Church Gone Wild, Week 3

Tim Rivers | July 21, 2024

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Transcription

What's up everybody? Man, I'm so glad that you're here. I'm so proud of everyone who's gotten water baptized and like I said before, if you have not been water baptized, get water baptized and all those who have been water baptized, can you testify how great that is? Come on now.

Water baptism is a public declaration that you're in a relationship with Jesus. It's the wedding ceremony it, it's the wedding band that tells everybody that you're in a relationship with Jesus. So we invite you to participate. We've got a lot of people registered to be water baptized and here's what we do as a church. We will baptize until the last person wants to be baptized. We will be here all day if we've been here all day before and we will do it again. Alright, grab your Bibles. I've got a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time, and so I want to get right into this. We are continuing in our series called Church Gone Wild

And we're talking about some wild stuff. Now, I got to warn you, you may want to put your seatbelt on for this one today because we are going to get real, real. Is that all right? Yes. We try to keep it real anyways, but we always going to keep it in the Bible. Alright, so go with me to one Corinthians chapter five, the book of one Corinthians chapter five. I'm going to do something different today. I'm actually going to read this passage in the message translation. Now, I know some of y'all like the message translation. I don't study with the message translation, but I think that this passage scripture is really potent when read through the message translation. So I'm going to read it from there. Here it goes. I also received a report of scandalous sex within your church family. Oh, anytime a letter starts like that,

It's about to get real, a kind that wouldn't be tolerated even outside the church. One of your men is sleeping with his stepmother and you're so above it all that it doesn't even phase you. Shouldn't this break your hearts? Shouldn't it bring you to your knees and tears? Shouldn't this person and his conduct be confronted and dealt with? I'll tell you what I would do, even though I'm not there in person, consider me right there with you because I can fully see what's going on. I'm telling you that this is wrong. You must not simply look the other way and hope it goes away on its own. Bring it out in the open and deal with it in the authority of Jesus, your master assemble the community. I'll be present in spirit with you and our master, Jesus will be present in power. Hold this man's conduct up to public scrutiny. Let him defend it if he can, but if he can't, then out with him, it will be totally devastating to him of course and embarrassing to you, but better devastation and embarrassment than damnation, that right there does not get preached today. You want him on his feet and forgiven before the master of the day of judgment. On the day of judgment, you're flipping callous. Arrogance in these things bothers me. There is no guessing how Paul feels.

You passed it off as a small thing, but it's anything. But that yeast too is a small thing, but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast. So get rid of this yeast. Our true identity is flat and plain, not puffed up with the wrong kind of ingredient. The Messiah, our Passover lamb has already been sacrificed for the Passover meal and we are the unraised bread part of the feast. So let's live out our part in the feast, not as raised bread swollen with the yeast of evil, but as flatbread, simple, genuine and unpretentious. I wrote you in my earlier letter that you shouldn't make yourselves at home among the sexually promiscuous. I didn't mean that you should have nothing at all to do with outsiders of that sort or with crooks, whether blue or white collar. I like that he clarified that or with spiritual phonies for that matter. You'd have to leave the world entirely to do that, but I am saying that you shouldn't act as if everything is just fine when a friend who claims to be a Christian is promiscuous or crooked is flipped with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can't just go along with this treating it as acceptable behavior. I'm not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don't we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers?

God decides on the outsiders, but we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and if necessary, clean

House.

They don't want to hear this. Only God could judge me. Okay, all right, so here's my title for today, sex in the Church. I know some of y'all two topics that make people go stiff. Money and sex. You just say the word is

People get nervous. Don't get nervous. We're going to stay in the Bible. All right, Father, we thank you so much for your goodness and your mercy. Thank you for drawing us into your house. Thank you for your presence that's already here. Thank you for those who have been water baptized. I pray that as we dig into your word, you would give us good food for us to eat and help us to eat it. Lord, help us to have used to hear heart, to receive and mind, to understand what the word would say we give you. Name all the praise and glory and honor in Jesus' name and everybody say amen. Amen. Now, this is the third week of our series that we're calling Church Gone Wild. And what we're doing is we're looking at things that are happening in the church of Corinth that are wild, and then we're looking at how Paul says that the church ought to respond to these issues.

