5:1 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.1
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.
9 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. 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church2 whom you are to judge? 13 God judges3 those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
Footnotes
[1]5:5Some manuscripts add Jesus [2]5:12Greek those inside [3]5:13Or will judge
5:1 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.1
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.
9 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. 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church2 whom you are to judge? 13 God judges3 those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
Footnotes
[1]5:5Some manuscripts add Jesus [2]5:12Greek those inside [3]5:13Or will judge
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:
I invite you to open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. 1 Corinthians chapter 5. We'll be looking at the entire chapter. It is 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?
Jeffrey Heine:
Let him who has done this thing be removed from among you. For though absent in the body, I am present in the 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 our 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.
Jeffrey Heine:
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 is our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate this festival, not with 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.
Jeffrey Heine:
Since then, you would need to go out of the world. 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 or reviler or drunkard or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. What have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.
Jeffrey Heine:
Purge the evil person from among you. This is the word of the Lord. Would pray with me. Our father, we ask that just through the reading of your word, you would already begin to open up hearts and minds through your spirit. You would already beginning to work real transformation.
Jeffrey Heine:
I ask in this place that our view of the church would grow, and the glorious gift that you have given to us. And I pray that our hatred of sin would grow, to where we begin to see things as you would see them. We would love the things that you love. We would hate the things that you hate. That your church, your bride, would be pure and spotless.
Jeffrey Heine:
I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. I've heard it said that 1 Corinthians 5, which we've just read, which is about church discipline, is perhaps the most ignored chapter in the New Testament.
Jeffrey Heine:
And that very well, referred to. I have rarely ever seen this chapter practiced within the church, and I bet that if I were to take a poll within you and and ask how many of you grew up in a church where you saw church discipline at work, I bet very few of you would say that you have seen this take place. But for me, rather than this being a chapter that I have ignored, I've actually gone to this chapter a number of times over the year, the years, in order to find some comfort there. Because believe it or not, as a pastor of Redeemer, and this is a church that I know and love, there are times that I can be discouraged when I see some of the things that are happening. And so I go to chapter 5 for encouragement.
Jeffrey Heine:
Not because it's such encouraging words, but so I could say, at least we're not this. At least this isn't true of us. Even Paul, he had to deal with a church that had far worse problems than I ever have to deal with. And so in some kind of sick way, this passage has actually been a comfort to me over the years. But I would be wrong in thinking that this text and what Paul is dealing with in the church isn't somehow also true within our church because there are a number of parallels.
Jeffrey Heine:
Paul is responding, he's responding to a report that he cannot believe he he heard. It it had to be when he read the letter or somebody was reading the letter that the Corinthians has sent to him. He had to be saying, what? Seriously? That's that's going on there?
Jeffrey Heine:
A man is having a sexual relationship with his mother-in-law. This is an obvious sin, it's one that I don't need to go into here. In a couple of weeks, we are going to be looking at sexual sexuality and sexual immorality. And, and and that's gonna be a PG 13 sermon. Parents, I'll give you a warning about that, and we'll we'll have some alternatives for those if you want to send your children, into that service.
Jeffrey Heine:
But that's we're not gonna talk about that here. Let's just suffice it to say that we know this is wrong. Alright? We know this is wrong. Everybody in the Corinthian church knew this was wrong.
Jeffrey Heine:
Everybody in today's church would know this is wrong. There was actually Roman law that was against this practice. And this is why Paul could even say, the pagans don't do this. This is clearly wrong. But we're not gonna focus so much this morning on this sin.
Jeffrey Heine:
What I want us to focus on is the church's indifference to that sin. How the church, at this point, just comes to tolerate sin like this in their midst. And this is what Paul can't believe. He's thinking, how can there be such a blatant, obvious sin happening right underneath every one of your noses and you're not doing anything about it? Is that what the church is called to do?
Jeffrey Heine:
How can you be so indifferent? As a matter of fact, the church is boasting about it. Look at verse 2. It says, and you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn?
