We strategically planned for the heat to break this morning so you would stay awake through
my extra long sermon.
Looking at 1 Corinthians 5 this morning.
In the Pew Bible, that's page 954.
And friends, as you're turning there, I wonder if you've ever considered the question, let
me ask, what is the measure of your love?
How do you know when someone really loves you or when you really love someone else?
I think one common way we might answer that today is that when you love someone, you allow
or you affirm them in whatever path they choose.
You do, in other words, nothing to stand in the way of what they feel is best for their
happiness.
I recently re-watched the original three Star Wars movies.
Not the prequels because everyone knows they're not worth watching again.
Sorry, you can disagree with me after the service.
But it struck me that the climax of episode four, as it is now, is when Luke is sort of
the last ship left in the attack on the Death Star, right?
And in that critical moment when he's got one bomb left and one chance to stop the evil empire,
what happens?
Obi-Wan speaks to him through the force and says,
Luke, trust your feelings.
And so Luke pushes away the radar, trusts his feelings, drops the bomb right where it counts,
the Death Star explodes, and the people rejoice.
And then he and Han Solo and Chewbacca get cool medals down on the planet in a neat little
ceremony.
Now, not to be overly analytical, but what's the message in that critical moment when freedom
and happiness for the galaxy hang in the balance?
Trust your feelings.
Do what you feel is right.
And isn't it true that what we so often see is the real measure of love today is letting
people free to do just that, not to stand in the way of the pursuit of what they feel
they need to do for their happiness.
I think Sting, that great songwriter and theologian, summed it up pretty nicely.
In that old police song, right?
When you love somebody, he said, you set them free.
But friends, is that really the best measure of love?
Is that the way to know if someone really loves you and that you love them?
That you set them free, that you let them alone, that you leave them be?
Our text this morning is going to show us that the real measure of our love for one another
actually couldn't be more different.
And in a deeply countercultural way, love is really measured not by our willingness to
let someone free to follow their own feelings, but actually by our willingness to tell them
when they've wandered down the wrong paths.
In other words, the measure of love is not in how readily we permit one another's freely
chosen path or desires, but in how readily we pursue and desire one another's holiness.
As I've said, our text this morning is 1 Corinthians chapter 5, page 954.
And let me read this for us.
Paul says,
It's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is
not tolerated even among the 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 the 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?
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 or idolaters.
Since then, you would need to go out of the world.
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 whom you are to judge?
God judges those on the outside.
Purge the evil person from among you.
We should pray.
Amen.
God, we do thank you for your mercy and for your kindness that you would give us your word
and preserve it for many, many ages.
And in it, give us instruction and life-giving good news about Jesus and what it means to follow
him together.
So, Lord, we pray for your Holy Spirit to work among us this morning as we consider this text.
And we trust that it's for our good, God.
In Jesus' name, amen.
So, this section of 1 Corinthians that we're now in, chapters 5, 6, and 7,
that we'll be looking at, actually, between now and Easter, is all about holiness.
And this chapter, chapter 5, is about how the church pursues holiness
through what is often called church discipline.
And in particular, it deals with one specific expression of church discipline called,
sometimes, excommunication.
Now, there are probably few things in the life of the church that are more misunderstood
than church discipline.
I mean, let's be honest.
I say that word, and immediately you're probably already thinking of bearded Amish communities
shunning their wayward neighbors.
Or if you're remembering something that you learned in Western Civ as a freshman,
something about medieval popes forcing barefoot kings to confess on the snowy rocks of Kenosa.
None of you remember that, do you?
I'm a history nerd.
You can talk about it afterwards.
If you're new to Christianity, I think, too, church discipline probably sounds like something
that is judgmental at worst and hypocritical at best.
And in reality, most churchgoers today have either never been in a church that practices
church discipline at all, or if they have, it's often been done really, really poorly.
So our text this morning is actually very helpful.
It's going to clarify some misconceptions.
It's going to relieve us of some caricatures.
