Well, thank you guys. I feel like worship team, I can start using the word team because we have more than two people. So it’s like, wow. Real band. No, thank you guys for leading us in worship.

It’s good. We do have a lot of folks out sick. So, COVID sickness and just good old-fashioned sickness. They both happen. So, let’s be praying for those who are out sick and traveling.

We’re going to continue on in 1 Corinthians this morning. We’ll be in 1 Corinthians chapter 4.

Excuse me, 5. Finished 4 last week. 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

I’m going to just read the whole chapter 4. It’s all 13 verses.

Paul writes and says, 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, 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 his 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 have 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, a reveler, 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 outside. Purge the evil person from among you.

It’s no surprise when we think about our modern Western culture

that traditional Christian values that once seemed to be commonplace in the public square are very much so absent and even aggressively hated. And I think you can go back kind of with the start of that and the sexual revolution and the 90s, 1960s, and kind of going up through the 90s and the normalization of sex outside marriage, the normalization of what is considered appropriate in relationships between those of the same gender and even now we’re coming into a phase in age where there is even no such thing as gender. And there was another professor that came out this past week and said really we should stop calling pedophiles pedophiles because it’s too stigmatizing. We should call them minority attracted persons. Minority attracted persons.

And what we’re trying to do more and more is normalize what is not normal. We’re trying to make a good what the Lord calls bad. And that’s secular society and it’s unfortunate. But here’s the reality. You and I are first and foremost those who are citizens of God’s kingdom and we’re Jesus’ people. And what that means is regardless of what the world’s doing around us, what you and I have to do and this is really what Paul’s talking about in this passage in this chapter, you and I have to have a single-minded devotedness to godliness. A single-minded devotion to godliness.

Just that. Because that’s what you and I are. Isn’t it? We are just and only God’s people irrespective of what the whole world looks like, irrespective of what’s popular. We are God’s people. No compromise. So Paul writes to remind them of such a reality.

He says it’s actually reported among you which means generally known which means it’s not a secret. It’s not a rumor. Here’s common knowledge. Everybody in the church knows it and we could even say everybody in their community in the Corinth church widely knows about this impermissible wrong behavior that’s even shocking to a non-believer and a pagan in this Corinthian society which was extremely wicked. And here’s what was going on. There was this gross egregiously foul sexual relationship happening.

What is sexual immorality? Well, sexual immorality is a sexual immorality is any sort of romanticism that happens amongst anyone regardless of genders and that if it’s anything but the male and female in the context of marriage before God and man. That is God’s only prescribed context. That’s our only authorized context as Christians for sexual activity. And it’s not even hard to say. It’s hard to find. You’ve got to do your own figuring and bending and twisting if you want it to unsay that.

Genesis 2, 24, 25 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh and the man and his wife are both naked and catch this they were not ashamed.

So plainly and authoritatively the Word of God says if you are in the context of marriage and you’re in a sexual relationship, there’s no cause for shame.

But you’ve got to run the logic in the opposite direction.

Any other form of sexual intimacy between man and woman is then shameful to God and should be to His people. And sexual immorality is a great plague ever since the loss of the innocence of man between extramarital affairs, adultery, homosexual relationships, incest, bigamy, polyamorous relationships. And I only say it because the Word of God says it multiple times. Even bestiality is not absent in cultures past and present. Multiple times the Old Testament addresses that because someone somewhere was doing it. So you and I without God are immoral in every way we can be. And though sexual immorality may be widely accepted today and though it is true many Christian denominations have capitulated to cultural demand for a greater range of romantic expression,

we cannot get away from God’s written Word in the Old Testament and New Testament.

But even in Christianity, what was happening in this passage was entirely shocking and inappropriate.

It wasn’t as if it was bad enough if it would have been just adultery or perhaps sexual intimacy outside of marriage. But what was happening among the people of God is they weren’t just slipping into sin. There was somebody swimming in it and everybody else was swimming in it. Everybody else was going, well, well, big deal. And what was happening was this. A man was having an ongoing sexual relationship with his stepmother. That’s what’s happening. When we look at Deuteronomy 27, and this is one of many times where the Old Testament addresses this, cursed be anyone who lies with his father’s wife because he has uncovered his father’s nakedness and all the people shall say, Amen. Amen. So this, the law of God, but even in the fact that Corinth said, we don’t approve of that, it reveals even nature itself disapproves of that kind of relationship. It should have been that obvious to these Corinthian Christians. Not only is it duh in what you’ve been taught, but it’s duh to nature that this is wrong. And it had become a public disgrace.