Now what you'll notice when you read Corinth and you look at our society and culture today, it's not much different. A lot of things that were happening, Corinth are happening today. But what you'll notice as we go through these is that Paul is addressing issues within the church, but his target audience isn't the person or persons who are committing the infraction. He spends most of his time dealing with how the church is responding to issues. See, Paul is keenly aware that the church will always have issues. You want to know why? Because the church is full of people and people have issues. Nudge your neighbor and say you got issues. No, you have issues.

What helps the church remain the church and helps the church remain on course is how the church responds when issues arise within the church. So I want to clarify real quickly what the church is. Let's define what the church is. The church is a body of Christian believers who work together to expand the kingdom of God and the world. This is a very simple definition. If you're a scholar here and you're a theologian and you're like, well, there's more to that, yes, the church is called the Ecclesia, which is the gathering of those who believe in Christ Jesus. And yes, there's a part of the church. The church also practices a fellowship which is the Aya. So for us though, to be in the body of Christ, the first thing we have to do is we have to believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

When you believe that he is king and Lord and you are submitted to his authority, then anyone else who is also submitted to his authority is part of the body of Christ. So we are in relationship with God and with each other because we're all constituents of the kingdom of God. Does that make sense? So the way we expand the kingdom of God is really through three ways. One, the exaltation of God. We as believers exalt God. That means we keep him in his rightful place as king of kings, but we also edify the body. It's the edification of the saints, meaning that as members in the body of Christ, we hold each other accountable and we nurture each other's relationship with Christ so that we all may, as the Bible said, mature into the fullness of the statue of what God has for the body of Christ.

And then the third way is that we evangelize the world. We go out and tell those who have not heard the gospel, we preach to them the gospel, the good news of the death burrow and resurrection of Christ and that they can be free from their sins. This is the church. But what makes the church the church is not just that we believe in Jesus Christ, but what makes the church the church is that we also agree with the constitution presented to us in the Bible of how we ought to behave ourselves as members in the body of Christ.

So what's a constitution? A constitution is a body of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is acknowledged to be governed. A constitution is a boundary that identifies a group of people. A boundary keeps things in, but it also keeps things out. We all have to have. In fact, right now in the mental health space, the most popular word is what boundaries. And when you have an issue with a person, you say you're stepping into my boundary because we understand in order to have peace, in order to live freely, we have to have boundaries. But having boundaries, having a constitution is not a new concept. It started with God. God is the one who established constitution and boundaries. Remember at the very beginning he did it with Adam and Eve. Really he did it in heaven. He had a constitution.

Hey, I'm the only one to be worshiped. Satan thought, you know what? Let me cross this boundary. Let me violate the constitution of God and he got kicked out of heaven. But then with Adam and Eve, God creates Adam and Eve and he places him where? In a garden, the word garden actually means enclosure, which means that there was a boundary. God says, I'm going to take Adam and Eve and I'm going to put you in an enclosure called the garden. And within that enclosure, here's your constitution, be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, subdue it, and have dominion. If you live in this boundary and you fulfill this constitution, you'll always be mine because what makes you my people is that you stay within the boundaries I've set and you obey the Constitution, which I've given you. When Adam and Eve violated the constitution of God and allowed something to come within the boundary, guess what happened? They fractured the relationship that they had with God. So God from the very beginning said, if you cross the boundary and you violate my constitution, you break fellowship with me.

He does it again with Abraham, right? Abraham, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to, what do I need to do? Leave where you're at and go walk and wherever you walk, that's what I'm going to give you. That's going to be the boundary. Well, what's the constitution? Well be circumcised because your circumcision will identify you as being my people. Then we see Abraham has Isaac and Isaac has Jacob, and Jacob has 12 sons, and those 12 sons, Joseph goes to Egypt and then his family comes and then they're in slavery, and then they come out of Egypt. But when they come out of Egypt, they're just the family of Israel. They're just 12 brothers who had families. They come out of Egypt not as a nation, they come out out of Egypt as a people group. What happens in the wilderness is God says, all right, now that I have you separated, I've created a boundary between you and Egypt.

