Episode 271: Sexual Immorality | +Quigg Lawrence

Introduction

You guys, we are in First Corinthians 5. And hey, to be honest with you, I'd rather preach on tithing. Okay? The next two weeks, we have incest, we have all kinds of sexual brokenness. And then we have sexless, romanceless marriages. I don't know who would want to preach on those. But we love Jesus. We love his word. We believe it's a light and a lamp, and we think that he's more loving than we are. And so, to duck his word in context would not be loving at all.

How many guys were here? Just curious. How many y'all were here about twenty years ago? Around 2002? Anybody here? Oh, not many except for the Lawrence family. Ran them all off. Sorry. We had a church conflict. Can you imagine? It was actually reported. There was a church conflict. Another pastor and I got into it slowly. It wasn't obvious because Satan never divides in an obvious way on the front. Right? He literally never comes in a red suit with a pitchfork. Because if he did, you go, oh, yes. We've been waiting for you. You're Satan. Get away. He's very sneaky. One degree a day.

And so, there was conflict and we worked on it. I remember my buddy Dave and I went to see Brett Roach every week, every week for about three years. And then we were just deceived. And Satan got in and did what he does. I could only see my brother's fault. No good. He probably wasn't as bad as me but he could see mainly my fault and so, it started to spread. And once you have division between brothers, pretty quickly after that come factions. I follow Quigg. I follow Dave. I follow Paul. I follow Apollos. And so the teams were made. We didn't have jerseys on but we might as well have.

And it kind of came to a head in an annual meeting. I hate annual meetings. Apparently, so do you because the last ones we had, we had 1,500 members and 34 people came. So, now we do reports. And of those that came, most were staff or spouses or children of staff. But sadly, at this meeting, we had just been deceived and we were shocked. It started to heat up and then somebody was saying this, and somebody said it louder, and then somebody got hot behind the collar. I'm trying to be a real nice Christian and not show him how mad I was but then I was getting mad and then I said something and pretty soon it was a Mid Atlantic wrestling brawl. We didn't literally hit each other, but we were trying to. We're trying to hurt the other people. We were mad.

The Breakdown and the Conflict

There was a church split, about 50 or 60 people left. It was a disgrace that the church once known for missions and for Jesus was now known for division. And the sad thing is that we didn't even know what Satan was doing. Because if we knew it, we probably wouldn't have let him do it or we would have resisted. But he's sneaky.

And so, the things that taught me is one, how effectively Satan deceives not just the world. Like, I'm not talking about them at all. How he deceives Christians, Christians, people like me, people like you. There's a record of this in the scriptures. It says,

For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will provide great signs and wonders so as to be so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect, the chosen of God. Behold, I've told you in advance. — Matthew 24:24-25

So, the lesson of this division, not just in Corinth but in our own church, was that Satan is very effective. He's very good at deceiving but he's also good at one other thing: division. He's a master. Like, he's been playing people for thousands of years. And if you think your intellect or your cunning or your spirituality is enough to stand up to the accuser of the brethren, I would just warn you that the Bible says, be on guard. He is able to lead astray the elect if that were possible.

And so, it ended up— and again, the problem is both teams. Like, the good team— this is my team— and there's bad people on the other side. That's how I saw it. That's a deception. But eventually, we go to vestry, and a vestry person—I won't tell you who it is, I won't tell you what sex they are—read a scripture to us. It was actually First Corinthians 5. That's how I never forget it.

Basically said, you're all sexually immoral, idolaters, swindlers, schemers, etcetera, etcetera. And it says,

With such a man or woman, don't even eat. — 1 Corinthians 5:11

And so, the person said, I will no longer have fellowship with you. I will no longer eat the Lord's Supper with you. And the person got up and left the room and left the church.

Now, pardon me if I'm being honest, I saw red. I just got mad. I'm like, how dare you, you hypocrite? Why don't you pull the beam out of your own eye so you can see clearly to pull the speck out of my eye? But then there’s another part of me that thinks, well, if I’m honest, she’s not really wrong. If I’m honest, I should’ve said, you show me those things that are wrong with me. I can tell you a lot more. Like, with the things you're throwing at me, those stones, I can tell you a lot worse things about me. But there was division.

Paul’s Instructions on Sexual Immorality

Now, we want to go in and see how Paul handles immorality and division. We're in First Corinthians 5. So it begins:

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not even tolerated among the pagans. For a man has his father's wife, and you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this thing be removed from among you. — 1 Corinthians 5:1-2

The first part we gather here is that it's actually reported. I remember Chuck Murphy citing a scripture verse. One of our old bishops said,

What's whispered right in the eaves will be shouted from the rooftops. A little birdie told me so.

