Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Me To first Corinthians, Chapter Five. I'll be reading first Corinthians five this
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morning and preaching from this portion of
God's word. So First Corinthians Five,
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Paul begins, and I sort of
imagine him with shaking his head, his
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jaw open, his eyes unbelieving,
as he reports the what he has heard
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to the Corinthians. First Corinthians Five. He says, it is actually reported
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that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not
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even tolerated among pagans. For a
man has his father's wife and you are
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arrogant bought you not rather to mourn, let him who has done this be
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removed from among you, for,
though absent in body, I am present
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in spirit and as if present,
I have already pronounced judgment on the one
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who did such a thing. When
you are assembled in the name of the
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Lord Jesus, and my spirit is
present, with the power of our Lord
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Jesus, you are to deliver this
man to Satan for the destruction of the
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flesh, so that his spirit may
be saved in the day of the Lord.
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You're boasting. It's not good.
Do you not know that a little
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leaven Levin's the whole lump, cleanse
out the old Levin that you may be
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a new lump, as you really
are unleavened. for Christ, our Passover
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lamb has been sacrificed. Let us
therefore celebrate the festival not with the old
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leaven, the leaven of malice and
evil, but with the unleavened bread of
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sincerity and truth. I wrote to
you in my letter not to associate with
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sexually immoral people, not at all
meaning the sexually immoral of this world or
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the GREEDIS and greedy and swindlers or
idolater. Since then you would need to
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go out of the world. But
now I am writing to you not to
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associate with anyone who bears the name
of brother if he is guilty of sexual
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immorality or greed, or as an
idolater, revil or, drunkard or Swin
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Lord, not even to eat with
such a one. For what have I
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to do with judging outsiders? Is
it not those inside the church whom you
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are to judge? God judges those
outside. Purge the evil person from among
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you. May God bless his word
to us. May Be seated. Paul
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speaks to us in First Corinthians five
and very clear terms. There are few
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things here and there which you might
find a little bit of confusion around,
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things that you're not exactly sure how
to interpret, but the core of his
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message should be, I'm very clear. He says it at the beginning,
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he says it throughout and he says
it at the end, that this gross,
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big, notorious and public sin that
is among the church needs to be
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purged. The person who is doing
this thing should be removed from among the
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people, excommunicated, set outside the
boundaries of the fellowship of the Church and
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the people so that they might be
saved. In our passage today we learn
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that the church and Corinth had another
big problem. We've been thinking about one
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through the first four chapters, and
that was this arrogance over their understanding of
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the ministry, of the Gospel and
other similar things related to that. Now
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Paul comes to another one. He's
heard a report, and he says,
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it is actually report worded, that
their sexual immorality among you and of a
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kind that is not even tolerated among
the Pagans. For a man has his
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father's wife, and not only was
that a problem, that sin in itself
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with this particular man, but there
was a second problem, which is that
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the people in Corinth, the body
of the church, was failing to do
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its job in removing this person from
among its members, and they needed to.
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The Sin in particular was the sin
of incest, and when way of
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describing that or putting it would be
to say this incest is acting like you're
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married with someone in your family that
you're not and shouldn't be married to.
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In this case it was a son
acting like he was married to his stepmom,
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and that's what the phrase wife of
his father probably refers to. That
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it's not that it is his stepmother, and if the father was still alive
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it, this sin may have been
even worse, because then it would have
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been not only incest but adultery.
To these are very big sins and everyone
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knew it. To give them a
wakeup call and avoid certain wrong conclusions about
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the law and the old covenant,
Paul doesn't quote Leviticus Eighteen or Leviticus twenty,
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which does forbid incest, but to
make his point, and he's he
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instead he says this sin is a
of a kind that's not even tolerated among
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the Pagans. I don't have to
go to Moses to show you this.
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You don't need special revelation. Natural
Law, God's Natural Law, teaches this
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plainly enough. The Pagans don't even
accept this, and yet it's no big
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deal, it seems to be in
your congregation. You're sitting on your hands
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instead of dealing with the sin that
is among you, and indeed the Pagans
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did not tolerate this. In Rome, those who are found guilty of incest
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were guilty of a criminal charge.
