1 Corinthians 5:1-13

We strategically planned for the heat to break this morning so you would stay awake through

my extra long sermon.

Looking at 1 Corinthians 5 this morning.

In the Pew Bible, that's page 954.

And friends, as you're turning there, I wonder if you've ever considered the question, let

me ask, what is the measure of your love?

How do you know when someone really loves you or when you really love someone else?

I think one common way we might answer that today is that when you love someone, you allow

or you affirm them in whatever path they choose.

You do, in other words, nothing to stand in the way of what they feel is best for their

happiness.

I recently re-watched the original three Star Wars movies.

Not the prequels because everyone knows they're not worth watching again.

Sorry, you can disagree with me after the service.

But it struck me that the climax of episode four, as it is now, is when Luke is sort of

the last ship left in the attack on the Death Star, right?

And in that critical moment when he's got one bomb left and one chance to stop the evil empire,

what happens?

Obi-Wan speaks to him through the force and says,

Luke, trust your feelings.

And so Luke pushes away the radar, trusts his feelings, drops the bomb right where it counts,

the Death Star explodes, and the people rejoice.

And then he and Han Solo and Chewbacca get cool medals down on the planet in a neat little

ceremony.

Now, not to be overly analytical, but what's the message in that critical moment when freedom

and happiness for the galaxy hang in the balance?

Trust your feelings.

Do what you feel is right.

And isn't it true that what we so often see is the real measure of love today is letting

people free to do just that, not to stand in the way of the pursuit of what they feel

they need to do for their happiness.

I think Sting, that great songwriter and theologian, summed it up pretty nicely.

In that old police song, right?

When you love somebody, he said, you set them free.

But friends, is that really the best measure of love?

Is that the way to know if someone really loves you and that you love them?

That you set them free, that you let them alone, that you leave them be?

Our text this morning is going to show us that the real measure of our love for one another

actually couldn't be more different.

And in a deeply countercultural way, love is really measured not by our willingness to

let someone free to follow their own feelings, but actually by our willingness to tell them

when they've wandered down the wrong paths.

In other words, the measure of love is not in how readily we permit one another's freely

chosen path or desires, but in how readily we pursue and desire one another's holiness.

As I've said, our text this morning is 1 Corinthians chapter 5, page 954.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

And let me read this for us.

Paul says,

It's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is

not tolerated even among the 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 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.

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 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.

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.

For what have I to do with judging outsiders?

Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?

God judges those on the outside.

Purge the evil person from among you.

We should pray.

Amen.

God, we do thank you for your mercy and for your kindness that you would give us your word

and preserve it for many, many ages.

And in it, give us instruction and life-giving good news about Jesus and what it means to follow

him together.

So, Lord, we pray for your Holy Spirit to work among us this morning as we consider this text.

And we trust that it's for our good, God.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So, this section of 1 Corinthians that we're now in, chapters 5, 6, and 7,

that we'll be looking at, actually, between now and Easter, is all about holiness.

And this chapter, chapter 5, is about how the church pursues holiness

through what is often called church discipline.

And in particular, it deals with one specific expression of church discipline called,

sometimes, excommunication.

Now, there are probably few things in the life of the church that are more misunderstood

than church discipline.

I mean, let's be honest.

I say that word, and immediately you're probably already thinking of bearded Amish communities

shunning their wayward neighbors.

Or if you're remembering something that you learned in Western Civ as a freshman,

something about medieval popes forcing barefoot kings to confess on the snowy rocks of Kenosa.

None of you remember that, do you?

I'm a history nerd.

You can talk about it afterwards.

If you're new to Christianity, I think, too, church discipline probably sounds like something

that is judgmental at worst and hypocritical at best.

And in reality, most churchgoers today have either never been in a church that practices

church discipline at all, or if they have, it's often been done really, really poorly.

So our text this morning is actually very helpful.

It's going to clarify some misconceptions.

It's going to relieve us of some caricatures.

