2026.4.19 TFHC – Sexual Immorality In The Church | 1 Cor 5:1-13

April 19, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcribed by Beluga AI. All right, we’re going through 1 Corinthians, chapter five. We’re in chapter five, so we’re looking at the whole chapter. Paul is done with problem number one. Problem number one, there’s division in the church. “I’m of Paul, I’m of Apollos, I’m of Cephas.” He deals with that pretty thoroughly in those first four chapters and points out their immaturity. Now he’s going on to say, “Here’s something else that you guys are totally missing the mark on.” And that is sexual immorality in the church and their response to that sexual immorality. And so 1 Corinthians 5 talks about that. “It’s actually been reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that is not even tolerated among the Gentiles.” It’s worse than going on in the loose city of Corinth. It would be like Paul saying today, “There’s sexual immorality. It’s the kind of sexual immorality that’s worse than what’s going on in Hollywood, worse than what’s going on in San Francisco or New York or Las Vegas. And it’s happening in the church.” He said, “A man is sleeping with his father’s wife.” 1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that is not even tolerated among the Gentiles a man is sleeping with his father’s wife. (1 Corinthians 5:1, CSB) This is probably not his mother. There’s probably another marriage, but he’s having sexual relations with his father’s wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Shouldn’t you be filled with grief and remove from your congregation the one who did this? 3 Even though I am absent in the body, I am present in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who has been doing such a thing. 4 When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I am with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5hand that one over 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. Don’t you know that a little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new unleavened batch, as indeed you are. For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore, let us observe the feast, not with old leaven or with the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 9 I wrote to you in a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. 10 I did not mean the immoral people of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters; otherwise you would have to leave the world. 11 But actually, I wrote you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister and is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or verbally abusive, a drunkard or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person. 12 For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders? Don’t you judge those who are inside? 13 God judges outsiders. Remove the evil person from among you. (1 Corinthians 5:2-13, CSB) God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB) So, problem number two: there’s sexual immorality in the church, and it is of a very bad nature. You know, sin is sin, but there are some sins that are kind of worse than others. And in terms of their destructive nature within the body of Christ, he says, “This is a bad deal. And you guys are actually rejoicing in that Christ has forgiven us all and look at our freedom.” This is the epitome of what we would call cheap grace. This is the epitome of what Paul addresses in Romans. He says, “Some say, ‘If grace abounds where sin abounds, let’s sin all the more, so grace will abound all the more.'” And that’s what the Corinthians were doing. They’re saying, “We are just showing how much Christ forgives. We can do anything we want and He’ll forgive.” And there’s always this balance that the Church has to walk in. It’s the balance between license and legalism. License is the error of cheap grace, or the historical word for it is antinomism “against law” that righteous behavior, that following the commandments, that being obedient and loyal and being Christlike doesn’t matter because grace is so big, it forgives all sins. Grace is so big, it forgives all sins. But grace is also so big, it transforms lives and it makes us more like Jesus. And if we’re not pursuing becoming more like Jesus, we’re not walking in grace. We’re walking in license, and we’re walking away from Christ, and we’re in rebellion. The other is the sin of legalism. Legalism is that which, you know, is always trying to protect us from sin by dealing with secondary matters instead of matters of the heart. In other words, legalism is the sin, is the issue that says, “Don’t go swimming with women, don’t dance, because it might lead to lust.” No, the sin is lust, not dancing. All right? “Don’t drink because it might lead to drunkenness.” No, the sin is drunkenness, not a glass of wine. And so legalism is always trying to draw fences. Don’t smoke, don’t drink. Don’t chew, don’t go with women that do. There’s the Holiness denominations. One particular Holiness denomination for years had a legalistic rule against going to the cinema. Don’t go to the cinema. Don’t go to the movies. All right? Now I knew people who practiced that. I know people who practice that. And yet, back in the days of