Grace to you, and peace, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

We are finishing up our series on Confession this week. Last week we looked at 1 Corinthians 5. Continuing where we left off, we’ve already seen:

1. Sin Confronted

2. Steps Required

Today focuses is on why. To answer that question we’ll look at:

3. Preservation of the Sacred

4. Separation for Restoration.

The third point is: “Preservation of the Sacred.” In 1 Corinthians 5 we see the reason why we do these things, beyond what we learned last week. There it is recorded:

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.¹

We practice discipline to protect the holiness of the Church. Without the Office of the Keys, a church can slowly become no different then the world around it and loses its proof of having something better. You can see this in your own life. You might be moving with the traffic at 80 in a 65 zone. Then one of our honorable officers pulls over a car, and what happens to traffic along that stretch of road? Everyone becomes “Mr. Good Driver.”

The same is true in the Church. In verse 6 Paul says “your boasting is not good.” Tolerating open sin is not love. Love corrects to save, tolerance can be abandonment and lovelessness.

Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.²

Leaven, a type of yeast that represents sin’s quiet influence, spreads through the whole “loaf,” the whole congregation. When Paul says, “cleanse out the old leaven” this is spiritual surgery for the Body of Christ.³

In Christ we are the unleavened, the forgiven and set apart, the called to live in sincerity and truth.⁴

In verse 8 Paul teaches:

Let us therefore celebrate the festival [the Lord’s Supper], not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

The word ‘Communion’ means: being together. Holy Communion is the “Holy Together.” A house divided cannot stand.⁵ To eat and live “in sincerity and truth” means addressing open sin in love for the sake of souls gathered together in the Church, and to preserve the holiness of Holy Communion.

Part 4: Separation for Restoration. Paul forbids communing the unrepentant, those who express by word and deep their contempt for God’s love and God’s Word. To do so soils the Sacrament. There must be a medicinal separation from sin. In verse 11 he states:

I am writing to you, not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother meaning: church member if he is guilty of [unrepentant sin], do not even eat with such a person.

Once this unrepentant person is out of the Church, they are to remain separate, and they must not be admitted to the Lord’s Supper while they remain unrepentant and hold God’s Word in contempt. However, above all, this should never be done in a mean spirit, or in hate or anger. If this person is truly a Christian, if this person has a redeemed heart, if this person truly is a “Temple of the Holy Spirit⁶” this will, by God’s good grace, have the effect of bringing them back.⁷ Back to their senses, back to church, back to the family, and back on the narrow road home.⁸ A seat is always ready for them to return.

It can feel harsh, but silence would be far more cruel. Silence would be a true lack of care. The goal is always rescue, not ruin. Once outside the fellowship, they join the very people we pursue with the Gospel actively. We show patience to the lost, while inside the church we exercise discipline for clarity and care for the message and people.

It is different for those inside the Church. Peter says:

Let judgment begin
with the household of God.⁹

A “so-called brother” , so-called because they are no longer part of the family, cannot be in the Church if the Church is going to reach the lost. Their very presence proclaims the message of Jesus is a lie.

1. When you go to them in private, and they will not hear…

2. When two or three witnesses come, and they will not hear…

3. When they just keep piling up sin upon sin, and they will not hear…

What are the blessings of discipline?

1. Good for the person – God goal is repentance and rescue before the Last Day.

2. Good for the Church – Holiness, clarity, unity, and witness are preserved; hypocrisy is kept in checked.

3. Glory to God – Purity reflects His glory; tolerated sin dims it.

The goal in all of this is to bring them back! In the city of Corinth that is exactly what happened. The unrepentant sinner, and the congregation, repented. They humbled themselves before God. They submitted to God’s Holy Word. In 2 Corinthians Paul returns to this very subject, this very matter. Again he speaks very strong and powerful words. They are words that seek the only true goal of the Church: To save souls at the expense of Satan’s loss.

Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure—not to put it too severely—to all of you.

For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.

This is why I wrote, that I might test you, and know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.¹⁰

In Corinth it worked. The man repented and was restored. Church discipline is a ministry of love: gentle, patient, aiming at repentance and restoration.

This is Scripture’s statute:

Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.¹¹

May God give us grace, wisdom, patience, love and courage to do what the Apostolic mandate, and Divine command, call us to do. In Jesus’ name.

Amen.

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NOTES

11 Corinthians 5:6-7