And it's really going to help us recover an element of our spiritual life together that

is missing in so many churches today.

So we're going to approach this text in a really straightforward way by just asking three

basic questions.

First, what is church discipline?

Second, how is it done?

And third, why should we do it?

What is it?

How do we do it?

Why do we do it?

But first, what does this text tell us about what is church discipline?

In verse one, look there again, we learn of a church member in Corinth who is engaged in

public, ongoing, unrepentant sin.

Now, it's hard to reconstruct all the details of this particular case.

It seems to involve some sort of blatant sexual immorality with this man's mother or more

likely his stepmother, according to the end of verse one.

But we don't need to reconstruct all the historical details to get the point.

What's the point?

Here is a man who is identifying as a Christian, professing to believe in Jesus and have him

as Savior and as Lord.

He's a visible member of the church, but his life is marked, characterized by open, ongoing,

unrepentant disobedience to Jesus.

In other words, his lip and his life, as it were, are completely at odds.

He claims to be a follower of Jesus.

His actions say the opposite.

And so, in verse two, Paul says, remove him from among you.

That is, remove him from formal membership in your body.

Now, keep in mind, the act of church membership, in the act of membership, the local church

is doing what?

The local church is saying, yes, with charity, and as best as we can determine, this person

has genuine saving faith in Jesus Christ.

By God's grace, through faith, this woman, this man, they are a member of God's kingdom

and God's family.

That's what church membership, in large part, is saying.

It's the church's affirmation of someone's profession of faith for all to see.

But what Paul is telling the Corinthians to do here, in light of the persistent, public,

unrepentant sin in this man's life, is in essence to stop saying that.

This man's life gives us no confidence as the church to be able to make that affirmation

any longer.

We can no longer affirm this person's profession of faith.

Therefore, Paul says, remove him from membership.

Now, as a brief aside, I think this means right off the bat that far from church discipline

being a hypocritical thing to do, church discipline is actually the way that church strives to not

be hypocritical.

Right?

We want our profession, what we say, and our actions to align.

And church discipline helps us corporately to be able to do that.

Now, the actual removal of someone from membership is sometimes called excommunication.

That's one of those scary words, right?

But it's quite simple, actually.

It just means being removed out of the communion.

Ex out of the communion.

Communication.

But, you know, when we talk about church discipline more broadly, we're not talking about just

that particular act.

We're talking about a process.

A process of meeting with that person, asking, listening, explaining, exhorting, warning, praying.

And it's a process that may or may not lead to communication.

That is, it may or may not lead to the person being formally removed from membership, depending

on how the person responds.

And we're going to get to that process in a minute when we discuss the how of all this.

But before we do that, let me make a couple further observations here about the what of

church discipline.

First, notice in verse 11, if you see down there, that church discipline isn't just for

sexual immorality.

In that verse, Paul lists all sorts of things that if they were ongoing and unrepentant in

a professing Christian's life would be grounds for a process of correction in church discipline.

You know, sometimes we get this strange notion that the Bible has a weird taboo against sex.

And that's clearly not true.

At the end of chapter 6, Paul is going to tell the Corinthians to glorify God with their bodies.

And in chapter 7, he's going to tell husbands and wives to make sure that they're having sex on a

regular basis.

So there's nothing prudish or repressive about biblical Christianity, and sexual sins aren't

somehow worse than others.

But second, notice that church discipline is a means of dealing with unrepentant sin in a

believer's life.

This is really important to see.

No one is going to be removed from membership, in a healthy church anyway, merely because they sin.

Every Christian, friends, is a sinner.

Every Christian will sin throughout their Christian life.

There is no doubt and question about that.

But genuine Christians, you see, are marked by hearts of repentance towards their sin.

That is, they admit that it's wrong and displeasing to God.

They don't want to do it anymore, and they seek God's help for change.

This means, for example, that a Christian with a history of addiction can relapse again and again and again.

But if their heart is a heart of repentance, of softness before the Lord, they admit that it's wrong.

