What to Do When Church Members Fight (Pt. 1 - Corinthian Church)

The culture of the Corinthians is in many ways like American culture today. It was a hyper-sexualized culture that normalized unrealistic and unhealthy stereotypes of gender and sexuality.

It’s into this pagan culture that the apostle Paul plants the Corinthian Church. Like many churches in America today, the Corinthian Christians appear to have had a problem separating themselves from the culture and lifestyle they’d been saved from. They especially seem to have struggled with preaching against sin or even confronting sin in their own congregation!

Once again, not much seems to have changed with our churches today, especially because you end up with one of two overreactions.

• On the one hand, there are those churches that balk at the thought of any preaching that dares to call any culturally accepted behavior sinful. The thought is, “We are a welcoming church. After all, who are we to point our finger? Who are we to judge? We’re all about love!” As a result, this supposed humility becomes the basis of accepting and even blessing any and every lifestyle, religious ideology, and sexuality.

• On the other hand, if a church were to follow through and were bold enough to confront sin, then those churches are labeled as being legalistic, judgmental, and being on a witch hunt! They’re told, “How dare you cast the first stone with your ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude? After all, didn’t Jesus say we’re not supposed to judge?”

So, which is right? Is there ever a time when a church needs to boldly and publicly confront sin within its own body? Where does love factor in? And, why can’t we just let people be who they are and do what they want to do? Well, the answer to those questions leads us into a two-part blog post on 1 Corinthians. In fact, let me give you the big idea from (chapter 5):

FLAGRANT SIN IN THE CHURCH MUST BE CONFRONTED BECAUSE ITS DESTRUCTIVE CONSEQUENCES AFFECT THE WHOLE BODY.

In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul is addressing a troubling issue in the church by one congregant that the rest of the church has turned a blind eye to. So here’s the layout of the passage we’re studying:

a. The Flagrant Unrepentant Sin in the Church

b. The Proper Response to Flagrant Sin in the Church

c. The Reason Why The Flagrant Sin Must Be Confronted

By the way, if you haven’t guessed it by now, this sermon is rated “B”, which stands for, I’m bout’ to get “All Up in Your Bizness!”

1. THE FLAGRANT SIN IN THE CHURCH

1 Corinthians 5:1-2 (NIV), “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?”

There’s a man in this congregation involved in a sexual relationship with his stepmother. Now, that’s bad enough in itself, but what makes it an especially flagrant sin is the fact that it was STILL an ongoing PUBLIC affair and this guy had no remorse about his actions.

Now, this was absolutely forbidden by the law in Leviticus 18:8 and still is for Christians. But what was more shocking to Paul was that EVEN the Corinthian pagans themselves did not tolerate that kind of behavior among their own.

Yet, the Christians in the Corinthian church were not only tolerating this man’s sin in their midst, but they were proud to have him as part of their church. In fact, the word Paul uses there means “to blow smoke”; in other words, they were “puffed up with pride” to have him in their midst.

Let me help you try and make sense of their unsettling response. There are two possibilities here:

• ONE: It’s likely that this man was someone of influence or affluence in the church, perhaps even a leader of note in the society. So, to have him in their midst may have been considered an honor, hence they were willing to OVERLOOK his rather shocking behavior.

• The other possibility is that the Corinthian Christians foolishly thought their acceptance of this man’s sin would show the world just how “LOVING” they were. They wanted to be known as a tolerant open-minded church that was accepting of ALL lifestyles, no matter what you do, and so they played fast and loose with Paul’s teachings about their freedom in Christ and grace.

This man was on a slippery slope to God’s judgment and instead of mourning for him or warning him, the church was applauding him! One of the most dangerous things you can do to a fellow Christian is to cuddle them and comfort them while they’re engaged in a flagrant sin that will lead them to judgment. If you know that a bridge has fallen ahead and you see a friend driving at full speed toward it; what’s the most loving thing you should do?

For Paul, the greater sin in the Corinthian church was not the sexual actions of this man (though it was bad), but rather, it was tolerance and approval of the whole church of his actions. They thought it said something good about them when in reality; it was like a disease slowly eating away at their witness from insider (they should have been grieving!)… Which brings us to….

2. THE PROPER RESPONSE TO FLAGRANT SIN IN THE CHURCH

1 Corinthians 5:3-5 (NIV), “For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. 4 So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, 5 hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.”

 Paul is referring here to the disciplinary power of the Holy Spirit; and he’s telling them, “Get this guy out of the church! Since, he has opted NOT to live like a Christian, let’s help him follow through in his chosen life by excluding him from the fellowship of the church until he experiences a change of heart.”

