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(upbeat music) - This is day two together of our look at First Corinthians
chapter five. We're going to look at verses three to five today. In fact, let me
begin by reading those verses.

First Corinthians five, three to five are amidst the most difficult to
understand verses in all of Corinthians. I think you'll see that and the reason
for that as I read these three verses. Listen to what Paul has to say.

Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I've
already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. When
you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and
the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan so that the
sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.

Okay, Paul is answering their questions, the struggles they're having over sin
in the church. Yesterday, a man is sleeping with his stepmother. And Paul says,
this has to stop, it has to be dealt with.

So he says here, this is how to deal with it. But as he answers those questions
that they have, he leaves us with a lot of questions. As I said, maybe more
questions than any other passage in First Corinthians.

So we're going to dig into it. We're going to look at the tough questions. And as we
look at the tough questions in these verses, they will really give us, I pray, a
depth of understanding for dealing with the reality of sin.

In our lives as believers, that you'll find in few places in the Bible, how do
you deal with the reality of sin in your life? And how do you deal with the
reality of sin in other people's lives? What's the honest, straightforward,
godly way to deal with it?

These verses tell us how. There's three questions though we have to address to
get the answers. Question one is how could Paul pass judgment?

Number two, how in the world could he hand somebody over to Satan? And number
three, how can the sinful nature be destroyed and the spirit saved? What's he
talking about when he says that?

Question one, how could Paul pass judgment? He says, I passed judgment on the
one who did this. We just looked at, in the first couple of chapters, Paul
saying, don't pass judgment on another person's ministry.

So how in the world is he passing judgment here? Well, we touched on this
briefly last week. And we'll look at it again at the end of this week.

Because God uses the word judge to talk about different things, different kinds
of activities, attitudes towards people, it can seem confusing to us until you
dig in, until you take a closer look. This is one of those places in the Bible
you cannot get an understanding unless you take a closer look. Three uses of the
word judge.

First, judge, sometimes in the Bible means to judge the ultimate worth and
destiny of a person. The ultimate worth of a ministry, the ultimate destiny of a
person's life. Are they going to be in heaven?

Are they going to be hell with God or separated from God? Only God can judge the
ultimate worth and destiny of anybody. And Paul's not talking about that in
these verses.

That's the first kind of judgment. A second kind of judgment that we see in the
Bible is to judge whether an action you or someone else takes is right or wrong.
I judge that what you did is right or I judge that what you did is wrong.

And the truth of the matter is, you have to do that every single day of your
life. You cannot pass judgment in that kind of a way. You cannot not judge
whether what I just did was right or what I just did was wrong.

And you cannot not do it with other people. You can decide not to get it. Let me
give you some pictures of this.

You can decide not to get involved in someone else's ministry because you judge
that their teaching is false without judging the ultimate worth of their
ministry. The ultimate worth, that's up to God. But deciding whether you're
going to get involved, you have to make a judgment call.

And this judgment call, that's what we call it sometimes type of judgment, is
something we have to do every day. You do your part. You make the judgment call.

You let God do his part. He's the ultimate judge. Another picture of this.

You can decide not to let your children go to a party that you consider unsafe
without judging the ultimate salvation of the one who's holding that party. You
have to make a judgment call, but God's the ultimate judge. You do your part.

You let God do his part. And the truth is, we get in trouble when we try to do
God's part or when some form of false spirituality keeps us from doing our part.
Oh, I shouldn't pass judgment on them.

Kids, go ahead and go to that party. Drugs, whatever, I can't pass judgment on
them. That's false spirituality.

That's a lie. So you have to make a judgment call. And God's the one who's in
charge of ultimate judgment.

Now, if that were the only two points here, it'd be pretty simple. But Paul adds
something. He passes judgment on this person.

He not only makes a judgment call that what they did was wrong, he passes
judgment. And he says, you need to deal with this. Passing judgment means you're
penalizing someone who's done wrong.

Human courts do this for all of us. They pass judgment on us. They don't just
say what you did was wrong.

Judgment is meted out. Judgment is given to us because of what we did. As we
walk through this chapter, we're going to see Paul's very clear about this.

Christians are to do this for Christians. We are to pass judgment on each other.
We are to react, respond to the fact that what another believer has done is a
sin and they're not willing or they are willing to let go of that sin.

Christians are to do this for other Christians. Christians are not to do this
for unbelievers, for those who are not believers. We're going to talk about this
more at the end of this week.

That just sort of plants a seed. We are not to judge the ultimate worth and
destiny. Only God can do that.

We are to make a judgment call in the daily decisions of our lives. We're
required to do that. That's part of being holy.

And we are to pass judgment in our relationship with one another as believers,
but not in our relationship with the world. We leave that to human courts to do
that. How could Paul pass judgment?

Because the scripture says that we are responsible to one another. We're a
family. And so we treat each other like a family.

Second big question in these verses is, how in the world could you hand someone
over to Satan? What does that mean? Take a look at this with me.

Satan's realm, Satan's kingdom is this world. So when Paul says hand him over to
Satan, he isn't saying I want him to have a meeting with Satan and I want Satan
to mess up his life personally. He's saying this man's in the church right now.