They don't want to do it.

They're seeking the Lord's help in the battle against temptation.

Friends, they're not going to undergo church discipline.

They're certainly not going to be removed from membership.

That's the Christian life.

Fighting and wrestling against sin with gentle hearts before the Lord and one another.

Hearts of repentance.

But on the other hand, the Christian, for example, who say,

cheats on their taxes every single year, sees nothing wrong with it, shows no desire to change.

Well, if for some reason that became public, it very well might be in a process of church discipline.

What's the difference?

Well, the difference is, although one sin culturally seems kind of messier and uglier and more wrong,

and the other seems sort of like white collar and okay, the difference is the heart of repentance.

And this is an important point.

Jesus said, I've come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Yeah?

The church, friends, is meant to be a hospital for sinners who know they need a Savior.

And, friends, none are turned away, no matter how great their sickness.

The church isn't a place for perfect people, but for broken people.

But if we continue to refuse Jesus' diagnosis of our spiritual condition, if we persist in unrepentant sin,

it puts us in a very dangerous position, just like a patient who refuses sound medical advice,

even after a second and third opinion.

And it's that dangerous position that church discipline is meant to address.

And so I hope you're beginning to see that church discipline isn't a hypocritical act,

and it's actually not a judgmental act.

Not the way we often think of something being judgmental.

Rather, it's an act of correction for the person's good.

And that leads to a quick third observation under this first point here.

It's good to realize that church discipline isn't sort of coming out of nowhere.

It's not as if Paul just sort of blew a gasket and said,

kick this guy out of the church.

No.

Reading the entirety of the Bible, even the passage that James just read for us,

we see that God is holy.

And that we in the church belong to Him through Christ.

And so for our good and for God's glory, we're meant to reflect Him.

God was telling the Israelites in Leviticus to be holy as He is holy,

and He's calling the church to be the same.

And church discipline is a part of the process whereby we as the church pursue

that calling and that holiness together out of love for God

and out of a desire to resemble Him together.

Okay, so that's what church discipline is.

Secondly, let's ask how church discipline is supposed to work.

We're going to focus on verses 3 and 5 in our text,

but first, I want us actually to turn to Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

It's page 823 in the Pew Bible.

Flip over to Matthew chapter 18 with me.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

Look down at verse 15 of Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

And here we see that Jesus Himself gives us a process,

a series of wise and loving steps to take when a member of the church,

a brother or sister, is engaged in unrepentant sin.

So Matthew chapter 18, verse 15.

Matthew 18:15

Here's the first step of that process.

If your brother or sister sins against you,

go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

If he listens to you, you've gained your brother.

Notice that this first step is private.

You do it one-on-one.

You're not there to shame and blame,

but you're there to gain a brother or a sister.

And if the person repents, if they see,

if they accept the correction,

if they see what you're saying, that's it.

It's done.

Jesus says you've gained your brother and sister

and the church discipline process is over.

Step two, verse 16.

But if he does not listen,

take one or two others along with you

that every charge may be established

by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

Jesus says if the person doesn't repent

after the one-on-one meeting

or more likely after a few one-on-one meetings,

then take some trustworthy people with you, Jesus says.

Most likely this will be an elder

or some other trusted church leader

or someone who's spiritually mature

and maybe knows the person well.

And notice how the circle's starting to get a little wider,

but again, even here, it's still very private, right?

And again, if the person repents at this stage,

the process is over.

You've gained your brother or sister.

It's done.

Restoration.

Step three, verse 17.

If he refuses to listen to them,

tell it to the church.

At this point, after repeated meetings with the person,

the situation is then explained

to the members of the church family,

those who have committed their life together

to love and serve one another.

Notice how the circle of prayer and exhortation

and warning gets a little bigger

and a little more serious each time.

But again, at this point even,

if the person repents,

if they turn from their sin,

it's over.

There's no shunning,

there's no shame,

there's forgiveness,

and there's restoration.