Jeffrey Heine:
Let him who has done this be removed from among you. Paul says that the Corinthians, far from mourning about this situation, they're actually boasting in it. Now, I I don't think they're boasting in the sin itself. I don't think the Corinthians are that far gone that they're actually boasting in that sinful action. I think the majority of that church, if not all of them, knows it is wrong.
Jeffrey Heine:
Clearly some do, because they wrote Paul a letter about it. And so clearly, they do think this is wrong, but for some reason, they're boasting. And I think their boasting can be one of 2 things. They're boasting for one of 2 reasons. They could be boasting, not in the action, but in the person himself.
Jeffrey Heine:
The person who is committing this is a person that they are boasting about. Perhaps this was a person of such high status. A person who had a great reputation out there in the world. Perhaps this was, you know, what we would think of as a celebrity or some star athlete, you know, who who's a member of your church, one that you know has a reputation of sexual prowess, yet nobody will ever confront that person. But you're really proud to say that that person comes to your church?
Jeffrey Heine:
Perhaps that's the situation here, or maybe the CEO of some company who's there and essentially, they're untouchable. Nobody's gonna talk to this person about their sin, but you're really glad that your church has somebody of such a high standing in its midst. So that's that's one possible scenario. The other scenario is the one I think is a little more likely. And it carries with it the entire theme we've been looking at in 1st Corinthians, is that the Corinthian church was an arrogant church.
Jeffrey Heine:
They were constantly patting themselves on the back. They were boastful. They were spiritually proud. They were puffed up like we saw last week. They thought they were so wise, that they were so spiritual and so mature, and what Paul is doing here is bringing them down to earth.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's saying, do you think you're so wise? Do you think you're so mature? Do you think you're such a great church and you allow this to happen? And you do nothing, you're not mature. You're immature.
Jeffrey Heine:
And possibly, it's a scenario with both of these things are happening as well. I think that's what's going on. But this is what we see. There can be a church, a young, growing, hip church, in which the people are extremely gifted, and yet, Paul looks at that situation and says, you are immature. You're just children because of the way you deal with sin, the way that you tolerate sin in your midst.
Jeffrey Heine:
So you shouldn't be boasting. It's time for you to grow up. Now, of course, the Corinthians would have disagreed with this assessment. They were obviously aware of this situation and they thought that allowing this to happen was a sign of their maturity and it was a sign of their humility. It's a sign that they had progressed as a church, that they were no longer backwoods.
Jeffrey Heine:
But they had brought the church into modernity. The Corinthians would proudly describe themselves as progressive, inclusive, tolerant, modern. Does that sound familiar? There's a lot of churches today who would fly that banner, boast, and that is who they are. Progressive, tolerant, inclusive, modern.
Jeffrey Heine:
And here, we see that Paul is saying, no. You're immature. And you might think you're being humble, but you're not. You're being arrogant when you have that attitude. You see, they're defining arrogance differently.
Jeffrey Heine:
Many within the Corinthian church, they thought they were being humble by saying things like this. Well, who am I to judge? Who who am I to point a finger? Who am I to cast a stone? I I'm no better.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so they would take this posture of what they thought was humility, and they would allow these things to happen in their midst. And Paul said, that is not humility, that is arrogance. Who are you to discard God's law? Who are you to decide what is right and what is wrong? Who are you to embrace the things that break the Lord's heart?
Jeffrey Heine:
That, that's the epitome of arrogance, not humility. And so, they're approaching it from different ways here. Paul, for his part, he boldly goes ahead and he pronounces judgment on such a person. And he encourages the church to assemble together and to do the same. Look with me again at verses 3 through 5.
Jeffrey Heine:
He says, though absent in the body, I'm present in the 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 our 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. Paul says that the church is to deliver such a man over to Satan. What in the world does that mean?