In fact, it goes a little deeper than that because Paul says in v.5, “…hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.” Paul is basically telling the Corinthian Christians to let this guy experience what life is like apart from the care and spiritual support of the Christian community. The “destruction of the flesh” implies that if this dude doesn’t repent of his behavior, his flagrant sin might eventually result in physical death (even though he would still end up in eternity with Jesus!).

This, of course, all leads to a big question, why go to these lengths? Why not just let people be who they are and do what they want when they want?

3. THE REASON WHY THE FLAGRANT SIN MUST BE CONFRONTED (TWO REASONS)

• TO BRING PEOPLE BACK: Any form of Christian discipline is first and foremost RESTORATIVE, BEFORE IT IS PUNITIVE. Our intention in confronting sin in the life of a fellow Christian must always be to bring the person back to their life in Christ, however painful it might be.

Paul tells us in Galatians 6:1-2 exactly how to go about doing this, “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

Jesus even gives us a step-by-step guide on how to approach another believer caught in sin. In Matthew 18:15-17, He says, “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

Remember, the first goal in this kind of confrontation is to be a loving instrument of the Holy Spirit to stimulate godly sorrow that leads to repentance.

• So, who in your life do you need to have an honest, but gentle conversation with concerning an unrepentant sin?

• And on the other side of the same coin, what sin has a friend gently confronted in your life that you need to pay more immediate attention to?

Now, when that first approach to gentle confrontation fails to bring someone back to their life in Christ, the purpose of discipline then becomes…

• TO PREVENT CONTAMINATION OF THE WHOLE CHURCH: 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 (NIV), “Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

So, I’m not much of a baker, but there are a few basic things I know about making bread. When you put even a little yeast into dough, it works its way through the entire batch. Paul is making the point here that sin is like yeast. When you tolerate its presence in a local body of believers, it spreads and has a destructive impact on the whole body.

So, let me take this time and explain what I mean by FLAGRANT sin.

Every one of us, even after trusting in Jesus Christ, will struggle with one form of sin or another. Paul says elsewhere that we’re like fragile “jars of clay” in which God has chosen to house “the light of the knowledge of His glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6); which basically means we’ll have cracks, moments in our journey when we revert to the old way of life Jesus saved us from. But that’s just what they are, MOMENTS!

However, there is a difference between a follower of Jesus Christ who is striving to be more like Jesus and occasionally wrestles with a sin and a person who claims to be a follow of Jesus, but WALLOWS in sin, chases after it and feels right at home in it. They may in fact have even begun to justify their sin in their mind as acceptable behavior. That’s what I mean by flagrant sin!

When this kind of sin is not boldly confronted, it contaminates the whole church! The next generation sees such behavior, they observe the church simply overlooking it and it tells them that IT IS OKAY to engage in such behavior. And, like yeast working its way through dough, sin starts to permeate the whole church, making it look no different than its ungodly surrounding – AND RUINING ITS GODLY WITNESS!

It’s for this reason that FLAGRANT SIN IN THE CHURCH MUST BE CONFRONTED BECAUSE ITS DESTRUCTIVE CONSEQUENCES AFFECT THE WHOLE BODY.

Practically speaking, it may mean that there will come a time when a congregant who refuses to turn from a flagrant sin in their life, (after being gently approached and lovingly counseled multiple times, but still refuses), will be asked to not be a part of this community. It’s not us being judgmental; it’s a biblical command. Verse 13, “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

Now, we want to be careful AS TO WHO we apply this to because Paul is speaking directly to the church in this passage. In other words He’s not holding non-Christians to the same standard as the church.

Everything we just discussed is in-house business. Do not expect the non-Christian world to live by Christian standards. If I’m at a restaurant with my kids and they start misbehaving, either my wife or I will deal with THEM; but I wouldn’t go around the restaurant disciplining everybody else’s kid!

That’s Paul’s point in verse 12. He says, “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

So, let’s wrap this all up with this thought.

• Has a friend of yours, who loves Jesus, recently approached you and lovingly, even gently pointed out some sin issues in your life that you need to pay more attention to?

• And then, on the other side of the coin, is there another Christian in your life whom YOU need to loving and gently approach to help them see a sinful blind spot in their life?

It may not be the most comfortable conversation you will ever have, but the scriptures tell us that it is the most loving thing God may be doing for you (or through you) in this season of your life! Proverbs 3:12 says, “…the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” May God humble our hearts to hear His voice!~

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