But if the person continues in unrepentance,

though the whole church has prayed and warned,

then Jesus says there's one more step.

Look at the rest of verse 17.

And if he refuses to listen even to the church,

let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

That is, no longer consider him

as a brother or sister in the family of the church.

Remove him or her from membership.

In 1 Corinthians 5,

if you want to turn back there,

verses 3 through 5,

Paul goes into a little more detail

about how that final step of removal

from membership should happen

in the Corinthian church.

Now, as you scan those verses again,

you can see that there are some

pretty tricky bits here.

First, I mean, perhaps first,

it seems like,

after we've just seen this great process

that Jesus lays out,

it seems like Paul doesn't follow

the ordinary process that Jesus outlines

in chapter 18 of Matthew.

Does that mean that Paul is disregarding

the teaching of Jesus?

Well, no.

I think it's more likely

that Paul sees the situation in Corinth

as so extreme,

so public,

and so clear.

The man is so clearly unrepentant

and recalcitrant.

The church itself is so hardened

and even proud of what's happening

that moving directly to the final stage

of the process,

Paul sees as necessary and warranted.

Now, today, there might be times

when a case is so clear

that a church moves quickly

through the process Jesus outlines.

But friends, that would be very, very rare

as it was here in 1 Corinthians 5.

Next, as we look at this paragraph,

what does Paul mean that he's present

in spirit or my spirit is present?

I don't think Paul means anything spooky

or weird by that.

It's not as if, you know,

he's going to be a specter

haunting their next congregational meeting

in the Corinthian fellowship hall

or that he's going to show up

like Obi-Wan speaking to Luke

through the force.

Corinth, trust your feelings.

I think Paul is saying,

I mean, quite straightforward,

I think he's saying that

his heart and his mind

is so engaged in what's going on here

that he cares so much for this church

and he cares so much

for Christ's honor among them.

It's as if he's there,

even if he can't actually be there.

He's behind them.

He's for them.

He's deeply engaged.

I mean, we sometimes

even speak this way, don't we?

I'll be there in spirit

when we can't actually make it, right?

What do we mean by that?

We mean that our hearts

and our thoughts

are going to be deeply engaged with it

even if we aren't actually there.

Okay, the last tricky bit

in this paragraph

is verse five.

What does it mean

to deliver this man to Satan?

Golly.

Well, friends, in the Bible,

Satan is sometimes described

as the ruler of this world

in the sense that

in this fallen world,

that is the sphere

where the enemy exercises

his influence and his power.

So by saying,

deliver this man to Satan,

Paul's using vivid language

to describe the act

of removing the man

from membership

out of the visible church,

out of the realm of Christ,

and thus handing him over

to the world,

to the realm of Satan.

Deeply vivid,

stark language Paul's using

for this serious act.

Now, we're going to get

to the rest of verse five

in a minute

when we talk about

the why of church discipline.

For now,

notice that in this paragraph,

three through five,

Paul assumes,

just like Jesus taught

in Matthew 18,

that removing someone

from membership

is something

that the whole church

will do.

When you are assembled,

Paul says,

then you are to do this.

In other words,

he's calling the whole church

to be responsible

for its members.

All of us, friends,

who have committed

to the local body

are spiritually accountable

to one another

in the church.

It's not just

the pastors and elders

who are tasked

with spiritual care

in the family of Christ,

even though we are called

to take the lead

in doing that.

All of us have a part

to play.

In other words,

when we become members

of a local church,

we're taking on a calling.

We're taking on

a responsibility.

It's not like

just being members

of the Sierra Club

where you sort of

get a nice card

in the mail

and you get a magazine

every once in a while.

No!

Church membership

is a mission.

It's a calling.

It's a role

to do our part

to help our brothers

and sisters

grow in the Lord

using whatever gifts

God has given us.

To give and receive

gifts of love

and service

as we say here

at Trinity

when someone becomes

a member.

