Don't Do to Become. Be What You Are (1 Corinthians 5:9-13)

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. [2] And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. [3] 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. [4] When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, [5] 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. [6] Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? [7] 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. [8] 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.

I. Not the 'Holiday' You Had in Mind

Maybe you saw the original title for this morning's message. That title was, “Living in Light of God's Holiday”. Now, given that today is December 28^th, it would be understandable if you thought the holiday referred to in that title was Christmas. And, in fact, I think a sermon about what it would look like to live specifically in light of Christmas would be a really good idea. But in spite of the fact that we're still basking in 'the most wonderful time of the year', when I came up with that title, I actually had another holiday in mind. We'll talk about that holiday a little later. Until then, let's look together at the passage that was just read to us: 1 Corinthians 5:1-8.

II. The Passage: “Let Us... Celebrate the Festival” (5:1-5)

You may remember that last week we talked about the fact that as we enter chapter 5, we're moving from the first section of the letter into the next section (which runs through chapter 6). But as we'll see in a few minutes, there remain some connections between our passage this morning, and the opening section comprised of chapters 1-4.

So let's do this: let's make sure we understand Paul's teaching in verses 1-5 (of chapter 5) by looking more closely at the content and the structure of these verses. I think what's helpful to see here is that Paul's thoughts follow an ABBA structure. No, I'm not referring to the 1970's Swedish pop group. What I mean is that, in some sense, Paul ends with the same idea he begins with here. That idea or focus is represented by the letter “A”. But between those two ideas, is another set of similar ideas. So we could visualize the pattern like this:

A. (v. 1) The Sinner's Sin

B. (v. 2a) The Saints' Silence

B. (vs. 2b-5a) The Saints' Sentence

A. (v. 5b) The Sinner's Salvation

Do you see how the beginning and the end (or outside parts) are focused on “the sinner”, and the inside sections are focused on “the saints”, that is, the church as a whole? So...

What do we learn here about, number one, the sinner's sin? Well, Paul is pretty clear in verse 1, isn't he? There is a man in the church who is sleeping with his stepmother. Now, we don't know anything else the situation beyond these details. But as Paul indicates here, such a relationship was not only contrary to Jewish incest laws, but also Roman incest laws. As Paul describes it here, such behavior was and is, plain and simple, “sexual immorality”.

But equally shocking was, number two, the church's silence about this brother's sinful behavior. In fact, Paul attributes their inaction to their arrogance. Look at verse 2: “And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn?” Now I think this is one of those connections back to the previous section. You may recall in the last chapter, specifically verses 18 and 19, that Paul labeled some of the factional ringleaders in Corinth as “arrogant”. And in the chapter before that, he admonished his readers with these words: “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.” (3:18)

How might these disciples have thought of themselves as wise? Well, if we reverse directions, a clue might be preserved in the next chapter, in 6:12. These immature Christians may have been holding to a very distorted view of grace, proclaiming, “All things are lawful for me”. Because of the way in which (as we've seen) many of their cultural values and ideas seemed to have tainted their Christian beliefs, they may have dangerously believed that their new position in Jesus somehow elevated them above certain moral categories.

Sadly, there are many in the church today who make this very same mistake when it comes to sexual matters. In relaxing God's standards, they consider themselves to be enlightened, to be sophisticated, to be open-minded. But God's word labels them more accurately as “immoral”.

So what should this church be doing instead? They should be, number three, passing sentence on the man's sin. As Paul makes clear in verse 3, “I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.” Notice how Paul also encourages them in verse 3-4, just in case they feel unqualified or ill-equipped to handle this kind of situation. When they assemble, they can know that not only is Paul “present in spirit”, but they also come together “with the power of our Lord Jesus”. As Jesus himself taught about these situations, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matthew 18:20) So in light of apostolic authority, in light of the presence of Jesus with them, instead of boasting, they should do what Paul instructs them to do at the end of v. 2: “Let him who has done this be removed from among you.” This discipline is also described in v. 5 as “deliver[ing] this man to Satan” (that is, sending this man out of the church and back into the world system, where the devil still holds sway).

Is such a sentence simply punitive? No. Verse 5 reminds us that, number four, this step is ultimately focused on the sinner's salvation. “...Deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” It's not exactly clear how this salvation will be accomplished, but what Paul has in mind may resemble the spiritual journey of the prodigal son in Jesus' famous parable. After pursuing a sinful path of worldly desire and selfish indulgence, the prayer must have been that this man would come to the end of himself; that he would experience (mentally, emotionally, spiritually, even physically) the pain and emptiness of such a path, but then, remember the goodness of the Father's house.

Now, as we transition to the second half of our main text, please see that, in v. 6, Paul explains yet another reason for removing this man from the fellowship of the church. “Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” Like a little bit of leaven or yeast worked into a batch of dough, just one flagrant, unrepentant sinner, when left unchallenged can spiritually corrupt an entire church. How? By communicating that sin is not dangerous; that it's not serious enough to be addressed; by promoting silence and avoidance as the right thing, as the loving thing; by conforming more to the world than to Jesus. And the list could go on.