And it's really going to help us recover an element of our spiritual life together that
is missing in so many churches today.
So we're going to approach this text in a really straightforward way by just asking three
basic questions.
First, what is church discipline?
Second, how is it done?
And third, why should we do it?
What is it?
How do we do it?
Why do we do it?
But first, what does this text tell us about what is church discipline?
In verse one, look there again, we learn of a church member in Corinth who is engaged in
public, ongoing, unrepentant sin.
Now, it's hard to reconstruct all the details of this particular case.
It seems to involve some sort of blatant sexual immorality with this man's mother or more
likely his stepmother, according to the end of verse one.
But we don't need to reconstruct all the historical details to get the point.
What's the point?
Here is a man who is identifying as a Christian, professing to believe in Jesus and have him
as Savior and as Lord.
He's a visible member of the church, but his life is marked, characterized by open, ongoing,
unrepentant disobedience to Jesus.
In other words, his lip and his life, as it were, are completely at odds.
He claims to be a follower of Jesus.
His actions say the opposite.
And so, in verse two, Paul says, remove him from among you.
That is, remove him from formal membership in your body.
Now, keep in mind, the act of church membership, in the act of membership, the local church
is doing what?
The local church is saying, yes, with charity, and as best as we can determine, this person
has genuine saving faith in Jesus Christ.
By God's grace, through faith, this woman, this man, they are a member of God's kingdom
and God's family.
That's what church membership, in large part, is saying.
It's the church's affirmation of someone's profession of faith for all to see.
But what Paul is telling the Corinthians to do here, in light of the persistent, public,
unrepentant sin in this man's life, is in essence to stop saying that.
This man's life gives us no confidence as the church to be able to make that affirmation
any longer.
We can no longer affirm this person's profession of faith.
Therefore, Paul says, remove him from membership.
Now, as a brief aside, I think this means right off the bat that far from church discipline
being a hypocritical thing to do, church discipline is actually the way that church strives to not
be hypocritical.
Right?
We want our profession, what we say, and our actions to align.
And church discipline helps us corporately to be able to do that.
Now, the actual removal of someone from membership is sometimes called excommunication.
That's one of those scary words, right?
But it's quite simple, actually.
It just means being removed out of the communion.
Ex out of the communion.
Communication.
But, you know, when we talk about church discipline more broadly, we're not talking about just
that particular act.
We're talking about a process.
A process of meeting with that person, asking, listening, explaining, exhorting, warning, praying.
And it's a process that may or may not lead to communication.
That is, it may or may not lead to the person being formally removed from membership, depending
on how the person responds.
And we're going to get to that process in a minute when we discuss the how of all this.
But before we do that, let me make a couple further observations here about the what of
church discipline.
First, notice in verse 11, if you see down there, that church discipline isn't just for
sexual immorality.
In that verse, Paul lists all sorts of things that if they were ongoing and unrepentant in
a professing Christian's life would be grounds for a process of correction in church discipline.
You know, sometimes we get this strange notion that the Bible has a weird taboo against sex.
And that's clearly not true.
At the end of chapter 6, Paul is going to tell the Corinthians to glorify God with their bodies.
And in chapter 7, he's going to tell husbands and wives to make sure that they're having sex on a
regular basis.
So there's nothing prudish or repressive about biblical Christianity, and sexual sins aren't
somehow worse than others.
But second, notice that church discipline is a means of dealing with unrepentant sin in a
believer's life.
This is really important to see.
No one is going to be removed from membership, in a healthy church anyway, merely because they sin.
Every Christian, friends, is a sinner.
Every Christian will sin throughout their Christian life.
There is no doubt and question about that.
But genuine Christians, you see, are marked by hearts of repentance towards their sin.
That is, they admit that it's wrong and displeasing to God.
They don't want to do it anymore, and they seek God's help for change.
This means, for example, that a Christian with a history of addiction can relapse again and again and again.
But if their heart is a heart of repentance, of softness before the Lord, they admit that it's wrong.
