(#020) 1 Corinthians 5 - What Gets People Kicked Out of a Congregation?Lifestyles can spread disunity and not the Word.
Welcome To BARAH MINISTRIES a Christian Church
Rory Clark Pastor-Teacher
Good Morning!
Welcome to Barah Ministries…an intimate, local Christian Church with worldwide impact. My name is Pastor Rory Clark. At Barah Ministries we know this truth…that Jesus Christ is God. As Lord He is 100% Deity…He is God the Son. He is also 100% human just like you and me and His name is Jesus Christ. The Lord…God the Son…became flesh…Jesus Christ...and lived among us. He is the Sovereign God of the Universe…He is the Savior of the whole world…and He is the Jewish Messiah.
Those who make Barah Ministries their spiritual home believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. We are Christians, and we have a deep, intimate, and personal relationship with the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ is a Person…He’s not a thing…He’s not a concept. Just as we would do with any person whom we love, we spend time getting to know the Lord through the study of His Word. You can’t get to know the Lord without knowing His mind, and the Bible is His exact thinking.
When we learn the Word of God and when we use the Word of God, the Lord tells us what will happen to us in Matthew, Chapter 7, Verses 24 to 27…
MATTHEW 7:24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
MATTHEW 7:25 “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house…and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.”
MATTHEW 7:26 "Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.”
MATTHEW 7:27 “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house…and the house fell—and great was its fall.”
When we learn and when we use the Lord’s thinking to guide our lives, we are wise…because the Lord Jesus Christ is THE ROCK. Building our lives on His foundation guarantees success.
Barah Ministries makes a difference by teaching the Word of God from the Lord Jesus Christ’s perspective, and not from man’s perspective. We search the Scriptures to learn who the Lord is as a Person, and to learn what our God has to say about Himself, about His plan for all mankind, and about His personal plan for each of us. We are here to look at our lives from His perspective. We are here to learn how to enjoy the sphere of grace, forgiveness and unconditional love in which we stand. Welcome!
TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON What Gets People Kicked Out of a Congregation?
LESSON INTRODUCTION
The termination of a relationship poses quite a dilemma for believers in Christ. “Did I do enough?” “Did I do everything I could have?” The answer is, “Probably!” You can tell just because you’re bothering to ask the question. A long time ago I taught a lesson that started with a bold assertion: The Lord Jesus Christ's relationship with Satan makes it clear that sometimes you have to say enough is enough in relationships. It's true. Human history began because of divorce between the Lord and His "anointed cherub who covers” … Satan … the enemy of God. Even for unbelievers, there is a moment when the Lord says, “Enough is enough.” It’s the time of their physical death.
Christians are guided by God the Holy Spirit to love unconditionally with a one-way love…a love that expects nothing in return. As a result, Christians often think that one-way love means being a doormat in relationships. God does not want us to be doormats in relationships. Sometimes you have to say, “Enough is enough” in relationships. In the next passage of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church, we’ll get to see how Paul handles a person in the church who needs to go. Perhaps this will inform you about how to handle “relationships” you stay in much too long … “relationships” that are not relationships at all.
SONG INTRODUCTION
Let’s listen to some music! Ephesians, Chapter 4, Verse 1 says…
EPHESIANS 4:1 Therefore I (Paul)…the prisoner of the Lord…implore you believers in Christ to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called…
The apostle Paul wrote these amazing words from a jail cell in Rome. God the Father expects believers in Christ to live a holy lifestyle, and God the Holy Spirit is responsible for directing us to this lifestyle day-by-day. Here's Jeremy Camp to sing about the Bible's contribution to our walk with his song WORD OF LIFE.
MUSIC AND REFLECTION Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ Enjoy the Singing of His Praises
WORD OF LIFE Jeremy Camp
OPENING PRAYER Let us pray...