What weren’t the Corinthian Christians then, church? They were not. They were not sensitive to the wrongness of what they were doing. And so much of what Paul condemns is this arrogance that we’ve kind of seen woven throughout kind of these chapters and it’s this arrogance and pride that comes out in all these different sins and division, high-handedness, judging. And here we see this arrogance and caring less about morality, sexual morality. He says you should be, here’s what y’all shouldn’t be doing when you heard about this. You shouldn’t just be addressing it. He said you should mourn for it. You should grieve that sin is present in the church, much less not even care.

Sin in all its forms and fashions, hear me say, should grieve you. It should grieve us because God’s people are sensitive as God is sensitive. So if we’re going to have a single-minded pursuit of godliness, it requires, friends, that you and I are sensitive towards sin as God is sensitive. Sensitive towards sin. And, you know, I appreciate so much what Richard said and what did he say when he took that big breath and he was reading. All of a sudden, he became what? Sensitive to God. Sensitive to what God’s sensitive to. Right?

Paul says in Ephesians 5, verse 3, let sexual immorality and he lists a bunch of other sins. He says, let it not be even named among you. Don’t even let it have a name among you that you could be doing it. So it asks the question, really for us as individual Christians, and I think every local church has to ask that question of itself, what is being reported about me? What is said about me? What is my reputation? Because that’s relevant and it deeply matters to our integrity as followers of Jesus. You know, Providence Fellowship may never be and probably will never be famously known. I will never be a celebrity pastor. You will never be widely known to the world or internationally. But here it is true. There are people, a great slew of people in your life, in our city, who will know you. And you will know them through a course of action, be it work-related, hobby, whatever it is. People know you and people will have some idea of Providence Fellowship. What kind of church is Providence Fellowship? And I hope it doesn’t rest on petty things like, oh, their preacher’s good. Oh, you know their music’s good. Oh, you know their environment’s good. I hope it doesn’t even rest on good things like, oh, you know they’re generous people or they’re kind people or they’re nice people as good as those things are. What we should deeply desire is that our reputation is this. Those are Jesus’ people. They’re God’s people. Which is to say, most pointedly, those are holy people as their God is holy. Are we perfect people? Certainly not. I’m not. But if we are in Christ, what we are is sensitive and we have a growing sensitivity in both private and public towards that which is called right and that which is called wrong according to the Spirit and the Word. And that’s what Paul writes because he deeply desires for them to be known for their new lives in Christ, not their old lives before Christ. That’s the issue, isn’t it? They’re not choosing to live in the Spirit of the new life, not the old life.

Jesus came. Why did He come? Because none of us were sensitive towards God. Jesus came and He was the only human who lived a life from start to finish that was entirely sensitive of godliness and entirely absent of wickedness.

Jesus lived to please God. And the great and amazing thing, and again, I love Richard’s testimony, it’s not about me climbing that mountain to see how close I can get to Jesus. It’s me just coming to that moment and realizing it is God giving me the perfections of Christ who is sensitive to the point of pleasing God and being enough to cover over all my sin. And in the Spirit, I have truly, and this is a magnificent thought, I have truly the presence of the Son of God in me. God in my breast. I read that in a poem recently, and I love that. God in my breast. He’s right there. I in Him, and He in me. Friend, that’s not something you can fake. It’s not something you can fake. It’s not something that if someone knew you for a season or a long season, they shouldn’t have any questions about whether or not you have God in your breast, the very presence of Christ alive and animating who you are and what you love. You can’t evade it. You can’t change it.

You can’t, you know, fish, they have gills and scales.