They could be banished out of the city
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to an island, exiled. You'd
lose your citizenship if found guilty, potentially
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you could lose your property, your
social status, common fellowship with friends and
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families and in cases where it was
also adults, as may be the case
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here. One Historian, Bruce Winter, tells us that the charge of incest
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combined with adultery was so serious that
is excluded from a five year statute of
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limitations under Roman law, which means
even long after the crime had been committed,
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a person could be found guilty and
sent into exile. This is how
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the Romans, who are not necessarily
followers of God's moral law and all kinds
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of other ways, dealt with this
particular sin. What does not. What
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is the implication, or what are
some of the implications, of the church
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failing to deal with this in their
own congregation? In Matthew Twenty Eight,
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Jesus tells us go make disciples of
all nations, baptizing them in the name
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of the father, the son and
the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe
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all that I have commanded you.
This work that he commands us to is
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not the work of one individual,
but the whole body of Christ, founded
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in Christ and his apostles. But
when that body of Christ, when the
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church, when, as the church, we allow big, public, notorious
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sins that even pagans don't tolerate,
we are not walking any longer in the
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name of the father, the son
and the Holy Spirit. We are not
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observing and teaching others to observe all
that Jesus commanded. We're not we're not
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following the Great Commission. We're doing
the opposite, and this is dangerous not
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only to our not only to our
witness, but even to our existence as
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a church. Why would I say
that when, revelation to three, Jesus
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writes letters to seven churches, which
represent the whole church throughout time and there
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he makes there. He says he
that he will come against those people and
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those churches that do not repent.
To the Church in Ephesus, he writes,
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and of revelation to five, I
will come against you and remove your
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lampstand from its place unless you repent. He's essentially saying this congregation will itself
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be excommunicated out of the Church if
they do not repent, and this also
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applies to individuals. Excommunication for refusing
to repent of sin can also apply to
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congregations in a way, including refusing
to excommunicate in an individual that needs to
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be excommunicated. Jesus writes to the
Church and thire attire in revelation to eighteen
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through twenty nine. Actually, let's
let me turn to that and read that
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that you might hear the weight of
his words. Revelation to verse eighteen and
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to the Angel of the church and
Thire Tire rite, the words of the
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son of God who has eyes like
a flame of fire whose feed are like
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burnished Braunze. I know your works, your love and faith and service and
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patient endurance, and that your latter
work succeed the first, but I have
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this against you, that you tolerate
that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a
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prophetess and is teaching and seducing my
servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat
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food sacrifice to idols. I gave
her time to repent, but she refuses
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to repent of her sexual immorality.
Behold, I will throw her onto a
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sick bed, and those who commit
adultery with her I will throw into great
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tribulation unless they repent of her works
and what I will strike her children dead,
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and all the churches will know that
I am he who searches the mind
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and heart, and I will give
to each of you according to your works.
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But to the rest of you,
and Thiratirah, who do not hold
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this teaching, who have not learned
what some call the deep things of Satan,
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to you I say I do not
lay on you any other burden,
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only hold fast what you have have
until I come, the one who conquers
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and who keeps my works until the
end. To him I will give the
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authority over nations, and he will
rule them with a rod of iron,
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as when the earth and pots are
broken in pieces, even as I myself
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have received authority from my father,
and I will give him the morning star,
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he who has in ear. Let
him hear what the spirit says to
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the churches, to hear the problem. The church had a person who is
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exercising and doing things in it was
could be considered gross sexual immorality. The
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Lord was calling her to repent,
callowing those who are following her to repent,
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and they were not. They were
refusing to repent and because of that
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and because of the Church's unwillingness to
repent, danger was at hand. Tribulation
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was coming and more would come soon. It's important, in other words,
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that when we read a passage like
First Corinthians five, then we don't simply
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hear this crazy and gross sin and
just passed by it like a video clip,
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some crazy thing on the internet and
we shake our heads and scroll on
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to the next thing that has no
bearing on our lives. No, this
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does have bearing on our lives.
It warns us a way, of course,
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from gross sins and from sin of
every kind and any kind, but
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it also tells us that these things
apply to us, that we must take
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the word of the Lord seriously because, unless I missed something, sin is
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still a part of our lives as
individuals and within the body of the Church
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and we need to understand the nature
of that sin and we under need to
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understand the nature of our Lord and
Savior that we might look to him for
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salvation from that sin. And so, for the remainder of my sermon I'd
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like to point out just a few
things that we might notice from this passage
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and be reminded of that we might
follow the word of the Lord here in
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First Corinthians Five. The first is
we think about what the nature of sin
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is, is to notice that it
is like leavin. That's how the Lord
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describes it to us here through his
apostle. He says in verse six,
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do you not know that a little
Levin Levin's the whole long and he's speaking
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about bread right. You add a
little bit of Leavin to the bread and
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the whole thing is affected. It
is systemic. It moves throughout the whole
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body. Sin Is not just in
this one tiny little place and can be
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cordoned off and sanctioned off from every
other little place. It has effects on
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the whole thing. This happens,
of course, individually, doesn't it?
