 All right, good evening and happy new year. It's great to see you guys. I hope your year is off to a great start and great to be back with you again as we study God's word. Would you please join with me as we pray? And then tonight we're gonna be looking at 1 Corinthians chapter five, verses one through 13, Lord willing. And let's go ahead and pray. Father in heaven, we thank you so much for this evening. We thank you for this church that we call home where we can come Lord and find that encouragement that we need in our walks with you. Lord, that we can find that really Lord, it's a spiritual meal for the spiritual part of who we are. Lord, we need your strength and we need Lord, especially in the world that we live in. Lord, we need boldness and we need purity and holiness, Lord, because even in the church, it seems abroad generally speaking, Lord, that the standard of righteousness is lowering and lowering and lowering all the time. And so Lord, I ask that we would be able to, as a body of believers, receive from your word, Lord, that we would follow after you with all of our hearts and that we would live lives of holiness and righteousness. And Lord, tonight as we learn by example of what not to do, I ask Lord that we would find instruction from your word. And we ask these things in Jesus' name we all say, amen. So in 1 Corinthians chapter five, as I mentioned, verses one through 13, just by way of preface in our world today, there is a lot of talk of tolerance. And instead of wasting time defining the world's term and really I think the hypocritical application of that term, such as we will not tolerate anyone's intolerance, but instead of going down that crooked path, if you will, tonight we're gonna be looking at some very serious problems that the church in Corinth was tolerant of. Now, why is this so important for us today? Well, because our society, if you've not already recognized this, our society has sexualized everything. I mean, from buying a cheeseburger to a piece of furniture, there are a lot of confused, deviant, and perverted sexual behaviors that are commonplace in the world today. But the unfortunate truth is that they now are becoming more and more common in the church, in the church. And they're making their way into the church through the door of spiritual tolerance. Now, I'm not on Twitter very often, I have an account, I don't use it, I'm more of an Instagram person myself. But I went on there and I started seeing some people that were following me, and the pastors from different areas, and some were very anti-Bible pastors. And I'm like, I don't know why they would wanna follow me on Twitter, because that's the last thing that I am, anti-Bible. As a Christian, I believe in God's word, and I wanna promote God's word, and by God's grace live by God's word, as I'm sure you do as well. But in the church, you're starting to see the pressures of society now influencing more than ever before the spiritual condition of the church. And this is a problem because the Bible tells us that in the last days, which we are very close, if not in, that people will be lovers of themselves and lovers of pleasure. They'll heap up for themselves teachers that will teach them what they want to hear. And so in the church, you're gonna start to see, I would say, a shrinking of who the true believers really are. Often in church, you can have an inflation of people, but then when it comes down to who truly believes in God's word and who is going to make the decision to live according to God's word, it's probably a lot smaller percentage than you would think. And so what we're gonna be looking at tonight is a very serious condition in the church of Corinth. As I was praying, it's going to be an example of what not to do, because you can learn from people about things that you should be doing and you can also learn from people about things you should not be doing. And so in verse one of 1 Corinthians chapter five, I'm just going to entitle this message this evening by a way of remembrance for you all, toleration. In verse one, it says, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you. And such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles that a man has his father's wife. Now, churches across the country, I don't know if you are up on what's going on with the church in general. The church is becoming more and more affirming of sin than restraining from sin, and this is a problem. This is a problem. This is really the reason for the deterioration of the entity known as the church. I would even say the church that tolerates sin is apostate. See, there is this diluting of the word of God to accommodate special interest groups. And really it's just the attitude of, don't tell me how to live my life or what I am doing is wrong. That's it. Don't tell me how to live my life or that what I'm doing is wrong. Now, there is such a thing as a false sense of security. I mean, what are people looking for from the church that is teaching God's word if they're not wanting or desiring God's word? Why go to a church if you don't want to hear from the Lord? What is the church doing in that they're removing God's word from God's word? Why? Why do I want to go to church? I hopefully would want to go to church so that you could tell me as the teacher or as the pastor, what does God's word say? I wanna know what it says. I wanna learn more about how I can be pleasing to the Lord. See, times are changing and they have been and they always will be changing as societies change but from day one until the very last day God's word never changes, ever. So point number one this evening is this, toleration. Again, at verse one it says, is