But it wants to be a bird. Let’s call it a bird. Alright, it’s a bird. You can’t do it because things are what they are and they are not what they are not. And friends, if we don’t have the Spirit, we are not Jesus’ people. And so Paul’s shocked. He says, you’re arrogant

when you should be grieving. It reminds me of Ezra. You know, the people come back from exile and what do they do? They begin to be faithless already. And here’s what it says in Ezra chapter 9. As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment, my cloak, and pulled hair from my head and my beard. And I sat appalled. Then all who trembled at the, at the words of God of Israel because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice. And at the evening sacrifice, I rose from my fasting with my garment, my cloak, and I fell on my knees and I spread out my hands to the Lord my God saying, oh my God, I am ashamed and I blush to lift my face to you my God for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. See, Ezra got it. Oh, we just went into captivity for this and we’re still so callous towards God. He said, and it’s risen right up to your throne room. That’s how bad we are. And it is amazing when you think about it because as much as God’s people through the law had access to that which God is sensitive, they could never attain it, which really is an amazing thing when you consider Jesus who had perfected the law lives in us, which means you now have so much stronger of a power, a pull, and a power and ability to be right in a way the saints of the Old Testament never did.

All that they strive to be and have, you now actually have because of our union with Christ. It’s an amazing thing.

And again, Paul’s not. John’s not. Peter’s not. Certainly Jesus is not advocating for perfection. Right? We’d all be done real quick. What Jesus and Paul and Peter and John advocate for, even all the way back to Psalms, when the psalmist says, God doesn’t deal with us according to our iniquities. That’s all over the Scriptures. The grace and mercy of God. What Paul’s advocating for is a struggle. You know, Matthew Henry said, the old man has been crucified, but he has not yet expired. So Paul’s, I think, looking at them saying, where at least is the struggle, guys? How are you even remotely mindful? Of this new life you have? How is it happening? Like the dude and his stepmom, that doesn’t even look like you’re struggling. Like no one even cares. Wake up if you’re in Christ. Care. Be sensitive to the things of God.

Are we sensitive? Or are we passive? Are we sensitive? Or are we apathetic? Are we sensitive? Or are we careless? Because if we are any of those things, it’s not like, I’m just not on the right path. And God’s going, I wish you’d do the right thing. Sin is the one thing that threatens God’s holiness. In other words, when you and I choose to sin and not care, we’re not simply doing a wrong thing. We are presenting ourselves as those who are against God. We present ourselves as warriors against God’s cause. And that’s what Christ came to do. The Scripture says, He came to die for God’s enemies.

God’s enemies.

Friend, we cannot have an insensitivity towards sin. We cannot be stale.

Jesus says to the church of Thyatira in Revelation 2, here’s what I have against you. Y’all are doing some good stuff. Here’s what I have against you. You tolerate that woman Jezebel, whoever she was at that time. You tolerate her.

She calls herself a prophetess and she’s teaching and seducing my servants to practice that. She’s teaching them sexual immorality to eat food sacrificed to idols. Jesus says, why do you tolerate her?

You know, I’m reminded

I’m not like a tough, tough dude. Even when, you know, like this time of year when you’ve got to rake some leaves or do a little bit of outside work because after 30 minutes my hands are like raw and I’ll maybe even get like a little water blister the next day. I’m like, oh, I’m a softy. You know, I’m extremely sensitive to, to hard work. My father-in-law, he’s a hard-working man. He builds cabinets. Like, he’s like always doing something with his hands. And like when I see him after something, I’m like, I shake his hand. I’m like, oh, that’s a man handshake right there. Like it’s, you know, it’s got that callus on it. Like, I’m like, oh, I’m a sissy. I’m a sissy. You know, and it’s the same thing with sin. The more you, the more you do it, the more you’re around it. Guess what? You just become used to it and it builds up layers and it builds up layers till you cannot feel.

But Jude says this in his very short letter to those he’s writing. He says, Friends, let me remind you of what you once knew and have forgot. Let me remind you of it. In other words, live to live with the knowledge of the holiness of God. Live to live with a mind that doesn’t come and go. Live to live always in all things with an understanding of this is by the grace of God who I have been called to be. This is who God’s Word says God is. And it’s very personal. I’ll give you that. It’s not something anyone else can do for you to strive after and grow up in more in the things you’ve been freely given as you daily pursue Christ in His Word, as you daily pursue Christ in Word and prayer. But it’s also something, and I think I’ve said this before, holiness is a team sport. Holiness is a team sport. God very much so demands and expects that if you and I are going to stay the course, we must do and be what Paul was doing for them. And that is giving one another a holy slap in the face every once in a while or kicking the pants saying, hey, don’t you remember who you are? Don’t you remember what Jesus did? Don’t you remember your profession? Don’t you remember what you freely received? Aren’t you sensitive towards these things or are you not?