And often, the little birdie is a church person. It is actually reported by Chloe's people. Here, we're seeing a little birdie did his job. I think they were church people. They were giving Paul an account of not just the division and the spiritual pride but the immorality of the church he planted. And so he's saying, yep. Hey, guys. Got the report card. And the truth is, there is gross porneia, sexual sin amongst you.

And your mind can go to one particular sin or sexual porneia. Sexual porneia is this— sexual sin is this: any type of sexual relationship outside the covenant of marriage between a male and a female. And the problem with being the preacher is that I don't know a single person who can get up here and say, I've never sinned sexually. You might go, well, I've never had an affair. I've never had premarital sex. Well, what about here? What about here? Jesus said,

I tell you the truth. If you look at a woman with lust, you've committed adultery. — Matthew 5:28

So, the problem is, for every person that would step to a pulpit, every person that would teach them to obey everything I've commanded you, we're all sinners. And so the easiest thing is to go, I don't want to— I don't want to do that, Lord, because they'll just say you're a fraud, you're fake. But Paul, knowing that he was a sinner, brought correction because he had enough love not to focus on his shortcomings but on that person's need for restoration.

And so Paul says, there's sexual immorality. Now, what type of sexual immorality does he cite here? I mean, there are lots of ones he could have chosen and more come later. But what particular sexual offense or sin is happening right here in the church right now? What's going on? I give you— I give you a hint. It's in First Corinthians 5:1. It says,

For a man has his father's wife. — 1 Corinthians 5:1

What's not clear is: is he saying the man is having sex, ongoing sexual relations with his mother? Could be. But in English, the way I would read it, so it sounds like he's having sexual relations with a stepmother. But actually, if you read Leviticus, Jesus says,

You Pharisees, you don't even know your own word. You think you do but you don't know it. — Matthew 22:29

I would say it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if the man is having sex with his mother or with his stepmother. If you go to Leviticus, the book of mold and mildew, it says this:

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother, and you shall not uncover her nakedness. In verse 8, it says,

And you shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. It is your father's nakedness that you are uncovering. — Leviticus 18:7-8

Now, some of you, all you heard was that, he said, nakedness, like a southern redneck, and some of you say that’s not the right way to say that word: naked. The right way to say that is naked. But I didn’t grow up in Michigan, y’all. We say naked in the South. Friends, the point is that this man was sleeping with his father's wife, and God in his law said, don't do that. That is not a way to— as Tim Keller would say, to experience human flourishing. That is a road that leads to death.

And I actually love you guys enough to say, put up boundary guards and go, no. That's not okay. It's not okay. No. Much like you parents would tell your little boy or girl, don't stick your finger in a light socket. Don't play in traffic. So, the Lord is saying, hey, this is not a way to experience the kingdom or human flourishing. And so, he calls this man out and he says,

Ought you not rather to mourn? — 1 Corinthians 5:2

Like, you guys think so highly of yourself. Can you not see the spinach in your teeth? Can you not see the hypocrisy? You guys are sinning so boldly that even the pagans are blushing. It says, you have a type of sexual immorality in your church that’s not even tolerated amongst the pagans. I was thinking my fraternity, and we thought we were Animal House, and we kind of were. But could you imagine a bunch of Christians at UVA sinning so badly that the sinners, even pagan dogs, go, oh, I wouldn't have done that. Oh, that’s bad.

So, that was what was happening. A man was sleeping with his father's wife, and Paul says, hey, let this man be removed. Let him be removed. Now, when I read that at first, I think, dang, that sounds very, very mean. That does not sound loving and kind. We all know Jesus is loving and kind. Therefore, who am I to throw a stone at somebody else? But what if we could all acknowledge, yes, we all sin, everyone of us. But the Lord has told us, you who are spiritual should restore somebody and do it gently. That means you actually have a role. Not for those outside the body but for those in the church.

The Bible says,

Let judgment begin with the household of God. — 1 Peter 4:17

Isn't that awesome how God gives you verses when you need them? So, anyway, the man's doing something terrible, and we can all agree— isn't that terrible? Look at it. He's having sex with his father's wife. Glad I'm not like him. The thing about that verse is it can kind of insulate you and go, that's an easy dog to kick. Glad I'm not like him. I'm on the good side. But then, we see other sins mentioned later in First Corinthians. And he goes, he says,

For though I am 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. — 1 Corinthians 5:3

The man who was having sex with his father's wife. Paul says, I've already pronounced judgment on him. And when you're assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of the Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan.