it actually reported? It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and such sexual immorality that is not even named among the Gentiles that a man has his father's wife. Now in Corinth, just a little historical context, it was socially acceptable to be sexually promiscuous. It was okay, it was promoted and it's really like our society today. It's acceptable and promotable to be sexually active. I mean, look around. I mean, how many TV programs on Netflix or movies or literature or magazines or music and the like promote sexual activity outside of the relationship known as marriage? All the time, we're seeing it. No doubt there were some common sayings in Corinth in this Greek culture and they could have been something like, hey, try it out before you buy it. Do what feels good. Well, if you really love each other or how about put another notch on your toga. Many of the Corinthian religions actually involve sexual rights where prostitutes from the temples would come out at night and entice men to worship their goddess through sexual activity, such as let me show you how we worship our goddess. Paul. It's like he's not writing to unbelievers that live in Las Vegas. He's writing to a group of people known as the Corinthian church, that there's a group of people professing Christ that are allowing sexual immorality in the church. And that word, or rather that phrase, sexual immorality in the Greek is that word porneia, which you know that all kinds of sexual immorality and sexual impurity and homosexuality included in that as well. So there was an individual known publicly by the church as being a sexually immoral person. They knew claiming to be a Christian. Hey, I am, I'm a Christian. I have a relationship with God, yet living a non-Christian lifestyle. Now, by God's grace in this church, my church, I don't think anyone would feel good about everyone knowing how sexually immoral we may be. Like you walked in and everybody knew that is the sexual immoral person right there. You would probably feel a little uncomfortable. You would probably feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Yet what about this person claiming to be a Christian, but you know, maybe they're living with their boyfriend or their girlfriend. What about the person that's actively practicing homosexuality and claiming to be a Christian? Take it to the next level and you have the church leadership that is supposed to be shepherding the flock of God, not only knows of this sin and the people that are involved with it, but they're promoting it, promoting it. See, we have churches today. Thank God you do not attend one, but there are churches today that are dedicated to accommodating certain ungodly lifestyles. There are churches that have pastors that they are dedicated to accommodate ungodly lifestyles. And to that we would say, well, you have no pastor and you have no church. This man in Corinth had his father's wife and that's exactly the way that it sounds. A man married to or living with his stepmom. He says it's not even named among the Gentiles, meaning that even the world knows that that's bad and you're doing it in the church and you're promoting it. That phrase to have is a euphemism for an enduring sexual relationship means it is practice, it is carried on, it is a lifestyle. And so where's the accountability? Where's the church stepping in? Being the authority on that which should not be done and separating it from that which should be done, which pleases the Lord. Where are the friends that actually love these people enough to say, hey, that's not the right thing to be doing. Where's their voice? Where's the church's voice today? Is it silenced by political correctness? Is it paralyzed by the norms of culture? I was reading an article that was in my newsfeed talking about the fellowship of Christian athletes as this writer was bashing the organization for believing in what the Bible says to be true. And I thought to myself, I should write this writer and let them know that the whole mission of fellowship of Christian athletes is actually in their name, Christian athletes. Christian means Christ-like. How do I know what's Christ-like? I read the Bible. So I believe in the Bible to know what's Christ-like so we can have a fellowship of Christian athletes. So how can a pair of people be allowed to continue heading down a path that is not only hurting themselves but alienating themselves from the Lord? You know, in the news lately, there have been pastors and churches condemning other churches and Christians that hold to what the Bible says. Other churches, other pastors around our country condemning, being very vocal about condemning churches that believe and hold to what God's word says. I mean, you might think that's absolutely ludicrous. How can you condemn a Christian for holding to God's word? How could you condemn a church for believing and teaching God's word because people don't want to hear it? They want you to teach them what they want to hear because the Bible says in the last days, men will heap up for themselves teachers because they have itching ears. This is the world we live in. This is the world. That we live in where there is a church culture bending to the social norms of a wicked world. That's why maybe even some of you here that have gone to church for some time might be thinking, well, is it really that bad? Or, you know, there's not very many people that believe that way anymore. Listen, the word of God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and it doesn't matter if there's 10 million people that don't believe it, God's word still is the way, the truth, and the life. So these churches and