Live with an alertness, Paul tells us in Ephesians. Live to live personally and in community mindful of God, mindful of His rules, mindful of His commandments, mindful of all He teaches us in Christ.

Be careful to identify in your own life where sinfulness lurks. Be careful about certain attitudes you think aren’t a big deal. Be careful about words you let slip out because let me tell you, the more you pass over them, the more you do them. It’s like if you watch a movie. I guess I’ve done this before. Maybe you watch a movie, and it’s got a big old potty word in it, and then a few days later, that word pops up in your head. I wouldn’t usually say that word in my head. That wouldn’t usually come to mind.

You’re helplessly a disciple. Something in someone is shaping and forming you. Christ says stay close to me so you stay sensitive to the things I’m sensitive to.

I didn’t tell him I was going to do this. I hope he doesn’t mind, but Chase and I were in the car the other day. And he said, hey man, this thing happened, and I felt convicted about it, and I repented, but I just wanted to share that and confess that to you. And I was like, man, I appreciate that. Because what does that say? It says you’re sensitive to the movement of the Spirit in your heart and life. Live to be sensitive to the Spirit of God. And this again is a no-brainer for you, but we do not live in a Christian culture. We do not live in a culture that’s trying to advance the Kingdom of God. We do not live in a time, where Christian Judeo values are just kind of interwoven among most people, and most people respect that. You have got to make a conscious choice that you are a follower of Jesus, and you’re going to stay that course. Whatever comes, whatever happens, you are Jesus’ people. Because if you’re not committed to it in your heart and mind, regardless of suffering, you know what? Maybe this isn’t a big deal. And you know maybe what? Such and such isn’t a big deal. Who am I to tell such and such person they can’t do that? And you choose callousness, which is to say you choose compromise, friends.

I want to say to you on that same token of sexual immorality, especially talking to men, but I guess it goes for women too, be careful what you let your eyes see. It’s not a small thing to watch a movie. If it’s a 130-minute movie, but it’s got 30 seconds of something you don’t need to see, maybe it’s just not a movie you need to see. You know what you’re doing? You’re giving the devil ammunition. It’s all you’re doing. You don’t come to a spiritual plateau where you can see things and be entertained by the same things the world is, but it doesn’t affect you. That’s not how it works. It’s a humility to have the sensitivity.

The second thing Paul says is this, if we’re going to have a single-minded pursuit of godliness, we must not only be sensitive to sin, but secondly, we must be willing to deal severely with sin. Deal. Deal severely with sin.

He says, though I’m absent in body, I’m present in spirit, and as if present, I’ve already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you’re 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. In Numbers chapter 25, what happens is the people of God,

they’re brought out of the promised land and it says that they’re living into team and I won’t read it, but just to recap for a second, they choose to do what they know they should not do and they intermarry. And they intermarry. And now for this, God says, go get all the chiefs of the people who do this and hang them. I want you to hang them. And as they’re weeping and they’re weeping, they’re seeing the men who are hanged, some dude has the gall and the nerve to just roll on up with a Midianite woman who he married. And it says that one of the priest’s sons just gets up and he goes and he gets a spear and he runs them both through the stomach. And it says, then the anger of God subsided.

You cannot come away from the old leaven, you cannot come away from the Old Testament, you cannot come away from the New Testament, if you read it honestly and plainly, and believe that God is not a holy God who deals severely with that which is not holy. So Paul says remove the man. And I want us to understand this. Paul does not say remove the offender because he has done this thing. As egregious as the crime was, Paul is not saying you have a sinful man among you, remove the offender because he has done this thing. Remove that sinner. Like there’s a max. You know, like a pastor can come to church and say, hey, you know, you were at 3,999, but you’ve crossed to 4,000. You’re at your limit. I must now remove you from the church. You are helplessly a sinner. There never comes a time when that happens. It’s not the presence of a sinner that’s the problem. It’s the presence of sin unrepentant of. In other words, this man has said, I’ve heard the gospel. I’ve seen, you know, the goodness of God, but I believe this sin of mine to be more delightful than God’s holiness. So as much as it’s true that excommunication is something that God expects the church to do with those who are in unrepentant sin, excommunication is really an issue forced by the sinner.