They don't want to do it.
They're seeking the Lord's help in the battle against temptation.
Friends, they're not going to undergo church discipline.
They're certainly not going to be removed from membership.
That's the Christian life.
Fighting and wrestling against sin with gentle hearts before the Lord and one another.
Hearts of repentance.
But on the other hand, the Christian, for example, who say,
cheats on their taxes every single year, sees nothing wrong with it, shows no desire to change.
Well, if for some reason that became public, it very well might be in a process of church discipline.
What's the difference?
Well, the difference is, although one sin culturally seems kind of messier and uglier and more wrong,
and the other seems sort of like white collar and okay, the difference is the heart of repentance.
And this is an important point.
Jesus said, I've come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Yeah?
The church, friends, is meant to be a hospital for sinners who know they need a Savior.
And, friends, none are turned away, no matter how great their sickness.
The church isn't a place for perfect people, but for broken people.
But if we continue to refuse Jesus' diagnosis of our spiritual condition, if we persist in unrepentant sin,
it puts us in a very dangerous position, just like a patient who refuses sound medical advice,
even after a second and third opinion.
And it's that dangerous position that church discipline is meant to address.
And so I hope you're beginning to see that church discipline isn't a hypocritical act,
and it's actually not a judgmental act.
Not the way we often think of something being judgmental.
Rather, it's an act of correction for the person's good.
And that leads to a quick third observation under this first point here.
It's good to realize that church discipline isn't sort of coming out of nowhere.
It's not as if Paul just sort of blew a gasket and said,
kick this guy out of the church.
No.
Reading the entirety of the Bible, even the passage that James just read for us,
we see that God is holy.
And that we in the church belong to Him through Christ.
And so for our good and for God's glory, we're meant to reflect Him.
God was telling the Israelites in Leviticus to be holy as He is holy,
and He's calling the church to be the same.
And church discipline is a part of the process whereby we as the church pursue
that calling and that holiness together out of love for God
and out of a desire to resemble Him together.
Okay, so that's what church discipline is.
Secondly, let's ask how church discipline is supposed to work.
We're going to focus on verses 3 and 5 in our text,
but first, I want us actually to turn to Matthew chapter 18.
It's page 823 in the Pew Bible.
Flip over to Matthew chapter 18 with me.
Look down at verse 15 of Matthew chapter 18.
And here we see that Jesus Himself gives us a process,
a series of wise and loving steps to take when a member of the church,
a brother or sister, is engaged in unrepentant sin.
So Matthew chapter 18, verse 15.
Here's the first step of that process.
If your brother or sister sins against you,
go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.
If he listens to you, you've gained your brother.
Notice that this first step is private.
You do it one-on-one.
You're not there to shame and blame,
but you're there to gain a brother or a sister.
And if the person repents, if they see,
if they accept the correction,
if they see what you're saying, that's it.
It's done.
Jesus says you've gained your brother and sister
and the church discipline process is over.
Step two, verse 16.
But if he does not listen,
take one or two others along with you
that every charge may be established
by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
Jesus says if the person doesn't repent
after the one-on-one meeting
or more likely after a few one-on-one meetings,
then take some trustworthy people with you, Jesus says.
Most likely this will be an elder
or some other trusted church leader
or someone who's spiritually mature
and maybe knows the person well.
And notice how the circle's starting to get a little wider,
but again, even here, it's still very private, right?
And again, if the person repents at this stage,
the process is over.
You've gained your brother or sister.
It's done.
Restoration.
Step three, verse 17.
If he refuses to listen to them,
tell it to the church.
At this point, after repeated meetings with the person,
the situation is then explained
to the members of the church family,
those who have committed their life together
to love and serve one another.
Notice how the circle of prayer and exhortation
and warning gets a little bigger
and a little more serious each time.
But again, at this point even,
if the person repents,
if they turn from their sin,
it's over.
There's no shunning,
there's no shame,
there's forgiveness,
and there's restoration.
