Verse 8, and before I read, would you please join me in prayer. Lord, your word is good. It is more precious than gold. It is more desirable than honey. It makes us wise. It shows us Christ, what he has done for us. how we are to respond. We pray, Lord, that you would allow our hearts to receive the seed of your word. And that you, by your spirit, would water it so that we may produce the proper fruit. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Please give your attention to God's word. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not even tolerated among pagans. For a man has his father's wife, and you are arrogant? Aren't you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit. And as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. 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. The Apostle Paul wants the Corinthian Christians to relive the Passover and the Exodus. You remember this event that is so major for Israel, for the people of God. They had this Passover event where it is a sacrifice or the death of a lamb that God has provided for his people that deals with guilt and freedom. We know that in Israel, in Egypt, Israel sinned. They worshiped the Egyptian gods. They lived like the Egyptians. And so they needed a sacrifice that would deal with their actual guilt. They also needed to be freed from Pharaoh, to be a distinct people. They needed the ability to be an independent nation, to live according to God's law and not Pharaoh. And so they also needed a sacrifice that pushed them into freedom, guilt and freedom, guilt and slavery. And it was an order that the Lord had for this event for Israel. First, the lamb is sacrificed. Then you leave Egypt. First, your guilt is covered. And then you walk in the newness of life. This is important because, friends, this is Paul's point tonight. Jesus, the Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. So leave Corinth. Leave Egypt, leave the ways and customs and ethics of this age behind. This is verses seven through eight. If you look at it with me. 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, leaven of malice and evil, with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Just in these two verses, we see order, celebration, and cleansing. This order is what I was mentioning earlier. If Jesus Christ did not die, If he did not take up that cross, Paul would have no reason to expect the Corinthian people, the Corinthian Christian, to live different, have a distinct holiness about them. This is why earlier he says, who was crucified for you? If Paul truly was crucified for you, a sinful man with problems and weaknesses, sure, then you should be boasting and having factions and being of a different mind and judgment, but that isn't who died for you. Christ was crucified for you. And because it was Jesus who was crucified, you should have the mind of Christ. You should have the same mind, the same judgment. You shouldn't have divisions, but you should be one. Later in the letter, again, Paul will make this point that because Jesus has been crucified, there is this response that can be expected. He says, you have been washed because Christ has accomplished his atoning work. This has resulted in your washing. And so no, you should not be living in sin and filth and immorality because Jesus has washed you. We see here that the rhythm of church life is to conform, not to create. What do I mean by that? The church does not create a holy body. Because by his death and resurrection, Jesus has exalted himself as the head of the church. His body doesn't create a holy people. Rather, we conform to the holiness that our head has. Our union with Christ and who He is, is what produces the response to people. Jesus' blood has covered our guilt and freed us from our slavery to sin. And let me tell you what happens then, if you are trying to resist sin and temptation, only focusing on one aspect of that. Imagine with me, as Israel is leaving Egypt, there is one person who is going the wrong way. They are returning back to Egypt. And of course, we would all stop that person and say, you know, we'll give him the name Smith. Smith, where are you, what are you doing? Where are you going? And he was to say to us, I'm going back to Egypt. I know that this is wrong. I know I shouldn't do it, but it's a good thing that the lamb has been sacrificed because I know my guilt, my sin in returning to Egypt will be forgiven. Well, our response to Smith would be, did you miss the whole point of the Passover lamb? Yes, it is to cover your guilt, but it's also for you to get out of here. to leave your life of slavery behind, to not be an Egyptian slave, but to be a free person who lives in devotion to God. And yet, friends, when you are wrestling against sin, we ignore the fact that the blood of Christ, that Jesus as our Passover lamb means that we are not enslaved to the things that we are tempted by. You can say no to sin. Because Jesus' work is so great, it is not only that our sins have been forgiven and covered, but now we can resist when the ways of Corinth or Egypt or Philadelphia says, do this, live this way, value this, talk to people this way, treasure this. We can say through the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, no. I am not a slave. I am not returning to Egypt, to Corinth, to the ways of Philadelphia. Both the removal of guilt and freedom are something to celebrate. Celebrating Jesus Christ as our Passover lamb involves thanking him for our forgiveness, but we'll see it also involves cleansing, removing, putting out, putting away, Verse 8 says, celebrate with sincerity and truth. Sincerity is, the Greek under it actually has more of the idea of something being pure. It is not stained by the world. It is the genuine article, if I could put it that way. And so Paul is saying that one of the ways that we do celebrate Christ as our Passover lamb is living according to truth and purity. Being that unstained people of God and living in truth, But Paul also makes the case that part of celebrating Christ as the Passover lamb is sometimes sending people out of the door. which is a little bit shocking, but the way that Paul makes that case is one, he's leaning, or first, he's leaning on the procedure that households would undergo to observe Passover. When it was time to celebrate Passover, you had to get rid of anything that was leavened, right? You were in a rush when you were leaving. You had to hurry up and get out of Egypt, and so you would remove all leaven in the household to remember this deliverance that you had received as a people. And so he is saying in the same way that as you were celebrating the Passover or as Israel would celebrate the Passover, you needed to remove leaven in your house. As you celebrate the Lord Jesus Christ, you need to remove from your celebration. Anything that speaks of this age, anything that looks like Egypt or looks like Corinth, something that is not in sincerity, something that is not in truth. So Paul is placing this cleansing act in the context of celebration. Of course, this celebration is not occasional for the people of God as it was for Israel, but this is an ongoing ethic, which is an encouragement but also a call to examine ourselves. If Paul was saying that the ongoing celebration of Jesus Christ as your Passover lamb means you have to have a smile on your face all the time and you're bouncing with joy, that would be very difficult, be unrealistic. He doesn't say that you participate in this continual celebration of Christ as the Passover lamb, so always be chipper, but rather have a life in which you are committed to truth and sincerity. which means even in difficulty, even in tears, even in confusion, even in sickness, you can continue to celebrate the Lord Jesus's reign over your life with sincerity and with truth. And this celebration involves cleansing. The lamb has been sacrificed. The Corinthian church has experienced an exodus. And Paul says, but when I look at the Corinthian church and I see your Passover celebration, I see leaven. What leaven is it that he is referring to? 