We’re grateful, Heavenly Father, for the privilege of studying Your absolute truth...the Word of God…
Father, thank you for the Word of Truth…the Bible…a gift you have given us to direct our lives on a holy path that is an exact reflection of your Son and our Lord…Jesus Christ…thank you that the Word is alive and powerful and sharp and piercing…thank you that Your Word contains all the wisdom we need to live the amazing life you planned for us in eternity past…
Help us to use Your guidance instead of our own…show us how not to lean on our own understanding, and instead to have faith in You…show our spiritual eyes the magnitude of the victory Your Son accomplished for us believers at the Cross so that we can live the victory You gave us in our day-to-day experience…
…we ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit…in Christ’s name...Amen.
TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON What Gets People Kicked Out of a Congregation?
Last week we summarized our study of the first four chapters of the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church. Today, we begin the transition to the next passage of the letter which extends from First Corinthians, Chapter 5, Verse 1 to First Corinthians, Chapter 6, Verse 20…a passage addressing some pretty meaty issues…incest…lawsuits…and prostitution.
First Corinthians is sixteen chapters long. The first six chapters unearth the problems in the Corinthian church. In the final ten chapters, Paul offers spiritual solutions to the problems by answering questions he is being asked by Chloe’s people. The first problem reported to Paul was divisions and rivalries. There is a group within the church that is quite arrogant, lording their social status and their intellect over those who are less fortunate educationally and financially. Eventually, arrogance becomes comfortable with all things sinful because those who are arrogant make rules that suit them. The arrogant ones in this church acted in line with this depravity. They were engaging in woeful conduct, and they were quite proud of their accomplishments. Paul took them to task for their lifestyle.
Second Corinthians has thirteen chapters. When a spiritual advisor has to write two letters and twenty-nine chapters to a congregation, it’s probably safe to assume they are a bunch of knuckleheads. Look at what Paul says to the church at Corinth in Second Corinthians, Chapter 12, Verses 20 and 21…twenty-eight chapters into instructing them…
SECOND CORINTHIANS 12:20 For I (Paul) am afraid that perhaps when I come (to Corinth) I may find you not to be what I wish to find…and I may be found by you not to be what you wish to find…perhaps there will (still) be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disturbances…
SECOND CORINTHIANS 12:21 …I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you…and I may mourn over many of you who have sinned in the past and have not repented of the impurity, immorality, and sensuality which keeps on being practiced.
Paul mentions the sins that result from divisions and rivalries…they all started back in First Corinthians, Chapter 1, and they persist, demonstrating that if we learn anything from history, it’s that we learn NOTHING from history.
In the passage we are about to study, we learn that there is something that can get you kicked out of a church! It’s a lifestyle. Paul is talking about a consciously chosen set of practices…both immorality and its moral cousin legalism…patterns of thinking and repetitive conduct that are anti-God and anti-Biblical. Let’s see what Paul is taking on in the first and second sections of the next passage…First Corinthians, Chapter 5, Verses 1 to 13…
Passage Four-Section 1
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:1 It is actually reported that there is immorality among you...immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles…that someone has his father’s wife.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:2 You have become arrogant, and have not mourned instead so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:3 For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this immorality, as though I were present.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:4 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in Spirit assembled, with the power of our Lord Jesus…
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:5 …I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ, our Passover also has been sacrificed.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:8 Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Passage Four-Section 2
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:9 I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people…
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:10 …I did not at all mean not to associate with the immoral people of this world…nor with the covetous and swindlers, nor with idolaters…for then you would have to go out of the world.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a person.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:13 But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.
Paul recommends the removal of a congregation member in three separate verses in these two sections…First Corinthians, Chapter 5, Verse 2…
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:2 You have become arrogant, and have not mourned instead so that THE ONE WHO HAD DONE THIS (IMMORAL) DEED WOULD BE REMOVED FROM YOUR MIDST.
He recommends the removal of this person by using a metaphor in First Corinthians, Chapter 5, Verse 7…
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:7 CLEAN OUT THE OLD LEAVEN so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ, our Passover also has been sacrificed.