But if the person continues in unrepentance,
though the whole church has prayed and warned,
then Jesus says there's one more step.
Look at the rest of verse 17.
And if he refuses to listen even to the church,
let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
That is, no longer consider him
as a brother or sister in the family of the church.
Remove him or her from membership.
In 1 Corinthians 5,
if you want to turn back there,
verses 3 through 5,
Paul goes into a little more detail
about how that final step of removal
from membership should happen
in the Corinthian church.
Now, as you scan those verses again,
you can see that there are some
pretty tricky bits here.
First, I mean, perhaps first,
it seems like,
after we've just seen this great process
that Jesus lays out,
it seems like Paul doesn't follow
the ordinary process that Jesus outlines
in chapter 18 of Matthew.
Does that mean that Paul is disregarding
the teaching of Jesus?
Well, no.
I think it's more likely
that Paul sees the situation in Corinth
as so extreme,
so public,
and so clear.
The man is so clearly unrepentant
and recalcitrant.
The church itself is so hardened
and even proud of what's happening
that moving directly to the final stage
of the process,
Paul sees as necessary and warranted.
Now, today, there might be times
when a case is so clear
that a church moves quickly
through the process Jesus outlines.
But friends, that would be very, very rare
as it was here in 1 Corinthians 5.
Next, as we look at this paragraph,
what does Paul mean that he's present
in spirit or my spirit is present?
I don't think Paul means anything spooky
or weird by that.
It's not as if, you know,
he's going to be a specter
haunting their next congregational meeting
in the Corinthian fellowship hall
or that he's going to show up
like Obi-Wan speaking to Luke
through the force.
Corinth, trust your feelings.
I think Paul is saying,
I mean, quite straightforward,
I think he's saying that
his heart and his mind
is so engaged in what's going on here
that he cares so much for this church
and he cares so much
for Christ's honor among them.
It's as if he's there,
even if he can't actually be there.
He's behind them.
He's for them.
He's deeply engaged.
I mean, we sometimes
even speak this way, don't we?
I'll be there in spirit
when we can't actually make it, right?
What do we mean by that?
We mean that our hearts
and our thoughts
are going to be deeply engaged with it
even if we aren't actually there.
Okay, the last tricky bit
in this paragraph
is verse five.
What does it mean
to deliver this man to Satan?
Golly.
Well, friends, in the Bible,
Satan is sometimes described
as the ruler of this world
in the sense that
in this fallen world,
that is the sphere
where the enemy exercises
his influence and his power.
So by saying,
deliver this man to Satan,
Paul's using vivid language
to describe the act
of removing the man
from membership
out of the visible church,
out of the realm of Christ,
and thus handing him over
to the world,
to the realm of Satan.
Deeply vivid,
stark language Paul's using
for this serious act.
Now, we're going to get
to the rest of verse five
in a minute
when we talk about
the why of church discipline.
For now,
notice that in this paragraph,
three through five,
Paul assumes,
just like Jesus taught
in Matthew 18,
that removing someone
from membership
is something
that the whole church
will do.
When you are assembled,
Paul says,
then you are to do this.
In other words,
he's calling the whole church
to be responsible
for its members.
All of us, friends,
who have committed
to the local body
are spiritually accountable
to one another
in the church.
It's not just
the pastors and elders
who are tasked
with spiritual care
in the family of Christ,
even though we are called
to take the lead
in doing that.
All of us have a part
to play.
In other words,
when we become members
of a local church,
we're taking on a calling.
We're taking on
a responsibility.
It's not like
just being members
of the Sierra Club
where you sort of
get a nice card
in the mail
and you get a magazine
every once in a while.
No!
Church membership
is a mission.
It's a calling.
It's a role
to do our part
to help our brothers
and sisters
grow in the Lord
using whatever gifts
God has given us.
To give and receive
gifts of love
and service
as we say here
at Trinity
when someone becomes
a member.
