I.
INTRODUCTION.
A. There
is a story told of the famous denominational pastor Dr. George W.
Truett.
1. The
story is that a young lady was brought before the church for discipline
because
of a
violation of the church
covenant.
2. It was suggested that she
be dropped from the
roll of the church.
a. As the debated
developed the pastor said: “Let
us also call the church treasurer and have him read the record of the
giving of
every member, and let us vote to drop everyone who has violated God’s
law against
covetousness.”
b.
That bombshell cleared the air of accusers, as
did the reminder of Jesus: “He that is without sin among you, let him
first
cast a stone at her.”
B. Anytime we speak of judging
one another, we’re
going to hear people declare that it’s wrong to judge.
1. Jesus, after all, said
to those who had
brought the adulterous woman before him, “If any one of you is without
sin, let
him be the first to throw a stone at her” (Jn 8:7).
a. The argument goes: I’m not
without sin, so I
can’t condemn anyone of sin.
b. That attitude totally
ignores the context
John 8.
- The teachers of the law and the
Pharisees
bring a woman to Jesus caught in adultery and demand that she be stoned
according to the Law.
- Jesus DID NOT set
the
Law
aside:
· “If a man
commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his
neighbor—both the
adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death” (Lev 20:10).
· The Law also required at least two witnesses: “One witness is
not
enough to convict a man accused of any crime he may have committed. A
matter
must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses” (Deut
19:15).
o
How many witnesses had caught this woman in the
act of adultery?
Adultery is, by its very nature, a very private act.
o If one of these men had walked in on this woman and her
companion, he
couldn’t have her condemned to death.
Some scholars
believe that some of these men had been adulterous with this woman, and
others
believe that these men had set up the woman and her companion.
However these men
tried to get around the idea of having more than one witness, they
likely did
so in a dishonest manner.
c. Thus, when Jesus said, “If
any one of you is
without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone,” he was speaking to
scribes
and Pharisees who had concocted a difficult scenario and when stoning
this
woman would have violated the Law, rather than upheld it.
2. There is that other
statement of Jesus which
causes many people grief.
a. It’s found in the Sermon on the
Mount: “Do not
judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others,
you
will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to
you” (Mt 7:1-2).
- In context,
Jesus’ point is obviously about
looking at yourself closely and not spend so much time in condemning
everyone
else.
- He speaks of
getting the speck out of your
neighbor’s eye when there’s a beam in yours.
b. It’s no excuse not to judge
at all, but it’s
instruction not to judge harshly, especially when you yourself are in
sin.
C.
Apparently for some reason the Corinthian congregation bought into the
idea
that they should not judge.
1. They had a man living with
his stepmother, and
they weren’t about to say a single word.
2. Paul writes to the
Corinthians in the text
before us this morning and says, “You’d better get to judging, and
you’d better
get to judging appropriately.” He tells them: DON’T JUDGE THOSE OUTSIDE
&
DO JUDGE THOSE INSIDE.
II. DON’T
JUDGE
THOSE
OUTSIDE,
vv.
9-10, 12-13.
A. Paul writes, “I have written
you in my letter
not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the
people of
this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters.
In that
case, you would have to leave this world,” vv. 9-10.
1. Paul had apparently
written a previous
letter to this congregation which has not survived.
a. The fact that Paul gives this
letter authority—he
told these brethren how to live in this now non-existent letter—makes
me think
it was just as inspired of God as the one we are reading this morning.
- In fact,
from the way Paul writes in 2 Cor
2, most scholars believe that Paul wrote a letter between 1 & 2 Cor
that we
don’t have.
- Thus, Paul
likely wrote four letters to the
Corinthians, but we only have two of them.
b. What are we to make of
having only half the
correspondence from Paul to the Corinthians? Why don’t we have the
other two
epistles?
- I wouldn’t spend time
talking about it this
morning if I weren’t persuaded it was important.
- I’m convinced the
reasoning is this: We have
every single word from God that we need, and we don’t need those other
two
epistles to know God’s will for our lives.
· Do you
recall what Paul wrote to Timothy? 2 Tm 3:16-17.
o Granted, the apostle was undoubtedly speaking of the Hebrew
Scriptures, for they were the only Scriptures Timothy could possibly
have known
from childhood.
o However, the principle is apt: Scripture allows the man of
God to be completely
equipped for every good work.
· We do not
lack a thing to be the men and women God needs us to be.
2. In that previous letter,
Paul told the
Corinthians to have no contact with sexually immoral people.
a. Paul may have heard there was
sexual immorality
in the congregation and warned them about it, or he may have simply
warned them
about it because Corinth was known for sexual immorality in the ancient
world.
b. Apparently the church got that
letter and took
it to heart.
- Paul’s wording here
really makes me believe
that they did.
· If they had
a good friend who was sexually immoral, they cut him off.
· If they had
a friend who was greedy, they cut him off.
- The problem was that
they were more than
ready to cut off their friends who were living in sin but not their own
brethren who were living in sin.
c. Paul says, “Look, I didn’t
mean for you to
segregate yourselves from others in Corinth. If you were going to have
no
contact with sinners, you’d have to leave this world.”
- There are some who
have tried that in the
past.
· They have
gone and built monasteries out away from civilization where the people
of God
could be “pure.”
· I know many
of you enjoy visiting the Amish. Isn’t this almost a mark of being
Amish? Segregating yourself away from the
rest of
society.
- The Apostle informs
the Corinthians that’s
not the proper way.
· That’s not
the proper way, for that wasn’t Jesus’ way.
o Jesus said of himself, “The Son of Man came eating and
drinking, and
they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors
and ‘sinners’”
(Mt 11:17).
o Jesus taught us to go to those lost in sin: “Go and make
disciples of
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the
Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19).
