 So, we start with one of you be willing to open us in prayer please. Lord, we thank you for this morning as we come before your presence to learn from your word. We pray that you would speak to us at your voice, be heard in our ears and let it transform our life. Because to understand the mysteries of your word and we submit to Smith, our Ma'am and to our mighty hands and ask that you would enable her to reveal the mysteries of your word called. Help all of us to pay attention and to listen from your word called. We praise your name in Jesus name. Thank you. So, before we go to recap of what we did last week, I did post our assignment question on Holy Cross Room as everyone had a chance to look at that. Yes, you just type what comes up or something just to let me know that you've seen it. Okay, so if you have not seen the assignment, it's actually due today. And it is a little bit of work. So, please do go in and look at it. For those of you who've seen it, did you have any questions? So, let me just go back to the questions so I can ask it clearly. So, you said to mention this one issue that Paul actually explains about what's the major issue and then you asked about the exhortation to the church. So, does it goes together like how he exhorted for the issue or the exhortation is a basic thing like whatever he exhorted. So, yeah, what does he say to support that main instruction? What are the things he says? So, yeah, if you just get the main issue and then what are the other points that he mentions from them, how they should be acting? That's sufficient. Okay, so it's due today and yes, I think in the question I did mention, Rosalind has asked, do you want us to give a verse also? I think you said to the reference. So, in the question I mentioned, please give me the reference. Meaning, just give me the verse, the chapter and the verse. You don't have to quote the verse, just give me the reference so that I know where you've taken that point from. Okay, so, if you have any other questions or like anything, any other challenges, feel free to post on Google Classroom and then I can answer it there. Central, you had messaged and asked a question I responded. Was my response clear or okay, if, yeah, if you still have any questions feel free to ask me during the class or you can post on chat or you can also just post on Google Classroom. Okay, if there are no more questions, we can go into the text. Let's just do a small recap of what we did last week and then we'll go into today's text. So, last week we covered from chapter 3 verse 16 to chapter 5 verse 5. Did you all have any main things that you want to just bring up the things that we covered last week? Okay, some of the main points. So, from chapter 3 verse 16, in chapter 3 and there was a sentence that says, it all belongs to you, it's all yours. And we looked into like what does it mean that everything is given for our benefit and everything belongs to us because we belong to Christ. And in chapter 4, we saw the word servant being used and it's not a bond servant that we usually see. It's a free servant that Paul actually, he wants to submit himself willingly. And we also saw that the servant is under the authority of Christ. And we also see the words steward over there and we spoke that they must be very familiar with the word because they are usually kind of wise with people. So, stewardship is all about a person who has a great responsibility, who must be trustworthy and faithful. So, I liked how we said ministers of God are not superheroes, but we are servants and stewards of Christ. And we also saw this point that says where we should never go beyond the scriptures and we should never boast about the leaders and we should always boast about Christ because obviously the leaders are from God. And we also saw the pride that they had because they have this wisdom. And we also saw about the final judgment of Jesus that we should never judge something before the time comes, I should wait until he does. And we also saw how they, and I also liked how we compared that how, what is wisdom in Christ and what is wisdom to the world. And we also, in the end of chapter four, we saw what does it mean to be a spiritual father, that he takes them from immaturity to maturity, helps them to learn from others. He sets an example for his children. He raised them up in a way they can be greater than him. And he also knows when to discipline, when to respond, when to correct. And he also know how to do all of these things. And in chapter five, we started out, I believe so, and we talked about this sexual immorality that was happening and how Paul's correction came from the authority of Jesus. And what it's, we kind of started, I believe, what it means to be delivered into the hands of Satan. And I think you were about to explain more about this thing. So yeah, thank you, Jeffrey. It's a good summary. Thank you. So, yeah, we stopped at verse five in chapter five, where Paul tells, so he's basically talking about sexual immorality that's happening in the church between a man and his father's wife. And he's saying that such morality is not even accepted among pagans, right? Those outside the church. So it's like really terrible that this is happening inside the church. But instead of being sorrowful, instead of being repentant, the church seems to have in some way taken pride in it. It's not clear what kind of pride they were taking in, but possibly that they were saying, we have so much religious freedom. We have so much mercy and forgiveness in Christ. We can continue to do these things. And we don't need to, we don't have strict rules that we need to follow that kind of thing. So where they were not repenting in the sin, but they were freely talking about it as if it were nothing. And so he says, he tells them, when you are gathered together, and you are there in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, I will be with you in spirit. And then a judgment should be passed for this person who is sinning. So a few things to take away is that when they were gathered together, the power of Jesus Christ was