Okay, anytime someone’s willing to repent and come back to Christ, the church can do no more than what Christ would expect them to do, which is to welcome them back. Now, excommunication happens when the sinner says, no, I choose my sin. And that, God says, church, you cannot tolerate.

And to go back for a second to what I was talking about with the union with Christ, think about this. If it’s true, you and I are the body of Christ. Like, that’s not like some, you know, symbolic thing to make you feel good. Like, we are vitally, spiritually, organically in the body of Christ. We are joined forever to, to Jesus. We are His body. Well, let me ask you, if you had some disease or sickness, what would you do with your body?

You would get it removed. You would go with a doctor and take whatever gross medicine he gives you. You would let him lop off a limb if you had to. You would let him do some painful surgery if you had to. Why? Because it’s your body. Well, now, why in the world do you think Jesus, who came to earth and suffered and bled and died, to defeat sin, why would He do anything other than deal severely with a disease of sin that was in what? His body.

Jesus says what in Matthew? And we saw this, you know, a couple of years ago. Jesus says in Matthew, if your right eye causes you to sin, what do you do with it? Tear it out. What if your hand causes you to sin? Tear it out. And what’s Jesus’ reason? Because it’s better to be maimed. Than it is to have your whole body thrown into hell. Of course, Jesus doesn’t mean go actually, you know, hurt yourself. He simply means you must deal severely with sin because Jesus will deal severely with sin in His own body. So if you’re in Christ, I want to say to you this morning, it should be a precious thing to you, the thought that before the ages began, God looked down the corridors of time and He saw your sin-riddled heart and He knew how He was going to save you through the Gospel and call you to new life and join you to His Son and all holiness and give you a new heart and a new mind. That must be to us a precious and dear truth. And if it is, it reorients, it reshapes what I’m willing to put up with, what I’m willing to be around, how serious I take my own holiness and more than that, how serious I take the holiness of Christ’s body. Paul says in Colossians, put to death your sin. Put to death your sin. Put to death your sin.

If it wasn’t that big of a deal, I don’t think it would have required the King of Heaven coming and having to be nailed to a piece of wood to deal with your sin. But it was the only way for Him to deal with such a disease. Jesus says deal severely with sin. But I want you to see secondly how Paul works this out because the severity of dealing with the sin, it brings health both to the body of Christ and even potentially to the member that got lopped off.

When an unrepentant sinner is removed from fellowship, it’s a sobering thing. It causes the church to reflect on just how vile the human heart is. It causes you and I to reflect in humility. Wow, it could have been me. I could fall into that state. It’s like when you hear about somebody who’s like weeding. You hear about, you know, and they didn’t wear safety goggles and they got their eye put out, right? Or you hear about somebody driving down the road and they didn’t have their seatbelt on and they die in a car crash. And it makes you go in a good way. You get afraid in a good way. I better put my safety goggles on. Like I better put my seatbelt on. And the same way it breeds humility in us to go, wow, I can’t believe that happened. And I am just as capable of that kind of sin. It scares you in a good way. It scares you to go, whoa, if I don’t guard myself, if I’m not pursuing Christ, I could be cut off. And it throws us at Jesus’ feet so that we would fear that dreadful end.

Excommunication, it strikes fear in the heart of the church leader. Not the kind of fear like a boogeyman getting you, but fear that says, you know what? Let me be reminded God is holy and He demands holiness for me and He deserves all reverence and He deserves all respect. That’s how serious God takes it. And blessed be the church that has that kind of culture where the people live in a healthy fear of God and they don’t have to go to church. They don’t have to go to church. knowing how serious God takes it.