Blockbuster but I imagine now in the days of streaming they would go to the video store, and they would rent videos. They just wouldn’t go to the movies to watch them. I said, “Well, what’s that about if the movies are evil?” “No, we don’t want to give the appearance of evil by going to the movies.” Well, you’re giving the appearance of evil to the person at Blockbuster who’s renting you the movies. Those of you don’t know, Blockbuster is this ancient way of distributing movies to some older people that we used to partake in. And it was new to us. It was like we used to actually partake in we actually had to do this. We actually had to actually go to theaters to see movies. We couldn’t get them streamed into our homes. It was barbaric back then. It was rough. It was rough. But we endured. And so there’s always the sin of legalism. And you see this, you know, portrayed as the self-righteous Pharisee. Sometimes the world will portray us Christians as being prudish and legalistic. But I think now, if you look at religion in America now, we far and away fall off more on the side of license than legalism. I think there’s more cheap grace out there than there is, “Hey, follow Jesus.” So that’s what Paul’s dealing with here. The Corinthians are saying, “Look at how great we are. We’re not legalistic and prudish.” And Paul’s saying, “No, you’re repulsive. You’re not following Christ.” And so, the problem is that there’s no church discipline. And this passage actually talks about the practice of excommunication, the practice of kicking people out. Paul says, “You are proud when you should be mourning. You should be sad at the grievousness of this sin.” He says, “I’m not with you physically, but in spirit I’m with you because the Holy Spirit is one and we’re corresponding through these letters, and I planted this church. And as one who is with you, I have already cast my verdict. This man is guilty of gross sin, and here is my prescription: Kick him out of church.” Well, there it is. All you sinners get out of here. No, that’s not what Paul’s saying. He’s not saying kick sinners out of church. He’s saying if somebody is in unrepentant rebellion, they are hurting themselves and they’re hurting the body of Christ, and they need to be handed and this is a hard word they need to be handed over to Satan. What does he mean by that? He says, “Take away the church covering and the church protection, and just throw them back out into Satan’s world.” There are three kinds of people in the world. There are people who have the wisdom to learn from the elders’ wisdom. These are actually children who take their parents’ advice. My wife was like this. When I was dating my wife, she had a curfew, and she would regularly follow her curfew, which was an annoyance to me because I liked being with her and I wanted to stay out with her longer. Her curfew, I think, was midnight. And she was like, “I got to get home.” And my wife she could fall off on the legalist side. She’d be, “I have to be there 10 minutes before midnight. I don’t want to even push it.” And I’d be like, “Eh, you could come in 10 minutes after midnight and you’d be alright.” And she’d be like, “No, get me home,” and just annoy me. And I said, “Your parents are so nice. They won’t punish you if you come in late after curfew.” And here’s what she said. I always love this. She says, “I’m not worried about them punishing me. I’m worried about disappointing them.” After I was annoyed at her, I wanted actually for us to raise children like her. She learned from the wisdom of the elders. There’s a second kind of person: me. I learned from the wisdom of rebelling against the elders and then learning from my pain. All right? I have a deep commitment to only be stupid once on any particular issue. And when I’m stupid once and I pay the price, I will at least want to have the wisdom of going, “Not going to do that again.” Everybody learns that way to some degree or another, right? Pain is our teacher. It’s like, yeah, that didn’t work. You know, great handymen don’t always hit themselves in the thumb with the hammer. They’ve learned. How did they learn? They hit themselves in the thumb with the hammer enough times to know. “Oh, pay attention to the head of the nail. Pay attention. It hurts when you get distracted.” So, learn from your mistakes. And that’s what Paul’s doing here. He’s not saying, “Hand this man over to Satan so that he’ll go to hell.” He’s saying, “Take this man out of the protective covering of the body of Christ. He won’t learn from the wisdom of the gospel. He won’t learn from the commandments of God. Let him learn from the hardships of life.” Prodigal son. Right? Prodigal son. You won’t learn in your father’s house how good your father is. But I love what it says in that story. He’s eating with the pigs and it says this: “And then he came to his senses.” Pain will bring you to your senses. It can. Then there’s a third kind of people in the world, and they’re the ones who are perpetually stupid. They stay in constant rebellion. The book of Revelation ends that way. As God is pouring out His judgments upon the world, and it kind of says amazed, “And they still wouldn’t repent. They still wouldn’t repent.” And so there are people who