Jeffrey Heine:
It kinda sounds like a tabloid, doesn't it? You know, something this is a story you would read about as you're checking out groceries and you're looking at the tabloids about how man in church is in relations with his stepmom or mother-in-law, church hands person over to Satan. You know, it's just it has that kind of feel to it. To deliver someone over to Satan seems, to be in this setting here, a strong way of saying we are to remove this person from our midst. He he says that.
Jeffrey Heine:
You're you're to remove that person. And verse 7, he says, you're to take out that lump of leaven and you're to get rid of it. At the end of the chapter, he says, purge the evil person from your midst. What Paul is talking about here is excommunication. It's pretty serious.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's removing somebody from the fellowship of the church. Now, I wanna be crystal clear here. Excommunication is is not done to somebody for just sinning. Otherwise, we would not have a church. None of you would be allowed to come into in here.
Jeffrey Heine:
The church is full of sinners. We are to be a hospital for sinners, where you can come and you can find refuge. When we celebrate the Lord's supper in a little bit, a lot of times I will say, hey, don't you dare come unless you are a sinner. Because this is a table for sinners, not for those who think they have no sin. And so the church is to be full of sinners.
Jeffrey Heine:
What Paul is talking about here is, you are to remove from your midst somebody who is continuing an unrepentant sin. Somebody who is aware of their sin, but they refuse to change. He's talking about a life style of sin. That no matter how many people the church goes to confront this person of it, they will not change. They have no desire to change.
Jeffrey Heine:
Therefore, Paul says, you need to remove that person from your midst. His language to deliver this person over to Satan sounds like something, you know, from Hollywood. Alright? Some cheesy horror movie. It's like where you would expect to hear that kinda language.
Jeffrey Heine:
You certainly don't hear it among Christians very often to hand somebody over to Satan. And I don't, I don't think we've dropped using that phrase because we no longer believe in Satan. I think Christians believe in Satan. What I think it's is we've likely no longer used that language is because we no longer believe in the power of the church. We no longer really understand understand all that the church is supposed to be and to be removed from the church is to be placed into the hands of Satan and for him to destroy you.
Jeffrey Heine:
Within the church community, Paul is saying there is real power to fight sin, to fight temptation. Within the church community, there is there is a safety that comes from the enemy's attacks, and the individual believer just out there on the island does not have that same protection protection as a protection as being part of the body of Christ, being a member of the church. Satan has limited power to work within the church. And when I say the church, I'm not talking about the church building, like you're safe if you get within these walls, but out there, you know, it's it's Satan's domain. That's that's not what we're talking about here.
Jeffrey Heine:
We're talking about the church as the people of God. The community of believers. And to be placed outside of that community of believers is basically to be taken out of the fortress and to be placed in an area where you are defenseless. You might say, Paul is saying, you are to leave that person high and dry. High and dry.
Jeffrey Heine:
And this is one of the reasons why throughout church history, when the church has read the story of Noah and the flood, one of the interpretations, the truths that they have brought out of it, is they said, the the ark is a symbol of the church. And those who are within the church are safe. Those outside those church walls will be destroyed. And so, the early church understood this. Of course, anybody who has experienced the rich fellowship and the rich life that comes through the church has no problem at all understanding this.
Jeffrey Heine:
There is a joy, there is a life that comes from being part of the church and it goes way beyond mere friendship. He's not talking about just friendship here. He's talking about being a church member, which is way more than that. You become family. Even a closer and tighter family than a blood family.
Jeffrey Heine:
You're united together through the Spirit. And this family of believers, they are constantly encouraging one another. They're exhorting one another in the faith. This family of believers, they come together and they hold one another accountable. They're stirring up one another's affections for the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:
This family of faith, they are loving one another so well that the invisible love of God is becoming manifested or visible through the love of the church that they have through one another. It's what the church is supposed to be. We weep when one of us weeps. We rejoice when one of us rejoices. It's this beautiful picture of being part of the family of God.
Jeffrey Heine:
My wife and I, we have, we've got to experience this firsthand, really, in the last week or so. We received some pretty devastating news about the health of Lauren's mom. And when we received that, you know, your whole world just kinda crumbles. And so we let just a few people in the church know about this and man, does the family of God just rally around you. We would get meals without asking for them.