professing Christians are even puffed up with spiritual pride due to their acceptance of socially accepted but God forbid in practices. We actually are demonstrating love because we accept this kind of lifestyle because we affirm this kind of lifestyle. In a verse two, it says, Are you puffed up and have not rather mourned that he who has done this deed might be taken away from you? Puffed up, pride. Again, this pride, the church thought of itself and demonstrated their spirituality by being able to tolerate this type of sin. You know what, quite frankly, you know what they were being? They were just being open-minded. They were being loving. They weren't being so narrow. You Christians, you born-against, are so narrow. We can accept this lifestyle because God doesn't really mean what he says about sexual immorality. Sexual immorality was clashing with Christianity and rightfully so. See, for those of you that have faith in Jesus, myself included, the moment that we put our faith in Jesus, we became the temple of the Holy Spirit. That the Lord dwelled inside of you. You become pure. You become holy and righteous before God. And by their very natures, purity clashes with impurity. Just as that which is holy and righteous clashes with that which is unholy and unrighteous. By their very definition, they're the opposites of each other. Yet this church in Corinth was puffed up with spiritual pride because they thought they could tolerate sin. And Paul says, you're prideful. You should be mourning over this. This should have caused you to lament because sin grieves God. Sin separates us from the Lord. Sin has serious consequences. Sin is not something that we should have pride in. And instead of being grieved by this sin, the Corinthian church was in essence condoning it. And it's a great disservice that what is called the church is doing to this society when we no longer are the salt and the light of this earth. Instead of being grieved, they condoned. This person was to be removed from fellowship with the church and with other Christians. Now, right off the bat, you might have heard what I just said. God, man, that's a little harsh. You know, removed from the church, removed from fellowship with other Christians. How is that loving? How is that loving? You cannot live in sin. Call yourself a Christian and still be able to partake in communion with God and in fellowship with other believers. You can't do it. Because when you're in sin, and this is the unfortunate truth, but it's the truth just the same and it doesn't mean that there's no love coming behind something that's the truth even though it's a difficult thing to say or to receive. But when you're in sin, you're separating yourself from holiness. When we're in sin, we are separating ourselves from the Lord. And the church that is accepting of that sin is heaping condemnation upon themselves and is responsible for every single thing that that sin influences because sin must be dealt with and dealt with swiftly and decidedly. And that's the church as a whole. As a whole, as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus, you must deal with sin swiftly and decidedly. Not rationalize it, not say everybody's doing it or it's not that bad. No, you need to understand that sin separates you from holiness. And so what's happened today and somehow we have found ourselves in this really awful place where we have this notion, this is the consensus. That if someone tells us that we are wrong, then that is tantamount to them telling us they do not love us. You don't love me if you tell me what I'm doing is wrong. You don't love me if you don't agree with what I'm doing. You are hateful. You are mean and you are nasty. If you don't believe that what I'm doing is right. No, no, it couldn't be further from the truth. It's because God loves us that he tells us what is sinful in his word and not only shows us, but leads us on the paths of righteousness. In Luke 1434, Jesus said, salt is good, but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? And we're in 2019 now. And you're starting to see the church, generally speaking, becoming less and less effective in changing the world around it because they are denying their source of power, which is the Holy Spirit and the word of God. They have compromised. They have removed chunks of scripture because it's not socially acceptable. They have now found themselves completely incapacitated because they have no bearing on the truth. Toleration, point number one, but number two is restoration. Paul writes in verse three, for I indeed as absent in body, but present in spirit have already judged as though I were present, him who has so done this deed. And here it comes, the hammer's about to drop in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. So Paul says here that in the spirit of what he's been telling them and in the name and in the name of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, deliver this person professing to be a Christian, living in habitual unrepentant sin to Satan. Now, this is the time in the Bible study where every single person's eyes bug out. What? It's inevitable. Deliver such a person to Satan and everyone's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold it. What just happened? Say what? It's interesting, this point of delivering one over to Satan. This isn't the only time that Paul has actually said such a thing in 1 Timothy chapter one, verses 18 through 20. Paul wrote to Timothy and said, this charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you that by them you may wage the good warfare. Having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck. Verse 20 of 1 Timothy 