Now I'm going to give you a constitution. And the Constitution were the 10 Commandments. The 10 commandments then incorporated Israel as the people of God. It was the articles of incorporation. The 10 Commandments are God's constitution to the children of Israel, identifying them as the nation of God. This is the first development of the church. So since the very beginning when God established the church, he has always had a boundary and a constitution. Now, here's the thing about constitutions. In order to keep an organization or group of people or country or kingdom functioning properly, it is each member's duty to adhere and protect the constitution of the organization. When a member within the body of an organization or a group or a kingdom violates the constitution, it creates a fracture within that organization and it threatens the unity of the body. Okay, you all want me to get real, real. In the United States,

We have a constitution. We have a constitution that identifies us as the United States. In order to become a US citizen, if you come from a different country, you have to go through a process to gain citizenship. We can also call this naturalization. I know this because my mom, she was born in Sri Lanka. She was a Sri Lankan citizen, but when she wanted to become a US citizen, she had to go through a series of steps. Once you go through and it's very arduous, and once you go through that series of steps, they say, all right, we now are going to welcome you into citizenship of the United States. However, the last step, the very last step that you take before they will identify you as a United States citizen with your little flag is that you have to take the oath of allegiance. The oath means a covenant or a promise.

And in the oath of allegiance, there are four primary promises that you need to make in order to become a US citizen. Number one, you have to support the constitution. Number two, you have to renounce and a juror absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which to applicant was before subject or citizen. Number three, you have to support and defend the constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Number four, you have to bear true faith and allegiance to the same. Here's the thing about this, doesn't this sound just like joining the church?

Think about this. If you want to be a United States citizen, it's not just the benefits that you gain, but it's also the constitution that you have to uphold. And here's the thing about constitution. When the citizen violates the constitution, we call that being what? Unconstitutional the problem. What happens when somebody becomes unconstitutional and it goes unchecked? It threatens the peace of everybody who is a constituent and has citizenship. Oh, y'all still want me to get real real? Alright, let's say you're driving down the road. I don't know why I'm doing this. What you're driving down the road, you're in a 35 mile an hour speed limit and you are doing 35 miles. You are obeying the law, you're doing everything right, you tags, you, registration is right, you got your seatbelt on, everything is perfect. You get pulled over and you're like, why am I getting pulled over? I didn't do anything. The person gets out, grabs you, says, get out of the car arrests, you starts searching your car and you're like, what's going on? They said, I don't know, I just felt like it. Well, guess what? Your constitutional right has just been violated because you are protected by the Fourth Amendment against what? Unlawful searches and seizures. Some of y'all have done research this and it's good. You should. Here's what happens. That person that has violated your constitutional right if gone unchecked will continue to violate other people's constitutional right?

Here's the problem though. It's not just the person whose constitutional right was violated. That suffers. It's everybody who suffers. Why? Because now that person may think that I can do it to more citizens and is not just incumbent upon the person to make a complaint, but every citizen who is aware that this has happened should say something. Why? Because if we don't protect the constitution for one, it will be a detriment for all. Now, we understand this when it comes to the United States, but how come this becomes very blurry when it comes to the constitution of the word of God? How is it that we will stand up for somebody's constitution getting violated in the natural realm, but we will just turn a blind eye? Unchecked sin leads to division and sickness in the body of Christ?

Wow,

It is going to make people uncomfortable. There are a lot of sick churches because no one will address the member who is deliberately inviting impurities into the body of Christ.

Say it again,

Okay? There are a lot of sick churches because no one will address the member who deliberately invites impurities into the body of Christ and acts like it's normal.