Notice too, friends,
that it's something
that the whole church
does in the name
of the Lord Jesus
with the power
of the Lord Jesus,
Paul says.
And this is what
we saw in Matthew 18.
In other words,
Paul isn't just
making this up
out of his head.
It was the Lord's idea
from the start.
And that means
that Jesus will be present
to give us
the strength
and the courage
and the wisdom
for the task
no matter how difficult
it becomes.
God's idea
is the need
to be present
Now let me just say
the question
of how we interact
with someone
who's been removed
from membership
after a process
of church discipline
is a challenging one.
As verse 5 implies
and as Jesus made it clear
in Matthew 18,
the goal of church discipline
is the restoration
and repentance
and restoration
of the offending brother
or sister, right?
So on one level,
we'll want to have
some contact with them
and we'll want them
even to show up
for public worship
on Sundays
hoping that God's word
will work a change
in them.
And obviously
if they're part
of our natural family,
if it's a husband
or wife,
if it's a son
or a daughter,
we'll obviously
remain faithful
to them
in those roles.
But our overarching aim
as members
of the body of Christ
is to see them
come back to a place
where they confess
and forsake their sin
and seek forgiveness.
So our relationship
with a former church member
will, without a doubt,
have a different feel.
Paul says in verse 11
pretty starkly,
don't even eat
with such a one.
Now eating in the first century
meant a lot more
than just getting calories
into your system, right?
It was a sign of solidarity
and acceptance.
It was a sign
of wholehearted embrace.
If someone professes
to be a Christian
but utterly disregards
the teaching
and the lordship of Jesus,
friends,
we can't give them
that wholehearted embrace.
Our interactions
will be loving
and gentle, yes,
but there will be
a sobriety
and seriousness
to those interactions
as well.
And undergirding everything
will be a longing
that the person
experience a change
of heart
and come to know
real repentance.
I've actually had
one experience
of this personally.
A number of friends,
a number of years ago,
a friend of mine
who is not a member
of this church
but a member
of another church
actually came under
church discipline
and was eventually
removed from membership.
There was a secret sin
in his life
that he had nursed
for many years
that very few people
even knew about
and when it eventually
came to light,
when it finally
sort of came out
in the open,
he refused to see
that it was wrong,
persisted in it
and there was
zero repentance.
And of course,
it was heartbreaking.
He was a very close friend,
someone that Beth and I knew
even before we moved
to New Haven.
And I looked up to him
in many ways actually.
He was a little older
than I was.
And I remember
interacting with him
a few times
after everything
had sort of gone down
and after he had been
removed from membership
in his church.
And friends,
I confess,
it was hard.
At first,
you know,
we sort of had
the usual friendly,
oh, hey,
how's it going?
How's work?
But given all
that had happened,
our conversation
couldn't just go on
as usual.
I'd like to say
we had sort of deep,
meaningful conversation
about where he was
at spiritually,
but you know,
we didn't.
It was clear
from our conversation
that his heart
hadn't changed
and maybe I just
chickened out,
didn't bring it up.
Or maybe we both
knew where the others
stood
and had already
laid it out honestly
on the table
in previous conversations,
so maybe there wasn't
much left to say.
But either way,
I told him that I was
praying for him
and that I cared
deeply about him,
but I knew that things
couldn't go back
to being the same.
because me pretending
like everything
was okay,
friends,
it would have done
him no good
because everything
wasn't okay.
He was headed
headlong
away from Christ,
still professing
to be a believer,
but rejecting
everything.
How about who Jesus
was and what Jesus
taught?
we couldn't just
go back to normal
because way too much
was at stake
for him.
And friends,
the reality is that
each discipline situation
is different.
If we as a congregation
need to,
at some point
in the future,
remove someone
from membership
because of a discipline issue,
we'll need to
carefully consider
how to have a fruitful
ongoing relationship
with that person.
And you can look to us
as the elders
to give prayerful help
on how to do it well.
And it's not as if
the elders are getting ready
to do church discipline.
