says in verse six, do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? As in the whole thing. The leaven goes into every single part of the bread. It mixes into all of it. And so here it is representing the reality of unchecked evil, right? We sit there and particularly the Corinthians are saying, it's just one guy, the rest of us are okay. The Philistines and Thyatira saying, it's just Jezebel, the rest of us are okay. Just ignore the fact that it said, she's leading some of you astray. That is what will happen, right? As sin works its way into our church. Because one of the things we have to understand is that sin is never true. Because you understand, this isn't just talking about your life. It's not just you being the lump. Paul's not talking to an individual, he's talking to a church. So he's saying how one person's sin, their hidden sin that we might not be aware of, can work its way throughout this whole church. You just think about it, The husband who's sitting there being like, well, my wife doesn't know that I watch porn. My wife doesn't know the things that I'm doing in the back. She doesn't even know. I clear the browsing history. I've got all the stuff sorted. But do really think that has no effect on his love for his wife and his children? Do you think it has no effect at all? You'd be foolish to think that were the case, right? He is serving someone else alongside his family. Well think about the person who is just, it's funny, I've encountered people who you meet them in a workplace and they are just feral. They have the worst short temper you could possibly imagine. But yet you come to church and they are the most lovely people in the world, right? And here, this person thinking, well, I can act one way in the workplace and it's not gonna affect my relationship with God on a Sunday. It does. It will always creep out. That is what sin does. You see, this is most important when you understand what leaven is, right? And we know this today because of science, right? One of the things I hate most, I definitely don't mind sourdough. I love a good blow for sourdough. But I would hate cooking it, you know why? Because when people have the starter in their fridge, they always talk about feeding it. And that disgusts me. Why would you feed something in your fridge and then make bread out of it? That just sounds off-putting. But you see, it's appreciating something about the starter, about the yeast. It's actually a living organism, right? It's actually this organism that takes up all the sugar and all the water and then turns it into carbon dioxide. That's what makes the bread rise. That's what puts all the bubbles into it, right? but so it is the exact same thing with sin. We think, oh, let's not live, I can keep it in the corner and it's not gonna go anywhere. It's not just you, it has its own life. It has its own things it wants to do, its own ideas. It's not gonna do what you want it to do. It has only one thing it wants to do and just like yeast, it wants to consume, it wants to spread and it wants to grow. That is what it must do. And then very much in the same way, do you know what happens if you leave for yeast for too long? your bread's not gonna taste very nice. It consumes all the good stuff and just leaves you with a sour bit of loaf. Why do you think they call it sour dough? Right? Because it gets sour the further along it goes. And so this is what happens to us when we allow this yeast to come in. It festers, it grows, it consumes more of the church. You're like, I'm not gonna let that happen. It doesn't care what you think. It will do that. It is exactly the same thing as a cancer. Are any of us dumb enough to sit there and think, oh, I'm not gonna get that cut out, not gonna get that dealt with? No. The moment we find out it's chemo, let's get that thing cut out, because we know that this thing feeds on healthy tissue, it grows, lives off the life force of other things, and it doesn't even care about killing you. So it is the same thing with our sin. And sometimes, we must even cut off the leg to save the body. And so what we're looking at here is that a failure to address these high-handed sins, again, I'm not talking about eating too much at morning tea, okay? I'm not talking about rocking up too late to church. I'm talking about high-handed sins. These are sins that are done deliberately in contempt against what God has put in His word, which He has called us to. These are people who go, how can they walk in the church? this unchecked sin within the membership. it will corrupt us all. You see, we may not sit here and we may not fall into the same sins of these people. We might not end up sleeping with our mother-in-laws as well. But nonetheless, look at all the problems in the Corinthian church. That's not the only one. He's got 16 chapters of problems. Where do you think it might have started? Because they did not seriously consider the seriousness of sin. Right? So you see, they had this lowered view of what holiness was meant to be. and so it affected everything. as a church we must understand, and this is hard, I know, I'm sorry, I know this isn't the cheery message for Sunday, I know, even I'm half tired and I'm falling asleep, it's okay. We'll have Father's Day next week, it'll be better. But we have to deal with these things because the reality is that unchecked sin will compromise the purity of our church and therefore the witness of our church. Because people will see no difference between us and the world, right? Don't get me wrong, I know this church is full of hypocrites, I know we're sinners, but there should be some difference. There should actually be some effect caused by the gospel. And better yet, we are not to be like the rest of the world that says, oh, we love them too much to confront. My friends, can't hide between that's just between them and God. We can't hide behind it's not my place to judge. It actually is as Paul will get into in the next section. Because you are part of this body. So the reality is it isn't actually just between you and God because it affects me too. Because I'm part of this. Your sin affects me, my sin affects you. I actually have to watch my own walk with God for your guys' sake and my own, course, as well. Because my sins impact you guys, your sins impact me. It's not the end of the story. Jesus redeems it all, don't get me wrong. But don't take sin lightly. So we come to the final. Apple verses, verses nine to 13. Read along with me. I wrote to you on my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. That's just dumb. But now I'm 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. