1 Corinthians 5:1-8

                                                                     1 Corinthians 5:1-8

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? 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.

Sin is a part of the fallen world in which we live.  However, this does not mean that Christians can ignore or accept sin as being normal in the name of grace.  Christians will continue to suffer temptation and will give in to that temptation.  Perfection is not the expectation for believers, but repentance is.  The grace of God should never become an excuse for sin.  Paul gives clear and helpful instruction as to both how and why the church must faithfully discipline its members that sin without repentance.

 

REMOVE UNREPENTANT SINNERS: Christians sin.  This is no secret, but it is dangerous to casually accept that statement as a demonstration of God’s grace and move on.  Christians repent.  This is the correlating statement that must always accompany the first.  If a Christian does not repent, he or she must be called to repentance by other believers through the process of church discipline until they do.  Once church discipline runs full circle, if the sinning Christian does not repent, they must be removed from fellowship and treated as an unbeliever.  The church in Corinth was tolerating blatant sexual sin and then boasting about it as a demonstration of Christian liberty under grace.  Paul will have nothing to do with this.  Our zeal for the holiness of the church and our love for our brothers as sisters in Christ demand that we faithfully, courageously, and graciously exercise discipline on Christians who sin but refuse to repent.

 

RELEASE UNTO THE CARE OF SATAN: Satan never cares for anyone.  The body of Christ and involvement in church shields a person from what should be the consequences of sin.  When a person is removed from the fellowship of the saints, they are left vulnerable to the attacks of Satan.  As believers, we can take no joy or comfort in the suffering of anyone who is being ravaged by the consequences of sin.  The only thing that could be worse would be for them to be comfortable in their sin as they continue in fellowship at the church.  Sin should hurt and the reason we are willing to turn someone over to Satan is for their pain to increase so much that they finally repent and return to the Lord and the fellowship of the church.  This is always the goal of any type of church discipline.     

 

RESTORE UNITY AMONG THE SAINTS: The danger of leaving unrepentant sin undisciplined is two-fold.  First, it allows the sinner to remain in sin without being called into repentance.  Second, it communicates to other members of the church that holiness and purity are unimportant.  This would be disastrous for any church.  When sin is tolerated in the church, there will be people on both sides of the issue.  This ends up creating a division in the church that is both unhealthy and creates an environment where sin proliferates.  The exercise of church discipline strengthens the church by promoting holiness and unity.  One of the jobs of leadership is to unite the church in their efforts to confront sin on every level and advance the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

APPLICATION: Do not tolerate sin in our own lives.  When we recognized our own sinfulness, we must immediately and completely repent.  When others help us to recognize sin in our lives, we must humbly submit to discipline and repent.  When we see others sin, we must serve them and the body of Christ by lovingly and graciously calling them to repentance.  The holiness of the church must be our priority.

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