Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20070304.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
1 Corinthians: Discipling Believers With Very Sinful Backgrounds
III. Overcoming Moral Disorders In The Local Church
A. Removing Leavening' Sin From The Fellowship
(1 Corinthians 5:1-13)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

When someone joins our Church, he verbally agrees in the presence of our Church Board to abide by Scripture and our Church Bylaws. This agreement includes submitting to Article IV, Section 3 in our Bylaws that is entitled "Termination of Membership" where one provision reads that a member's "Membership in the Church . . . [can] be terminated . . . by Biblical Church discipline . . ." (brackets mine)

However, due to the influence of "secular relativism" in today's churches, Biblical Church discipline is hard to practice: "secular relativism" suggests that defining right from wrong is an individual matter, not what an objective source like the Bible teaches, so Church leaders find it hard to get their congregations to practice such discipline where the Church as a whole disciplines one of its members, and that to the harm of the Church's moral strength (cf. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., "Evangelical': What's in a Name?" in the book, The Coming Evangelical Crisis by John H. Armstrong, gen. ed., p. 29-41). This is why Christians react to the idea of Biblical Church discipline by asking questions like: (1) "How can we saved sinners discipline a fellow believer just because he refuses publicly to repent of a given sin?", or (2) "Jesus told us not to judge! How then can we then correctly judge a particular person to have to leave our Church?", or (3) "I struggle with sin myself, so how can I consent to remove another believer from the Church just because he does not publicly want to repent of a certain sin?" or (4) "If 1 John 1:9 teaches God forgives a believer if he privately confesses his sin to God, why must he confess a given sin to the whole Church if he has already confessed it to God?!"

In our trek through Paul's Epistle of 1 Corinthians, the passage we happen to be scheduled to view today, March 4, 2007, is 1 Corinthians 5:1-13, one of the key sections in Scripture on Biblical Church discipline. In no way could I have planned to coordinate this passage to match any events we face today: I had decided back in November of 2006 to begin our study of 1 Corinthians 1 on January 7, 2007! Accordingly, we follow the Lord's obvious leading that we TODAY examine 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 and related passages to answer these questions on Biblical Church discipline as follows . . .



(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )

Need: "What is Biblical Church discipline', and WHY practice it?"
  1. Paul critiqued the tolerating of a vile sin in the Church, 5:1-2a:
    1. He noted that a man in the Church had committed adultery with his stepmother, a sin not even done in their notoriously evil Corinthian society, 1 Corinthians 5:1; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978 ed., p. 1619.
    2. Then, Paul expressed dismay that his readers had even proudly failed to have any grief over it, let alone not to punish it, 1 Cor. 5:2a,b!
  2. He revealed the CORRECT response SHOULD have been for the Church Body to have practiced "Biblical Church discipline," 5:2b:
    1. The verb in 1 Corinthians 5:2b rendered "taken away" (KJV), "put out" (NIV) or "be removed" (ESV) is airo, meaning "take away, remove," Arndt & Ging., A Greek-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 24.
    2. That verb is followed by the preposition, ek, meaning "out of, away from," Ibid., p. 233; U. B. S. Greek N. T., 1966 ed., p. 587.
    3. This preposition is followed in turn by the words, mesou and humon that are translated "of the midst" and "of you (plural)," Loc. cit.; Ibid., Arndt & Ging., p. 508; Machan, N. T. Grk. for Beginners, 1951, p. 46.
    4. Thus, the unrepentant man who had committed the immorality was to "be removed away from the midst of you (plural, or from the Church's fellowship)," a step we call "Biblical Church discipline"!
  3. Indeed, doing what only an APOSTLE in the APOSTOLIC ERA could do (NOT IN OUR ERA!), Paul urged his readers to join him in committing the unrepentant to divine capital punishment, 5:3-5! (God practices this today, but apart from our efforts, 1 John 5:16.)
  4. The REASON for this GRAVE ACTION was the need to IMPRESS OTHER believers in the CHURCH NOT to TOLERATE so as to PRACTICE SIMILAR VILE SINS [Paul likens this bad influence to the LEAVENING influence of yeast on dough], 1 Cor. 5:6-8!
  5. In 1 Corinthians 5:11, Paul named OTHER leavening sins that, IF NOT REPENTED, REQUIRED Biblical Church discipline:
    1. The word pornos, "immorality," is "all extramarital and unnatural intercourse" (premarital, adulterous, homosexual, etc., cf. Lev. 18, et al., Ibid., U. B. S. Greek N. T., p. 588; T. D. N. T., vol. VI, p. 590ff).
    2. The word pleonektays means one who is very greedy, Ibid., p. 271.
    3. The word eidololatrays means an idolater, Ibid., U.B.S. Grk. N. T.
    4. The word loidoros means an unjust malicious slanderer, Ibid., Theol. Dict. of the N. T., vol. IV, p. 293.
    5. The word methusos means "drunkard", Ibid., p. 547 [1 Thessalonians 5:6-8 widens its application to the abuse of any substance that hinders right self-control, Ibid., p. 711. (A right loss of self-control occurs under a responsible, licensed physician's use of drugs, Pr. 31:6-7.)]
    6. The word harpaks means swindler, robber, Ibid., Arndt & Ging., 108.
    7. As Paul alludes to Deut. 17:7; 19:19; 22:21, 24 and 24:7 by his words in 1 Cor. 5:13b ESV of "Purge the evil person from among you" (Ibid., U. B. S. Grk. N. T. , ftn.), he has the offenses in those verses in mind, all of which were capital offenses under the Law. So, we add all Biblically capital sins (murder, rape, kidnapping, etc.) to this list.
    8. Paul noted the sin named in 1 Corinthians 5:1 was shocking before the unsaved pagans, so we include any other sin that would be viewed as shocking in the world's eyes that is also defined as sin in Scripture!
    9. Titus 3:10-11 adds the sin of division in the Church body to this list.
  6. Church discipline is NOT for those OUTSIDE the Church -- that is GOD'S concern; Church discipline is ONLY for UNREPENTANT professing believers IN the CHURCH, 1 Corinthians 5:9-10, 12, 13!
  7. 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 deals ONLY with UNREPENTANT believers, so FURTHER guidance on Biblical Church discipline re: a sinner's REPENTANCE are needed from OTHER Scriptures (as follows):
    1. Matthew 18:15-17 calls us to ask the guilty one to repent in having him first be asked (1) by one concerned believer, then (2) by a few (we apply this to the Board) and finally (3) by the whole Church Body so that the guilty one might AVOID being removed from fellowship!
    2. If such a discipline must occur, we do not view it as complete UNTIL the disciplined one repents and is restored, 2 Cor. 2:6-11!
Application: (1) May we BELIEVE in Christ to be saved from sin and hell unto a holy God's heaven, John 3:16. (2) Having done so, may we aim to live separate from sin as God wants us to be (1 Peter 1:15-16), a step INCLUDING (3) HEEDING GOD in the matter of practicing Biblical Church discipline, (4) that we might BECOME and STAY HOLY as GOD wants us to live!

