I.                   Introduction

A Norfolk-Southern train was rolling down the rails of Indiana at 24 miles per hour.  Suddenly the conductor, Robert Mohr, spotted an object on the tracks roughly a city block away.  Initially the engineer, Rod Lindley, thought it was a dog on the tracks.  Then Mohr screamed, “That’s a baby!”

The baby was 19-month-old Emily Marshall, who had wandered away from home while her mother planted flowers in her yard.

Lindley hit the brakes.  Mohr bolted out the door and raced along a ledge to the front of the engine.  He realized there was not time to jump ahead of the train and grab the baby.  So he ran down a set of steps, squatted at the bottom of the grill, and hung on.

As the train drew close to Emily, she rolled off the rail onto the roadbed, but she was still in danger of being hit by the train.  So Mohr stretched out his leg and kicked her out of harms way.  Mohr then jumped off the train, picked up the little girl, and cradled her in his arms.  Little Emily ended up with just a cut on her head and a swollen lip.

Sometimes like this train conductor, God must hurt us in order to save us.

We are entering a portion of 1 Corinthians that is very familiar to me.  I wrote a 10-page paper on verses 11-13.  I will make the paper available next week, after I preach those verses.  The paper deals with the issue of “church discipline.”  Also, I wrote a follow-up paper for a class on 2 Corinthians that deals with reconciliation.  You will want to pick up both papers next week as they really are meant to compliment one another.

Over the last couple of years, probably 2 years to be exact, I have really fallen in love with the church.  Not just this church, but the Body of Christ as a whole.  It pains, and sometimes even angers, me when a member of the Body (especially a prominent one, like say Ted Haggard) poorly represents the Body.  It also pleases me to no end when someone properly represents the Body.  The latter usually goes unnoticed and the former usually gets a lot of publicity.  That’s the way our society works, unfortunately.

This chapter is key to our understanding of how church is supposed to function.  This is a very exclusive club to belong to!  And we have certain morality and character requirements if you are to remain in this club.  Our handbook is the Bible and our President is Jesus!  Let’s take a look at some of our guidelines.

1 Corinthians 5:1-9  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.  (2)  And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.  (3)  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.  (4)  When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus,  (5)  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.  (6)  Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?  (7)  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.  (8)  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 our efforts to remain in context, we must review a bit.  Remember that Paul has been addressing the issue of divisions in the church, an issue that he is going to revisit later in this letter (just from a different angle).  Last week he put his closing words on this issue of division saying that if you want to follow a teacher you can follow them in the manner that they follow Christ.  Namely, Paul said, they could suffer persecution, hunger, nakedness and slander, just like Christ did, and just like Paul did.  You may remember that Paul asked the Corinthians a question in the last passage that I said had a two fold purpose.  Paul asked, “Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?”  I mentioned that this served as a cap for the previous section about division, but also as segue to the next section.

II.                The Corinthians and their problem (5:1-2a)

1 Corinthians 5:1-2a  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.  (2)  And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn?

          Paul is pointing out two faults with the Corinthians in this short little section:

1.     Gross sin (the kind even the world is ashamed of).

Notice how appalled Paul was?  You can almost see the disgust on his face as he was writing this.  “It is actually reported that there is someone sleeping with his step-mom!  YUK!” 

If this woman were his birth mother the term “father’s wife” would not be necessary, so it is widely accepted that this is his step-mother.  Either way it is considered incest.

There is much debate and speculation over the status of the father.  Many believe he was dead, others believe he had abandoned his wife; still others believe that dad was well aware, and even approved, of what was going on.

Paul seemed to care very little about the father’s status, in fact, he didn’t even comment on it!  It didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of what is going on in this passage.  It made no difference to Paul if the father was dead, what this son was doing was a disgusting and vile sin.

This is the kind of thing that goes on in the church today.  Whether it’s pastor’s soliciting male prostitutes, televangelists extorting money, or Catholic priests molesting young boys, what the world sees as “Christian” doesn’t seem much different, and, in fact, sometimes seems worse than the ethics of the world.  Paul was disgusted by this sort of thing and we should be as well.

Remember way back in week 0 (the week that James did an overview) he mentioned the culture and feel of Corinth.  It was a city that was inundated with sex.  There was a temple there, the Temple to Aphrodite, where there were prostitutes available.  It was virtually impossible to spend any time at all in Corinth without being stained by the world. 

Before we are too hard on this particular Corinthian brother, let us look at the plank in our own eyes first.  Sex was such a part of their culture that he was immersed in.  We have similar sins today.  Sometimes it is sex (maybe not incest, but perverse sexual behavior, nonetheless), sometimes it is money, sometimes it is idolatry.  There are many things today that are socially acceptable, but biblically unacceptable, and people who call themselves Christians participate in them consistently. 

2.     Arrogance

The next big problem that Paul pointed out was a recurring theme.  The arrogance of the Corinthians is something that Paul had addressed a couple of times previously in this very letter.  Remember he talked about the Corinthians being “puffed up” over one teacher against another?  Or, when he said that some of them were “arrogant” as if Paul were not going to come to them?  Now Paul was claiming the Corinthians were arrogant about the sin of one of their members. 

