Service Videos

Sunday, August 17, 2025

1 Corinthians. A letter to a dysfunctional Church – Revolting We are in a summer study summer study of a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to a church he started, a church in the very sinful city of Corinth. In the Bible we call this letter 1 Corinthians. Paul always kept his eyes on the higher purpose of the church. 1 Corinthians 3:16 Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? 17 God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. Paul knew that the church was not a club or a fraternity or a secret society or a social group or human rights association. This message will not be easy today. In fact, it’s a very serious message and it’s very pointed. It may anger someone. It’s not a new thing that people rebel and get angry when they are presented with truth that they don’t want to hear. The town of Nazareth tried to throw Jesus off a cliff when he said something they didn’t like. When we read this passage today, you must first ask yourself, “do I love Jesus? Do I love everything Jesus says? No matter what he says? Let’s listen to this thing that Paul says that is going to be hard for us to hear this morning. Paul is going to tell these Corinthians that they must protect the church. 1 Corinthians 5:1 I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you—something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother. 2 You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame. And you should remove this man from your fellowship. 3 Even though I am not with you in person, I am with you in the Spirit. And as though I were there, I have already passed judgment on this man 4 in the name of the Lord Jesus. You must call a meeting of the church. I will be present with you in spirit, and so will the power of our Lord Jesus. 5 Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns. Paul points out that they crossed some moral and sexual boundaries. It’s a boundary that even pagans, people who care nothing about God, realize is wrong. A stepson is living and married to his stepmother in an incestuous relationship. And the church is congratulating themselves, arrogantly lifting up their tolerance. 1 Corinthians 5 maybe one of the most anti-woke. Anti-my truth. Anti-my autonomy. Anti-leave me alone and “let me do what I want” passage of Scripture in the whole Bible. 1 Corinthians 5:6 Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us. 8 So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth. 9 When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. 10 But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. 11 I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people. 12 It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. 13 God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.” The church is the temple of the spirit, it’s God’s house. It’s His house. This is God’s house. This is God’s church. This is the bride of Christ. We have been established by Jesus himself. For the purposes of Jesus. But it’s our enemies great project to steal the glory from the church. To somehow compromise it. To cripple it. To tempt the church to seek other things that God’s glory like political power, or fame, or money or popularity. Satan hates the church. But the church is his house. God’s house. And God gets to decide what happens in his house. 2. The Corinthians were no longer revolted by sin. Are we? “Tell me about your family.” “Well, my dad divorced my mom and then remarried. And then he divorced his second wife, and we started dating. And then I decided to marry her.” And this didn’t shock them. In fact, they were proud. Paul sees their loss of revulsion of sin is a huge problem. When we turn a blind eye to sin, when I care more about protecting the sin of somebody because I don’t want to hurt their feelings, that’s the moment that I’m willing to put somebody’s feelings over the glory of God. Here’s the problem…1 Corinthians 5:6 Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough? Sin is a spreader. It’s like yeast. It affects everything. It gets everywhere. 3. We expect holiness in His house; we don’t expect it from the world. 1 Corinthians 5:12 It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. 13 God will judge those on the outside Here are some application points forced to leave with today; We need to protect God’s church by protecting our relationships within the church. We need to protect those who serve in God’s church by affirming that a man helping them. We need to protect the integrity of the church by being a living witness to this world. We need to protect the purity of the message of the church by refusing to fall for the false teaching around us. We need to protect the pastors of the church with constant prayer. We need to protect the ministries of the church by getting involved. We need to protect the reputation of our church. And we need to protect the future of our church by being invested and giving. Let’s see what GOD can do! Pastor Brian Harrell