We're preaching
1 Corinthians 5
because it was sort of
the next chapter
in the series.
But friends,
it's going to be tricky
if it comes up.
But prayerfully,
we'll do it together.
So what do we see then
about the how
of church discipline here?
First,
we see that it's something
that we do
patiently and deliberately.
It's not brash.
It's not judgmental.
There's a process
that Jesus gives us
and we can trust that process.
Second,
it's something
that we do corporately.
It's a process
we're all responsible for
in one way,
shape, or form.
And finally,
it's something
that we do dependently.
It's a process
that we need Jesus'
own wisdom and strength for
and He promises
that He'll give it to us.
If you look back
in Matthew 18,
there's a really famous verse
at the end of that
church discipline paragraph
where two or three
are gathered in my name.
There I am in the midst.
And Jesus isn't talking
about an evening service
when it snows
and no one shows up.
What's the context?
He's talking about
correction
in the life of the body.
And He says,
in those hard moments,
beloved,
I'll be with you.
I'm going to be
in the midst of you,
leading you
and guiding you.
So the last question
I want to ask
about church discipline
in this text
is not just what or how,
but why.
Why in the world
should we do this?
I mean, come on.
Can't we just let people
figure this stuff out
on their own?
Are we really supposed
to meddle in each other's lives
to this degree?
I mean, maybe for you
all this still sounds
a bit harsh.
You know, maybe you're
visiting church this morning
and you think,
what in the world
did I get into?
This is craziness.
But briefly,
I want us to see
that church discipline,
this process of correction
and approaching one another
in this way
is driven by love.
This process is driven
by a three-fold love
that compels us to do this.
And we actually see them
right here in our text.
The first is this.
We do church discipline
out of a love,
one,
for the person
being disciplined.
This is that tricky bit
at the end of verse five.
What's Paul actually
saying there?
He's saying there
that the aim
in church discipline,
as we've said,
is restoration.
We want this person
to be rescued
from their sinful nature,
from the flesh,
so that they might stand
before the Lord
one day in confidence.
When it really counts,
we want them to be there.
And even the act
of excommunication,
formally removing someone
from membership,
is meant to function
like a giant megaphone
calling them to return.
It's like a huge warning sign
saying that the bridge
is out ahead
and that road
only leads to disaster.
The hope is always
that the person
will one day
come back into membership.
Why do we want that?
We want that
not because we want
the other person
to be miserable,
but actually because
we long
for that person's
lasting joy.
Think with me
for a second.
underneath
our common idea
that to really love
someone,
you need to set them free
and not get in the way
of what they feel is right.
Underneath that
is the belief
that following
one's feelings
is the key
to lasting happiness.
And so we think
real love,
wanting the other
to be genuinely happy,
which is not a bad
definition of love.
We think that real love
must be found
in letting them free
to pursue their feelings.
If I love you
and want you to be happy,
I can't stand
in the way
of what you feel.
But friends,
is that belief
actually justified?
That the pursuit
of feeling
necessarily leads
to lasting happiness?
Do we actually
have good reason
to believe that?
And don't we all
have a sense
that our feelings
and our desires
aren't always trustworthy?
Yesterday,
I took
Jack and Claire,
my four-year-old
and three-year-old,
to the Pez factory
store in Orange.
Have you been there?
First time we've been there,
it was actually quite fun.
I didn't realize
they charge you money
to go.
So I said,
is there anything
we can see here for free?
She's like,
you can go to the store.
I was like,
okay, fair enough.
So we went to the store,
the Pez store,
and predictably,
my daughter picked out
the Elsa Pez head,
and my son picked out
the Stormtrooper Pez head,
and we got Nemo for Owen.
But you know,
my daughter,
left to her own devices,
would have eaten
those chalky little pellets
of Pez candy
all afternoon,
all night,
all morning,
had I let her follow
her feelings and desires.
She was begging me
to let her eat
Owen's Pez
that we got for him.
Of course,
he's not going to eat them.