Lesson: Biblical Church discipline is NEEDED to COUNTER the BAD INFLUENCE of "LEAVENING" SIN on the CHURCH, so EITHER the SIN must be PUBLICLY CONFESSED OR the UNREPENTANT one must go UNTIL he so CONFESSES! The GOAL is HOLY RENEWAL!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

We now answer the questions we raised in our introduction:

(1) Question: "How can we saved sinners discipline a fellow believer just because he refuses publicly to repent of a given sin?"

Answer: "In 1 Corinthians 5:6-8, God calls us to remove unrepentant sinners of leavening' sins to protect the rest of us BECAUSE we are ALSO vulnerable to being impacted to TOLERATE and so EVENTUALLY PRACTICE SIMILAR SIN. Of ALL people, then, we who struggle MOST to gain victory over sin must be the MOST motivated to see Church discipline practiced!"

(2) Question: "Jesus told us not to judge! How then can we then correctly judge a particular person to have to leave our Church?"

Answer: "In telling us not to judge in Matthew 7:1-2, Jesus did not condemn all judging, but being hypocritically judgmental: the proof is found in Matthew 7:5 NIV where He told us to remove the speck from your brother's eye' after taking the plank' from our own!"

(3) Question: "I struggle with sin myself, so how can I consent to remove another believer from the Church just because he does not publicly want to repent of a certain sin?!"

Answer: "1 Corinthians 5:6-8 teaches that the (key) value of Church discipline is its power to influence the REST of the Church body to be holy as 1 Peter 1:15-16 calls us to be! Thus, the removal of an unrepentant believer from Church fellowship is a necessary step in countering the influence of grave sin on the Church body as a whole!

Regarding the unrepentant party, God calls us to remove him so he will be shocked into repenting so that he can be restored to fellowship, cf. 2 Corinthians 2:5-11! Church discipline, then, is one of the most loving functions we can perform, for it mirrors God's own work to discipline us out of His great love for us, cf. Hebrews 12:6."

(4) Question: "If 1 John 1:9 teaches God forgives a believer if he privately confesses his sin to God, why must he confess a given sin to the whole Church if he has already confessed it to God?"

Answer: "A leavening' kind of sin threatens the Church's holiness by its godless influence, so the guilty must reverse its harmful effects by publicly confessing it before the body, 1 Corinthians 5:6-8."

May we heed Biblical Church discipline to please our God Who sent His Son to die to give us victory over sin, Romans 6:9-14.