          There are a couple of ways that this arrogance could be viewed.

The first way is the most accepted.  This view states that the Corinthians were arrogant in that they were boasting about what they are able to get away with.  They were presuming upon God’s grace, as it were.   This view carries the thought that the Corinthians were just going on living life and claiming the promise that God would forgive them. 

The Bible does not support this sort of thought.  That’s not to say that this is a wrong interpretation, for certainly the Corinthians had an improper view of God and the Bible.  But this is a prominent view even amongst Christians today.  They trample God’s grace by thinking that they have license to sin.  Lying, stealing, cheating, drunkenness, pornography, idolatry (and by that I mean anything that is put above God; job, family, money, TV, movies, video games, sports, or any other number of things that come before God), whatever the vice is Christians today constantly trample God’s grace and presume upon His forgiveness.

Are you doing this?  I hope not, but if you are I want you to know that God can cure you of this.  Please seek out help and accountability, either from myself or another trusted Christian friend that can guide you in the ways of the Lord.

A second view is one of my own theories.  You know how sometimes I have my own theories but none of the commentators that I read support my view.  In this case, they don’t refute my view, either; they simply do not address it.  The only view that commentators take is the one I talked about earlier.  But my theory is that the Corinthians arrogance was of the self-righteous nature. 

What I mean by this is that they were arrogant that their sin was not as bad as this man’s sin was.  They were basing their righteousness on how bad or good the people around them were. 

There is a HUGE problem with this view.  The standard of righteousness cannot be human.  Humans change.  When setting something as the standard that thing cannot be varying, it has to be constant.  God is the only constant throughout time.  The following verses teach us this truth about God.

Malachi 3:6  "For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.

Hebrews 13:8  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

James 1:17  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Now I want to tell you how I have arrived at my theory.  Let’s skip down a few verses.  Notice in verses 9 through 11 that Paul talks about a list of people that he warned the Corinthians not to associate with (we will look at these verses in more detail when we get to this portion, for now just take a look at the list in verses 10 and 11, specifically).

1 Corinthians 5:9-11  I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people--  (10)  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.  (11)  But now I am 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.

Paul’s initial warning to the Corinthians was not to associate with sexually immoral people.  Then, in verse 11 he expands his list to include other vices that the Corinthians were guilty of.  My theory is that this list was intended to humble them by putting their sin on the same level as the incestuous brother and thereby put an end to their boasting.

Either way, it’s clear that the actions of the Corinthians towards this brother were not holy!  Paul was calling them to holiness. 

III.             The Corinthians proper response (5:2b)

1 Corinthians 5:2b Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

Rather than boasting, Paul said the Corinthians should have been mourning.  This response fits either theory above in regards to the Corinthians arrogance.  The issue is that arrogance should never be the response, rather mourning.  Notice that the mourning was for the sin of another brother.  How often do we have that response?  So often our reaction to the sin of others is in line with the Corinthians.  We are either glad that we are not as bad as them, or we are presuming upon the grace of God and will encourage people to ask for forgiveness without commanding them to stop sinning.  But biblically our response should be to mourn over the sin of others.  Why?  Well, Paul will go on to tell us later (we’ll look at this next week) that a little leaven leavens the whole lump.  Ephesians 5 tells us that Christ is washing the church with the goal of “presenting the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27).  It is Christ’s desire that we are found holy and blameless. The Bride of Christ is always the universal, or global church (believers worldwide and throughout all time).  Therefore, when one member sins it affects the whole Body and this should cause us to mourn because we are not achieving the standard that Christ is calling us to.

The solution, Paul said, is to remove the person from among you.  In the weeks to come we will look at the intricacies of this statement (Paul, himself clarified it).  But for now, we must understand that this is a serious deal.  This is what is modernly called excommunication.  This is a tough step, one that takes a lot of prayer and wisdom, but if we are going to be a church that strives to present itself to Christ holy and without blemish, it is a step we must be willing to take. 

This is a process that I firmly believe in and, unfortunately, will probably have to exercise at some point during my ministry.  Next week we will look at the proper biblical steps in this process and talk about it more in depth.

IV.            Conclusion

I hope and pray that God is speaking to your heart through this message.  There is sin in each of our lives and now I pray that this will enlighten us to the seriousness of that sin.  If you know Christ you can take heart that your sin is forgiven and that you have been given the Holy Spirit to help you conquer the vice that you are struggling with.  Please seek someone out to pray with you and to hold you accountable. Our prayer room will be open for you in you need guidance.

If you are struggling with a vice and feel overwhelmed and overpowered you need help.  You need the Holy Spirit.  If you confess your sin and your inability to conquer it, God will give you His Spirit to dwell inside you and empower you.  Our prayer room will be equipped with someone who is willing to help you with that, as well. 

Please do not let this day pass without seeking accountability or salvation.  The bridegroom will be coming for His bride and He wants to find her pure and spotless, without blemish or wrinkle.  Today is the day, the right time is now!