Jeffrey Heine:
A constant barrage of of encouraging text messages. People would swing by just just to pray. And we just felt this protection and this outpouring of love. We felt our family, like our family just came and embraced us, and I could not imagine going through this. We can't imagine going through this without that.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's what Paul's talking about when he's talking about the church. This is the church. This is the glorious gift that God has given us to be part of the family of God. To be removed from this needs to needs to seem horrific in our eyes. It's the worst punishment that we could bring.
Jeffrey Heine:
When Paul talks about this punishment, he uses the language of removing the the leaven. Getting rid of the leaven from your midst. And what He's bringing to mind is the Passover meal, in which the people of God were to eat unleavened bread instead of leavened bread. And if you remember the Passover meal, that was when the Israelites, they were being, freed from slavery. They were leaving Egypt and going to the promised land.
Jeffrey Heine:
And and what they would do is they would They were commanded to fix this unleavened bread, this quick bread. They they didn't have the time to let it rise because they were gonna be leaving so fast, as they headed out towards the promised land. And even to this day, when the Jews celebrate the Passover, they search for every little bit of yeast, and they search for every bit of leaven to remove it from their midst, in preparation for this celebration. And Paul uses this Passover language for a reason, because he wants that image in our minds. He wants us to remember that how in the night before the Passover, the people of God would gather in people's homes.
Jeffrey Heine:
They would unite in people's homes, and they would be safe and secure in there when they would mark the doorposts with the blood of the lamb. So when they were united in faith, in there together as a family, they were safe. But anybody outside of their walls, the destroyer would come. Paul says, that's the church. When you unite together in faith under the blood of the lamb, you are safe.
Jeffrey Heine:
But to be removed from these walls means the destroyer comes. You won't be protected. You'll be handed over to this to the destroyer. And so Paul uses this imagery because he wants us to see the disastrous effects of sin. And he also wants us to have this this notion of the sin spreads, or we all share in it.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's what he's talking about when he uses this leaven imagery. That just as leaven will spread into all of the lump of bread, this person's sin, if we don't discard it, will begin to spread among the church. We all begin to share in the guilt of this person when we just leave it unattended. Unrepentant sin and allowing it in our midst affects the entire church. What this means is if you know somebody in the church who's living in a continued state of unrepentant sin, and you've confronted this person, you've talked with this person, and they do not change, this is something serious to be dealt with.
Jeffrey Heine:
And if you know somebody who's living in that state and you say nothing because you're thinking, well, this is none of my business. You know, I don't wanna make the person feel uncomfortable. I don't point fingers. I don't wanna judge. Paul says, no.
Jeffrey Heine:
As the church, we do judge people in our midst. It's part of what the church does. We don't judge the outsider, but we judge those who are members within our church. And to not judge that person is not a position of humility on your part. It is a position of arrogance on your part to not do what the Lord has called you to do.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's your duty as a member of the church to not look the other way if you see somebody habitually getting drunk, if you see somebody habitually living in sexual immorality, or idolatry, or greed. These are things that need to be dealt with. To look the other way, Paul would say, is to share in their sin. Well, let's look at exactly what excommunication should look like. For starters, let me be clear about this.
Jeffrey Heine:
It doesn't mean you bar that person from coming to church. You know that we get our elders to kind of act as bouncers there. You know, you get Corey over here and Brian De Villeneuve over there, and they just kinda like check, you know, did you have a quiet time this week? You know, okay, you in. You know, you out.
Jeffrey Heine:
You still dating that unbeliever. Sorry. You know, just, that's not what it looks like. Your hope is actually the opposite. You hope these people will still come.
Jeffrey Heine:
You want them to come within the church wall so they can hear truth and they can be confronted by truth, and perhaps through the spirit, true repentance would happen. You're supposed to treat the person like an unbeliever. How do we treat unbelievers? We reach out to them. We tell them the truth.
