Katie, thank you very much. As Richard was playing
that gospel song, no one cares for me like Jesus,
I remember a story that I think I've told some
of you before, regarding Charlie Weigel, who
wrote it. He came to Christ as an adult, as a
married man, and his wife did not come to faith.
In fact, she was very upset that her husband
had become a Christian. He did not like the change
in his life and refused to live with him anymore
and left him. So Charlie was taken in by a Christian
school in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he lived
the remaining years of his life, working on their
campus, teaching the psalm and doing some more
gospel psalm writing. But that is the story behind,
no one ever cared for me like Jesus. And it's
a good reminder, isn't it, some of the sweetest
songs of life about the pain that we endured
because of what life brings us. Let's open our
Bibles together to 1 Corinthians chapter 5 as
we continue our study of this letter written
by the Apostle Paul to the believers in the city
of Corinth. I'd like to begin with in verse 9
of 1 Corinthians 5. I wrote to you in my letter
not to associate with immoral people. I did not
at all mean with the immoral people of this world,
or with the covetous or swindlers, or with idolaters,
for then you have to go out of the world. But
actually I wrote to you not to associate with
any so -called brother if he should be an immoral
person, or covetous, or idolater, or reviler,
or a drunkard, or a swindler not even to beat
with such a word. But what have I to do with
judging outsiders? We do not judge those who
are within the church. But those who are outside,
God judges. Remove the wicked man from among
yourselves. Many years ago now, of course, my
grandmother was naked and spread one morning
when my grandmother's neighbor from across the
road came. over and asked her if she wanted to
go to town. My grandmother did not want to waste
the dough, but she didn't want to miss the opportunity
to go to town either. She knew that my grandfather
would be upset if she saw the dough wasted, so
she decided the best thing to do was to go to
the backyard and bury it, get rid of it, and
he would never know that she had made it, and
she went to town. Now, that's right, you see
the picture already. when you know exactly what
happened. That was in Kansas when the sun gets
very hot. That afternoon when she got home from
town, there in the backyard was this bread coming
right out of the ground as a testimony to what
she had done. And it went all strange to what
the apostle Paul says in his chapter 11, Leavens
the Whole World. He talks about the powerful
effects of leaven or sin within the church. He
makes that connection. By way of an illustration,
one word defines more similarities actually between
weapon and scent. It says it may be small, but
it's potent. It works secretly. It creates corruption
and it spreads. And that's what Paul was concerned
about as he wrote this letter. We have a list
of problems, of course, that the president of
the Christian Church, that now after writing
about the cardinal domesticness in their fellowship
addresses the tolerant attitude which they had
toward an emboldened member of the Church. Tolerance
of what God declares to be sin is no virtue.
In fact, it is self -condemnation. And that was
true of this Church. In the life of a professing
Christian, if there is an ongoing, open expression
of sin, and a rejection of God's moral standards,
that Christian is not only destroying himself,
but also potentially his family and his Church.
That is why the Apostle Paul says not only in
Corinthians, But again, for example, in Galatians
chapter 6, verse 1, that a sinning person within
the fellowship of a church must be confronted.
And with that confrontation, there's the responsibility,
actually, of every person who becomes aware of
that sinful pattern. If anyone be overtaken,
give a fault, a trespass, he says. Here's one,
here it goes. So there's no longer a transgression.
It's ultimately the concern of church ministry
leaders, of course, so the church can be protected.
But first, the front line has to be every one
of us. God does not take lightly the moral character
of His people and His church. Paul writes further
about this whole matter of the immoral member
in the text that I just read. We don't have the
letter. Inspired and therefore there was a revelation
of God the power of other letters as well that
were not inspired by the Holy Spirit And that's
what he is alluding to here What we basically
learned in this text is the question of our call
to live separated from sin but not isolated considers
There's a difference It is that they were not
to associate intimately with those who were living
immorally. Not to associate intimately with.
Paul says if anyone does not obey our instruction
in this weather, take special care of that man
and do not associate with him, so that he may
be put to shame. Semitimus is used in the context
of sin and the church discipline. What he says
here is that when someone is involved and focused
on going to sin, those within the church are
to stop associating with that Now we look at
the way that Paul wrote it, but if we turn in
the back door on this, we also get a picture
of what the quality of fellowship is anticipated
to be like in a church. We're to get mixed up
with one another. We are to associate intimately
with one another. That's what's to be expected.