Let's go back to Corinthians chapter five. The church of Corinth has a violator in its congregation. Alright, Paul hears about it. Remember Chloe's people are on it, Paul, there's some crazy stuff happening. There's sexual immorality that's happening in our congregation. Now, this man was deliberate in his violation of the constitution of the word of God, meaning that he was open about it, he was walking through the marketplace, he was coming in the church, he was rolling, and Paul's like, yo, what is going on? This guy is, he knows what he's doing and he's not afraid to do it. And the reason why is ain't nobody saying anything. So here's what's interesting. In particular, the violation of this man is committing, Paul says, is sexual immorality or scandalous sex? Now, sexual immorality is a broad term that covers a lot of things. So let's define what sexual immorality is. Sexual immorality comes from the Greek word. Now I'm going to let you guess what English word comes from that pornography, right? Pornea is a umbrella term which covers any and every type of biblically prohibited sexual relations. Some people read the scripture like, well, I don't have a relationship with my stepmom. No, Paul says, here's the problem. There is sexual immorality in the church, there is porneia, there is something happening. That is another term for sexual immorality. Is any illegal sexual relations illegal? By what? Standard? By the word of God's standards. Alright, so then he goes on to say, alright, now let me give you the subcategory. Let me get real specific about what's happening. The dude has a relationship with his stepmother

And it is blowing his mind because he is like, this is not normal. Now we don't know. It could have been that his father passed away. It could be whatever it is, but we do know that it is identified as his relative. It's incest. Now, once you have to understand about Corinth is the pervasive sin that was happening in Corinth is sexual immorality. In fact, in that culture, because Corinth was a trade hub, prostitution was the main sexual immorality that was happening because all these individuals would come into Corinth and then the prostitutes from the temple of Aphrodite would come and they would try to get these men to render the services to, and then those men would go their own way. In fact, it was so bad that there was a Greek term for Corinth called Corinth, or English word would be cor Corinthian eyes, meaning it implies sexual promiscuity. So when somebody really wanted to insult you, they'd be like, man, you just got Corinth unionized, which means that you are a promiscuous person. In fact, the women in Corinth, the prostitutes, they were called Corinthian girls, the ultimate insult to somebody was, oh, you act like a Corinthian.

I dunno what the modern term would be, but you can imagine what it is. Don't say it out loud though. The lax attitude towards sexual immorality in the Corinthian culture permeated the church so much. So they were acting like as normal. And here's the thing, it is not much different today. Our culture over sexualizes. Everything. Everything. Haagens, ice cream. You can't even watch a commercial about BMWs, right? In my, if you have children, you know have to be present at all times because it's not even the movies, it's the commercials. But you have to be careful. Our culture over sexualizes everything and what ends up happening is when you're in a culture that oversexualize everything, sometimes you can become numb by the culture and then bring that mindset into the church. Interesting. Paul is annoyed that this is happening. But what's interesting, he only in particular mentions this guy's particular sin one time and then he spends the rest of the chapter talking to the church because he goes, you know what? This wouldn't even be happening if we weren't not taking responsibility as a body of believers. Okay? Sexual immorality is a pervasive problem in our culture today, but not just in our culture in the church. How do we know that? Read the news.

How many pastors are falling like crazy? And here's what I know as a pastor, it ain't just pastors, it's all over. And why is this happening? Nobody saying anything because we don't want to offend people. We want to be appealing to people. We think the church is this organism that should just be open and accepting to all kinds of, if that was the case, it would not be the church. The church has boundaries, the church has a constitution and it is the obligation of each member within the body of Christ to hold each other accountable. I'm not, and some of y'all get reflexes because we've seen people misuse the word of God to abuse people publicly. I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about making up rules and calling it the word of God. No, you can't add to the word of God, but neither can you take away.

Our problem in the culture today is not adding to, it's taking away. Well that was then and this is now. Alright, so what do we do when there is sex in the church? Somebody say, what do we do? What do we do? Alright, number one, if you're taking notes, write this down. Sin is sin. When was the last time you heard a message on sin? You are hearing one today. Yes sir. But in culture at large, we don't really talk about sin that much. Why? Because we're trying to be welcoming to a culture. And Paul says, I ain't talking about people out there, I'm talking about believers. One Corinthians chapter five, verse number one, I could hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you something that even pagans don't do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother. Now, I want you to notice this word is living. If you read the ESV, it says has taken his stepmother. If you read the KJV, it says, has anyone that has studied the Bible and applies good hermeneutics knows that th is continuation has is what present is, is what present. So Paul is saying, the homie is presently, this ain't a moment of weakness situation.