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church who I am to judge? God judges those outside, purged the evil person from among you. Now it seems Paul in that first verse, he's referring back to a letter that he had previously written. There's all kinds of high theories about how many letters he wrote, because we don't have all of them. He seems to make reference to other ones. And so he seemed to write this first letter addressing a similar topic, possibly even this guy here, right? But it seems... that a couple of people in the church hadn't quite understood what he was saying. So he clarifies it for them, right? He says, when I said, don't associate with sexually immoral people, said, I'm not talking about those out in the world, because that would be dumb. Because the reality is, who are we told to make disciples of? People in the world. The sexually immoral, the idolaters, those are the ones that we, we gotta go to the sinners. Just as we are sinners, we lead them to the one who can save them. That would be dumb to try and remove. That's why he says that would be to remove yourself from the world. That's not even possible. Unless you die. but he then comes to what it was actually meant to mean. You are not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty. So understand, we're not called to abandon contact with the world, right? Again, that's the blocky mindset. Again, I know there's some lovely people on the blocks that do go to church, but many, they just wanna run away and hide, don't wanna associate with the world. That's not what we're to do. But this is a strict command that applies specifically to anyone who is our brother in Christ, who continues to live, and again, I keep using this word, high-handed. It is this shaking your fist at God, I don't care what you think, I can be a part of your church and keep living the way I've always lived. He said, sure, you might be able to attend it. Doesn't mean you're actually a part of it though. Now, understand that we are, this is hard stuff. that we're dealing with. Because in our day and age, what is love described as? It definitely is not confrontational, right? It is you do you. As long as you're not hurting anyone else, it's all good. Which is funny that we live in the age of tolerance and yet it's the most intolerant people I've ever been. But the reality is we are called to this love which sees nothing wrong with anyone. Everyone lives their own truth. That is not true love. Refusing to correct someone. To actually, because you're like, don't, like I'm good friends with them, but I don't wanna like risk losing the friendship. So I don't really know if it's time. Maybe we need to work on the friendship a little bit, work a little forward. I don't wanna hurt them. But then what did Zoe say from Proverbs 27 verse 6? Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Profuse are the kisses of an enemy. What's the friend doing there? The friend is wounding. The friend is harming. The friend is hurting the person. But faithful are they. They don't do it for no reason. Just as God disciplines us as well for our own good, so a good friend does the same thing as well. But what does an enemy do? Everything's good, mate. All's well. No, nothing's wrong. It's exactly what the false prophets did in the Old Testament. Everything will definitely, you go into that battle, nothing's gonna go wrong. Yet there'd be one prophet who would say something definitely is going to go wrong. Some of us are far more like enemies to our friends than we actually are friends to them. Because you see, true love is ready to risk short-term pain for long-term You see, we have to understand this. That we have wanted to make, and I'm so about making the family of God inclusive, right? Every person should be able to become a part of this family. But there are some requirements. Have faith in Jesus for starters. But you start that journey. You start that journey of faith. You continue that walk of trust and faith in Him as a disciple of Christ. You follow Him now, right? That is why they're trying to expose this fellow sleeping with his mother-in-law. Because he's not doing that. He's not actually a disciple of Jesus. He's not following the master. He's following his master, Satan. And so there are serious realities that come with being a disciple of Christ. You don't just get to call yourself a part of the family and yet not live and act like one, right? Yeah, we're all a progress, work in progress. We get that. There's much, much grace. But if we have no concern for actually growing in it, this fella has been there openly sleeping with his mother-in-law for probably some couple years now and no one's talked about it. That is a problem. And so here comes one of most important things. Judging people is actually a loving thing to do. Now, let me clarify what I mean by judging. Biblical judgment within the church is not what we typically say, judging, right? But we have to accept the fact, right? He literally says, in verse 12, for what have I to do with judging outsiders? That's not my thing, they're outside. That's God's job. He says, is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? So we're actually called to judge people inside the church. But why do... But why do we have such a problem with being judgmental? Because being judgmental is not the same thing as judging, right? Because when you think of judgmental, what is it? It's the gossipy old granny in the corner, who's having a snarky little comments, who's talking about everyone, who's got all the gossip, right? That is not judging people, okay? That is being judgmental. But what do we think when you actually think about the word judge, right? When you think about it biblically particularly, when God is a judge, and that's a good thing, why? because he is like a judge in a court of law. And the reality is a good judge does what? He accrues evidence. He looks at facts. He's not swayed by opinions and assumptions. He's not in the realm of gossip and slander. He's about car to hold facts. What's really going on here? Because he wants to know the truth for the sake of the person. He doesn't want to send people to jail who don't deserve to go to jail, just so we shouldn't deserve to or, you know, correct people who actually don't need correcting. So it is done with clear evidence. This is actually done with the benefit of the person, we're not just gossiping and slandering someone without due process. And then this is another important thing to understand. If you look in verse 11, it says, I'm writing you not to a certain person who bears the name of brother, if he is guilty of sexual immorality. When he says guilty there, remember I'm talking about like in a court of law, before a judge. This is not just your opinion. This is not just the latest gossip going around. When someone is guilty of something, that means there is evidence. That doesn't mean they've