Notice too, friends,

that it's something

that the whole church

does in the name

of the Lord Jesus

with the power

of the Lord Jesus,

Paul says.

And this is what

we saw in Matthew 18.

In other words,

Paul isn't just

making this up

out of his head.

It was the Lord's idea

from the start.

And that means

that Jesus will be present

to give us

the strength

and the courage

and the wisdom

for the task

no matter how difficult

it becomes.

God's idea

is the need

to be present

Now let me just say

the question

of how we interact

with someone

who's been removed

from membership

after a process

of church discipline

is a challenging one.

As verse 5 implies

and as Jesus made it clear

in Matthew 18,

the goal of church discipline

is the restoration

and repentance

and restoration

of the offending brother

or sister, right?

So on one level,

we'll want to have

some contact with them

and we'll want them

even to show up

for public worship

on Sundays

hoping that God's word

will work a change

in them.

And obviously

if they're part

of our natural family,

if it's a husband

or wife,

if it's a son

or a daughter,

we'll obviously

remain faithful

to them

in those roles.

But our overarching aim

as members

of the body of Christ

is to see them

come back to a place

where they confess

and forsake their sin

and seek forgiveness.

So our relationship

with a former church member

will, without a doubt,

have a different feel.

Paul says in verse 11

pretty starkly,

don't even eat

with such a one.

Now eating in the first century

meant a lot more

than just getting calories

into your system, right?

It was a sign of solidarity

and acceptance.

It was a sign

of wholehearted embrace.

If someone professes

to be a Christian

but utterly disregards

the teaching

and the lordship of Jesus,

friends,

we can't give them

that wholehearted embrace.

Our interactions

will be loving

and gentle, yes,

but there will be

a sobriety

and seriousness

to those interactions

as well.

And undergirding everything

will be a longing

that the person

experience a change

of heart

and come to know

real repentance.

I've actually had

one experience

of this personally.

A number of friends,

a number of years ago,

a friend of mine

who is not a member

of this church

but a member

of another church

actually came under

church discipline

and was eventually

removed from membership.

There was a secret sin

in his life

that he had nursed

for many years

that very few people

even knew about

and when it eventually

came to light,

when it finally

sort of came out

in the open,

he refused to see

that it was wrong,

persisted in it

and there was

zero repentance.

And of course,

it was heartbreaking.

He was a very close friend,

someone that Beth and I knew

even before we moved

to New Haven.

And I looked up to him

in many ways actually.

He was a little older

than I was.

And I remember

interacting with him

a few times

after everything

had sort of gone down

and after he had been

removed from membership

in his church.

And friends,

I confess,

it was hard.

At first,

you know,

we sort of had

the usual friendly,

oh, hey,

how's it going?

How's work?

But given all

that had happened,

our conversation

couldn't just go on

as usual.

I'd like to say

we had sort of deep,

meaningful conversation

about where he was

at spiritually,

but you know,

we didn't.

It was clear

from our conversation

that his heart

hadn't changed

and maybe I just

chickened out,

didn't bring it up.

Or maybe we both

knew where the others

stood

and had already

laid it out honestly

on the table

in previous conversations,

so maybe there wasn't

much left to say.

But either way,

I told him that I was

praying for him

and that I cared

deeply about him,

but I knew that things

couldn't go back

to being the same.

because me pretending

like everything

was okay,

friends,

it would have done

him no good

because everything

wasn't okay.

He was headed

headlong

away from Christ,

still professing

to be a believer,

but rejecting

everything.

How about who Jesus

was and what Jesus

taught?

we couldn't just

go back to normal

because way too much

was at stake

for him.

And friends,

the reality is that

each discipline situation

is different.

If we as a congregation

need to,

at some point

in the future,

remove someone

from membership

because of a discipline issue,

we'll need to

carefully consider

how to have a fruitful

ongoing relationship

with that person.

And you can look to us

as the elders

to give prayerful help

on how to do it well.

And it's not as if

the elders are getting ready

to do church discipline.