On the one hand, and again, I don’t want to give a lopsided view of this. On the one hand, Paul says in Galatians 6, bear one another’s burdens. If someone has fallen, what do you do? You gently restore him. So the Bible doesn’t, you falling into sin, let me just beat your nose in and you’ll be lucky if we let you stay. There’s nothing like that. There’s a time to speak truth, and truth is someone that needs to hear it and hoping that they do repent. And that’s good, and that’s, I think, the normal process. But then on the other hand, and again, we looked at this in Matthew, in Matthew 18, Jesus says, look, if you’ve gone to Him, you’ve gone to the multiple people, you’ve gone in front of the church, and the dude won’t repent, what can you do but let him be what he desires to be? And that is no longer a part of the church. Excommunicate him by his choice. By his choice.

But, and I want you to see what Paul’s saying here in 5. He’s saying, that is for the good of the one who is excommunicated. He says, put him out in the world so that he can be under Satan, so his flesh will be destroyed, but hopefully that his spirit will be sent in the day of Christ. In other words, to put it in modern vernacular, let him be cut off from the privileges of spiritual fellowship. Let his soul not know what it means to sit under the Word of God, to sit in prayer with the church, to remind of all the blessings in the heavenly places. Let him go out into the world in darkness and let him be cut off so that he desires to come back to it. And see what a wonderful privilege it is to be in the local church so that his soul may be saved in the day of Christ. So that’s Paul’s desire, is even when, and we should say really it’s God’s desire, that somebody that runs to the other side of the world and does an awful thing, Paul’s hoping that this dude who is in this horrible relationship with his stepmom somehow comes back.

So God is gracious, friends, in our worst of situations, to still draw us in. There’s never a moment of finality, like, ah, you hit the mark. You did it. You’re done. You’re done. There is no mark to hit. And this is just an amazing passage. I think so many people, you know, want to see any kind of bringing sin up against other people or any kind of severity or just, you know, I think the bigger title, church discipline, like, oh, that’s harsh. That’s old love. We’ve got to love people, friends. This is how you love people.

You beg them. You demand, if you’re going to be in Christ’s church, be holy. That’s how you love, so as to preserve the body and hopefully that person. But I want to go a little further because Paul pivots here, and I think it’s really interesting what he’s doing. He brings up an Old Testament story that I assume he knows they’ll be familiar with. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make any sense. And what he does is he brings up when they go up out of Egypt. So just a reminder, you know, the Spirit passes over Egypt and kills all the firstborn of the Egyptians, but the Israelites put blood over their doors and their firstborns are not killed. When that happens, they have to get out quick. God says, get up and go out. The Egyptians are begging them to leave. They plunder the Egyptians. They get all their silver and gold. They just hand it over to them. They’re afraid of them. And the Scriptures tell us they had to leave Egypt so fast. They didn’t even have time to put leaven in their bread. They just wrapped their bowls up, their cooking bowls, and their own cloaks, and they ran out of there and they’re eating unleavened bread. So they’re eating flatbread. No rising. No yeast. And what Paul’s saying is, hey, in the very same way that God has saved you from a life of bondage and sin and misery with the yeast of sin, and you’ve been brought up out of Egypt to be a new people in a new place, and you’re a new creature in Christ without the leaven of sin, so in the same way, you should think that severely about your sin. You are without it. Without it completely.

But it’s not all like doom and gloom. Like, okay, I’m just going to keep my eyes peeled, see if anybody’s sinned, and people are watching me, like we’re all afraid all the time. Because he says this. He pivots, and it’s really a positive. He says, let’s go out, and he says, let us, in verse 8, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, but with malice and evil, but with the unlimited sincerity and truth. So in other words, the normal run and rhythm of life is not fear, I’m going to mess up. It’s just everything. As vigorous as my severity against sin should be, Paul’s saying, let’s have the same vigor in life to celebrate and live in righteousness together. So I’m not just constantly looking out for sin. I’m believing in the Spirit. We actually can be a church that’s healthy and full of life, and we’re not constantly going to be chopping off legs and arms, and people can’t keep this thing straight. Like, Jesus can actually do that thing, and in the Spirit, we all rejoice together, and we celebrate because we’ve got the new bread in us of sincerity, and truth. So that’s good news. That’s good news.

It’s like, you know, if you ever see a log or a stick floating in water, well, if you pull it out, it’s fine, isn’t it? But if you leave it in too long, what happens eventually to a stick or a log? Or even like on my… I’ve got this problem on the bottom of my chimney. It rots, and it becomes nothing. And it’s the same thing. Paul’s saying, you can’t even let like a little bit of water sit on your wood or a little bit of yeast in your bread because believe, just a little bit’s going to work throughout the whole thing, and it’s going to ruin the whole thing.