1 says of whom are Hemaenaeus and Alexander whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. That's pretty intense passage of scripture. Now, I think it's important for us to really understand this point though, the world is crying, tolerate my sin and I am intolerant of you if you do not. In the church, the heart of the Lord is restoration. Restoration. If you're here tonight and you're in unrepentant, habitual sin, the heart of the Lord for you is for you to be restored, for you to be forgiven and cleansed from all unrighteousness. So it's our first responsibility as Christians, as the church. If a brother or sister in the Lord has fallen into sin, we are to go to them privately and in love. This is an important thing. Don't get on Instagram and post it. Don't send out a group text message to all your friends. You go to them privately and in love and if they don't receive you, then you take a neutral party as Jesus instructed us and if they reject you in the neutral party who's not emotionally involved, then you're to go to the leadership of the church and if they reject the church leadership, they are to be treated as a non-Christian in need of salvation. This is for the person that is saying, I'm a Christian, but I am not repenting from my sin and I'm only not going to repent of my sin, I am going to flaunt it for all to see and I am not going to listen to my friends in the church, my brothers and sisters in Christ who love me, who know God's word that are trying to help me do what's right, I'm not going to listen to the mediator and I'm not going to listen to the church leadership, I am going to continue doing what I want to do, call myself a Christian, pick and choose what I want to believe out of God's word and make up my own system of Christianity. This is happening all the time. This is happening all the time. Satan said I will be like the most high God and so what you'll have is people that will say today, you know what, I do not believe in this part of the Bible, tear, throw that out. I don't believe that I would wanna serve a God who would actually say this in this passage so I'm gonna tear this out and you know what, I don't really feel comfortable with what it says over here either so I'm gonna tear that out and so then what happens is that the individual becomes the authority on what God's word says rather than God being the authority on what his word says. Now I have elevated myself above God because I will pick and choose what should be done, what should not be done. I am the authority over spiritual matters. How does that happen? But see, for the person that is caught up in sin, our heart, our heart because it's the Lord's heart is always to be restoration. Lord, help them, help them more. In Galatians 6-1 it says, Brethren, if a man is overtaken and any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, but then he says considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Now some of us look around, maybe we've heard some stories of some people that have fallen into sin. Maybe you know of people personally that have fallen into sin and you've thought to yourself how could they ever do such a thing? I would never do such a thing. Listen, oh yes, you could. I never would, I just said there's no way I could do that. No, that's what they thought too. Sin is deceptive, the enemy, he is a deceiver. There go I but by the grace of God. So he says consider yourself lest you also be tempted. Restore this person in a spirit of gentleness. So turning someone over to Satan, excommunication from the church, even in excommunication the heart for the Christian caught up in sin is restoration. Hey, listen man, what you're doing is wrong. The Bible clearly says, and I'm not trying to beat you over the head with it, I'm telling you this truth because I love you and because I know what happens at the end of that sinful road. I hope that that's communicated to you and I know you can find thousands of other people that may disagree with what God's word says. You might even go to another church that might tell you that what you're doing is okay. But I need to let you know because I love you that it's not okay. These things needed to be addressed. You're continuing to do what is evil and so because you will not repent because you're gonna continue to call yourself a Christian and live in unrepentant sin, you cannot come back to church until you decide you're ready to do what is right. That is the hardest. One of the hardest, if not the hardest conversation to have as a pastor with somebody that you care about and you know what, it's hard being a pastor when you actually care about the people. You have a pastor that cares about you enough to teach you from God's word and to say things that are not accepted by the world. But what happens in the life of the person that has had this spiritual authority exercised upon them, if you will, it's that the flesh and the works of the flesh might be destroyed but their spirit restored. The whole goal is never annihilation, ever. What does the Bible says? God is not slack concerning his promises. Some would count slackness. He's patient, he's long suffering. He's designed that none should perish but that all should come to repentance. And here is the pulling away of the curtain, if you will, because, and this is how it plays out, the Christian or the professing Christian that is living in habitual sin is already taken captive by Satan. The person that is professing Christ but living in sin, he is already a captive of Satan and it's the job of the servant of the Lord to help that person. Listen to what Paul wrote in Second Timothy chapter two verses 24 through 26. It