· How could
we ever reach people for Christ if we refuse to touch them with a ten
foot
pole?
o How many of you were converted because someone in Christ
reached out
to you when you were lost in sin?
o Try going to work in the morning and say to a coworker:
“Look, I’d
like you to come to church with me this coming Sunday, but don’t touch
me, you
stay over there on your side and don’t you sit with me at church;
you’re a
sinner.” How many of you suspect that person would be here next Lord’s
Day?
B.
Paul also seems to deal with the idea that we
Christians should make this world a better place when he writes: “What
business
is it of mine to judge those outside the church? God will judge those
outside,”
vv. 12-13.
1. There are so many
Christians in this world who
believe they have an obligation to serve as the moral police.
a. They will speak out against
gambling, against
homosexuality, against fornication, against alcohol abuse and against a
whole
host of sins because God says people shouldn’t do such things.
b. It’s true that God’s Word
condemns gambling,
homosexuality, fornication, alcohol abuse, and a whole host of other
sins.
2. But, the apostle says that
I shouldn’t worry
about holding people to high standards on those things who are not in
Christ.
a. I think I know why Paul writes
such words; he
writes elsewhere: “The mind [set on the flesh] is death, but the mind
controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the mind [set on the flesh]
is hostile
to God. It does not submit o God’s law, nor can it do so. Those
controlled by
the [flesh] cannot please God” (Rm 8:6-8).
b. I don’t believe I have an
obligation to tell
people they can’t gamble or be homosexual or commit sexual immorality
or abuse
alcohol or any other sin; I have an obligation to teach them the gospel
of
Jesus and encourage them to respond to the cross in order that they
might
receive the Spirit and be transformed into what God wants us to be.
c. I do, however, believe I
have an obligation to
support the powerless when they are harmed by sin.
- I have an obligation
to oppose abortion with
every fiber of my being, for it harms innocent, unborn children.
- I have an obligation
to oppose gambling with
every fiber of my being, for innocent children get hurt when Mommy and
Daddy
gamble too much.
- I have an obligation
to oppose smut on TV
with every fiber of my being, for such smut teachers impure normalcy to
our
children.
d. Yet, in such cases, all judgment
belongs to God
and God alone.
III. DO JUDGE THOSE
INSIDE, vv. 11-13.
A.
Paul establishes two standards for judgment in our passage—one for
those
outside the church and another for those inside the church.
B.
He specifically writes, “Now I am writing you
that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but
is
sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a
swindler. With such a man do not even eat,” v. 11.
1. Because the Corinthians had
misunderstood the
previous letter the Apostle wrote, he spells out precisely what he
means.
2. The Corinthians were not to
associate with
anyone who claimed to be a Christian and lived in sin.
a. The term “associate” is in the
present tense
and thus points to a continual association with those living in sin.
- Paul isn’t talking
about seeing such people
at the marketplace or at school functions or passing them on the street.
- Paul is, instead,
speaking of friendships and
close relationships with such individuals. Paul even clarifies what he
says
when he declares, “With such a man do not even eat.”
· You
understand that in the ancient world eating together was equivalent to
have
very close relationships; you ate with your closest friends, not your
enemies.
· Even in our
own day, a lot of that holds true, doesn’t it? How many times do we go
out to
eat with or have someone in our home to eat that we just cannot stand?
b. How do we carry out such
judgments as a
congregation?
- It all starts with the
elders as the
shepherds of the sheep.
· “Keep watch
over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you
overseers. Be shepherds of the church of
God” (Acts 20:28).
· I as the
preacher, you as another member do not have the right to exercise
discipline
unilaterally.
· Discipline
begins with elders going to reach those sheep who have wandered from
the fold.
- As the elders work
with people who have left
the fold and as they bring the others of us on board, Jesus has
outlined
precisely the steps we’re to take: Mt 18:15-17.
- What are we to do if
the elders determine
they must bring disciplinary action against a person before the entire
congregation?
· That action
at once severs any fellowship we had with that person—we cannot have
that
person into our homes, we cannot go into his, we cannot call him on the
phone,
we cannot go out to eat with him. In other words, we can have
absolutely
nothing to do with him.
· As we’ve
discussed, that doesn’t mean we don’t care about his soul. The whole
purpose of
such discipline, according to Paul, is that the “spirit [may be] saved
on the
day of the Lord” (v. 5).
· If we
really care about someone and want to see him repent, we’ll take
disciplinary
action in order that he might be brought back to Jesus in humility and
repentance.
· We also
will be ready, just like the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son,
to
welcome people home in repentance and humility.
C. Paul
concludes this section by writing, “Are you not to judge those inside?
‘Expel
the wicked man from among you,’” vv. 12-13.
1. Paul rhetorical
question makes it clear that
he expects Christians to judge fellow Christians.
a. We have come to Christ, we have
submitted to
the cross, and we have picked up the cross to carry in humble
submission to
Jesus.
- As part of that,
following of Jesus, I have a
right to call you to high moral standards—the standards of Jesus—and
you have a
right to call me to those same standards.
- If we don’t follow
such high moral standards,
we have to expect judgment.
b. That judgment is exclusion
from the community
of Christians.
2. Let us be clear: we’re not
at all talking
about committing a sin here and there; we’re talking about sinning,
continuing
to sin, and showing no repentance.
a. There’s not a one of us perfect;
we are all
sinners saved through the blood of Jesus.
b. Therefore, we cannot dwell in
sin, and if we
do, we should expect exclusion from the community of believers.
3. Do you need to come this
morning and pick up
your cross and join the family of believers where there is real, deep,
abiding
fellowship?