actually been brought before people. And Betty, it's just talking to a church. So this is actually the opinion of the church that this person is guilty, not just your personal opinion. The church has actually said, this person has refused to repent. We've walked through the process set out by Jesus and he has refused or she has refused to repent of her sins. That is someone who is guilty. Not just whoever's going around in the latest rumor mill. Okay? And so we understand that this is actually done. Not for minor stumbles, not for everyday weaknesses. This is, like, if you're getting to the point where you're actually getting excommunicated, like, this is serious sin. Like, these are not small things. but it is for your good and for the good of the church. So now, of course, must address the whole point. If you have ever experienced something like this, like where someone's actually gone to the point of being excommunicated by a church, or God forbid, any of it's actually happened to you, unfortunately, I know far too many stories where that whole process has been abused rather than used correctly. Unfortunately, and I apologize to anyone that that has happened to, where leaders in the church particularly have come along and tried to use their authority in a way that actually overreached and actually abused their power. It actually belittled you when it wasn't right. But we aren't to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The commands are still there. Because you see, the church has seen all the harm done to people in the past and says, well, maybe if we just get rid of the correction thing altogether, then well, that'll be all right. Then it'll be better. No. Again, we need to keep the baby, just throw out the bathwater. All right? We need to make sure we are doing it right. Right, we always keep in mind, what is the point of the discipline? To bring them to repentance. And better yet, when Paul might seem harsh here, he actually addresses it in his next letter to them, in 2 Corinthians 2, 6 to 7. He says about this fellow, for such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. Jesus even says himself, treat them as a Gentile and a tax collector. That doesn't... we don't hate Gentiles and tax collectors. You guys were Gentiles once. All the people out here are Gentiles. You're not meant to hate them. But we simply treat them as what they are. They aren't part of the family until they... so we treat them as unbelievers. That means I love them. I'm all over them. But I don't come to them and trust in them. Right? They're not my close family. But I am there to speak the gospel to them. Because you see, that is the whole point. We're simply treating people as what they are. They're following Satan. So we're like, well, what do you need? You need the gospel, brother. You need to hear it again so that you might come to repentance. And so our understanding in all this, wrapping it all up now, Jesus did not just die merely to just forgive us of our sins. He actually came to free you from your sins. It's not just about being forgiven in heaven. You actually get to enjoy freedom here and now. You actually can be free of your sin. And part of that is knowing that there's actually a church that has your back. that actually knowing, like we already said, you guys can't do it on your own. Sometimes you need people to see things in your life that you yourself can't see. Hopefully someone calls out something that if left for three years might have turned into something far worse. And so we are actually walking a path of growing in holiness together. Now, most of the time, this is just, we're gonna study the Bible together. We're gonna talk together. We're gonna love Jesus together. We're gonna worship together. Growing in holiness is normally awesome fun. But also with that, we must also have the other side. We must have biblical correction. That when a member does stray into high-handed sin, and when this discipline is done biblically, It does hurt people. Faithful of the wounds of a friend, it does hurt. I'm not going to deny that. but it is for their good. Sure that they might come to repentance and hopefully one day they're gonna say, thank you for doing that. Thank you for not leaving me there. Thank you for actually saying something. It may be a long time before that happens. Trust me, these processes are never fun. But hopefully we actually love people enough to see them grow in holiness rather than follow Satan. Surely you guys are good enough friends to do that. So let us try and do it together. And honestly, if we just do the first two steps from Matthew 18, rarely do you actually get to the third one. Rarely do we actually actually communicate. Because we love each other enough to talk to each other before it gets there. but if they choose to go their way. they are not a part of this family anymore because they made their choice. So, I know that's a super depressing note to leave on, but that's discipline. And just know again, that when people walk away, it is their choice at the end of the day. You can't make your friend do something they don't wanna do. What can we do then? Then we do what all good faithful Christians have done through every age when things have been out of their control, turn to prayer. Pray and pray on them and never stop praying. I'm not gonna lie, people who have fallen away from the faith are in one of the worst positions you can possibly be as a believer, at least as it says in the Bible. But there is no heart too hard for God. So. Let us wrap up and pray. Father, this is a heavy topic that he put on us today. Lord, this is not an easy thing to walk through, because the reality is, I don't want to judge people. I don't want to have to correct people. I like talking about the fun things, I like growing together, I like celebrating about Jesus together. All of us love doing that. But sometimes we must deal with the fact that all of us still continue to serve Satan in different ways. That that sinful nature still wages war against us. He does not want us to live for you. But Lord, would you conquer that? Would you destroy that? Would you redeem us from the pit and that we've dug ourselves into? And Lord, would you prepare our hearts? Would you actually make us willing and open to the means of the church that you have provided to correct us. It ain't easy, it hurts, I don't look forward to it, but Lord, it is for my good and I will trust not just that you are doing good but that even through your people, though they may be misguided, though they may not do it perfectly, they never will, Lord, you are doing good things through it. So help us to be faithful to your commands, Father. Help us to live in the light of the gospel and to love you at all times. pray in Jesus' name. amen