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We wet one little thing into our
lives and it we allow it to be
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there and we sort of say it's
not a big deal, until, of
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course it is a big deal.
Perhaps you've had a dream or perhaps you've
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actually lived out this dream where you
lie and then you lie to cover up
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your lie, and then you lie
to cover up your lie and then it
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just builds and builds and builds until
you are in this big tangled mess of
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a thing. Sin Doesn't just it's
not just a thing in our minds or
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a thing in our hearts. It's
all connected. It it, it intertwines
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with ourselves, it's it holds US
captive. Sin Spreads, it affects us
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in our lives. It affects us
not only in different parts of our of
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ourselves, but in our relationships.
In our lives too, we allow sin
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to sort of have this one piece
over here and then it starts showing up
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over here. Oh well, I
just do that at work. I would
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never do that at home. Well, I just do that at home,
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I would never do that at church, and so on and so forth.
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It spreads, it moves, it
in facts and a lot of times we
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think of sin is something that is
a lot less than this. We think
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of is something that, because it's
like manageable, like a like a little
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plant that we forget about and it's
just sort of over there and it'll be
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fine. Sin Isn't like that,
scriptures say. Sin Isn't like that,
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and it's not only true within our
lives or in the within like ourselves,
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or our relationships or areas of our
lives, but it's even true in our
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relationships as a church. And that's
in particular what Paul has in mind here.
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He speaks of this person, I'm
as, being eleven as their sin.
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He says, you need to cleanse
it out. This will affect you,
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and this is not right. When
we see sin, wherever we see
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sin, we ought not to treat
it lightly, we not ought to let
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it go. Sure there are it
doesn't mean that we treat all sins exactly
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the same way. And things like
church discipline can be abused. There are
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such things as overreacting, but thinking
of sin as a minor thing, as
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an unimportant thing, as a thing
that ought to be ignored or, worse,
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coddled and protected, should not be
a part of our thinking, should
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not be a part of our acting. What should our response be, especially
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when there is a big problem within
the body, within the church. We've
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seen this from time to time in
local congregations and in denominations as a whole,
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where things are found out, discovered
sometimes made open by the world,
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exposed in the news, shown to
everybody to look at, to mock and
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to see. What should our response
be to those kinds of things when we
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have when our sins have been discovered, or when we discover them ourselves?
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But Paul says, in light of
this particular congregation, that their response should
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be public, it should be open, it should not be arrogant or boasted,
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boastful or hidden, but it should
be mourning and in repentance. He
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says in verse three that though I'm
not present at though I am absent in
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body, I am present in the
spirit and as if present, I've already
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pronounced judgment on the one who did
such a thing. And when you are
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assembled in the name of the Lord
Jesus, and my spirit is present,
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with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to
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Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that a spirit may be saved
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in the day of the Lord.
They aren't to say, Oh, that
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was bad, let's hide it.
They are too openly, publicly as they
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assemble, acknowledge it and, collectively, in agreement with the discipline that is
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already been with the judgment that has
already been rendered, set this person outside
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the bounds of the church. That
would be a hard thing to be a
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right, and he says that.
He doesn't say you should be arrogant about
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in the also doesn't say you should
be proud about it or happy about he
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says you should mourn about this excommunication
and these hard things of discipline should be
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accompanied by mourning and sadness, regret
and repentance. And, as the one
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is set out, this is a
a public response and it is a Christian
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response, because it's not just a
sort of pointing of fingers. It's a
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looking to Christ and asking for the
Lord's Mercy. It's seeing the sin that
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is present in US and in our
body and calling out to him for our
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salvation. Because who is our Passover
lamb, who is the one that Paul
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says, saves us from the day
of Wrath, the judgments of the Lord,
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on the day of the Lord?
Who is the one who allows us
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to not be judged for our sins
but instead be forgiven in our repentance.
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It's Christ church discipline is not just
about pointing fingers angrily at other people.
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It's about looking to the Lord who
has already cleansed us. Know this what
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he says? He says, yes, you need to separate this old loven
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you need to get it out that. You may be a new lump,
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but this is but, he says, as you really are unleavened. They
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already belong to Christ, they have
already been made holy. This is walking.