says, And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility, correcting those who are in opposition if God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth. Second Timothy 2.26, and this is really the kicker here. It says that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil having been taken captive by him to do his will. That is the reality of what's happening in the spiritual world. The professing Christian living in habitual unrepentant sin has been taken captive by Satan. So when Paul says now as we circle back around to deliver such a one to Satan, he is in essence saying that if this man wants to continue down this path of sin, then let the Lord deal with him by allowing the consequences of that sin to be brought about by Satan. And that is a very sad, sad thing to witness because the pastor can't force you to change. Your godly friends and family members can't force you to change. No one, but you can make that decision. And what will happen is when you know the truth and you decide to do what's wrong anyway, when the church steps in, it is bringing you a tangible picture of what the spiritual condition of your life really looks like. So when you're separated from fellowship with the brothers and sisters and the church, when you're kicked out of the church, what's happening is it's actually showing you in real life what's happening in the spiritual part of who you are. I can't have fellowship because I am estranged. It's showing me that I'm separated from God. And when I'm separated from God, I'm separated from those that are following after him. The Bible says that sin is pleasurable. It grants you that, but it's only for a season. And then that season passes by and then you're left with the consequences of those sinful choices. There are some of you no doubt tonight that have friends or family that have walked away from the Lord and it grieves you. You mourn over that person because you know what's coming and it's the hardest, most painful thing to sit and have to watch somebody go down that drain. It's very hard because you know what's gonna happen when they hit the bottom. But the Lord, even in that place, will allow Satan to fulfill his work of bringing the prodigal son or daughter home. The Lord will allow, okay, consequences of sin, turn that person over to that lifestyle and then the enemy's gonna destroy them. And hopefully, through that affliction and hopefully from that turmoil that comes from I know the truth and I have backslidden or I've rejected it, and the enemy having free reign in your life, you cry out, how did I get here? I don't want this anymore. Look what happened. I thought this was gonna be great. I need to repent and turn from my sin and the whole goal the whole time has always been restoration. And you can do it the easy way, you can do it the hard way. The easy way would be to hear tonight, hey, if you sinned, repent, turn from your sin, confess it to the Lord, he'll forgive you, he'll cleanse you, he'll restore you, or you can continue to heart, or you can continue to harden your heart and go further and further and further away and then inviting more and more drastic measures to be employed in order to get your attention to bring you back to the Lord. And we weep over those that have made those decisions to reject the truth of God because we love them, we care about them. They think that we hate them because we tell them the truth. We're haters, we're narrow-minded bigots because we don't agree because we hold to what God's word says. He says in verse six, now your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Back in 1 Corinthians one, verse 31, it says, it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. But yet fast forward now to our chapter this evening, they're glorying and that which is not good. They were not glorying in the Lord, they were glorying in their acceptance of sin. Now, social media can really tell you a lot about people you believe to be Christians. It really can. Some of you might have just switched your profile to private this very second. Ooh, private, it really can. Because if you scroll through something and you see a whole bunch of something that doesn't look very godly and you're like, wow, something's not adding up here. I have an old friend that used to serve in the ministry years ago. Served with me. He completely walked away from the Lord. Completely walked away from the Lord. And he dove head first into homosexual relationships. He moved to Seattle. He started attending a Christian church that told him that what he was doing was okay. He was actually even on the news not too long ago. And sometime back, he even posted on social media that he just asked his boyfriend to marry him. I was so surprised how many Christians were congratulating him all over Facebook. This guy was like a little brother. Completely had it just been ripped off. And there are Christians in the church saying, congratulations, well done. I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy that you're doing that which leads to destruction. Congratulations on doing that which is evil before the Lord. Let me congratulate you on walking away from God. Let me congratulate you on your efforts to be the very thing that God has not planned or created you to be. Let me just say how awesome, quote unquote, caps. How awesome it is that you're involved in church and marrying your boyfriend, Christians. That's why Paul says your glorying's not good. Do you not know that a little 11-11's the whole lump? Now listen, people could hear this and hear this message and hear what I just said and be like, I have never heard anything more hateful in my entire life. If you do