We're preaching

1 Corinthians 5

because it was sort of

the next chapter

in the series.

But friends,

it's going to be tricky

if it comes up.

But prayerfully,

we'll do it together.

So what do we see then

about the how

of church discipline here?

First,

we see that it's something

that we do

patiently and deliberately.

It's not brash.

It's not judgmental.

There's a process

that Jesus gives us

and we can trust that process.

Second,

it's something

that we do corporately.

It's a process

we're all responsible for

in one way,

shape, or form.

And finally,

it's something

that we do dependently.

It's a process

that we need Jesus'

own wisdom and strength for

and He promises

that He'll give it to us.

If you look back

in Matthew 18,

there's a really famous verse

at the end of that

church discipline paragraph

where two or three

are gathered in my name.

There I am in the midst.

And Jesus isn't talking

about an evening service

when it snows

and no one shows up.

What's the context?

He's talking about

correction

in the life of the body.

And He says,

in those hard moments,

beloved,

I'll be with you.

I'm going to be

in the midst of you,

leading you

and guiding you.

So the last question

I want to ask

about church discipline

in this text

is not just what or how,

but why.

Why in the world

should we do this?

I mean, come on.

Can't we just let people

figure this stuff out

on their own?

Are we really supposed

to meddle in each other's lives

to this degree?

I mean, maybe for you

all this still sounds

a bit harsh.

You know, maybe you're

visiting church this morning

and you think,

what in the world

did I get into?

This is craziness.

But briefly,

I want us to see

that church discipline,

this process of correction

and approaching one another

in this way

is driven by love.

This process is driven

by a three-fold love

that compels us to do this.

And we actually see them

right here in our text.

The first is this.

We do church discipline

out of a love,

one,

for the person

being disciplined.

This is that tricky bit

at the end of verse five.

What's Paul actually

saying there?

He's saying there

that the aim

in church discipline,

as we've said,

is restoration.

We want this person

to be rescued

from their sinful nature,

from the flesh,

so that they might stand

before the Lord

one day in confidence.

When it really counts,

we want them to be there.

And even the act

of excommunication,

formally removing someone

from membership,

is meant to function

like a giant megaphone

calling them to return.

It's like a huge warning sign

saying that the bridge

is out ahead

and that road

only leads to disaster.

The hope is always

that the person

will one day

come back into membership.

Why do we want that?

We want that

not because we want

the other person

to be miserable,

but actually because

we long

for that person's

lasting joy.

Think with me

for a second.

underneath

our common idea

that to really love

someone,

you need to set them free

and not get in the way

of what they feel is right.

Underneath that

is the belief

that following

one's feelings

is the key

to lasting happiness.

And so we think

real love,

wanting the other

to be genuinely happy,

which is not a bad

definition of love.

We think that real love

must be found

in letting them free

to pursue their feelings.

If I love you

and want you to be happy,

I can't stand

in the way

of what you feel.

But friends,

is that belief

actually justified?

That the pursuit

of feeling

necessarily leads

to lasting happiness?

Do we actually

have good reason

to believe that?

And don't we all

have a sense

that our feelings

and our desires

aren't always trustworthy?

Yesterday,

I took

Jack and Claire,

my four-year-old

and three-year-old,

to the Pez factory

store in Orange.

Have you been there?

First time we've been there,

it was actually quite fun.

I didn't realize

they charge you money

to go.

So I said,

is there anything

we can see here for free?

She's like,

you can go to the store.

I was like,

okay, fair enough.

So we went to the store,

the Pez store,

and predictably,

my daughter picked out

the Elsa Pez head,

and my son picked out

the Stormtrooper Pez head,

and we got Nemo for Owen.

But you know,

my daughter,

left to her own devices,

would have eaten

those chalky little pellets

of Pez candy

all afternoon,

all night,

all morning,

had I let her follow

her feelings and desires.

She was begging me

to let her eat

Owen's Pez

that we got for him.

Of course,

he's not going to eat them.