still won’t repent. But understand that this excommunication that Paul is prescribing is prescribed out of a motive of love. “I want his flesh destroyed.” What does that mean? I want his sinful impulse crucified, and he won’t bring it to the cross voluntarily, so send him out there and let him experience the cross. You follow? It’s tough love. I have a dear friend of mine and he’s a wonderful Christian man, wonderful father and his mother, who I knew, who’s now passed away, was a wonderful Christian woman. But this boy was trouble. And you can always say, “Well, you know, it’s the parents’ fault.” She was a great mom. I don’t know. I don’t know what happened, but he was he just had that personality, you know, and he was just, he was rebellious and he was drunk in high school and racing cars and crashing cars and, you know, trying to hook up with all these girls. He was just a mess, and he was wreaking havoc on the rest of the family. And on his 18th birthday, he got out of bed hungover and walked down to mooch some more breakfast off his hard-working servant mother. What he saw instead of a plate of warm pancakes or a breakfast for him was a suitcase packed in the front hallway of the house. His mom said, “This is the last thing I’m going to do for you. I packed your suitcase.” He said, “Well, what for?” She said, “You’re out. I’m kicking you out of my house.” “But Mom.” “No, you’re destroying this family. Get out.” To this day, he’ll tell you, best thing ever happened to him. He ended up coming to Jesus because his mom wasn’t enabling him not to. So, some people, you know If you have more than one kid, there’s probably one kid that you can say, “Hey, don’t do that.” They’re like, “I won’t.” There’s probably another kid that, you know, you got to lift them off the ground, drop them in a seat, and then three or four times later, they go, “Oh. Oh, you don’t want me to do that. Okay.” Yeah, knucklehead. Don’t want you to do that. All right, Isaiah, I’m sure you were the first kind, right? Jacob was the troublemaker. Oh, in the Bible, Jacob’s a troublemaker. We know. We know. Isaiah is the faithful prophet. Jacob’s the troublemaker. I got you. All right, so this is an act of love. The destruction of sin and the repentance of the sinner is the goal, the salvation of those involved and the health of the church. When the church embraces it’s one thing for the church to endure sinners. Of course we endure sinners. This is the hospital for sinners, not the hotel for saints. But we don’t embrace and enable unrepentant rebellion against God. We discipline it. And that makes the church healthy, not legalistic and mean and judgmental. I’ve known at least one situation. I was the associate pastor at the time, so it wasn’t my call. There was a man in the church who was divorcing his wife because he was having an affair with another woman, who, before the divorce was complete, was already engaged to this other woman. But on the side, what his wife and the other woman didn’t know is he had a third woman. And his wife, who I think is ridiculously somebody yelled at me for this this morning who I think was a ridiculously foolish codependent, as this other woman was. And they said, “Well, you’re letting the man off.” No, the man is wicked. The man is wicked. But that these women were putting up with it is stupid. He would still go back to his wife while he’s divorcing her, engaged in sleeping with his other woman, and spend the night and have sexual relations with his wife, and she’d be okay with that. And then he was having sex with this other woman that he was engaged to before they got married. And then on the side, he had his third affair going on. And the pastor heard about it and called him in the office. And the pastor should have said, “Go back to your wife.” But he was so exasperated, he said, “Pick one.” And this guy said, “No, I’m living the life, man. I’m living the life. I’m a stud.” And the pastor said, “Then leave the church.” And he said, “I can come anywhere I want. You can’t tell me to leave. I can show up any Sunday morning I want. What, are you going to call the police?” And the pastor said, “If you don’t repent and you’re here on Sunday morning, I will call you out publicly. I’ll tell everybody here what you’re doing and that you’re not repentant.” And so the guy stopped coming. I don’t know if he repented or not. I’m not sure. Oh, by the way, all three women that he was having an affair with, they were all part of the church too. So there can be gross dysfunction in the church. And so that’s what Paul is saying here. It’s for the health of the church. So then who do we break fellowship with? All right, number one, we share bread and do not break fellowship with fellow strugglers. Paul is not saying here, “Don’t have fellowship with people who struggle with sin.” Of course, we have fellowship with people who struggle with sin. The key point there is “struggle with.” They’re not giving into it. They’re not trying to justify it and say, “My behavior is right.” They’re coming with a broken and contrite heart saying, “I struggle with this.” There was a man one time, and we were friends, and we would walk together in the mornings. His struggle was with homosexuality. He struggled