[0:00] Good morning, everyone. Welcome out this morning to the house of the Lord.! It's good to see each one here this morning. Our God is good. He has given us statutes, laws to guide us, laws to guide us, laws to guide us, laws to guide us, laws to guide us, laws to guide us, laws to guide us, laws to guide us, laws to live by.
[0:21] And with His help, through His Son, with the Holy Spirit indwelling, we are able to overcome and to follow in His ways.
[0:39] This morning, I'd like us to just for a moment here look to the front cover of our bulletin. Thank you for choosing this verse.
[0:51] It's out of Galatians 6, verse 9. It says, Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So, as we're teaching through the book of 1 Corinthians, and we hit a chapter like chapter 5, dealing with immorality in the church, with the concept of excommunication.
[1:17] Maybe not such an easy topic to share on, and yet, this is in Scripture. It is for us to learn from.
[1:29] And so, a verse like this is just, it's an encouragement to not lose heart in doing good, in walking in the Lord's statutes, in doing His will.
[1:40] And in due time, we will reap if we do not grow weary. So, just a fitting verse 4 this morning. Thank you, Willie, as well, for reading the text for us here this morning.
[1:58] We'll be finishing up in chapter 5 of 1 Corinthians. And so, last Sunday, looking into verses 1 through 8, we saw that immorality can and does invade and defile the church.
[2:19] And it is the church, the congregation, who is to deal with excommunication. And we closed off in the last couple of verses of that portion in 6 through 8.
[2:37] You know, that sin is to be purged out of the church that we may be pure. And they had the example of leaven in dough. And how the leaven is to be purged out to remove the leaven so that it is a new lump.
[2:53] And so, just to finish off this chapter this morning, continuing to look at the concept of excommunication and how we deal with immorality around us.
[3:15] And so, in our text, we'll be looking at immorality in the world, immorality in the church, as well as the judgment of both.
[3:29] And so, I've titled the message this morning, Handling Immorality. Let's begin with looking at immorality in the world.
[3:53] What are we to do about that? And so, verses 9 and 10 of our text. I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.
[4:05] Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the Kvetches, or extortioners, or idolaters. Since then, you would need to go out of the world.
[4:19] And so, we begin in verse 9 with a reminder from the previous portion of the chapter to not keep company or to associate with sexually immoral people.
[4:36] That is not the only type of immorality to steer clear of. And Paul reminds us of that in the remainder of the chapter here.
[4:51] He continues to clarify which individuals he's talking about. And he goes on to distinguish between the world and the church.
[5:04] The world and brethren within the church. And so, looking first at the immoral people of this world.
[5:18] We can all agree there's plenty of immorality in the world. We don't need to look very far at all to see that. The world is a dark place.
[5:33] Evil grows by the day. I don't think the world is any better of a place than it was back in the day when Noah was building the ark.
[5:44] When the Lord looked down and he saw that man's heart was continually bent towards evil. I think nothing has changed. It has not gotten better at all. And so, Paul gives some examples.
[6:00] He says that sexual immorality, covetousness, extortion, idolatry, they're everywhere. They're common in the world.
[6:10] And so, when he talks about not keeping company with immoral people, he isn't referring to non-believers.
[6:25] The teaching is not that we should stay away from or shun non-believers. That would be unbiblical.
[6:36] It would conflict with Scripture. So, what are to be our dealings with the world? Well, as believers, we are commanded to reach out to the lost.
[6:51] To share the good news with them. To tell them of the peace we have with God through his Son, Jesus. We are to be a light in a world of darkness.
[7:08] Not to try to remove ourselves from the darkness, but to go out into it, letting our light shine forth to attract the lost to Christ.
[7:21] Just thinking of an example of that. Summer evenings, if we're up late enough and it gets dark outside, then we turn on the porch light.
[7:38] What happens? There is, yeah, there's the glow of light out on the porch, on the deck. And we can see out into the darkness for a little ways.
[7:50] But what else does it do? All of a sudden, we have a lot of company at our door, right? There's a lot of little bugs hanging out around that light.