Jeffrey Heine:
We remind them of God's love. We are praying for their repentance. We're always inviting them in in the hopes that they will change. We're giving them incredible kindness and grace. So it's not just to bar a person like that from our presence.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's not just to keep them out of the walls. In in verse 11, when Paul says that we are not to associate or even eat with such a person, he doesn't mean here, alright, you gotta cut off all communication. Because he he talks later throughout scripture how you are to reach out to people like this. He wrote to the Thessalonian church about a man who is under discipline and he says that you are to still constantly counsel this person. You're not to treat this person as an enemy.
Jeffrey Heine:
The goal of it all is restoration. This isn't a punitive punishment. You're pleading with the person to repent, to be back as a part of your family. The goal is the destruction of their flesh. And Paul's not meaning when he says the destruction of their flesh to kill the person.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's not talking about their their physical flesh here. For Paul, he often uses the word flesh to talk about our sinful condition. He wants their desire to sin to be killed in them. Think of it this way. Excommunication is a form of grace that the church uses, gives.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's a severe grace, but it is absolutely a grace. A grace by which we are telling somebody, we love you so much, we cannot allow you to stay in sin. Outside of the church, we would call it an intervention. It's an intervention. When that person's friends or that community, they surround a person, and they say, you're blind to this, but let us tell you, you're living a destructive lifestyle.
Jeffrey Heine:
And because we love you, we're stepping in to say we're not gonna allow it to happen anymore. That's what excommunication is within the church. We're letting a person know who very well might be blind to it, the severity of their sin. Because if we let them just keep doing it, what we're essentially saying is it's it's okay. It's okay.
Jeffrey Heine:
But by stepping in, we're we're hopefully awakening their soul to the horror of what they are doing, and the self destructive nature of what they are doing by continuing in this sin. I once had somebody who wanted to join the church, sign off on our entire statement of faith and all this stuff. The one hang up, the one just little hang up was he was in the midst of an affair. And so I'm talking with the person about this and he refused to repent, refused to call it a sin. And then he got really agitated.
Jeffrey Heine:
Just said, I can't believe you won't let me join the church. And I said, well, understand this. If I allowed you to join the church, you would immediately be placed under church discipline and excommunicating. Immediately. Because that is not a lifestyle that honors the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:
The children of God do not act that way, and your refusal to repent, or to even acknowledge that it is a sin, we can't allow that in our midst. And so the person had to go off, join another church. Alright. So we don't we don't we don't bar these people from coming to the doors. What what are we supposed to do?
Jeffrey Heine:
Paul says that we are not to eat with this person. You might be thinking big, you know, big deal so we don't go to post office pies with them afterwards. Eating in this culture was a much bigger deal than it is in our culture. Alright? It was a sign of deep friendship and intimacy when you had somebody over and you ate with them.
Jeffrey Heine:
And, Paul is saying, there cannot be any more that deep friendship and that intimacy. Something needs needs to be broken there. And to deny somebody table fellowship also meant that you're denying them communion. You're denying them to partake in the Lord's Supper. They didn't partake the Lord's supper like many of us grew up with.
Jeffrey Heine:
You know, you you get the little chiclet or piece of styrofoam, you know, and the and the little, you know, juice cup and there's your Lord's supper. It was a meal. It was a fellowship meal and in which part of that meal was you you remembered the Lord's blood when you drank the wine and you remembered his body that was broken when he partook in the bread, and they were to be denied that meal, that table fellowship there. At the very minimum, they were denied this. To to excommunicate somebody, if you had to define it, it's it's to deny them being part of the inner fellowship of the church.
Jeffrey Heine:
They need to look like an outsider. Maybe they're denied the, you know, the family prayer times we have, or the frequent fellowship meals that we have. The specifics are not really laid out here. Paul is just saying this, in a real way, this person needs to know they are an outsider. They need to feel that they're an outsider.