When we first got home,

she said,

Daddy,

let's save it for Owen.

By the end of the afternoon,

it was,

he's not going to eat it,

Daddy.

Give it to me.

And of course,

had we let her

go down that path

as a result,

she would have gotten

terribly sick.

Our whole family

would have been miserable.

And of course,

that's a very simple example,

isn't it?

But can't we extend it

to nearly all areas

of our life?

So if the free expression

of our feelings and desires

isn't the key

to lasting happiness,

friends,

what is?

There's a popular Christian book

about marriage

that once said,

God cares more

about your holiness

than your happiness.

But you know,

honestly,

friends,

if you leave it there,

that's actually not true.

Or at least,

it's not a helpful way

of putting it.

The truth is,

brothers and sisters,

that God cares deeply

about our happiness.

And because of that,

He is dead set

on making us holy.

After all,

what could bring

more happiness

to our finite

created hearts

than to share

the nature

of God Himself?

Can we read

even the first chapter

of the Bible

and not be swept up

with the thrills

of joy

ripping across the page

as God creates

everything good

and then in the end

declares it very good

and it's teeming

with life

and energy

and joy

just waiting

to be unfolded?

Friends,

God is a God

of unbounded,

overflowing

felicity,

happiness.

As the great

church father Augustine

so often put it,

that's where

our happiness lies,

in Him.

So God cares

about our holiness

because He's eternally

committed

to our happiness.

He wants us

to share

His nature

so we can

share His joy

and that,

friends,

is the heart

under church discipline.

We see a professing

brother or sister

straying from

the path of holiness

and thus straying

from the path

of lasting joy

and we want to do

anything,

even the hard work

of church discipline

if necessary

to bring them back.

So you see,

all of this

is done

on the one hand

for love

of the person

himself or herself.

And let me ask

before we go

to the second love.

Friend,

do you have someone

in your life

who loves you

enough to do this?

Are you a part

of a community

who loves you

enough

to do this?

friends,

if you come

to know

Jesus Christ,

if you come

to become

a part

of His family,

you're not

going to see it

perfectly,

but you're going

to experience

a kind of deeper

and more committed

love than perhaps

anything you've

experienced.

Christ.

The second reason

we do church

discipline,

the second why,

is that it's done

out of a love

for the church.

In verses 6-8,

Paul begins,

your boasting's

not good,

Corinth.

Do you not know

that a little leaven

leavens the whole lump?

In other words,

if you let patterns

of unrepentant sin

go unchecked

in the church,

it is eventually

going to affect

everyone.

Whether implicitly

sort of giving

everyone permission

to sort of sin

and stray from Christ

in whatever ways

they see fit,

or causing people

to be sinned against

and hurt

as sinful patterns

and tendencies

go unchecked.

But then Paul goes

even deeper

in this paragraph.

Since Christ

has been sacrificed,

he says,

we ought to cleanse

out our old way

of life.

Note the critical

order in verse 7

that Paul lays out

there.

Jesus' sacrifice

for us by grace

means that we

really are unleavened.

He's covered

all of our sins

and therefore

we ought to pursue

increasing holiness.

We ought to be

who we are.

This grace

leads us to obedience.

It's not the other

way around.

Paul isn't saying

you've got to clean

up your act first

so that Jesus

will then decide

to maybe cover you

with his death.

That's not the gospel,

friends.

The gospel is

Jesus has died

in your place

like the Passover

lamb in Exodus

and now that you

are free

from sin's penalty

and from sin's curse

and your hearts

have been changed,

come follow him

as Lord.

Back in Exodus 12

that Paul's sort of

referencing here,

what was the leaven,

no leaven thing

all about

at the Passover?

Paul reads it here

on one level

as a sign

of the holiness

of the community

that they're being

made new

in that moment.

The Exodus account

in chapter 12

verse 39

suggests that

they ate unleavened bread

as a sign

of how quickly

they were thrust

out of Egypt.

Unit 16

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