He recommends removal very directly in First Corinthians, Chapter 5, Verse 13…
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:13 But those who are outside, God judges. (YOU NEED TO) REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.
There is something that can get you kicked out of a church! What is it? When we return from our five-minute break, we’ll take your offering, and then we’ll find out as we study the first section of this passage verse by verse.
FIVE MINUTE BREAK NOBODY Casting Crowns
TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON What Gets People Kicked Out of a Congregation?
Nike has it right about giving…JUST DO IT! At Barah Ministries, when it comes to generosity, we say…JUST GIVE IT! Let’s welcome up Deacon Denny Goodall with the offering message.
THE OFFERING Deacon Denny Goodall
OFFERING VERSE
PHILIPPIANS 2:2 …make my joy complete by being of the same mind…maintaining the same unconditional love…united in spirit…intent on one purpose.
OFFERING SONG THERE IS NONE LIKE YOU David Bauer, Instrumental
TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON What Gets People Kicked Out of a Congregation?
SONG INTRODUCTION
Psalm 124, Verse 8 says…
PSALM 124:8 Our help is in the name of the Lord…who made the heavens and the earth.
Romans, Chapter 8, Verse 31 says…
ROMANS 8:31b If God the Father is for us believers in Christ, and of course He is, who is (to be successful) against us?
The group For King and Country says our help comes from resting our burdens squarely on God’s SHOULDERS. Let’s listen…
MUSIC AND REFLECTION Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ Enjoy the Singing of His Praises
SHOULDERS For King and Country
TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON What Gets People Kicked Out of a Congregation?
Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer and philosopher who is considered one of Rome’s greatest orators and prose stylists. Here’s what he had to say about the mistakes we make…
CICERO ON MISTAKES
“Every man makes mistakes…but only a fool persists in his errors.” — Cicero
What gets people kicked out of congregations? Egregious persistence in the error of making the mistakes that can destroy a congregation. It’s a frequent, flagrant, and flaunted lifestyle that infects a church and the people in it in such a way that it systematically destroys the church. People who get kicked out of congregations are like termites…you may just barely know they are there, yet they are undermining the entire structure of the church and the people in it. Everyone knows it, and no one is willing to address it.
The people who get kicked out of congregations are like cancer. Once you know you have cancer, you’re a fool if you do nothing about it. Once you identify a person in your congregation who is living a lifestyle that threatens the church and its members, you have to do something about it. Whether it is immorality (immoral degeneracy) or legalism (moral degeneracy), this cancer must be stopped in a congregation…not only for the sake of the congregation but also for the sake of the person sinning. God wasn't only talking about teachers when He said, in First Corinthians, Chapter 3, Verse 17…
FIRST CORINTHIANS 3:17 If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him…for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you believers in Christ are to God…(holy).
God doesn't want anyone to destroy His believers in any way, but especially not an erosion of the soul, especially not from the inside. Let’s study the first section of this fourth passage of First Corinthians verse-by-verse. Let’s begin with the last verse of the previous passage…First Corinthians, Chapter 4, Verse 21…
FIRST CORINTHIANS 4:21 What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod (to kick your butt) … or shall I come to you in unconditional love with a gentle spirit?
Paul reminds me of Robert De Niro in the movie Taxi Driver when De Niro imagines himself confronted by the bad guys … “You talking to me?” Paul threatens to spank the arrogant faction in the Corinthian congregation. Let’s get deeper into the type of problems divisions are causing…INCEST, LAWSUITS, and PROSTITUTION!
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:1 It is actually reported (by Chloe’s people and by others) that there is sexual immorality (porneia is the Greek word) among you…the kind of sexual immorality that is not even tolerated (not considered okay) among the Gentiles (pagan unbelievers) … that someone is having sex with his father’s wife (the man’s step-mother).
In Corinth, there were all kinds of sexual rituals tied to religion…one I remember from my college days studying the Classics was the phallic cult, a group of people who worshipped the male sexual organ. As you might imagine orgies were a big part of their worship service.