III. “You Really Are Unleavened” (5:6-8)

But this is the point where I want us to drill down a bit more into what Paul is communicating in this passage. Verses 1-6 are vital for a right understanding, a godly understanding, a healthy understanding of purity in the church, and the need at times for what we might call corrective church discipline. Sadly, but rightly, over the past 20 years, this church, on several occasions, has had to remove unrepentant individuals from our fellowship. Or... sin had to be confronted, which then led to an individual's departure. Like the 'tough love' of an intervention with an alcoholic friend or a self-destructive teenager, as a last resort, this kind of action is critical when it comes to rousing the wayward soul... AND protecting the other relationships in his or her circle.

But I want you to see where Paul's mention of the word “leaven” goes in verses 7 and 8. Though he could use it in a positive sense when talking about the spread of the kingdom of God (Matt. 13:33), like many rabbis before him, Jesus also used leaven to visualize something that corrupted (Matt. 16:6). I think its safe to say that all of these rabbis, including Paul, thought about leaven this way because of... the Passover. If you recall, Passover was the holy day on which Jews would remember their emancipation from Egyptian slavery; and even more specifically, the day they would remember that during the tenth and final plague, the angel of death 'passed over' the Hebrew homes where the blood of a lamb was smeared on the door frame. But in observing this holy day, Jews had to make sure that every bit of leaven was removed from their homes before they could even offer the Passover lamb.

But look with me at the Good News of verse 7: “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.” Brothers and sisters, do you see what Paul is saying there? Do you see what God is showing us or reminding us about this morning? The call to remove this sinner from the Corinthian church was not given so that they could finally become something they were not. It was given so that they might be what they really were. They really were “unleavened”. But to be clear, they hadn't made themselves unleavened, in order to sacrifice the Passover lamb. No. The One who was the final Passover lamb (final because he was the fullness of the Passover lamb), he had already been offered for them. Therefore, in spite of their current leaven, they were now “unleavened” because of Jesus. Therefore, they should be what they were; that is, they should walk in step with their unleaven-ness by cleansing out the old leaven and living as “a new lump”.

Friends, do you understand how radical, how revolutionary this is? The holiday I had in mind when I came up with that original title was not Christmas. It was Passover. But we're Christians. We don't celebrate Passover, do we? We absolutely do. But we (v. 8) “celebrate the festival” in light of “Christ, our Passover lamb”. And therefore, since we walk every day in light of His once-for-all sacrifice, we should “celebrate the festival” every day; in all its fullness. One way we do that is by rejecting the leaven of “malice and evil” and loving one another in “sincerity and truth”.

Isn't it stunning that Paul can go from the ugly sin of verse 1 to the beautiful sacrifice of verse 7? We need to hear this don't we? How many of us are trying to 'do to become', when God's call to his people is always 'be what you are'? Think about this: many Christians today have rightly stood against the false and faddish claims of transgender ideology. But sadly, many Christians have also struggled to stand next to those wrestling with this transgender outlook. Some wag their fingers and say, “Just be what you are.” And yet, how many of us struggle to 'be what we are' in Christ? Knowing everything he would write to them in the next sixteen chapters, in the second verse of chapter 1, Paul tells the Corinthians what they really are: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints...”. They really were “unleavened”! Cleansed by the blood of Christ, and clothed in his own, perfect righteousness!

Brothers and sisters, having just celebrated Christmas, when we remember that God the Son took on a body, one that might be sacrificed on the cross for us, I think today is the perfect time to encourage you to celebrate the Passover. No, not in April. Today, and every day hereafter.

Why do we struggle so much to be 'what we are'? I think one answer to that question is that, whether we know it or not, 'what we are' is often defined by someone or something else. How many of us are fighting against the notion that what we really are is a failure? What we really are is a weirdo? What we really are is 'damaged goods', someone who is always standing right on the cliff's edge of epically screwing things up or being rightly rejected.

But God's word is reminding us that what we really are, because of Jesus, is unleavened. Therefore, believer, since you are unleavened, cleanse out the old leaven. Or since your are light (Ephesians 5:8), shine! Since you are priests (Rev. 1:6), minister. Since you are children (Romans 8:15), cry out to your Father. Since you are his flock (Ezekiel 34:31), follow. Since you are redeemed (Gal. 5:13), love freely. Since you forgiven (Eph. 4:32), forgive. And I could go on.

We are called to now live in light of what we now are in Jesus. Like a distracted or timid boss in a chaotic workplace, a supervisor standing on the sidelines, but someone who already has the position, and the backing, and the tools, God is calling you this morning to 'be what you are'.

We don't have to 'do to become', for “our Passover lamb has been sacrificed”. It's finished. Even in the face of such ugly sin, the beautiful sacrifice of Jesus stands firm. I pray that's good news for you this morning. In just a moment, will you, even though its three days after Christimas, will you talk to God about truly celebrating this holiday (this holy day)? Will you talk with him about what you “really are”? And about walking in truth? Don't 'do to become'. Instead, believer, 'be what you are'. And if know you are not yet unleavened, then become that by trusting in what Christ did, when he offered himself as our Passover lamb. Let's pray.