All of us have moments of weakness. All of us can get caught in snares. We're not talking about somebody who's just driving down the highway in the left lane and somebody is going to speed limit and he gets angry and says something just out of reaction. We're talking with somebody who is actively and knowingly violating the constitution of the word of God and he's public about it. He's like, nah man, this is what I do, bro. I don't count at the cost, man. Nah, I dunno why I'm doing that. But

Paul is so shocked that his boldness and he says, listen, even the pagans don't do that. What he's referring to is the Jewish, the Jewish law. You can read about this in Leviticus 18 and in Deuteronomy chapter 27, the Jewish law prohibits anyone from having ancestral relationships. But not only was that a Jewish tradition, well that's what the church does. But in Roman law at the time, Roman law prohibited people from being in a sexual relationship with their family members. So Paul is saying, listen, not even the pagans who don't follow Christ practice this. So he says, listen, sin is still sin. Okay, how does the Bible define sin? First John chapter three, verse number four, everyone who sins is breaking God's law for all sin is contrary to the law of God. What is sin? Sin is transgressions against the laws of God. That's what he either knows to do well and doesn't do it to him. It is so when you are presented with the constitution, when you are presented with, here's the word of God, when you're presented with this is what God requires of you, and you violate that, that is a sin. Well, what if I don't know? Well, it isn't a sin until you know it

Is technically, but for you as a person, didn't Paul say that? Paul said, I did all of this thing, but I did it ignorantly. But then when I came to the knowledge at that point I became what? Responsible. The way we discipline our children is this way. Yo, you do it once. You didn't know. Okay, now you know at the point that you do it again after we tell you not to do it. That's called rebellion. You have transgressed against the law. You have broken the constitution, you are violated dog. But the reality is, and maybe this is a lesson for some parents, listen, if your child doesn't notice something is wrong and you discipline them, they won't understand why they're getting disciplined. You got to give them the law first, discipline, rebellion, not behavior that's ignorant, that was free, that was his parenting advice. We don't have the right to redefine what the Bible calls sin to appease culture or use weakness as the excuse to disobey the word of God. We don't get that right. I'm up here as a pastor to preach the word of God. If I disagree with the word of God, I shouldn't be a pastor.

I'm not here to make excuse for culture. If not, I'd be doing something else. But I have an obligation as someone who teaches the word of God to stay true to scripture, sin is still sin and the scripture defines what sin is, not man and not culture. We cannot try to redefine what sin is to make the church welcoming to citizens of another country. And lemme just clarify this. The application of scripture applies to the church only. You can't go out to the world and be like the you should be doing. They're not citizens of this world. They're citizens of another world. It's like going to Germany and being like, you violated my fourth amendment. They don't have a fourth amendment. How many people go out into the world and try to hold people accountable to the Bible? They're not even in citizenship. This applies to citizens of the kingdom of God.

Oh Lord.

So what do I do as a Christian? Well, John chapter 14, verse 15, this is Jesus told us, he said, Hey, if you love me, obey my commandments. The verse means that following Christ's commands is both a sign and a test of one's love for him. The commands in this verse includes all of Jesus' words and teaching in the scriptures, which are also the words of God the Father, when we say we love God and disobey him, our love for him is questionable.

Yes sir. Come on.

Oh man, I want to get real, real.