with them. So even today, when we gather as a church to expect power of Jesus to be present in our midst, enabling us to do the things that Jesus would do. So whether it be in this context, this is a case of discipline doing the will of God. In other contexts, it may be different things. It may be healings. It may be miracles, whatever it is, but expecting God's Jesus power to be manifest in our presence as we gather together as a church. And then verse five, he says, deliver this person over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. That his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. So in this one verse, you see there is a judgment, but we also see the purpose of the judgment. The purpose is for this person to experience salvation. So it's not judgment for the sake of judgment or judgment for the sake of punishment. It is for the sake of salvation. So we look a little bit at what it means for the person to be handed over to Satan. Okay, so it means that this person was being sent out of the covering of the church. So this person would no longer be in fellowship with the church and would no longer be under the spiritual covering of the church. So we believe that because the church is the body of Christ, that God's spirit is present in our midst, that there is power in that fellowship that we have. And there is also a spiritual protection that we enjoy when we are part of the church. But this person being sent out of the church meant that they were losing that protection and they were losing the fellowship. So the fellowship itself kind of keeps us in line with Christ, right? Where we come together to edify one another, to enable, to help one another walk in holiness, walk in truth. So when they were sending him out of the church, he no longer had that kind of support in his spiritual walk. And so he was going to be left by himself and he was going to have to fend for himself. And obviously it's expected that Satan will take advantage of this because he's in a vulnerable position and Satan will take advantage. Satan will bring temptation. And in the process of facing that temptation of recognizing what he has lost, the hope is that he will repent and come back to Christ and come back to the church. So that was the goal in this handing over to Satan. And it says the destruction of the flesh. So there are different ways in which that word sacks in Greek is used, which is the word for flesh there. One way is just to talk about people. So Acts 2.17 says, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh or on all people. So that's one way in which the word is used. Another way is to talk about the physical body versus the spiritual versus spiritual selves. And so John 1.1340 says, the word became flesh. So that is Jesus took on a physical body. So that sacks is used there. Another way it's used is just to talk about the natural or what is human. And an example we can look at is Matthew 16.17. Somebody can read that to us for us please. Matthew 16.17, Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjana, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Okay, so thank you Rosa. So Matthew 16.17, it's talking about it's saying a human person has not revealed to you, but God has revealed it to you. So that's another way in which this word sacks is used. Another way is to talk about our simple nature or simple passions, desires. So Romans 8 and Galatians 5 have a list of different things that they talk about in relation to this living according to the flesh, rather than living according to the spirit. So that's the difference where we are following the passions of our own, whatever our desires are, whatever we feel like doing, rather than following the spirit of God. So that's the sacks. So when he's saying the destruction of the flesh, he's talking about this flesh, that simple part of who we are. So when we look at what his purpose was in all of this, it was that he would repent, be restored, and he would grow in his faith, this person who was being corrected or disciplined. So that is our approach also, when we are correcting someone, when we're disciplining someone, that should always be the goal. It is not to shame the person, not to call out their sin in front of the church. That's not the goal. It is for their own salvation, for them to come back to Christ, be restored, and to grow in their faith. So very clear that that is the goal of discipline and correction, and when we're addressing sin. And this punishment that they were saying, so when he was saying, hand them over to Satan, it's not to say that we are going to inflict evil on the person, rather it's that we're going to take away that spiritual protection that they have being within the church, and then we are going to read them to face the challenges that come with that. Okay, so we are not going to inflict evil. We are not going to hurt the person. We are going to just say you are choosing to sin, so you cannot be part of the temple of God's Holy Spirit. So that is a holy place, and if you are continuing in sin, there is no place for that within God's temple. And so you need to be removed from God's temple, and then you face the consequences of that. If at any point you want to come back, there's always dependence, and you can come back and be part of this protection, this body once again. So we see also in 1 Timothy that Paul talks about two other people in a similar way, where they are taken out of the body of Christ. If someone can just read 1 Timothy 1, 19 to 20. Having faith and a good conscience, which some having projected concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck of whom are Hymenius and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. Thank you. So here as well, we see the same thing of being delivered to Satan, so where they were removed from the church, because they were doing things that they were, they become blasphemers, they had gone into some kind of false teaching, so they had walked away from the faith, and so they no longer could be a part of this body of believers. And so when we see Paul doing this, he's not doing that