“What is worse than an individual in a church living in open sexual immorality is a church which says nothing to that individual about it.” I heard that statement recently, and what struck me about it is how utterly biblical it is and yet how foreign it is to the corporate mindset of most evangelical churches in America. In fact, confronting someone who professes Christ and lives in open sexual sin has almost become something that our generation of the church doesn’t even realize is a biblical practice because it has fallen into such disuse.

It’s as if we have removed biblical Christianity altogether and have replaced it with a sappy and shallow sentiment that would prefer not to offend or to anger people even if the result is that those people die and go to hell. And the worst part of it is that because our practice of laboring for one’s salvation is unbiblical [i.e. refusing even to discipline our members who are in unrepentant sin], we have changed the definition of salvation to fit our practice so that even our understanding of salvation is unbiblical. Thus, each day people are looking over their life of disobedience to a profession made years ago and hearing that they are saved when the bible never instructs us to overlook how we are living in making our election sure. To use an example that I’ve spoken before, it is as if we shot our arrow and missed the target, but instead of changing and fine-tuning our ability to hit the target, we’ve re-drawn the target around where we’ve shot the arrow. And when you do this with biblical practice the results are nothing less than devastating.

Today, all across this nation, there are people dying who showed no signs of fruit and only evidence that they were not converted, and at their funeral their lost friends and family members will be comforted with the reality that these individuals are fine and enjoying heaven because they were members of so-and-so Baptist church – never being removed from the membership rolls or confronted in their sin in the name of that church trying to be merciful. Meanwhile, these friends and family members have just had their road to hell paved for a smooth ride because they know their lives are represented in the life of this individual who has just died and had his or her heavenly destiny endorsed by his membership at so-and-so Baptist church. That is not mercy; that is a travesty.

So, brothers and sisters, one obvious lesson we need to learn is that it is not wise to try to be wiser than God. It is not wise to try to improve upon God’s commands. It is not wise to develop another gospel, for it will not be saving. It is not wise to try to invent a philosophical understanding of man different than the diagnosis of Scripture, for our sin will soon be shocking reminder that the bible is true. And it is not wise to invent practices in the church attempting to be more merciful than God for his goodness outweighs ours to such an extent that Jesus reminds us that even parents who give their children good gifts are evil.

So what does the bible then teach us of the nature of the church, of salvation, and consequently of what should be the practice of the church? We will find out at least a portion of this answer as we look today at 1 Corinthians 5 and 6 and learn more about what the church is supposed to be, what it is to look like, and how it is to worship. Thus, in partial answer to our questions, let’s note the following from chapters 5 and 6 of 1 Corinthians:

To be part of the church means that you should strive not to sin and should repent when you do sin (6:12-20)

There is not allowance for any other approach to sin if you are a believer. You cannot have a lax attitude toward sin, and you cannot be unrepentant when you do sin. And the Corinthians seemed to have both of these wrong approaches to sin. They were lax and unrepentant, and so Paul drives home to them what it means to be purchased by Christ, to be a believer.

He writes in 6:12-20, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything. Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food – and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

And the same is true for you this morning if your claim is to be a child of God. You are no longer your own. You were bought with the precious blood of Christ. You must honor God with your thoughts, your dreams, and your body; for you are entirely his. You must obey Christ, as he commands in his word. And one of those commands is that there must be no sexual immorality in the church. Therefore, if you are practicing any kind of sexual activity outside of marriage, this is not acceptable in the church. It is not acceptable because of your profession to know Christ. And you need to stop it, today. Repent. Strive to honor God, even with your body.

Therefore, we should have a different expectation of those who know Christ than of those who do not know Christ (5:9-13)

Once you make a profession to know Christ, I should expect something different from you than unrepentant sinful living. You are to be held to a higher standard. And yet don’t we get this so wrong? Instead of judging those in the church and coming in contact with those in the world, we fail to judge those in the church and avoid those who are in the world.

Now, there might be “good” reasons we claim for doing each of these, but at the end of the day, it is an unbiblical practice. For it is not those in the world we are to judge but those in the church. Paul writes in 5:9-13, “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 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. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you.”

Thus, once you profess Christ and join his church, you set yourself in a position to be judged by your brothers and sisters. You make the proclamation to those who claim to know Christ as you do, “Watch my life and make sure it accurately reflects Christ.”

So, then we have some foundations for this text. Those in the church are to live holy lives and the church is to judge its members so as to assure we are giving an accurate portrayal of Christ in this world. So, what does this mean?

It means that the church must remove from its membership those in unrepentant sin (5:1-11)

In the situation we find in 1 Corinthians 5, there is a man who is sexually active with his father’s wife (probably his stepmother). Therefore, Paul writes to the church quite strongly in this fifth chapter. But note that he is not yelling at the individual committing sexual immorality, he is yelling at the church, for they are tolerating his sin and even boasting about it (possibly attempting to highlight their “mercy”). Thus, throughout this chapter he commands them to remove the man from the church. Listen to how many times Paul clearly calls for the man’s dismissal. He writes:

“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. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. … 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. 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 al 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 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. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you” (5:1-13 – emphasis added).