I got,

It's like when I counsel couples who are violating the covenant of their marriage and saying, ah, but I still love, it's not convincing because love, true love is defined by commitment. Well, she don't meet my needs. You still in covenant, bro. Y'all need to go to counsel and figure this out. Well, he's not emotionally available. That's why I'm flirting with the guy at my job. You're violating a covenant. Is this too real? Okay, just making sure. Number two, grace does not equal tolerance. Oh man, I'm tickling myself. One Corinthians chapter five, verse number two, let's continue. You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning and sorrow and shame. You should and you should remove this man from your fellowship. It's interesting that Paul mentions this man's sexual immorality specifically once, and then he turns his attention to church and he's like, yo, this dude is wrong, but y'all, y'all are going wild. And he says, you should be embarrassed. You are arrogant and proud of yourselves. What is he alluding to? He's alluding to the fact that they've misunderstood what grace is and in the name of grace they have tolerated sin in their midst. Well, we're a church of grace. So yo grace is not that There's tolerance and then there's grace. Grace is for the one who is caught

Or either caught in a transgression or they're repentant, they have a contract heart, they keep their stuff like, man, I don't want anybody, but I'm caught in it. I'm caught in it. Grace is not applicable to somebody who takes advantage of it. Paul says like Y'all have taken grace and you've twisted it and taken advantage of it and it's tolerance and it's not grace. Here's the thing, the church was proud of how graceful they were. You know how many churches right now are filled with all types of sin in the name of grace but really as tolerance? And here's the problem with that. This is what Paul said. Lemme just go to the word of God. This is what Paul said in Romans chapter six verse one. Well then should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not exclamation point. Since we have died the sin, how can we continue to live in it? Verse number seven, for when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. To desire to continue in sin shows a misunderstanding of the abundant grace and

Shows a contempt for Jesus' sacrifice. Either we believe what God says is true or we don't. Either we take him at his word when he equates sin to death or we do not believe Him at all. Grace is a gift. Forgiveness is a gift. Grace is however, not a license to continue to sin. And in this particular case, he's dealing with sexual sin, which was deliberate. Sexual sin is no, you have sin, right? Sin is transgression against the law of God, right? Sexual sin in particular is always deliberate. Please do explain. Okay, I will. Your makeup, your anatomy requires for sexual sin to be intentional. I have never met a single person who was like, man, I was minding my own

Business.

YI was on my way to the Bible study and I ended up in their bed. It doesn't happen. I haven't talked to a single guy or a woman who's caught in pornography that didn't intentionally go to the websites. Well, things were popping up and I just followed the trail. Yes, but we know what makes those windows pop up. The breadcrumbs is this real, real? How do I know I was caught up and I knew I was? Here's the difference. If you're caught in a sin, there's grace for that. If you go, nah, I don't care. It's scary because Paul says, if you continue to violate the law of God intentionally and deliberately, you will sear your conscience. What does it mean to sear your conscience? Have you ever burned your finger on something? And then, I dunno why I say, but why would you do it twice? When you sear your finger, what ends up happening? You lose feeling. And when you lose feeling, you stop being able to tell what is hot and what is cold or what is rough and what is smooth. And what ends up happening is if you continue and deliberate sin, it will sear your conscience until you don't know the difference between sin and not sin because it's just a habit for you. And listen, I'm not even mad at you.

What I'm concerned about is the people around you who haven't said anything, that's between them and God and God will use you.

That's right.

Point number three. There is no secret sin. I know we talk about man, that there's secret sin in your life that's hidden sin, but it ain't secret. One Corinthians chapter five, verse number six, you're boasting about this is terrible. Don't you realize that? Can you imagine Paul writing this letter? I always think, man, Paul's an Ephesus. He's writing this letter. You know this guy is, you can hear it from just as writing, he is livid more ink. He most likely had a scribe, right? Right. A scribe with, don't you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough?

Get rid of the old yeast by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ. Our Passover lamb has been sacrificed for us. So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth. In general. We think that our sin only affects us generally speaking, when we sin deliberately, we think that we're just violating our relationship with Christ. But the Bible makes it very, very plain that any deliberate sin in the body of Christ affects the entire body. Have you ever walked through the house and you stubbed your toe in the dark? You're not like, feel sorry for you, bro. What happens when you stub your toe? Oh, ow. Your whole body reacts. Why? Because your little toe is connected to the rest of your body and when you stub a little toe, it has effects to the entire body. The same is true of the body of Christ. When one, it doesn't matter. Well, I'm just insignificant. I'm just a pinky toe. A pinky toe will lay a grown man down.