for every person who sinned in the church. It was in specific circumstances, and especially for those who were continuing in sin, not someone who had just sinned once and had repented for that. People who were continuing in sin could not be part of the church because in that they would be bringing sin into the church. So we'll continue to read about what is the problem with them continuing to be in the church as we go through this chapter. Another thing to note is that we're talking about the power of the Holy Spirit is present in our gatherings. So even as we are part of the church, there is a spiritual protection that comes to us, and there is that fellowship that we have with the believers. But if we are continuing in sin, we cannot expect that that protection is available to us. So even if, say, nobody else in the church knows about this sin, and you are continuing to be in the church, you are exposing yourself to Satan's power in your life, like you are allowing Satan into your life. So in those cases where you yourself have opened the door to Satan, then you can expect that he will take advantage of that. So that spiritual protection that is there within the church may not be available because you yourself have stepped out of that protection, even if you have not, like the decision has not been made to send you out of the church. So we cannot expect that when we continue to sin, we will still have that kind of spiritual protection. Okay, so we'll go on and see what else one has to say. But was this part clear? Were there any questions? I don't think there is a reference for the spiritual, for that specific thing of us having the spiritual protection, but I will look it up a little bit. So Jefina's question was, is there a verse, a scripture reference for spiritual protection that God gives through the church? So I'll look up that later on. Okay, so let's go on verse 6 to 8 if somebody can read those three verses please. Your glowing is not good. Do you not know that little liven livens the whole lump? Therefore purge out of the old liven that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old liven, nor with the liven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So here Paul is continuing the same thing, why do we need to send this person out? He's explaining, he's further explaining that. So in that first verse 6, a little even, so a little leaven levens the whole lump. So when there's yeast in bread, it spreads through the whole thing and causes the bread to rise. Similarly, if you allow sin to be present in the church, it will begin to spread like a cancer. If you just have to spread through the body and it will be too late at the end to then try to deal with something. Right, because so many people have already been affected knowingly or unknowingly they've been affected and this thing has been allowed to affect so many people and then to try and bring correction might be too late. So it's important to deal with it right at the start to get it out and to keep ourselves the body of Christ pure. Verse 7, so in this verse, he's going back to the Old Testament, feast of the Passover and feast of the unleavened bread. So if we remember when the Israelites were leaving Egypt, they leave in a big hurry and they don't have time to leaven their bread. So they leave Egypt with unleavened bread. And so after this, God says this is going to be the practice for all when they are celebrating the Passover. At the end of the Passover, we'll have the feast of unleavened bread where you will have bread that does not have yeast for seven days after the Passover. That is to remember how God brought them out of Egypt. But for the Jews, it started to represent being removed from slavery. So the absence of the yeast in their bread was like they were no longer enslaved. They were no longer oppressed, but they were separated from that life of bondage and oppression. So that's what it represented for them. Similarly, if we take that to the New Testament where we are brought out of bondage from Satan or bondage to Satan, we see that if yeast is present in the church or in our lives, that yeast represents sin, represents false teaching, represents anything that will keep us still in bondage to a life of sin. So anything that is sinful, anything that is of Satan should be taken out of the church and taken out of our lives as believers. So another thing is that he talks about that we are, yeah, let us, that's one verse 8. Let us keep the festival not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So he's clearly explaining what he means by it being leavened. So the yeast is malice and wickedness. So that should have no place in the church. Rather, we should have sincerity and truth. So purity, sincerity is a purity of heart, purity of intentions or motivations of desires and truth that is living under the truth of God. So there is no place for wickedness. There's no place for ill intentions. Malice is talk about having wrong or evil intentions. There's no place for that in the church. Let's go on to the following verses. Verse 9. I wrote to you in my episode not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world or with the couches or extortioners or idolatrous since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is sexually immoral or couches or an idolatrous or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner not even to meet with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges therefore put away from yourselves the evil person. So here in verse 9 we see Paul referring to his previous letter. We talked about this earlier where he had written another letter to them but we don't have the original copy and so and we don't have it in the Bible. So he's referring to that letter and he says in that letter he talked about not not keeping company or not engaging with sexually immoral people. Now he explains what did he mean by that? So he says he didn't mean he was not referring to people who were outside of the church that is people who were of the world. So that is something for us also to understand a lot of times it's it may be