Now, you're like— woah. Woah. Woah. That’s a little harsh. Why would you hand a brother over to Satan? I wouldn’t want to hand my enemy over to Satan. But the point being, the Lord knows when somebody is rebellious and continues in sin. Not just a one-off or two-off, but when they continue in sin, they become slaves to that sin. And it's like they don't even have the power to see it. Often, they didn't have the power to fix it. And they get stuck in the loving response— no matter how nice you are, you're not nicer than Jesus. No matter how loving you are. Oh, I got a friend with this issue. My God is a God of love. You're not more loving than Jesus. Jesus actually loves that man way more than you and he calls us to— look, I'm not asking you to throw stones but in love, this brother has wandered astray.

You guys, you should not be celebrating how great your church is, whatever. Care for your people. And it says,

Your boasting is not good. Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed. — 1 Corinthians 5:6-7

Now, I don't know about you guys but I love my grandma. I called her Mae Mae. Mae Mae's homemade rolls. Mae Mae was from Southwest Virginia. She lived at Ridgeover from Ralph Stanley. She’d say, honey, this and honey that, and her job was to teach cooking to a bunch of girls back in the day when they had a finishing school. But my grandmother would take dough and she'd take yeast, right? Yeast, and she'd mix it all together, then she would put in a pan, she'd stick it in her little pantry, which had a heating system— an oil radiator system— and it was probably about 90 degrees in there. 85 to 90. She’d put the dough in there, and guess what would happen overnight? Guess what would happen the next day? She would take it out, put it in the oven, cook it, slather it with butter, and I would eat every one of them with a cold glass of milk.

And so, yeast can be good. Yeast can be good. However, what this is pointing back to is the Passover. Do you remember? God sends the angel of death, kills all the firstborn. He breaks Pharaoh’s will, and it’s time for the Israelites, God's people, to move. And they didn’t have time to have Grandma's yeast rolls. No time to have them rise. So he said,

Use unleavened bread, no yeast, because you're in a hurry. I’m taking you out to the promised land. — Exodus 12:39

And Jesus here is saying, you guys, when there's sin in the body, you gotta deal with it. You have to deal with it. That is Christlike. That is loving. This other thing, not so much. And he goes, "Clean out the old leaven." Clean out the sin. Deal with it. He says,

For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. — 1 Corinthians 5:7

He goes, be that new lump. In other words, be that sinless body as you really are in the Lord’s sight. He has made you to be holy and righteous like him. That’s how he sees you. That’s what he wants you to walk in.

And he goes on and he finishes. He says in verse nine,

I wrote to you in my previous letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. — 1 Corinthians 5:9

Now, what would be the problem with that? Let's think like fifth graders for a second. What would be the problem if you said, don’t associate with sexually immoral people? You’re anybody: can’t be friends. You can’t even be friends with yourself. But what he’s trying to clear up here is: the church was starting to judge. Judge, judge, judge. Why would we judge somebody who does not have the Spirit of God in them? Why would we judge someone for not having the mind of Christ if they don’t have the Spirit? Isn’t that cruel?

So, what the Lord is saying is, like, look, I will judge everybody outside the church. That doesn’t mean you can’t call wickedness wickedness. But in terms of the people and their salvation, you are not the one to judge. I’m the one to judge, the Lord says. However, let judgment begin with the household of God. Our judgment, our focus, should first be right here but then here because we care and we love.

So, in verse 11, Paul says,

I am not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler; don't even eat with such a one. — 1 Corinthians 5:11

For what do I have to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church you are to judge? And again, friends, at the end of the day, if you use that list— who can stand there and say, I’ve never done any of those things? But that’s acknowledged: Paul says,

I am the chief of sinners. — 1 Timothy 1:15

That being acknowledged, we have a job to love our brothers and sisters in Christ and to do what the Lord says: you who are spiritual, restore your brother gently. But restore him.

I read in the commentary, I think it's true. It says the more fame somebody has, the more wealth, the greater the chance they will never experience church discipline. But somebody who’s poor, who doesn’t have any power or influence— those are the ones we’re going to focus on because if we hammer them, nobody's really going to care. But if we hammer this person, we might lose money or influence as a church.

So, friends, what I want to encourage us to do is this: to learn. You probably have never struggled with this variety of sin— having sex with your father's wife. However, the call here is to look at any place we see a brother or sister going off the path and to say, in love for them, I cannot any longer be silent. I can't let the fear of my own brokenness prevent me from loving them. I can't let the fear that they're going to turn against me or not like me prevent me from loving as Jesus would love.

And so, what we get from First Corinthians 5 is: don’t judge those outside the world. Let judgment begin with the household of God.

Father, if there is any harmful way in me, search me and try me. And lead me in your everlasting way. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.