When we first got home,
she said,
Daddy,
let's save it for Owen.
By the end of the afternoon,
it was,
he's not going to eat it,
Daddy.
Give it to me.
And of course,
had we let her
go down that path
as a result,
she would have gotten
terribly sick.
Our whole family
would have been miserable.
And of course,
that's a very simple example,
isn't it?
But can't we extend it
to nearly all areas
of our life?
So if the free expression
of our feelings and desires
isn't the key
to lasting happiness,
friends,
what is?
There's a popular Christian book
about marriage
that once said,
God cares more
about your holiness
than your happiness.
But you know,
honestly,
friends,
if you leave it there,
that's actually not true.
Or at least,
it's not a helpful way
of putting it.
The truth is,
brothers and sisters,
that God cares deeply
about our happiness.
And because of that,
He is dead set
on making us holy.
After all,
what could bring
more happiness
to our finite
created hearts
than to share
the nature
of God Himself?
Can we read
even the first chapter
of the Bible
and not be swept up
with the thrills
of joy
ripping across the page
as God creates
everything good
and then in the end
declares it very good
and it's teeming
with life
and energy
and joy
just waiting
to be unfolded?
Friends,
God is a God
of unbounded,
overflowing
felicity,
happiness.
As the great
church father Augustine
so often put it,
that's where
our happiness lies,
in Him.
So God cares
about our holiness
because He's eternally
committed
to our happiness.
He wants us
to share
His nature
so we can
share His joy
and that,
friends,
is the heart
under church discipline.
We see a professing
brother or sister
straying from
the path of holiness
and thus straying
from the path
of lasting joy
and we want to do
anything,
even the hard work
of church discipline
if necessary
to bring them back.
So you see,
all of this
is done
on the one hand
for love
of the person
himself or herself.
And let me ask
before we go
to the second love.
Friend,
do you have someone
in your life
who loves you
enough to do this?
Are you a part
of a community
who loves you
enough
to do this?
friends,
if you come
to know
Jesus Christ,
if you come
to become
a part
of His family,
you're not
going to see it
perfectly,
but you're going
to experience
a kind of deeper
and more committed
love than perhaps
anything you've
experienced.
Christ.
The second reason
we do church
discipline,
the second why,
is that it's done
out of a love
for the church.
In verses 6-8,
Paul begins,
your boasting's
not good,
Corinth.
Do you not know
that a little leaven
leavens the whole lump?
In other words,
if you let patterns
of unrepentant sin
go unchecked
in the church,
it is eventually
going to affect
everyone.
Whether implicitly
sort of giving
everyone permission
to sort of sin
and stray from Christ
in whatever ways
they see fit,
or causing people
to be sinned against
and hurt
as sinful patterns
and tendencies
go unchecked.
But then Paul goes
even deeper
in this paragraph.
Since Christ
has been sacrificed,
he says,
we ought to cleanse
out our old way
of life.
Note the critical
order in verse 7
that Paul lays out
there.
Jesus' sacrifice
for us by grace
means that we
really are unleavened.
He's covered
all of our sins
and therefore
we ought to pursue
increasing holiness.
We ought to be
who we are.
This grace
leads us to obedience.
It's not the other
way around.
Paul isn't saying
you've got to clean
up your act first
so that Jesus
will then decide
to maybe cover you
with his death.
That's not the gospel,
friends.
The gospel is
Jesus has died
in your place
like the Passover
lamb in Exodus
and now that you
are free
from sin's penalty
and from sin's curse
and your hearts
have been changed,
come follow him
as Lord.
Back in Exodus 12
that Paul's sort of
referencing here,
what was the leaven,
no leaven thing
all about
at the Passover?
Paul reads it here
on one level
as a sign
of the holiness
of the community
that they're being
made new
in that moment.
The Exodus account
in chapter 12
verse 39
suggests that
they ate unleavened bread
as a sign
of how quickly
they were thrust
out of Egypt.
Unit 16
...
you
so
Thank you.