good to cut off certain relationships if they are not good or healthy with non-believers but sometimes we may cut off relationships with non-believers and only be with people within the church. In those cases we are actually removing ourselves from an opportunity to be witnesses to people outside the church. And we may cut ourselves off because we feel that they are sinful, they are doing things that are wrong and we do not want to be part of what they are doing. But if there are ways that we can continue to be in relationship with them without also being a part of whatever's in the committing then we should look for those kinds of opportunities to have relationships with people outside the church so that we can be witnesses. But here in this context policy I'm not asking you to leave this world to cut yourself off from the world I'm asking you to stay away from people who are committing he's just listed a few differences within the church that is people who say that they are believers and then they are continuing to commit these kinds of sins. So when he is listing all of his sins he's not saying these are the only sins we should be looking for right? These are just examples of different sins that people were committing at that time or people might commit but if there were other sins that were there in the church or we see other sins in our present context among people in the church then we should be careful to disassociate ourselves from these people and he'll want to explain why also at the end of this passage. And then he says we don't have to judge those outside the church because God is going to judge them but for those within the church it is our responsibility to judge them because what he says in the last time put away from yourself the evil person. Now that is taken from the Old Testament and it's used a lot in the Old Testament most actually in the context of putting to death people who had sinned religion amongst the Israelites and the main reason for doing that was to keep themselves holy as a people because if they were allowing someone who had sin to continue to be a part of them that person was exposing the whole community to God's judgment. So if they dealt with the sin and with that person right away then they were keeping themselves holy they were keeping themselves pure and remaining the called the called people or the set of our people that God had called them to be the Israelites and so the same way in the church to deal with that sin immediately to get that person out is to keep the body of Christ holy and pure and so that's why it's important to be judging those within the church is to say that what you're doing is wrong you are continuing in sin and so you cannot continue to bring that kind of sin and wickedness into the body of Christ which is called the holy. So we are protecting who we are as a people called sanctified by Christ okay we are keeping that temple holy. So the question then is what about grace right so this the big thing here they were boasting in the grace that they had they were boasting in the freedom that they had in Christ and they were allowing the sin to continue in the church. But as you see clearly in the New Testament grace has to come with truth there's no separation of grace and truth. So we look at a few verses Psalm 5710 says your mercy reaches unto the heaven and your truth unto the clouds. Psalm 8510 mercy and truth have met together righteousness and peace have pissed. Psalm 8914 righteousness and justice are the foundation of your truth mercy and truth go before your face and then John 1 17 the law was given through Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. So it's important to have both to have grace but to also remain in truth. So even when he's saying take away that feast because when you are an unleavened red then you don't have you don't have wickedness and malice right you have sincerity and truth talks about truth being very important in the church. So truth and grace grace without truth is just false love. So we are saying we love the person but we're not loving them to the extent that we want to correct them and put ourselves in danger of not being liked by that person. And then truth without grace is just a set of rules right it is following strict rules without having any kind of compassion for the person. So those two things together is very important grace and truth. The other question is okay is it is it okay to tolerate sins? Well that we are being open-minded we are welcoming people into the church without judging them right that is one big question for the church at present like are we welcoming to people are we judging people and making them feel like they cannot come to the church. So we always want to be open and welcoming people but we welcome them based on the standards of God right if they are also coming in on those standards willing to submit to those standards then yes they are welcome but if they are unwilling to walk in God's ways if they are unwilling to repent of sin then they cannot continue to be part of the body because they're bringing corruption to the body of Christ. And we see here that because these people took that step of being obedient to what God said they corrected this man and they sent him out of the fellowship he actually returns he depends and is restored in 2nd Corinthians 2 6 to 8 we see that he has come back to the church and he has repented. So we see that what they did actually helped the person even though it's may seem may seem judgmental it was for the good of the person and it resulted in good for them as well. So any questions in this part before we move to next chapter? Okay so Jeffina has asked about having homosexual couples attending the church do we welcome them? So it's the same with I think any group of people committing any sin anyone is welcome as long as they're willing to submit to what I said so this is submit to the standards of God. So we believe that homosexuality is wrong according to scripture and so if they are coming in and they are willing to submit to that and they are willing to seek help they are