That's the realm of God. That's the kingdom of God. I say hand him over to
Satan, take him out of the church and put him out in the world.

Paul is saying very simply, tell this man he has to stop coming to church. If he
wants to act like he's not a believer and he won't respond to those who are
saying you need to change, in fact, selfishly he's saying I won't change. I will
not repent of this sin with my stepmother.

Then he needs to stop coming to church. A lot of us, we scratch our heads when
we hear that. Wait a minute, isn't church where he needs to be?

Of course he needs the message of the gospel. But the problem that this man is
facing in this church that's continuing to sin, even though he's been warned
again and again, the problem isn't the message, the problem is that he is taking
advantage of the fellowship. He's wanting to enjoy the fellowship and the
comfort and the strength of being with other believers, but he's acting in a way
that's hurting other believers.

Paul is saying this, he wants to live like the world? Fine, let him go live in
the world. Let him see what it's really like.

Don't protect him from it. Let him see what it's really like. A picture of this,
a parent who is still working their tail off so that their healthy 30 year old
son can be well fed and stay home all day to play video games is not doing that
son any favors.

They need to treat their son like a part of the family at that point. They need
to go out and get a job. They need to be out of the household.

Now is that cruel? Does that mean? Of course not.

Now it's a different picture here, but there's some similarities. The church is
a family. And we're supposed to be in that family for the rest of our lives, but
if someone is acting like they're not a part of the family and after repeated
warning says, I'm not going to be a part of the family, but I still want the
comfort.

I still like being with you. And Paul says, don't let somebody play it both
ways. Hand them over to Satan means put him out of the church.

Now we use big words sometimes, official words like excommunication. That
confuses everything I think. This is not an official church ordinance doctrine
activity.

This is a family saying to a family member, unless you change, you need to be
out in the world to see what the world's really like. Now why? Why would Paul
say that?

That's in the answer to the third question. How can the sinful nature be
destroyed and the spirit saved? Paul says for the destroying of the sinful
nature, it's the word flesh here, which means the sinful nature.

The sinful nature is the part of us that says, I want to do things my way. You can
call it selfishness. You can call it ego.

You can call it pride. The only way that the sinful nature is destroyed is by
trusting in Jesus for forgiveness. You cannot destroy it on your own.

A church cannot destroy it for you. It's only by being crucified with Christ. It
cannot be dealt with by being part of a church fellowship or by trying to be
good.

It's only by what Jesus Christ has done for us. And here's what Paul is saying.
He's saying your prideful acceptance of this man's sin is actually keeping him
from salvation.

By not judging him, Paul is saying to the Corinthians, in quotes, you are
actually taking part in condemning him to an eternity without God, because
you're making him feel like he's part of the family, but he's not. He's not
acting like a part of the family. He's not living like a part of the family.

So let him experience what that's really like. Paul says he needs to be out
there in the world. And my prayer is that by being out there in the world, he
will see what the world's really like.

He will see the depth of his need for God. Don't let him try to live in this
halfway between world. Don't let him try to live in this sitting on the fence
world.

Now, there are two issues with this with us. When does it get to this point
where you put someone out of the church? Well, I'll tell you this.

This was an extremely serious situation. This man had a sin in his life that
even the immoral Corinthian city would not participate in. So it's got to be
very serious.

But it also has to be someone who has been warned again and again, and they
refuse to repent. And let's just be honest. The reason we often struggle with
judgment is that I, you, we, we lack the courage to have the difficult
conversation, to sit down with somebody and say, what you're doing is wrong.

It's tearing you up. It's tearing your family up. It's tearing me up.

It's tearing the church up. It's leading us in the wrong direction. You may not
want to listen to me, and I'll admit it.

I am not perfect. I've got lots of sin in my life. Someone has to love you
enough to tell you you're heading off a cliff.

Instead, most of us think, I'll be the nice guy. I'll let someone else tell him.
I'll be the one who's loving, and I'll let someone else be the bad cop.

I'll be the good cop. This is serious stuff about serious conversations. And the
truth is, there are many places in my life, in your life, and in the lives of
the people that you love where a lack of courage is allowing a problem to
continue that could be changed if only we'd have the courage, if only you'd ask
God for the strength to have that conversation.

And so we stop right now, Lord, and we ask for the strength. We don't like
having those kind of conversations. We stumble over our words.

Our emotions get involved. It never goes like we wanted it to go. We do not like
it, God, sure not like in the movies where everybody seems to know what to say
and how to say it.

But Lord, we know we need to. So we pray for the strength of your spirit not to
wait for the right time, but to decide that the time is now and to make time to
burst into the middle of something if we have to, because there's nothing more
important than saving somebody we love, nothing more important than letting them
know the good news. Sometimes the first step to hearing the good news is knowing
I'm heading the wrong direction.

God, when you use us in that kind of way, we need you like never before. So use
us, we pray. Use us, give us humility in the conversation, but also courage to
have the conversation.

We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to talk together about why
a problem of sin in our lives as believers is actually more serious than we
could imagine.