Now, yes, these are strong words, but they are not mine, they are Scripture’s. If there is one in constant unrepentant sin, he or she is to be removed from the church. For a church not to do so is a blatant violation of Scripture. It is direct disobedience. It is sin. And repentance is the only answer. Do you hear that? In as much as committing adultery is sin, so is a church refusing to discipline its members who are in unrepentant sin. But why should we do this? Paul gives a few answers.

The reasons for exercising discipline are that the individual might be saved, that sin might not spread in the church, and that Christ’s name and redeeming work might be honored (5:4-8; 6:9-11)

The first reason we are commanded to practice discipline is so that the individual being removed from our membership might be saved. This is probably not that difficult to picture. You have an individual in the church who claims to be a Christian, lives in sin, is unrepentant when confronted, and is possibly not a believer at all. Therefore, the church goes to the measure of putting him out of the church (by which they are saying, “We cannot endorse your salvation”), and hopefully the individual is shocked at the reality of his lifestyle and is brought to Christ. This is the goal of discipline.

Thus, Paul writes, “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” (5:4-5 – emphasis added).

Therefore, when people fight against discipline having place in the church because they want people to know they are loved are only allowing people to feel all good while they very well might be going to hell. You do someone no favor in endorsing their salvation when they are living as if they are not new creatures in Christ. And by allowing such individuals to remain on your membership rolls is to endorse their salvation. Thus, the goal of church discipline is so that the individual might be saved.

The second reason discipline should be practiced is so that sin does not spread in the church. Paul writes, “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” (5:6). Mark Dever has compared a church without discipline to a body without an immune system. As you allow sin to remain in the church, you are not only not being kind to the individual who should be removed, you are harming the lives and souls of other members in the church, for sin spreads.

Finally, we practice discipline so that Christ and his redeeming work may be honored. Paul writes, “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” (5:7-8). Again, he writes, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (6:9-11).

Do you see, he is saying that if they don’t practice discipline, they will send a message to the world that Christ’s redeeming work is not powerful to change lives and that he himself is unholy. As we have said once before, those surrounding the Corinthian church had reason to believe that Christ himself was immoral, for the Corinthian church was to be a reflection of his character.

As Christians, one of our greatest desires should be that Christ’s church is holy so that he is exalted among those who do not know him. In fact, this should be so much the case that we are willing to place the church above ourselves and our own lives. And this brings us to the final insight from these two chapters.

Each of us should be willing to suffer wrong if only the church is honored and seen as holy – each should put the church ahead of himself (6:1-8)

What happens if in our attempt to obey the Scripture as a church you suffer wrong, maybe being confronted on account of something that is false? Should your reaction be to slander the other individual, the church as a whole, or stand to show yourself right and embarrass the others (in their attempt to obey the word)?

The Corinthians were answering these questions wrongly. In fact, in this church that was to be holy, united, loving, humble, and exalting of Christ before the world, they were taking each other to secular courts. Thus, Paul writes, “When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud – even your own brothers” (6:1-8 – emphasis added).

Brothers and sisters, we are called to love the church and our Lord so much that we would rather be wronged that to see the church shamed. P. H. Mell writes, “An innocent man arraigned is anxious that God’s cause and Christ’s Church should suffer as little as possible, preferring to be immolated [or sacrificed] himself rather than that principles dear to his heart should be subverted. He values his reputation as dearer than life; but he is not willing that this should be vindicated at the sacrifice of the principles and the forms that Christ has prescribed to be operative in such cases. He desires earnestly to be acquitted, and to retain his place among God’s people; but even this high boon he will not accept at the price of the establishment of such principles in the churches of Christ as will make it impossible to discipline designing and wicked men. Far better, in his estimation, that he should unjustly be excommunicated, than that the churches should in effect give up the power to withdraw fellowship from all offenders … He acknowledges the jurisdiction of the Church over him, and will accept of no justification before the world in terms, excepting that which he can obtain through the Church. And if, after all his lawful efforts to relieve himself, he should be finally condemned, he meekly submits to the Lord’s will of purpose, knowing that He who has promised that all things shall work together for his good has some wise purpose to accomplish in him or by him … God not infrequently permits his servants to pass through the fiery furnace, not only that the dross may be consumed, but that he pure GOLD MAY APPEAR. ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’”¹

May we be these kinds of people.

So, what is our application this morning? I will list a few things.

1) Repent if you are in sin. If you are committing sexual immorality outside of marriage, then confess and repent. If you don’t, then you might ask yourself, “Am I on my way to hell?”

2) Join a church – if you are not a member of a church where individuals can oversee your soul, then who is there to care enough about your salvation to remove their endorsement thereof?

3) Pray for us as leaders (elders) and help us. We are laboring toward this. We want to obey such Scriptures as 1 Corinthians 5, and yet it is difficult. We have repented that this has been more of an idea than a practice, and we’re looking at what needs to be done to change this. We’re looking at how to oversee someone to see if he or she is living according to the word. We’re looking at how to ensure people are hearing the word. We need your prayer.

4) Exhort, confront, and encourage your brothers and sisters daily so that they might not ever arrive at this point we find in 1 Corinthians 5.

5) Praise God that he as opened your eyes to understand the graciousness of church discipline. We should be left in darkness, but we can see the light.

May God grant us riches of grace. Amen.

¹P.H. Mell, in Polity, edited by Mark Dever (Washington, D.C.: Center for Church Reform, 2001), 439-440.

DOES DISCIPLINE HAVE A PLACE IN THE CHURCH?