In the Christian church at Corinth, there was a man who was engaged in incest with his mother-in-law, and he was quite open about it as if it were a badge of courage. He boasted that Christians could do the same as the phallic cultists. The arrogant faction of the Christian church at Corinth did nothing about his conduct, and the apostle Paul takes the entire congregation to task for their lack of action.
Paul is saying to his congregation at Corinth that even pagans find this kind of conduct contemptible…and he was appalled (pun intended) that they were doing nothing about the situation.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:2 (When something like this is happening, Paul asks…) Why do you keep on being arrogant (puffed up with self-importance and happiness) instead of mourning (being sad or mad about the situation), so that the one who has done this deed would be removed from your midst?
Paul is more concerned with the congregation than the saint who is sinning. The arrogant faction in the church is happy about this man's conduct instead of being sad as if they were mourning. Paul wants them to remove the cancer from their midst so that it does not infest the congregation in such a way that the congregation is destroyed.
There are people in every congregation who through their conduct are destroying a congregation…and they must be removed by the congregation as a unit. God the Father loves the church because it is the body of Christ…and He doesn’t want anything to take it down. This man is engaged in what is considered abnormal and deviant sexual conduct. All the words used to describe this conduct indicate shock, repulsion, indecency, sordidness, despicableness, pestilence, and disgust.
Sometimes we need to say enough is enough with the conduct of those around us. How did Paul handle this man’s conduct? Paul has to take on this issue while absent. He is not there so he is working from a distance with his pen. He takes it on as soon as he hears about it.
Paul’s big concern is how things like this impact the gospel message. What makes Christianity unique if unbelievers see us doing things that even unbelievers wouldn’t do? If a church appears to condone egregious sin, what would make unbelievers want to be Christians?
Why didn’t the church act? Perhaps this man is the church’s biggest donor! In rabbinical tradition, this man would have been stoned to death. This kind of conduct was considered pollution to a congregation. A lack of action on this matter indicts the entire congregation. When the congregation doesn’t act, quite often God does. This is a congregation that uses freedom as a license to sin. Paul proclaims how he has handled the situation as their founder and father…
For my part, although I am absent in body, I am present in spirit…and I have already pronounced judgment (made a decision) in the name of our Lord Jesus as though I were present, concerning him who has committed this act (having sex with his step-mother) …
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:4 …when you (as a church) are assembled…just as I am assembled with you in spirit…with the power of our Lord Jesus (as our guide) …
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:5 …I have decided to deliver this man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh…so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Paul has kicked the man out of the congregation and has thrown him back into the world where Satan can handle him. We all know how Satan deals with people. Paul expects his congregation at Corinth to affirm his decision. Next, Paul addresses his target…the congregation…and their arrogance.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:6 Your boasting (about yourselves) is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven (a small sin) leavens the whole lump of dough (ruins an entire congregation)?
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump of leaven…just as you are…in fact unleavened. For Christ, our Passover (Lamb) also has been sacrificed.
FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:8 Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Paul is making it clear to the arrogant ones that they are not “all that,” meaning that those who tolerate reprehensible conduct are reprehensible. By using the leaven analogy, Paul is saying that there are things that corrupt a congregation. Just as a little leaven can make a large amount of dough rise, so a small sin of lifestyle can make a whole congregation rise just before its fall. Paul suggests starting as unleavened bread. He wants them to live like real Christians and not to live as Counterfeit Christians who seek to imitate the world. As Christians, we have died and we have risen with Christ. We must act like it.
What gets people kicked out of a congregation? Anything that can corrupt the entire organization and those in it. Sometimes you have to say “enough is enough” in relationships. Do you have the courage to do it?
GOD WANTS YOU! Make the Most Important Decision of Your Life
The closing moments of our study are for the benefit of anyone who does not have a personal relationship with the Sovereign God of the Universe, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We want you to know that GOD WANTS YOU.