willing to turn away from that life then they are welcome but if they do not submit to that truth then there's no place for them and this is obviously like us as a church now there are churches that accepted we can't speak for those churches but as a church we stand on what scripture says that homosexuality is wrong and actually in 1st Corinthians that's one of the sins that is mentioned I think in chapter 6 we see that homosexuality is the same in this chapter itself so we standing on that scripture say then you cannot continue in sin and so if they are willing to come in and say okay we are not going to continue in this lifestyle then they are welcome but if they want to continue in a life of sin and be part of the church then that then we'll be bringing corruption to the body with Christ. So I mean I have a very little doubt about it so let's say a homosexual couple is attending the church and obviously we are not going to say you should never enter or we're going to let them come in if it's their first day of the church and obviously I believe the church will start noticing everyone will be noticing the newcomers that how they are so do you what do the pastor will actually do you think the pastor should go and speak about it that this is not something that he said or if they say like we do want to change but we need time what the conversation actually is. Yes so I think what is important is that that conversation happens with the couple directly I know with those people directly and that happens in the context of you getting to know them now someone has just visited our church we don't know them we don't we may not even know at the start that there is something to be addressed in their lives but it is as they continue to come as we build a relationship or as we recognize that there is something going on here that needs to be addressed then we address it and we address it with those people directly so we don't have to preach it from the full bit we don't have to start to talk to everyone in the church about it we talk to the people involved and and then say this is our stand if you want to continue to come here you can come here and like you said if they are saying we want to change then we walk with them through that process and if they are genuinely trying to change then we help them in the process of change but I also do want to say this whole thing of homosexuality has become a big thing within the church but to the point that we have really I think a lot of prejudice against one group of people so that's being used a lot unfortunately against the church to say that you are you only your prejudice against us as a group of people but that is just one of the reasons right so even here when we look at this passage in 1 Corinthians 5 so it's actually immoral immoral greedy idolators slanderers drunkards swindlers there are so many sins but because this one has become highlighted and is constantly being thrown at the church constantly being raised up as an issue that we need to be addressing it's almost become like that is the worst sin or those people are sinners and then the others are like they are sinners but we are not thinking about that so just to be very careful that we say yes this is a sin but there are other sins and they're not going to say one sin is worse than the other and we are not going to highlight one sin and only talk about this so we will follow scripture's example of talking about sin from so many different perspectives and sometimes what we would consider very small sins like greed its actual immorality both those things up with one after the other but we hardly ever talk about greed right so for us to not follow I think very easily that is what the world is doing it's like making this thing highlighted and we are also responding to that but for us to keep preaching scripture as it is so stick to how scripture talks about sin how scripture talks about holiness and purity and any other questions just have a few minutes republic then we can just start off with chapter six if somebody can read verses one to eight chapter six verses one to eight dare any one of you having a matter against another go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints do you not know that the saints will judge the world and if the world will be judged by you are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters do you not know that we shall judge angels how much more things that pertain to this life if then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge I say this to your shame is it so that there is not a wise man among you not even one who will be able to judge between his brethren but brother goes to law against brother and that before unbelievers now therefore it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another why do you not rather accept wrong why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated no you yourselves do wrong and cheat and you do these things to your brethren so here we see Paul addressing another kind of judgment right before this is the judgment on the basis of sin within the church and here he's talking about judgment between two believers who are who are having some kind of a dispute now if that time in Greek culture there was a public place where cases were heard and people would present both websites so this was called a judgment seat of Emma where the judge would sit and both parties were seated in this public space and they would present their case and this was right in the marketplace so everybody around would be able to hear and be part of that judgment they would know what was going on so when he is correcting the believers you think you are taking out your disputes within the church to these public spaces and people are watching it it was almost like a sort of entertainment in Greek culture so people would be gathering and hearing the disputes that are happening between believers and they were taking it through someone outside the church to tell them what is right and what is wrong so we will continue from there after the break you take a break and come back at 10 o'clock thank you