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. What does the church do while celebrating the Lord Jesus Christ? And they come as an assembled people to discover leaven. 11, that is so bad that it is not tolerated among the pagans. 11, that is so bad that has made its way to the apostle Paul. What is the church to do? This is verses four through five. 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. American Presbyterians love Paul, but let me tell you how we ignore some of the things that Paul commands and urges. Notice I put, I said we, I'm in that category here. Here, Paul is removing the acceptable individualism that we practice in church. There is a secular individualism that we mock and make fun of because it is foolish and wrong. But there is an individualism that here in the church, we still enjoy and practice. And Paul says, you can't do that. And what I mean by that is when we view the sins of our brothers and sisters, we don't act like we are a part of the same lump. That's terrible that you are doing this over here, but it has nothing to do with me. Yes, I can see that that's a very miserable situation, but your sins don't affect me. But this isn't what Paul says. Notice that the main drive for Paul about this discipline isn't actually how bad the sin is. He doesn't minimize it. I mean, he says in verse one, even the pagans wouldn't tolerate this. But his driving point for why this must be removed is verse 6, don't you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? The man who does this in your midst, he affects all of you negatively because you are a part of the same lump. Even the way that he phrases it. He doesn't say, it's reported that there is a man who is sleeping with his father's wife. He says, there is sexual immorality among you. There is this church, people of God, ecclesiastical emphasis here as Paul is saying this. He doesn't just say, yes, that guy in your church who's doing this. But this is among you. This is a part of your lump. Notice that even in the solution, Paul calls upon everyone in the lump. You, plural, are to deliver this man to Satan by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why is Paul doing this? Well, because the Corinthian church truly needs a lesson in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. They need to see the power of God. Toward the end of chapter four, apostolic trash talk. There is a lot of people in the Corinthian church who give their judgments, who make claims, who seem to be strong and powerful. I will come and see them and we will see if they're really powerful. We will put power to the test. The power of Corinthian's wisdom and what it cherishes, or the power of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, which is the power not of talk, but action, of righteousness, of truth, of sincerity. And so here in this chapter, he is calling the Corinthian church to participate in the power of the kingdom. Remove this man, deliver him over to Satan. And in doing so, you save a brother's life. This is why this removal is still in the context of celebration. Notice Paul doesn't just say, that's gross, get him out of there. but rather seek this brother's soul. There is a day in which the Lord Jesus will complete his kingdom and everyone will have to give an account. And we want him to be with us in glory. So allow him to, to suffer this discipline now, allow him to experience the embarrassment, the shame of his sin now. So on that great day, he would have reason to rejoice. This is why this isn't outside of the celebration of Christ. Paul doesn't want to see this person destroyed, but he wants to see their flesh, that is their sinful deeds, come to an end. We see what Paul's desire is in his acts and commands of church discipline. First is keeping the lump pure. You know, lump is a memorable word, but it's also kind of an interesting one. I mean, this is how he describes the church. You are this unleavened lump. And so in order for this lump to remain pure, you must be paying attention to what is happening among you. And if need be, to remove someone who is bringing in the leaven of Corinth, the leaven of this age. The second goal that we can see here for Paul is that for church discipline is to destroy the person's flesh, again, their deeds, so that in the end their soul may be saved. Brothers and sisters, you have a responsibility to one another. As I was kind of preparing and praying for this passage and this sermon, that's what really kept coming across, the sin of your brothers and sisters is not your sin, but that doesn't mean it doesn't concern you. Your sin is your sin, but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect your brothers and sisters because you are all part of the same lump. I was reading our testimony, not our testimony, excuse me, our book of discipline, and it uses a phrase that I think is very helpful here, preventative discipline. There is the corrective discipline of this has happened, the person has done this, send them out. But our book talks about preventative discipline, which is, in some senses, a deep investment in one another so that it never gets there. It never gets to a man taking his father's wife because there is a shared life where struggles are shared, where people pray together, read the word together, encourage one another, where, if I could put it this way, lump life is lived and committed to. And brothers and sisters, this is what I think we are called to. that we are to take hold of the power of Jesus Christ that is afforded to all of us because he is our Passover lamb, and to live life closer than we would like, to embrace this lump life, which involves rejoicing and giving thanks and sincerity and truth, but also means removing the things that would be detrimental to your brothers and sisters or to your own walk with the Lord Jesus. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you are a Passover lamb. Please continue to call us out of this world and help us not to make the mistake of wanting to return to slavery, to the bondage of sin. Help us to live as free people together, for this is your will. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.