[8:01] They're drawn to the light. And so, we too are to conduct ourselves to live in a manner that attracts the lost.
[8:12] To seek out Christ as well. And so, if we were to completely avoid the people of the world, to give them the cold shoulder, totally ignore them, having nothing to do with them, what kind of witness would we be?
[8:32] How many souls would we win for Christ? If that is our conduct? This kind of attitude is not attractive at all, is it?
[8:48] Nor does it model Christ. During the time of Christ's ministry, who did He spend time with?
[9:00] The gospel is right of multitudes that followed Him. And He spent a lot of time with these people, teaching them.
[9:12] And these multitudes, it wasn't all believers. In fact, in the gospel of John, in chapter 6, it talks of many disciples turning away from Christ and not walking with Him anymore.
[9:34] When His teachings got uncomfortable for them, when it hit too close to home, many turned away and didn't walk with Him anymore. And so, there was not a genuine faith there.
[9:48] And in the same gospel, in John, in chapter 12, verse 37, I'll just quote it here. It says, But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him.
[10:01] Also speaking of people who were following Him. They followed, they saw the signs, the miracles, the healings that Jesus did. And it says that they still did not believe in Him.
[10:17] In those same multitudes, there were Sadducees, Pharisees, and scribes. Time and again, they stood up.
[10:30] They were men with religion, but without faith. They stood up. They took exception to the fact that Jesus was spending time with people whom they called tax collectors and sinners.
[10:46] They had a problem with that. What was Jesus' response to them? In one instance, in Luke chapter 5, if we would turn there.
[11:05] In Luke 5, verses 30 to 32. Starting in verse 30 of chapter 5 in Luke.
[11:20] And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? So they're asking this of the disciples.
[11:35] They're asking this to the disciples. Jesus overhears, and He answers them. Verse 31. Jesus answered and said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
[11:50] I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Those who are well have no need of healing.
[12:03] Jesus came to seek out the lost, those who are spiritually sick. We too should recognize and seek out the lost around us.
[12:19] And help them to the one who can heal them. To show them to the physician that can heal them. Furthermore, as Paul writes in our text, It is impossible not to have any association with the world.
[12:44] Though we are not of the world, we are very much in it still. Now, as Jesus prays in John chapter 17, before He is arrested and killed, He prays for His disciples and for believers, not to take them out of the world, but that God would protect us as we go out into the world, just as He had been sent out into the world.
[13:13] And so, as believers, no longer of the world, but we are still in the world. And so, we cannot eliminate contact with unbelievers.
[13:26] They are our bosses, our co-workers, store owners, fellow shoppers, maybe the mechanic that services our vehicle, the garbageman, the mailman, the mailman, police officers, doctors, nurses, the list could go on.
[14:07] They are everywhere. Just as much as our believers scattered the world over as well. And so, as long as we are in this world, we will bump into non-believers.
[14:22] And that's fine. We can and we should have interaction with them. What we are not to do is to be unequally yoked with them.
[14:37] Most often, as we look at this concept in Scripture, and we take it in the context of marriage, which is true, we are not to be unequally yoked with non-believers.
[14:50] And yet, it could lend itself to other relationships as well. Those who are our closest friends will have the most influence in our lives.
[15:02] And so, it is important for us to choose relationships that will have the effect of drawing us into a closer relationship with our Savior, not ones that would lead us down a path of immorality.
[15:22] So, that would bring us into the church, our safe haven, a place of security knowing we're surrounded by like-minded people.
[15:41] Here, we should not have to be concerned about being faced with immoral practices because we all love God and we all follow Jesus, right?
[15:58] Let's read verse 11. Why would such a verse need to be in Scripture?
[16:22] It is because immorality is a very real danger in the church.
[16:36] There was immorality in the church in Corinth. There's immorality in other churches the world over as well. It has plagued many other churches.
[16:47] And it's because we have two natures, one of which is, as we call it, our old nature, the nature we walked in before our salvation, before we accepted Christ.
[17:09] That nature, Scripture tells us, is under the sway or under the control of the devil.