Am I right? It don't matter. I'm telling you, if David didn't succeed with a sling, he should have just,

He would've taken care of it. Because every, that's why I say there is no secret sin because the scripture tells us that if there is hidden and unrepentant sin, it will eventually come to light. But hidden and unrepentant sin affects the entirety of the body. If you evaluate a church and it's not doing well spiritually, and you look around and you go like what's happening? There could be sin that is unrepentant. Remember Aiken, the story of Aiken Joshua, they go to Joshua with the rule of Jericho. He goes to Jericho, he wins, blah, blah is cool. They're like, yo, we got this. We got this in the bag. Alright, let's go to ai. They go to AI and they're like, yo, this should be very easy. Let's send just a few of our soldiers. They go there, they get their tail whooped, they come back and they're like, what happened? And Joshua was like, I don't know, lemme go ask God. He goes to God. God, what happened? This should have been easy. We should have been winning these battles. We should have done got ai. And God says there's sin in the camp. Joshua was like, for real? And he's like, yeah, you got to pull up all the families and you got to find this out. So it's family by family. He goes through the children of Israel. Then when he gets to the family of who? Aiken, he's like, Aiken, what's up? What you got? And he's like, ah, man, I know God said don't take the gold, but I took some but it ain't going to hurt nobody.

I had it hidden in a hole underneath my tent. That one person's decision to disobey. God caused the entire camp to lose a battle and for kids to lose their father and wives to lose their husbands. They didn't even do anything. They were out there trying to fight a battle. But because someone in the camp decided my sin is only going to affect me,

Come on,

Hidden and unrepentant, sin will eventually come to light. I've never known a person who has an ongoing sexual sin issue that doesn't affect others in some way.

Well, it's me and my room with pornography. No, it is affecting your family. It is affecting your wife, it is affecting your children. Well, this adultery, nobody knows about it. No, it is affecting because it's not secret. Paul said it's like yeast leavens the entire lump. And the analogy, we think of yeast and we use dry yeast. I know this because Janice right now is she's making sourdough and she's using dry yeast and flour and water and you mix it together and it becomes leavened, right? In Bible times, they didn't have dry yeast. They had a pre fermented dough. So what would happen is they would take it, they would mix dough up and they would cut a piece off of that dough and then they'd store the dough and let that dough ferment. In other words, fungus would grow into it. Then what would happen is that became the yeast.

So then the next week or a few days later when they would make new dough, they would take the old dough and mix it with the new dough and the old fermented dough would then act as the yeast in the new dough. And then you would take a piece of that and save it. So when the children of Israel came out of Egypt, God says, from now on, you will not do what have leavened bread. What God was describing is that you will no longer take fermented fungus bread from yesterday from Egypt and bring it into today and tomorrow when you come into the body of Christ, you can't keep mixing old funky dough that's got fungus and lemon has always, yeast has always been a type of sin. You can't mix your old sin into your new life and expect you not to have swollen issues. Number four, and this is my last point. Deny the flesh, save the soul.

First Corinthians chapter five, verse number nine through 13. When I wrote to you before I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin, but I wasn't talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin or are greedy or cheap people or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin or is greedy or worships idol or is abusive or is a drunkard or cheats. People don't even eat with such people. Hey man, can we reschedule real quick?

It isn't my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. God would judge those on the outside, but as the scripture says, you must remove the evil person from among you. We love to use the phrase, only God can judge me. We love to go to Matthew. Matthew, chapter seven men, people who even know the Bible know Matthew chapter seven, judge now that you be not judged, but they stop right there. Jesus goes on to say what he means. He says, listen for the same judgment with which you judge you will be judged, meaning that don't come at me if you ain't read the book. And he says, listen, if somebody don't come in, somebody has a speck in their eye. When you have a log in your own, usually we take that and be like, yo, I can't judge people's specks. I got logs. Look at what Jesus continues to say. First, remove the log out of your own so you can help your brother with respect. The goal in that passage is that you should judge righteously according to word of God, not according to your opinion. You should judge those in the body of Christ according to the scripture with love. But make sure you remove the log so you can see clear enough to help someone out with their speck. He doesn't mean leave the speck in their eye.