with same-sex attraction. And there was a sign, a big billboard outside of town back in those days that was advertising cigarettes. And as it was advertising cigarettes, it did so with a healthy young couple in bathing suits. Because obviously, if you smoke cigarettes, you will perpetually stay healthy and young. It’s advertising. And this healthy young couple was, you know, frolicking on the beach. And you know, it said, “Smoke Marlboros, and you’ll get a guy that looks like him and a girl that looks like her.” Was the message, I guess. So anyway, he said, “You know that billboard outside of town with that young couple up there in their bathing suits?” I go, “Yeah, I know that billboard.” He goes, “Do you ever look at the guy?” And I go, “You know, I don’t. That’s not my struggle. I don’t look at the guy.” I said, “But here’s the truth. I can tell you how many stripes are on that bikini. I look at the girl.” And this is what I told him. I said, “Mike, let’s meet at the altar of Jesus, and I will pray for your homosexual struggles, and you can pray for my heterosexual struggles.” That’s what we do with fellow strugglers. We don’t kick them out of church. We meet them at the foot of the cross, where we all find mercy and grace. That’s what we do. And the other thing we do is we don’t break off fellowship with sinful unbelievers. We don’t break off fellowship with unrepentant unbelievers. Jesus was a friend to sinners. You are not sinning if you go hang out with sinners. You’re okay. You’re supposed to. Who we break off fellowship with is unrepentant people in the church who say they’re brothers and sisters in Christ, yet are in intentional and proud rebellion against Christ. And those are the people we say, “No, no.” Now, it doesn’t mean we don’t talk to them. We don’t say, “Okay, come back to Jesus.” But if they refuse, then let them learn. Let them learn. Hand them over to Satan. By the way, when you skip church, when you and your family skip church not that you guys do, you’re all very faithful but if you’re a twicer, you know, Easter and Christmas, or, you know, once a month or whatever, those other three weeks out of the month, you’re handing yourself and your kids over to Satan. My boys are involved in traveling sports, and so their weekends are taken up, but my kids are very intentional. They ended up going to a church that has multiple services. Why? “We’re going to church every weekend before we play baseball. We’re not going to raise mediocre athletes who don’t know God.” Nothing wrong with sports. Love sports. Love watching my grandkids play sports. But I respect my kids, and they actually left the Firehouse Church to do it, which was hard for me, but I understood it. It’s like, yeah, we got one service, 11 o’clock, you know. And they go on Saturday, they go Sunday morning, they’ll go Saturday night. Because the church has three services on Sunday, one on Saturday night. They’ll make it work so their kids are in church every Sunday, and they’re in church every Sunday. “I don’t want to go.” Of course you don’t. You know, haven’t you experienced this? You’re all pretty experienced Christians. Y’all been hanging around church for a while. Haven’t you experienced this? The Sunday you want to go the least is the Sunday where God meets you the most. There was something there for you. Now you’re sick. I get it. You know, there are reasons not to go. I’m not you know, if you miss, I’m not a legalist here. I’m not going to beat you up if you’re not in church on a Sunday. I’m just saying this is a covering. This is actually a spiritual covering that we experience when we gather together to corporately worship. And it’s good for you. I once told a Baptist preacher in town, I said, “My mom was raised a Baptist.” I love his response. “Didn’t hurt her none either, did it?” Nah, it didn’t. It didn’t hurt her none. So sexual immorality in the church. By the way, sleeping with your father’s wife is not the only thing that’s sexually immoral. In fact, the Christian standard Here’s the Christian standard. Here’s sexual morality. One man, one woman. Monogamous heterosexual union till death do them part. That’s it. But it gets harder than that. It does? Yeah. Don’t lust in your heart. Darn Jesus. I was doing so well till you said that. I was doing so well till you said that. I remember I was walking with a friend one time. Here’s the difference between what I call creation appreciation and lust. It is not sin to look at somebody and say, “That’s an attractive person.” That’s not sin. Okay, that’s fine. I joke about my wife. She likes Denzel. I told her one time. Church was full, it was packed, and I went to her and I said to her, I said, “Honey, in your wildest dreams, did you ever imagine it would be like this?” And she said, “In my wildest dreams, you’re Denzel.” So there you go. That’s my wife. That’s who I compete with. She likes tall black men. She married a short, fat white guy. Go figure. So creation appreciation. That person is attractive. You’re not sinning. I was walking with a friend one time 30, 40 years ago. We had small children. We’re having a God talk. We’re talking about God and raising kids and family. Oh, we’re so holy. The Bible. It’s California, and it’s the middle