[17:24] It is to be crucified in the life of the believer, not allowed to rise up again, to take control of our lives.
[17:34] Unfortunately, this does happen, though. And left unchecked, it can draw individuals back into practicing a life of immorality.
[17:52] And it is with such people who are in the church that we are not to keep company with, where immorality has been allowed to enter their life and now characterizes their walk.
[18:08] They are okay with practicing immorality, not desiring to repent of their sin and to turn away from it. Such persons the church is not to keep company with.
[18:22] It has the meaning to put them out of the church to excommunicate. Paul writes, not even to eat with such a person.
[18:39] For what purpose are we to do this? If we look back to verse 5 that we looked at last Sunday, 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.
[19:00] So it is for the purpose of having their flesh and fleshly appetites destroyed that their spirit might be saved.
[19:11] The church isn't to do this for that individual's complete destruction. We're not to hate these individuals.
[19:25] Well, if that's the cause, if we would hate such an individual, there's more issues that need to be dealt with. What we are to do is to hate the sin.
[19:41] It is to grieve us. As he wrote in verse 2, we ought to be mourning.
[19:53] It is to grieve us to see this person consumed by immorality. We desire for this person to recognize the sin in their life, to deal with it, to repent of it, and to return back to the fellowship with God and with fellow believers.
[20:19] Immorality poses a very serious threat to the church, and it has to be dealt with. sin left unchecked, will spread.
[20:41] As I shared earlier, the example given of leaven. It's earlier in chapter 5, the leaven spreading through the dough.
[20:54] In time, the immorality of one individual that is left unchecked, that immorality, that sin will spread through the whole church.
[21:07] The whole church will be affected by it. We have a warning in chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, so I want to jump ahead a little bit here into chapter 15 and looking at verse 33.
[21:25] A warning for us. It reads, Do not be deceived.
[21:41] Evil company corrupts good habits. A very clear warning for us.
[21:55] Excuse me. And so by removing the immoral individual from the church, it sends a strong message.
[22:11] First, to that individual, that sin cannot and will not be tolerated. It is to cause that individual to consider their ways, to really examine their actions for error.
[22:37] Secondly, it sends a strong message to the world as well. the world is watching.
[22:49] It is waiting to point fingers at us for being hypocrites. when there is immorality in the church and the world sees that we take such things very seriously, that we allow no such thing to contaminate the rest of the church, it causes them to take notice too.
[23:19] to notice that we are genuine, that we really are changed. We truly seek to do what is right.
[23:33] but always though, when the church must take measures such as excommunication, the motive must be right.
[23:46] it is to be done not to purge out individuals from our midst, but to purge out sin that is within the church.
[24:06] the goal always must be to restore such individuals back into the fellowship of the church.
[24:20] This morning I want to take a brief look at the immorality that Paul mentions. He gives us a list of a few of the immoralities that you know have left unchecked if they are found out in a church and that an individual is dabbling with these and not willing to repent of it to turn away where such a thing as excommunication needs to happen.
[24:52] So he gives us a few examples of these types of immorality. The first one that he mentions, sexual immorality and so that is any sexual activity outside of marriage.
[25:11] The Bible talks about it a lot, about adultery, about fornication. The second one mentioned is being kvechus.
[25:24] kvechus. So to be kvechus is to excess, they were excessively eager to obtain and to possess and usually it is directed to money or to goods, to material possessions and so to be excessively eager for this, to not be content with what we have or with the bit that we would need to move forward in this world, but to be excessively eager, to have an unhealthy desire for more and more.
[26:08] The next one he mentions, an idolater, a worshiper of idols.
[26:22] So what are idols? Any images, statues or representations of anything made by hands.
[26:37] An idolater is one who worships as a deity that which is not God. Next we have reviler.
[26:52] What is a reviler? Or who is a reviler? A reviler is someone who speaks abusively or contemptuously to or of another person or thing.
[27:12] Someone who uses words to damage, to control, or to insult someone's character or reputation.
[27:24] drunkard. We would all have a fair understanding of what a drunkard is.
[27:36] Someone who habitually or frequently is drunk. The last one that he mentions, an extortioner.
