February 25, 2024
Evening Service

Sexual Immorality Defiles the Church

1st Corinthians 5:1  It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father's wife! 

1st Corinthians 5:2  And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. 

1st Corinthians 5:3  For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed. 

1st Corinthians 5:4  In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

1st Corinthians 5:5  deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 

1st Corinthians 5:6  Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 

1st Corinthians 5:7  Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. 

1st Corinthians 5:8  Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 

Paul, speaking to the Corinthian church notes an immoral exploitation, apparently ignored by the Corinthians. The Corinthians under a false conception of Christian liberty spared some from formal disapproval and failed to address the offender of sexual immorality. We know that teachers who profess the gospel message at times commit shameful crimes, some that even a non-repentant sinner would find themselves ashamed to commit. False doctrines and spiritual pride within a fellowship will bring in such shameful actions, and will spread the scandalous behavior if not admonished. Sin is like a very contagious disease, if unattended to and rebuked when it first becomes known, it would spread like a wild fire out of control. We have to remember that man cannot serve two masters.

Matthew 6:24  "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. 

The facts are that if Christ Jesus is not your master and Lord, then Satan will reign where Christ does not. This means that if a person is not in Christ and subject to Him, they will be in the kingdom of Satan and under the power that he holds over them. If there is a person of great influence by the perceptions of the people, and he exhibits behaviors that are not good and in fact, are full of wrongful intentions, this spreads throughout the land to the populous. The church is expected to have sound principles and examples of holiness and living pleasingly to the Lord within the church leadership. If the principles are misguided and the examples seen in the leadership are not sound and based on the gospel, it will harm the church as a whole. The incorrect leadership must be addressed and corrected for the edification of the church. Those people who have become followers of Jesus Christ are born again and are a new creation in our Lord, they must have new hearts within them and practice putting off the old person and putting on the new in their life. A person, who has claimed the blood of Jesus for the remission and forgiveness of their sins, must reflect Christ in their lives. This simple means in word and deed, we are to strive for holiness. Our bodies are a temple for the Holy Spirit and behaving in any way contrary to the Holy Spirit is abominable.

Romans 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 

Romans 12:2  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 

Christ Jesus gave of Himself to be our Passover, so trying to remain holy in our public and personal lives is good reason and motivation for the striving. We are to be holy in our living and our faith in our Lord and Redeemer; we must show the honor to our Lord that is well deserved. He did not have to be our Passover, He could have left man to die in his sin and it would have been justified to do so, but His great love for us is why we have the hope of eternal life in Him.

1st Corinthians 5:9  I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. 

1st Corinthians 5:10  Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 

1st Corinthians 5:11  But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person. 

1st Corinthians 5:12  For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 

1st Corinthians 5:13  But those who are outside God judges. Therefore "PUT AWAY FROM YOURSELVES THE EVIL PERSON."

We are called as followers to refrain from making our familiar groups with which we converse frequently to be those who blaspheme the name of God and dishonor the name of Christian believers. People who engage in actions that have no regard for Christ and His Holy Name are not fit for the fellowship of our brothers and sisters in Jesus. People who totally disregard Jesus as Holy are fit to be with a fellowship of sinners living in their sin and non-repentant. These types of people blatantly disgracing our Lord should be left to themselves when possible to do so. This is not saying that sinners are not welcomed in the church fellowship, but if their intent is to remain in opposition to Christ and have no desire to change their behaviors and actions, they are not in the church to repent. This would show that their motivation for being in the church is to create dissention and confusion and this disrupts the church as a whole and is not beneficial. Anyone who is seeking Christ to fill them and help them to follow Him would always be welcomed and this is beneficial to the church. Consider this, if you are conversing with someone who claims the Lord Jesus as their Savior and it is difficult to tell by their words and actions chosen, what does it say about their honor to God?  We would probably be able to think of someone who does not claim Christ as Lord that would speak more respectful due only to human morals. Lord, please let our words and actions we choose glorify your Holy Name. Allow your holy light to shine through us because of your Holy Spirit dwelling in us.