Jeffrey Heine:
Now, let me ask you a question. It's a question I've been thinking about for years. I've actually thought a whole lot more about it this week. The question is this. What would excommunication look like in your life?
Jeffrey Heine:
What could the church deny you to which you felt excluded? What would being handed over to Satan resemble? It's a it's a hard question to think about. What could the church deny you to where you felt it? Could the church deny you all the small group prayer gatherings you've been going to?
Jeffrey Heine:
Could it deny you the intentional fellowship times when you've been getting together, breaking bread with the other members of the faith? Deny you the opportunity to serve in our children's ministry. What could the church deny you? Once again, you're not trying to keep a person outside of the walls. They could come in on a Sunday and they can hear truth.
Jeffrey Heine:
As you ponder this question, as I've pondered it, what I've realized is that many, many Christians live in a voluntary state of excommunication. To Satan, and they are no longer feeling the protection and the joy that the church has to offer. Some of you are wondering right now, it's like, why do I have no joy in my Christian walk? Why is it I'm always so defeated in my struggles of sin? And the obvious answer is you've never given yourself to the fellowship of the church.
Jeffrey Heine:
You live in a constant state of excommunication, and you have put yourself there. I mean, yes, there's some individual stuff you're doing. There's maybe some personal Bible studies, a few podcasts you're listening to, but are you devoting yourself to the fellowship of the church? You know, Acts 242, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. That's what the early church devoted themselves to.
Jeffrey Heine:
What are you devoting yourself to? I see people devoting themselves to schools, devoting themselves to sports, devoting themselves to work. And it's pretty easy how all those things could punish you. But what about the church? What could the church deny you?
Jeffrey Heine:
It's a probing question. Church is so much more than a Sunday service. Hear me. You don't go to church. You go to be with your church.
Jeffrey Heine:
You don't invite people to come to church. You invite people to come and meet your church. It's the people that you belong to. It's that strong fellowship or that family that you are a part of. It's not just coming, sitting in a pew and hearing a sermon, sharing meals together, praying together, stirring one another up in their faith.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's the church. Just coming to a service, will even the excommunicated do that? This this passage here, it is so much more than just trying to figure out how do we remove someone. How do we kick somebody out of the church? That's not what it is.
Jeffrey Heine:
This passage is a mirror in which we are to hold it up to ourselves and ask, what do I believe about the church? What does this passage say about my involvement in the church and how glorious I view the church? What does it say about me? Am I denying myself all the joy and all the protection that the church has to offer? Paul would argue that we're not only denying ourselves the protection that comes from the church.
Jeffrey Heine:
He would say you're denying yourself of the joy of the church. When he talks about how we are celebrating the festival of the unleavened bread, I mean, he pulls that out. He's saying that the Christian life is a celebration in which we have been brought from slavery to freedom, from death into life, and we are now as the church, the people of God, and it is a constant celebration full of joy and life. And he is saying, don't you want to be a part of that? Don't you wanna be a part of this?
Jeffrey Heine:
Nobody celebrates alone. We celebrate with the people we love. And Paul says, when we commit ourselves to one another and to one another's purity, it becomes such a joyful festival. Let me end just by asking this question, these questions again. Are you enjoying the full benefits of being a part of the church?
Jeffrey Heine:
Or are you one who is struggling with joy, always feels defeated when temptation comes, because you haven't given yourself to be part of the family of God? You see yourself giving yourself to so many other things, but you haven't given yourself to be part of this beautiful thing that Jesus gave His life for, the church. Pray with me. Jesus, your bride is beautiful because you have washed her clean, and she is beautiful. And I pray that the way we view church would be a constant celebration of the beauty in which you have made us.
Jeffrey Heine:
Lord, the church will be pure, because it's a reflection of you. It'd be full of life and joy, because you have given us those things. I pray it'd be something that we continually devote ourselves to, out of utter joy. I pray we would hate the things you hate and we would love the things that you love, that we would treat sin seriously that's within our midst. Thank you, Jesus, for this glorious gift you have given us, and we pray this in your strong name.