When a person evangelizes to you, they are presenting a gospel message for your consideration. They know they cannot “convert” you, although the pressure you experience from some of them might feel like that’s what they want to do. Most are simply giving you facts to consider…facts that you may or may not know.
For example, if you've ever had Jehovah's Witnesses come to your door, they are evangelizing to you. If you've ever had members of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints come to your door, they are evangelizing to you. Unfortunately, both of those groups are inviting you to share eternity with them in the Lake of Fire, because neither of these groups believes that Jesus Christ is God. I have family members who are part of one of these religions, and despite my best evangelism efforts, my family members don't want to hear anything that God has to say to them through me.
Many parents are leading their children to a destiny in the Lake of Fire. If you want to assess whether or not you’re a good parent, just ask yourself a simple question…are you influencing your children to have a relationship with the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Sovereign God of the Universe? He is the ONLY WAY to get to heaven according to John, Chapter 14, Verse 6…
JOHN 14:6 Jesus said to the doubting apostle, Thomas, “I am the way (to salvation), and I am the truth (through the gospel message…the Word of God), and I am the resurrection life…and no one comes to God the Father (in heaven) but through believing in Me.”
If a gospel message makes it sound like you have to work to get to heaven, it’s a false gospel message. Second Peter, Chapter 2, Verse 1 warns…
SECOND PETER 2:1 …false prophets also arose among the people…just as there will also be false teachers among you…who will secretly introduce destructive heresies…even denying the Master (the Lord Jesus Christ) who bought them (to earth) … bringing swift destruction upon themselves.
Romans, Chapter 11, Verse 6 says we don’t have to work to be saved…
ROMANS 11:6 …if salvation is by grace (a free gift from God) … and of course it is…it is no longer on the basis of works…otherwise, grace (as a free gift) is no longer grace (it is not free).
Romans, Chapter 4, Verse 4 says you CAN’T work for salvation…
ROMANS 4:4 Now to the one who works (for salvation), his wage (for his work) is not credited (to his account) as a favor (from the grace of God), but (his wage is credited) as what is due for the work.
Unfortunately, your hardest work is not perfect enough to earn you a spot in heaven. Do you want to get to heaven free of charge? Acts, Chapter 16, Verse 31 says…
ACTS 16:31 “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and everyone in your household who also believes.” John, Chapter 3, Verse 36 warns…
JOHN 3:36 “He who believes in the Son has the resurrection life right at that moment… but he who does not obey the command to believe in the Son will not see the resurrection life…instead the wrath of God (the Lake of Fire) abides on him.”
John, Chapter 3, Verse 17 highlights Jesus’ mission…
JOHN 3:17 For God the Father did not send God the Son (the Lord Jesus Christ) into the world to judge the world…but the Father sent the Son into the world that the world might be saved through Him.
Who is this God who saves you? The apostle Paul describes the Lord Jesus Christ…in First Corinthians, Chapter 15, Verses 3 and 4…
FIRST CORINTHIANS 15:3 For I (Paul) delivered to you as of first importance what I also received… (the gospel message)…that it was Jesus Christ who died for our sins according to the Scriptures…
FIRST CORINTHIANS 15:4 …and that He was buried…and that He was raised from the dead on the third day…according to the Scriptures…
Take the free gift of eternal life right now! There’s no time to waste! God wants you. If you want to go to heaven when you close your eyes in this life, simply believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
SONG INTRODUCTION
Let’s close with a song…maybe sometimes you don't feel worthy of all the blessings God lavishes on you… blessings of both adversity and prosperity. Well, you probably feel unworthy because you think your worth is predicated on human performance. Actually, your worth is based on what the Lord has done for you. Here’s June Murphy to sing about your value in her song…WORTHY.
CLOSING SONG WORTHY June Murphy
CLOSING PRAYER Let us pray...
Thanks for coming! Thanks for watching! Thanks for listening! www.barahministries.com
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