City Life Starter

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.

Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast – as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

Romans 6:19b – 23 (NIV)

Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

By Jason Schezer

II. Reflection Questions:

1. All sin is serious, and the wages (penalty) of sin is death. Have I justified or made excuse for any sin? 

2. Is there any sexual immorality within the church, or people who are accountable to me?

3. Have I fallen into the error of thinking that it is kind or gentle to brush aside sin, because it appears to be non-judgmental?

4. Does God have my “permission” to search my heart, or is He standing outside knocking on the door?

III. Commentary:

This week in Starter, we have covered the fifth chapter of 1 Corinthians. Today’s Starter will serve as a summary of the chapter. So let’s recall that in Corinth, we have an ancient city where the Apostle Paul spend a considerable length of time as compared with other churches that he planted. We are looking at a city that was located along major trade routes through Greece, along with the northern Mediterranean. This is because Corinth was a port city on an isthmus, a narrow land connecting 2 larger areas of land. People in this city were quite wealthy and many people considered themselves to be rather sophisticated. They had seen a lot of the world and they weren’t surprised by every new thing that came along.

In 1 Corinthians 5, we see Paul probably more angry than we see him anywhere else in his writings. He has absolutely nothing good to say about the church in Corinth. A detestable form of sexual immorality has infiltrated the church, in which a man has his father’s wife, his step-mother. Greek society in Corinth considered this type of sexual relationship to be unacceptable, even if they did not hold to a biblical view of sin. Somehow the church in Corinth had become so arrogant toward God as to excuse sin as if it is a tolerant virtue to not pass judgment on others. Meanwhile, they abused their freedom in Christ to their near destruction. Paul’s statement that they are “proud” of this man’s sin is not the first instance Paul mentions that they have a problem with arrogance. Even from chapter 1, Paul reveals the spiritual problem that there are divisions in the church because of their spiritual pride in following various leaders. This also causes them to forget the central message of the Gospel.

That the church should have had a swift response to this man’s sin is clear. Firstly, they should have been filled with grief (v. 2), and not because of fear that Paul was coming to them, but grief because the Holy Spirit is grieved when there is sin in the church of any sort. A person may feel exhilaration, sophistication, or pride at getting away with sin, but God feels nothing of the sort, nor is it hidden from Him. Secondly, the church in Corinth should have put out of their fellowship the man who did this.

Paul holds a highly developed concept of church discipline, with an expectation that the church leaders in Corinth should have had the spiritual resources and wisdom to implement discipline. The discipline, Paul says, should occur even though he was physically distant. So he passed judgment on the man responsible for this sin because it is sin involving people inside the church. He does not tell them to go to people outside the church and judge them; instead, he tells them to allow God to administer the punishment when they are gathered as an assembly (inside the church) with the power of the Lord Jesus present. God will deal in a right way with the man’s body, spirit, and soul.

Boasting has no place in God’s church, Paul says in verse 6, except that he would allow only boasting in Christ and His cross. Otherwise, boasting will result in covering up sin and a state of pride which is a rebellion against God, stored as a poison in the human heart. Next, Paul uses an example from the kitchen, of yeast and dough. It can seem a bit mysterious if we don’t look at it in context. So let’s ask, who doesn’t like freshly baked bread, straight out of the oven? The yeast causes the bread to rise and makes it light, fluffy, and consistent.

When the Israelites were preparing to leave Egypt, the Lord told Moses and Aaron how to observe the first Passover. The festival was so important to God, that He instructed it to be the first month of the year on their calendar. Each man had to take a year old lamb, a male without any defect, and sacrifice it, placing some of the blood over their doorposts. They had to roast the meat over the fire on the same night and eat it quickly along with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast. This would be done with their shoes (sandals) ready to go on their feet.

As you may know, the Passover precedes the last of the plagues in Egypt that God sent because the Pharoah’s heart was so hard that he refused to let the Israelites go and worship God freely. The Israelites were not to have any yeast in their homes during Passover, not even a trace of it. If any yeast were in the bread, it would symbolize sin, disobedience to God, as yeast permeates the dough when it is mixed in. Sin permeates the human soul, (just as yeast in bread) corrupting the whole person unless there is spiritual cleansing. The true bread of heaven is Christ, and His church is a gathering of people that are being made to be His body. The church is not merely a spiritual institution or religious establishment; She is the extension of His love, compassion, holiness, power, authority, blessing.

To our human mind, it is easy to justify a small amount of sin as insignificant. An arrogant heart may even rationalize that God does not see it, or a person who thinks himself spiritual may reason that all types of sin will be forgiven. It can also be dangerous to think that we’re not so bad by comparison, as we do not have any sin so severe as the man described in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, who had sexual relations with his father’s wife. The truth, however, is that the human heart is desperately wicked to the point that it cannot even be measured.

Romans 6, in a similar vein, tells us that we used to be slaves to impurity. To be a slave means the opposite of having freedom. When we were slaves to sin, we did not have the ability to lift ourselves out so as to prevent our own destruction. We were powerless slaves. According to this same chapter, now that we are saved by Christ, we are slaves to righteousness, which leads to holiness. This means that every desire, all the time, is to strive earnestly for everything that accomplishes righteousness.

The Lord Jesus Christ has a mission to bring righteousness to the earth, a mission which will surely be accomplished because He is trustworthy. Amazingly, He wants to bring that righteousness on the earth through broken people who are being made more and more holy each day.

IV. Application:

Imagine for a moment that your favorite kind of fruit is oranges. If you don’t like oranges, just humor me. In season, oranges are plentiful in Southeast. Your friend has a large plot of land and invites you to pick oranges together on the weekend. “Come along, it will be great! The oranges you pick by yourself will be much fresher than anything you can get in [name your favorite supermarket] !” Finally, you are convinced and decide to join, so you bring several large baskets to fill with oranges.

You spend several hours picking oranges, resting briefly to eat some, and filling several boxes. Some well-intentioned kids in the area are picking oranges too, but they can’t reach the higher branches, and they aren’t permitted on the ladders. You notice a kid picking up several oranges off the ground and placing them into one of the baskets. The oranges on the ground have a green fuzz on the peel, and bugs are buzzing around them. What happens if the rotten fruits picked from the ground are allowed to remain in the baskets for a significant length of time?

No one in their right mind would spend hours picking fruit, and knowingly allow some rotten fruit to remain with the good fruit; the end result is obvious. In the church, if sin is not dealt with in a serious manner, especially sexual sin, the church ceases to be pleasing to God and is polluted with sin. The church is not a social club, nor does it exist solely to make people comfortable; it is the bride of Christ, the gathering of God’s people, His eternal possession. The church exists for Christ, not for herself.

Allow God to search your heart regularly, and do business with the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to convict you of sin and make you more like Christ. Be patient, but wise, with people in the church who struggle with sin. Yet do not make excuses for any kind of sin, because Christ Jesus paid with His very life for our sin. “Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear-hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.” (Jude 22-23)

V. Prayer: 

Lord, it is a great mystery that You even love us; we are so thoroughly sinful beyond imagination. What great love you have poured out on us, that we may be called Your children! Thank you for loving us even when we were sinners, with a love that never gives up and never changes. You are so faithful, so true, so worthy of praise. But we know that it grieves You when sin remains in the church unchallenged. So strengthen us in our faith so we can make no excuses for sin, and approach you with a humble heart. Don’t let us remain like the church in Corinth was – divided, full of pride, making excuses for sin. Cleanse us, Jesus, for your holy service and make us to be the church that You desire. In Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.