The exception is the rare case such as the need
of discipline on matches to shoes. That's the
instruction all of us need to keep. These believers
have misunderstood and have apparently cut off
their unbelieving friends in the world who were
living in immorality. Let me stop and think about
that for a moment. Here they were at the church,
living comically with this member of the church.
It was permitting sexual sin such as if the world
would turn up its nose at you. Even though the
laws would give the kind of thing that was happening
within this church as the church was allowing
it to happen, even most think about it. And yet,
when a fleet of people in the world were living
immorally, it cut them off and they seemed to
be practicing that the world would have seen
them. the double standard that they would have
seen. And so the Apostle Paul commands them that
they're not too intimately associated with a
new universe. So as they get involved in ongoing
sin. God versus Devil webinar gives a clarification
about this. It's a two -fold clarification, first
in verse 10. He basically says separation is
not isolation from the simple. He says, I didn't
mean when I said that that you were to separate
from all the immoral people in this world. And
I give one basic reason for that at first. He
says that if you were to do that, that would
mean you would have to leave the world. If you're
going to separate from the immoral of the world,
To bring Anthony out, we're going to have to
exit, because there are more people being worked.
This is all because I didn't mean that. I'm still
going to try to do this when going to monasteries,
caves, or the... under the mirrors of churches,
but it's impossible to do. Simon, Brazilian,
Scaletes would like to do this. He is declared
to be a saint by the Roman Church. He was about
33 years of age. He was so convicted that he
wanted to separate from all the immoral of the
world that he was in. He, um, climbed on top
of a six foot pillar and stayed there for a period
of time. He started the movement of, uh, toward
Christians. These were not exactly pillars of
the church. They were some of the catapulters.
They lived on pillars. They got increasingly
high and so for the last 30 years of their lives
they lived on a pillar that was 60 feet high.
Another kingdom. In 30 years. That was his attempt
to separate himself from the immoral of this
world. That's not what I'm talking about. You
can't separate from the immoral of this world.
You have to leave the world. That is, if we were
to take that action, it would make the fulfillment
of the Great Commission impossible. Jesus has
called us, in fact, to God, to be a moral people
this way. We're going to be the salt and the
light of the Gospel. In a world that is immoral,
we are called to touch people and to get involved
in situations that are not very nice. In order
to... Jesus to them, and to seek to bring them
out of the darkness, to the standard which they'll
go. There's a third reason that I believe that
Paul would make this clarification, that is,
that if we were to make the action of separating
from all the world, the world would mean that
we would not be like Jesus. And we're called
to be like Jesus. Jesus sought out sinners, he
ate with them, he was with them. It was attacked,
of course, by the legalists, the Pharisees of
his day, for doing so. They said, because you're
with these people, you too are drunkard. That
was wrong. Jesus wanted to be with them, to love
them, and to seek to bring the truth of God to
them. You see, contact with the immoral in this
world of the gospel, complicity with their lives,
compromise with their living standards is forbidden,
conformity to how they live is forbidden in the
gospel, not contact with them. The poem in verse
11 makes it clear he's talking about separation
in relation to brothers in the ongoing... A simple
involvement by a believer says Paul demands a
response, a separating, and Paul goes on beyond
the immoral person to list some other possibilities.
He says if anyone is a professing brother, and
he is, that is, he is ongoing in being characterized
by being immoral or being competent, a greedy
person. who think they're gonna have more all
the time. Who looks to what others have and is
jealous and wants what belongs to someone else
but himself. What's there to be a brother who
is my dollar, sir? He means that in the middle
of sin sphere. If we can go beyond that he means
people who are involved with cults and false
religions. If there's a brother who gets involved
in a cult or a against the Worship Rivals, because
on Chapter 10 it talks more about that. He mentions
revilers here, that is a brother who uses harsh
and abusive language, who uses and abuses others.