He says, no, we need to get the specks out so they can have 2020 vision. But how many people don't have clear vision because people won't help them with specs.

Paul says, listen, it is better for us to maybe embarrass that person a little bit, maybe risk them being offended at you. Maybe like me teaching this message, there are many in here that could be offended. That's why I'm very intentional about staying in the word of God and not Tim River's opinion. Because if you're going to get offended, get offended at the book.

But how many of us are allowing, we're allowing people to live in unrepentant sin which is detrimental to their soul, their mind will and emotions. They're messed up because we as the body of believers who are aware, aren't saying anything because we don't want to offend nobody. Paul says it's better to offend them, it's better to embarrass them. And I'm not saying intentionally like pull 'em up in front of the church and how many have seen that happen and that a terrible experience. I still have trauma from that legit. But it is our obligation as the body of Christ to help somebody out of their sin. Because sin leads to what? Death. That's what the scripture says the wages of sin is that there is no other wage for sin except for death. So when somebody is deliberately sinning, they're on their way to death. And I would hate for somebody to go before the Lord and have to answer for something when I had the ability to say something. So what do we do as the body of Christ? We help each other by calling it out. Now I'm single and I got needs. I hear you. I was single once then had needs, but we can't use that as an excuse. Well, my partner isn't my husband and wife. They're not delivering what I need. So I'm having this side fling. Stop it. Well, I'm currently living with my partner. This is what scripture says. Hold it up to the word of God. Look at it and see if you can reply to it. So that's what I would say to you is hold up to the word of God and see if you can reply to it. Now, I know this message is going to make many in here uncomfortable and that are watching online because one, the church doesn't do a good job talking about sexing the church. And so we've avoided the topic in general. Number two, there are people who are right now caught in sexual immorality and sexual sin. That could be pornography, sex outside of marriage, adultery, lust, prostitution, any of these things you feel conviction. Maybe you feel guilt. And we say in the mental health space, there's been a lot of negative connotation to guilt. But guilt can be used as a tool in the hand of God to turn you toward repentance, right? Guilt means that you feel bad for what's happening in light of what you should do. So God can take that and turn it to repentance. And then some of you may feel uncomfortable because you have in the past been promiscuous and this is bringing up some feelings. Or maybe you have committed adultery or maybe you have been ensnared in pornography and you feel, oh, you feel remorse. Here's what I'm saying. Anytime you feel that feeling, that's the Holy Spirit and you ought to be thankful. That's the grace of God saying, listen, the reason why you feel that way, because you know the Holy Spirit is in you and he wants you to be holy. He wants you to be clean. He wants you to live a life of freedom. Can I tell you, being and sin is bondage, you can be free. The good news for today is you can be free. Three, stand all across this place right now. Listen, if you're in this place and you're caught in sin, in the grip of sin, whether it's a hidden sin, whether it's a secret sin, whether it's a deliberate sin, let me tell you, the good news of the gospel is that you can be free. The reason why Jesus came, he died, he rose again, is to set all of us free. And today you have the opportunity to walk in the freedom that God has for you. So we all heads bowed, eyes closed. I want to pray this prayer. If you don't have a relationship with Jesus, I want you to pray this prayer with me. Say, dear Jesus, Jesus, I recognize my need for you. I believe that you came, that you died, that you rose again, and you did it all for me. Forgive me of my sins. Come into my heart. Be the Lord of my life. Take over in Jesus' name. Amen. Come on when we celebrate all those who made a decision today,

Hey, like I said, it's baptism Sunday. If you prayed that prayer for the very first time, your next step is water baptism. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to go back into a time of worship, and if you're in this place and you're ready to get water baptized, God is calling you to do that. I want you to head out right now toward the doors. You're going to find people in blue shirts. They're going to welcome you right now. Come on, if you need to get baptized right now is the moment to move. Come on. Can we celebrate church? There are people right now moving to get water baptized. Let's worship the Lord right now.