[27:49] extortioner is one who unlawfully obtains money, goods, or favors through coercion, threats, or manipulation.
[28:07] Unlawfully obtaining these things by force. all of these are immoral, and the one who practices such things, that this is a normal part of their life, they are not willing to repent of it, are to be put out of the church.
[28:36] And we see that these examples of immorality are listed in the world, and in the church as well.
[28:50] And in fact, as Paul writes, the list of immorality, you know, a brother who is taking or is named in one of these immoral practices, that list is actually longer than the one in the world.
[29:08] Now, all of these would be in the world. What? You know, I think he's just bringing out, you know, the seriousness of this going on in the church.
[29:25] So, they are sins that do plague the world, but they also find their way into the church. the last few verses in our text this morning.
[29:43] For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges.
[29:55] Therefore, put away from among yourselves the evil person. In both cases, there will be judgment.
[30:14] But the church is only to handle one. Paul writes that it is not up to the church to pass judgment on those who are outside.
[30:33] We're not to pass judgment on the world. We are to model Christ to the world. What did Christ come to do?
[30:47] Look to John chapter 12. John 12 verses 12 and 13. 46 and 47.
[31:11] Mixed up with our text here. The verses. So, John 12, 46 and 47. We have Jesus speaking here.
[31:23] And if anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.
[31:42] Sorry, I missed verse 46, so let me reread that. Verse 46, he says, I have come as a light into the world that whoever believes in me should not abide in darkness.
[31:55] And if anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. And so he's speaking about, you know, in those days when he came to this world, and with his first coming, he came not to judge, but to save.
[32:18] And so regarding the world, we are to do the same. We are to model Christ. We are to seek out the lost, to show Christ-like love to them, to avoid them, to have nothing to do with them.
[32:43] That is already passing judgment on them. And it tells us here clearly, God will judge them that are outside.
[32:59] But for those who are inside, those within the church, judgment is put into the hands of the righteous, those who know and practice the truth, those who know and know the God's statutes.
[33:23] If someone within the church is found to be immoral, willfully living in sin, the church is to handle that situation, to put the unrepentant individual out, allowing them to remain within is a danger to the whole church.
[33:46] God has given us a standard to live by in His Word, and we are to hold one another accountable to that standard.
[34:00] failure to do that jeopardizes us as well as we then become vulnerable to that same immorality.
[34:19] Our enemy, the devil, will not be pleased until all should turn away from following the Lord. And so it is a good thing to be held accountable.
[34:33] It keeps us in line, and we hold our brothers and sisters in the Lord accountable as well, keeping each other in line. in closing, I just want to share a line that is repeated numerously in Deuteronomy, as instruction regarding laws is given out.
[35:01] I'll just quote that line. It's in there a number of times. I find it fitting. It was for Israel in those days, but it applies to us as well.
[35:14] And it says, So all Israel shall hear and fear, and not again do such wickedness as this among you.
[35:26] Just fitting words, I find. So, take care. The Lord is watching. Serve Him faithfully till He returns.
[35:40] Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we bow before you again this morning. Lord, we know that you alone are good, that we have two natures within us that strive and struggle.
[36:01] The old nature wanting to rise up again and to take control back and to lead us down a path of immorality. And yet, Lord, we thank you for your spirit within that strengthens us to take hold of the new life that we walk in, that new nature that is now ours, a nature that seeks after you and your ways and desires to live by your statutes.
[36:31] So, Lord, we just pray for the strength to carry on walking in this new life life with you, that we will choose not immorality, but choose you to live for you.
[36:51] Lord, just help us too to be a light in this dark world around us, to be a light to attract the unbeliever, to draw them to find opportunity to share the gospel with them and to lead them to seek you as well, that they too can come into this circle of light and to enjoy this newness of life, living a life pleasing to you.
[37:23] Lord, I just thank you for each one here this morning. Just again, pray for strength to live a life pleasing to you.
[37:33] May you go with us as we go from here, as we look ahead into the week before us. May you guide our steps.
[37:44] In Jesus' name, Amen.