of the afternoon. Summer in California. It’s 90 some degrees outside. By the way, Washingtonians, you will not die of heat stroke the first day it gets over 80. I’m just letting you know you don’t have to check on your old neighbors. You don’t have to bring the pets in. They’ll be fine. It’s 82, for crying out loud. All right? You’re all right. Just saying, I’ve been here 20 years. It still freaks me out when people go, “Oh, my gosh, it’s 80!” You know, we call that down in the Central Valley of California. February. It’s February, right, Aiko? Yeah, you’re fine. So we’re out walking. It’s probably 95, 98 degrees. Two o’clock in the afternoon. We’re walking. Bet you think we’re crazy. No, the crazy person was the woman we saw. She was jogging in the middle of the afternoon in the California heat. Now, whatever this woman’s health regime was, it worked. She was fit. It’s 98 degrees in California. She’s jogging. What do you think she’s wearing, a sweatsuit? No, no, we’re talking about God, and this very fit young woman comes around the corner not smiling because joggers never do. I don’t care what Stevin says. He was never smiling out there. Whether the endolphins I don’t even know what dolphins have to do with it. I don’t know what those dolphins Everybody says, “I got dolphins.” What does that mean? I got the endolphins. Who cares about endolphins? It’s misery. So she’s jogging, and she’s got this little white, little top on, cut off here. So her whole very fit midriff shows. And she’s wearing 30, 40 years and I still remember. I apologize. I remember she’s wearing these little blue shorty shorts. Little blue shorty shorts, little white midriff, all fit. Jogging. My son and I, “God is good. Oh, we love our wives. We love our kids.” She comes around the corner, we go… Then we’re kind of embarrassed, right? Because we’re being so holy. And we get completely taken off track by Little Miss Shorty Shorts. And he’s Texan, so he looked at me in his best Texan and he said, he said, “Son, the first look is radar.” He’s absolutely right. The first look is radar, you know? God created us to make babies. Make babies with her. No, wait, got wife. It’s what you do after the first look. That’s the issue. Right? So don’t condemn yourself for creation appreciation. All right? But don’t go further. Love your wife, love your husband. That’s good enough. It’s better than good enough. That’s the best. That’s how God created it. So sexual immorality. We deal with it. When do we break off fellowship? When people are in willing, arrogant, prideful rebellion. Like, no, you can’t do that here. You can’t do that here. Now Paul says, “I’ve already judged him.” Oh, people get freaked out over this. “Christians aren’t supposed to judge.” Shut up. You know, when non-Christians look at us and say, “You’re judgmental, you. you’re supposed to not judge.” You know what they’re doing to us? Yeah. We are absolutely supposed to judge those inside the church. And here’s what we’re supposed to judge: behavior. And we’re supposed to judge ourselves. Behavior. It is perfectly legit to call balls and strikes. That’s wrong. That’s right. I had a woman, she was cheating on her husband, and she tried to convince me with a theological argument. She said, “God is love.” She had two little boys, gonna break up this family. Her husband was a good man. He was a hard working man. He loved his sons. He loved his wife. But she was kind of this romance addict and always wanted a fresh thrill, and so she says, “Well, wait, Pastor, God is love, right?” “Yes.” “Well, I love this guy, not my husband, so it’s okay for me to leave for the sake of love.” True love. True love. No, it’s not okay for you to leave. And I’m not being judgmental when I tell her, “No, it’s not all right. You made a promise to that man, and through that promise to that man, you actually made a promise to the children you brought into this world that you wouldn’t destroy this family. Stay with him.” That’s not judging. Here’s the judging we’re forbidden to do: We’re forbidden to judge motives. I actually just did it to her. I said she was a romance addict and wanted thrills in her life. So I’m saying that’s why she did that. I don’t know that for sure. That was my suspicion. But actually, I don’t know that. We’re not allowed to say “because”. “You do that, and that’s wrong” absolutely. “You do that, and that’s wrong, and here’s why you do it. I know you. I know you.” No, you don’t. Listen. One of the most heinous sins and it’s a sin we all hate, especially if we have children, grandchildren is the sin of molesting children. Child molesters, pedophiles. And you hear people talk about pedophiles in the worst possible way. You can be a rapist; that’s bad. But a child rapist People say all the time, “Kill them, string them up, execute them, shoot them on the spot.” And you know what? It is a heinous sin, and I hate it. I hate what it does. I’ve had many people in my office who’ve been molested, and it destroys young lives. I hate it with a perfect hatred. I hate the sin. But you know what I’ve learned? I don’t hate pedophiles. Because every pedophile I know, and I know a few, was molested as a child. And that demon, that demonic spirit entered in. It’s not an