Severity for love’s sake. And I think that word love is so important in this context. Otherwise, I’m going to come to like Andre, and I’m going to beat his head in. Like, I see this sin in your life. Like, you’re wrong. And it’s just, it’s hateful. Paul comes with, yes, seriousness, but he comes with love because he desires to see the other, do well, and he knows that that’s the heart and desire of Christ.

I want you to take sin serious. I want you to take sin serious. I want you to know God’s Word so you know what sin is. I want you to live sensitive to the Spirit. We must.

I want you to lean into the local church where others can know your life and you can know their life, and you can build one another up and help one another in your times of struggle. What does Paul say? Correct one another. Admonish one another. Pray for one another. Bear one another’s burdens. So we need to be severe for one another’s sake.

Paul kind of recaps his argument in verse 9. He says, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, some letter we don’t have, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and the 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 who is guilty of sexual immorality, but he goes out. And he does this in other letters. It’s not just sexual immorality. The big one’s bad. You can associate with other people who do small ones and don’t care. That’s not what Paul’s saying. If you know of someone who struggles with greed or is an idolater

or who is a reviler, a drunkard, or a swindler, Paul says you shouldn’t even sit down to eat with them. You should cut off fellowship with them entirely. So what is Paul really saying to them? What is he reminding them of? And it is this, friends. If we are to have a single-minded devotion, focus on godliness, what we must be is steadfast. He’s calling them back to a life in which they are to maintain, in which it can be, because there’s that much power in the Spirit, it can be resilient to sin. It can be. It can be. There’s power in the Spirit. And what it takes is humility and faith to recognize if I’m not steadfast and I don’t have the humility to see how frail and weak I am, Satan will certainly take me. He, like a roaring lion, will overcome me. The world will press in and overwhelm me till I compromise. No question. My own flesh will give in to its desires and that will constantly be working against me. And those three things constantly work against you. But Paul says, remember who you are. You are in Christ. Believe you have the power of the Spirit in you that you would not be that kind of person.

Keep sensitive. Keep severe. And in so doing, friends, we will be steadfast in our love for and our devotion to Christ and to godliness.

And as we read that, I don’t know about you, but I’m overwhelmed. I’m like, ugh. I don’t know that I’m always as sensitive as I should be or maybe severe with sin as I should be. And surely, I’ve failed.

What it’s a reminder of and really a call to do is this.

Don’t do what we already talked about. Like, alright, I’m going to do it. I’m going to try my best. I’m going to get back on the right road. What I need to do is be reminded of what I’ve received in Christ who is perfectly sensitive. Christ who is entirely severe with sin. Christ who went to the cross and died for all my sin because I was not sensitive towards it. I was not severe with it in my life. So, I’m going to throw myself back at the feet of Jesus and trust in Him and believe He is enough to cover me all that I’ve done wrong and He’s also enough to empower me to go forward growing up more and more and more in Him. So, that’s the great grace of the cross as it washes over our sin, but in Christ we’re empowered and we’re matured and we’re made new to live for God all the more. So, that’s Paul’s plea for Corinth, but you’d better believe it’s Paul’s plea for Providence Fellowship and for us to do that together. Amen?

Let’s pray.

Lord, we thank You for Your Word

that even as

as gritty as it may be, as tough as it may be, Lord, everything You’re saying is for our good. Lord, that Your Word, it contains no condemnations for those who come seeking truth. It contains no condemnation for those who come desiring to be made right. Lord, even when we come and You discipline us, Lord, You’re doing that because You love us and You desire us to be near You.

So, nearer, Lord, to You. That’s our prayer.

Thank You that the blood of Jesus, it purifies us from all sin. Lord, if there’s anyone here who’s feeling like they’ve sinned too much or they’ve gone a little too far, Lord, remind us of just how powerful the cross is. Just how powerful the resurrected life of Jesus is. Give us a desire, a passion to be on that road where we’re following Jesus single-mindedly, Lord. Let that be so here at Providence. That’s my prayer, Lord. We just worship You because we know by Your grace You’re going to complete the work of salvation in us. Amen.