If there be a brotherhood, and there's a comfort,
who loses his senses by use of alcohol or other
kinds of substances, if there be a brother who
is a swimmer, That means one who seizes by force
what belongs to somebody else, a human, is a
conqueror who is extortionate. Those are the
words here. In the first church that I passed,
we had a funeral home. We went across the street
from the church. What was that again? It was
right there, the other name of it was Slytherin's
funeral home. I thought to myself, And then he
thought there were wonderful people. Wonderful
people, some good friends of mine. So I thought,
like that, I would wish to exchange the name
of that place. And since then, we have the generations
that have gone on it. Swellers. But then a big
brother who's known as Swellers, separated from
him. Now, he's not talking about people who were
used to. I remember a few years ago, The Lord
asked of our King to set him on a journey to
church from this American motor car. He called
by transparent, he's not his past, he is evolving
and thriving. There will be one or two people
in our church that will master him. I wish I
could get somebody like that to come to my church.
Bless God that they have gotten the same. He's
certainly no more than Jesus Christ, we should
all be proud of. copy out fast as you copy out
people who are believers and men who are loving
these kind of lifestyles. It's enough they don't
tolerate them at the church, but tolerate the
scardies that don't even allow them to be a part
of the church. Being physically associated with
them, they don't even be - The false conclusion
versus problem of our state is that God will
judge the outsiders. We are going to reform the
world by our standards and conduct of it. And
it's regarding that sense of risk. You can't
pass moral standards in law. You can't pass them
out in law. If there's a sense of risk that's
true, then you can't change people's lives. Bye
bye. You set moral standards. That's important
to do. We can't change people's hearts by casting
laws from God's place. And we'll advise to do
that. God will try to take care of actually judging
the outside and bringing them to punishment for
their disobedience. God will see that justice
will finally be done, but he says we are responsible
for judging the inside. As somebody says, what
about Matthew 7, verses 1 and 2, do you like
them? The judge will ask you to be a judge. For
in the way you judge, you will be judged by your
standard of measure of the imaginary thing you
do. Is that a contradiction of what Paul is telling
us to do here? The answer is no, yet, for the
content. Jesus was dealing with that, he said,
with legalism. And judging on the basis of man
-made rules, that is not what Paul is talking
about. There are some right ways of That is with
respect to doctrine. To see whether they are
from God. In other words, just because somebody
comes through and says something in the church,
don't accept it. because many false prophets
have gone out into the world instead. Not only
were we to judge between truth and error, but
we were to judge between right and wrong conduct.
In Matthew 7 verse 20, Jesus says, so that ye
will know them by their proofs. We dare not condone
what God condemns. We are responsible for judging
the actions of people both are obvious while
we cannot judge them. with our children. Now
in conclusion, now four thoughts that I want
to give regarding this issue that we're speaking
about, the indiscipline of God's family. The
first one is this, that we're to be aware of
becoming either insolent or careless. I think
I've gone too extreme. We must be careful of
being the what others are doing, censoring them.
That's extreme. On the other hand, we ought not
to be careless about saying the Church is tolerant
of it. We need to be in the middle, and we're
balancing such important work, isn't it? If we're
becoming feverish and soreness, or careless secondly,
examine your own life before the middle. In other
words, I am responsible and you're responsible
for others with business policy. But before we
look to them to see how they're doing, we must
first look at the examination. Third, God wants
to bless his people, but he demands holiness
first. And holiness should be the heart and desire
of each of us. We should desire holiness first.
of all else. That God would so work in our hearts
that we would hate sin, and love righteousness,
and live within the church and without the church
consistently, to be what we are, and to be a
part of love, which is what holiness means, to
be separate from each other, and to live on a
level of love, health which is imbueable. God
wants to bless us as His people, but He demands
holiness first. The best thing that can stand
against a person is his will. Unfortunately,
holiness for them does not imply isolation from
sinners without. One can be a holy person, like
Jesus was, and yet, he wanted more. earth -making
world as well. As long as we look through this
chapter, we begin to understand the problem with
how we are to face the deal which stands in our
lives and in the church, and how that relates
to us. The second. We pray for happiness. We
pray for friendship. We pray that you will be
able to serve. But as you deal with them, help
us to do our part as it... Bye.