excuse. Doesn’t make what they did right. I’m calling balls and strikes. Your behavior is 100% wrong. I have no problem with justice being executed on that behavior, no problem with you going to jail, protecting children. But what I will not do is hate that person. No matter how heinous their crime, I won’t do it. And I will not give up hope that they’re redeemable. I won’t do it because I’m not allowed to. Isn’t it amazing how we are so quick to judge other people’s sin, and we know perfectly why they do it, and yet every one of us in this room has had this conversation with God: “God, why do I keep doing that?” We don’t even know why we do the things we do. Is that not right? We don’t even know why we repeat behaviors that we shouldn’t repeat, but we’re so quick to judge other people’s sin. I’ve never been tempted to gamble. I mean, I like to make bets with friends just because I’m competitive and I have fun with that. But I’ve never been tempted to gamble away my family’s money. I got a math brain. I know the odds are in the casino’s favor, right? I know if I do it enough, I will lose money; they will make money. That’s why they have all the expensive lights and they can give away free drinks. And I’ll never forget this is back in the old days again we’re going through a casino. My wife and I are walking through a casino, and people are playing the slot machines. This is the time where you used real money and you pulled levers. It wasn’t the computer where you pressed in the card that you bought and pushed the buttons. Real money. And they would do this thing, right? They had four behaviors: money, pull, drink, smoke. All right? They’d have their drink, they’d have their smoke, they’d have their little coin of quarters, and they’d have the slot machine. Put a quarter in, pull it, take a shot, take a drag. Put a quarter in, pull it, take a shot, take a drag. That’s what they did. Little dance. And we’re walking through the casino, and I’m looking at this, I’m going, “You’re a bunch of stupid idiots.” I’m judging them. Notice I’m not judging the behavior. I’m not saying, “Gambling is irrational and it’s a waste of money and probably wrong to do, at least at the level you’re doing it.” No, I’m judging their motives. “You’re a bunch of stupid idiots.” That’s what I’m thinking. “You’re a bunch of dupes.” And I start singing walking through the casino. “Give your money to the poor. Give your money to the poor. You’ll be so much happier if you didn’t fund the mob and gave your money to the poor.” My wife goes, “Shh, be quiet.” Now, any man worth his salt, when your wife switches over to be your mama, do you be quiet? No, you sing louder. It’s like, oh, no, you’re not my mother. You don’t get to tell me to be quiet when I’m having fun. “Give your money to the poor.” People are looking. I’m walking through the casino. My wife’s like, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. Let’s get out of here. The mob’s gonna come get us. Shut up.” Now, I’m judging their sin like nobody’s business. I’m judging them like nobody’s business. You might ask, well, Kevin, if you don’t like to gamble, what are you doing in the casino? Ah. Because at the top floor of the casino you got it brother. There is an all-you-can-eat. Did you hear those words? That’s a gamble I’ll take because they’re betting they can make money on me, and I’m betting they can’t. Right? That’s my kind of gamble. All you can eat. I’m thinking, you ain’t seen this boy eat. You know, I’ll keep coming back. So, I’m judging them for their sin while I’m fully embracing gluttony. Right? Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Yes, Christians, don’t be buffaloed by the world who says you shouldn’t judge into not calling balls and strikes. Absolutely. Sin is sin. What the Bible says is sin is sin. Call it out. On the other hand, you don’t know why people do what they do, and neither do I. And so you don’t judge that. So, Paul is perfectly legitimized in judging this man and kicking him out of the church, but he does it for his redemption. By the way, if you read 2 Corinthians, this man ultimately came back to the Lord. And then the Corinthians wouldn’t restore him to the fellowship. And Paul says, “Hey, bring him back. He’s repented. Bring him back. He learned.” All right. We are to bring correction to the church, not the world. We’re to bring correction to the church, not the world. We are to build one another up. Now, when I say we don’t bring correction to the world, what I mean is we don’t judge the world. Again, it doesn’t mean we don’t call balls and strikes. It doesn’t mean we don’t work for reform. It doesn’t mean we don’t try to transform the world, but we simply Listen. This happens all the time. If you like to argue on social media, which I like to argue, so that seems like a good place to do it. But I’ve stopped because it’s kind of fruitless. Over 40% of arguments on social media it’s been studied over 40% of arguments are ad hominem arguments that use the motive fallacy instead of arguing against the idea. And people and politicians do this all the time. It’s the lowest form of argument, and it’s name calling. “I don’t have to listen to you. I don’t have to listen to your ideas because you’re a fascist.” Notice