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That is not in accord with that, and that's why they need to
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act. And when they act,
they need to act not as those who
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are trying to prove themselves as better
than each other or prove themselves as better
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than the world, but is those
who need the salvation of Jesus. And
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that is what this person is called
to, this particular cinner within the congregation.
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They're not called just to be sorry, they're not called just to mourn
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their sins. They're called to look
to Christ and to repent, like the
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woman in revelation too, that we
read of, and those who were following
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after her. The Lord says,
I am calling her, I'm calling them,
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I'm calling to the Church to repentance. This is a great word of
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grace. We have a connection with
the Old Testament and that the Lord cares
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about holiness. But we have a
difference with the old covenant here. Under
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the old covenant, those who committed
incense were to be put to death,
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and with no pity. That's what
the Lord says. Under the new covenant
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it's different. Under the new covenant
he calls them, yes, to cast
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them out of the church, but
not to put them to death, to
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cast them out so that they might
see that they are being separated from Christ,
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separated from his people, separated from
those blessings in the refusal to repent,
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with the hope that he would return
and he would come to the Lord
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in faith. And, as we
read in Second Corinthians, that's what happened.
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And, beloved, this is what
happens when the Lord disciplines us and
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when he does it in love.
Sometimes it's so hard, it's so embarrassing,
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it's so scary, it's so difficult, but he does it because he
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loves us, because he does desire
us to repent and to turn to him,
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because he does desire us to walk
in the works that he is prepared
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for us. He is our savior. It is through him and through his
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blood that we have salvation. So
yes, our response should be to exclude
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this person from Christian Fellowship, but
we do so with the hope and the
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prayer that they would turn again to
Christ. Should we be arrogant in these
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things? As we feel the sting
of guilt and shame for our own sins,
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as we feel how easily we could
fall into these things ourselves, as
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we look at our lives and see
the ways in which we have fallen into
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these things, do we have any
right to stand in judgment, in the
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kind of judgment that is filled with
pride and arrogance, and say, you
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know, I've really got my life
together, what's your problem? That's not
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church discipline. Church discipline is a
humbly looking to Christ as the one who,
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the only one who can save us
from our sins, the only one
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who can take us out of gross
immorality of this and as he lists other
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kinds, grieves swindling, idolatry and
others, Jesus is the only one who
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can take us out of those things
and save us, and he does it
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by his blood. Yes, the
Rod of the Lord is strong, but
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he shed his own blood so that
we might have life. And so as
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we consider a passage like this,
as we've considered the nature of sins,
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we consider the nature of the church, the nature of the Apostolic Ministry,
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is the as we consider the work
of Christ among his people, and all
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of these things, we need to
see them all coming from the same place,
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which is Jesus. The apostles of
thor already is not an authority that
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he has because of his own righteousness, it's an authority that he has because
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Christ has called him to speak the
word of Christ. The identification of sin
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as sin, the recognition of sin, as it says is sin, comes
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from knowing the Lord and His Holiness, knowing that Jesus shed his own blood
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to make us holy and, as
we read, an effusions five to cleanse
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us from our sin. The necessary, the necessity for our holiness is also
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grounded in Christ, who died so
that we might be forgiven. The connection
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between the Leven and the oven,
unloven bread in the Passover, Paul says,
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is to be played out in our
lives, because Christ was their Passover
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lamb. They were to get out
the Israelites, as they were fleeing Egypt
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or to get the leven out of
their house. They were to celebrate in
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the future the feast of the unloved
bread. That was their response to this
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work of God, this miraculous saving
work of God, and our lives should
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be the same. We get the
leven out, not so that we can
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achieve holiness, but because God has
given it to us. We get the
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leven out of our lives. We
fight the flesh. We repent of our
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sins. We come each Sunday and
we confess our sins publicly, even sexual
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sins. Why? Because of what
Christ has done for us. We think
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about the forgiveness of our sins in
light of Christ. We drop our arrogance
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and we mourn our sins because of
Christ. We come to him and all
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that he has done with total dependence, total humility and the strength to do
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what are sometimes very hard things.
Sometimes it's repenting, sometimes it's forgiving beloved
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life in the world, and the
fight against the flesh is difficult. The
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Lord never said it would be easy, he said it would be hard,
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but he promises to us the strength
to fight, the strength to love,
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the strength to forgive, the strength
to repent. And so the Lord calls
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you today to trust him, to
trust him for everything you need for the
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fight against sin in yourself and in
our church. And May the Lord Be
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Gracious and merciful to us, as
he has promised to be. Let's go
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to him now in prayer and ask
that he would fulfill his word among us.
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