how quickly names get applied to people. “I don’t have to listen to your ideas because you’re a commie.” And the minute you label something, then you don’t have to listen to it. You already know. You know, All Wise One, where it’s coming from. And so nobody talks about ideas, nobody talks about solutions. They talk about people. They’re the bad guys; they’re the good guys. No. No. So, yes, we can call balls and strikes in the world, but you can’t blame blind people for being blind. You know this. When you became a Christian, one of the first things you realized was, why are all these people so stupid? Even though 6 months ago you were just as stupid. Right? My wife will say all the time, “That just doesn’t make sense.” No, it doesn’t, because you have 30 years of gaining a Christian perspective and worldview, and you know what makes sense, at least to a greater degree than they do. But you know why they’re doing that? They’re desperately seeking something to grab onto because they’re blind. And if a blind person walked into church right now and tripped over that chair, you wouldn’t be going, “You stupid idiot. Couldn’t you see that?” No, they’re blind. You’d help them. That’s our position with the world. We can tell them they’re blind. That’s fine, but we can’t despise them. You can’t hate. You can’t hate your political opponents. You can’t hate your theological opponents. You can’t hate the atheists. You can’t hate whatever group that’s working against you. It’s hard to do, right? I remember people conservative Christians, will always come to me and say, “We need to pray for a president. We need to pray for our leaders.” And I get people mad at me because they’ll say that, and I’ll go, “Okay, we’ll pray for them this Sunday in church.” I’ll pray for them out loud. I begin by praying for Bremerton’s mayor, Greg Wheeler, who’s a liberal. And then I pray for, at the time it was, who’s the guy? Inslee. Then I pray for Inslee, and then I pray for Trump, and then they get all mad at me. “Why’d you pray for Wheeler and Inslee?” Because the Bible says, pray for your leaders. Oh, wait, I don’t have the version that says, “Pray for the leaders you agree with more than the others.” I don’t have that version. Jesus says, what? Hate your enemies and crucify them in social media? No, he says, “Love your enemies.” That’s one of the ways we’re different people. That’s one of the ways we’re different. We refuse to hate people who are wrong, right? We refuse to hate people who are wrong. And so, wives, you can’t hate your husbands. Just can’t do it. Even though he’s wrong. We know. All right, what do we do with the world? We’re to bring the gospel to the world. We are a light, but not a judge. Now, we can warn the world of the judgment to come. But Paul’s very clear. God is the judge. God knows the intentions of every heart. We can warn the world that apart from Christ, you are going to face the judgment of God. God will judge every intention of your heart. We can tell people that’s going to be the case, but we don’t get to cast the judgment. There’s no worse curse than we can say to another thing or human being than “God, damn it.” We’re making ourselves a judge. “God, you need to damn this.” No. All we do with the things that appear to be damnable to us is we lift them up to heaven and say, “God, I beseech you to save this. Rescue this like you rescued this.” That’s our position with the world. With the church, if I find out any of you are sleeping with your mother-in-law tonight, I’m kicking you out. Shouldn’t I do that? Yeah, I mean, I’m kicking you out. I’m getting the leadership team together, and we’re going to say, “Repent.” And if you don’t come back when the devil beats you up enough, we’ll be here for you. That’s what we do. All right, dear ones, I want to tell you this, though, about your sin because you are repentant, you are humble. I mean, you are; you’re here. You know, hopefully you didn’t come here to show off your spirituality. Hopefully you came here because you know you need help and saving like the rest of us. And if you are, I want to tell you with full assurance, in the Name of Jesus, your sins are forgiven. Not only do I want to tell you your sins are forgiven, I want to tell you that the power of sin over your body, over your mind, over your flesh has been broken. And you will not, you are not now a slave to sin, even though you may feel like it in some ways, and for all eternity, you will not be a slave to sin. You will be free. You not only get the love of God, you get to be like Him. You get to be as good as Jesus. I mean, I’ve gone through the last 45 years of my life just wanting to be as good as Jill and now I get to be as good as Jesus, right? And so He invites you to His table to remind you of that that sin has been defeated. Satan has been defeated. Death has been defeated. Yes, we’re still engaged in the war, but the war has been won. And Christ is the victor. And, dear ones, you are in His family. You are His beloved child. So come tonight and take this meal and be grateful for the nourishment and the love of God. Come and eat. The post 2026.4.19 TFHC – Sexual Immorality In The Church | 1 Cor 5:1-13 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.