not have a biblical worldview, that will be your worldview. But if you truly believe in what the Bible says and who God is, then the end of sin is death and destruction and you care for people deeply enough to warn them that what they're doing is wrong, would you please repent and turn and the Lord will restore you. A little 11-11's the whole lump. I don't know how many bakers we have in here. You know what 11 is though. It's what makes the dough rise. So it's not flat, crisp. You know, 11 bread is that cracker type. A lot of times we'll have that at communion. You know, the little wafer that's flat. But 11 is a yeast that spreads throughout whatever it finds itself in. He says, do you not know a little 11-11's the whole lump? In Luke 12, verse one, Jesus said, after an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together so that they almost trampled one another, Jesus began to say to his disciples, first of all, beware of the 11 of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. How hypocritical it is for the church and for Christians to profess the name of Jesus, but glory in and congratulate sin. It's not right. The world will cry out toleration. The church should be crying out restoration. A Christian needs to understand, which is point number three, purification. There is power in purity. In the life of the Christian, there is power in purity. And it is the goal of the enemy to destroy that which is pure before the Lord. Purification is necessary for a healthy body as well as a spiritual body to be pure. For the church, a healthy church can purge itself of wrong thinking and wrongdoing. This is a healthy church. The very fact that there are people in this church that love the Lord and love his word, you act as a guard against sin. You love the Lord, you love his word because the relational aspects of church, there will be, because of that, because there are relationships in the church, there will be people in our life that we will help be more like Jesus. And it's not a place of condescension. It's not a place of spiritual superiority. It's not a place of legalism. It's called a healthy body of Christ, iron sharpening iron, lifting up one another, encouraging one another, stirring up one another for good works. There's people in your life that'll help you be more like Jesus and thank God for them. Hopefully, we're that for someone else. But Levin is such a perfect picture of how sin permeates the life of the Christian and the life of the church because allowing or tolerating sin, it will eventually affect the whole body. The whole body. If there's an infection in one part of the body, it affects the rest of the body as well. I remember one time, I used to live in Hawaii and I got a really bad staff infection. We might just say, oh, it's just a little cut. It's just a small infection. That small infection, if left untreated, can turn into gangrene. And then part of the body gets amputated. Thank God I didn't have anything amputated. I spent a few days in the hospital, but I was sick from one little thing. And so Paul says in verse seven, therefore purge out the old Levin that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us. That lump of dough, put a little bit of yeast in it. The Levin, it spreads through the whole thing. So he's like, get rid of it. And Paul inserts the Passover as it's also called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. My son Hudson, who's 10, you've heard me talk about my kids off and on, I'm sure, but a few weeks back we were reading in the Bible where the angel of death passed over any home that had the blood of the lamb sprinkled on the doorsteps. And the people in Egypt, the Hebrews ate the unleavened bread. And since that day, before Moses led the people out of Egypt until the present, the Jews during the Feasts would search their entire house to make sure that there was no Levin inside. They would purge their entire home of any Levin because Levin typified sin. Jesus was the fulfillment of Passover being the perfect lamb of God that by his blood that was shed on the cross, death would pass over us. And so Paul, as we wrap this up, is using this amazing picture to instruct the church regarding the sin that spreads like Levin. Search high, search low, remove it from your house. For you as a Christian, search high, search low, remove it from your house. Because of Jesus, we've been forgiven. Now repent from that sin and remove any bit of it. Verse eight, therefore, let us keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread removing it out of our lives, not with old Levin, nor with the Levin of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So we're not to have malice towards our family members and the Lord. We're to live in sincerity and in truth and we're not to allow or to continue in wickedness. This is more important than ever before. Now as I was thinking and praying about what is it on this particular night should we talk about? The importance of the church being pure as the Lord is pure holy as he is holy. We're in this world but not of the world. And here in the final verse, Paul is gonna make a distinction now between those in the world and those in the body of Christ. How we're to live in the world, be an example to the world and how we're to conduct ourselves as Christians regardless of where we may find ourselves or what might be socially acceptable. So he says in verse nine and he references a letter that we actually don't have a copy of, but it says in verse nine, I wrote to you in my epistle 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 covetous or extortioners or idolaters since then you would need to go out of the world. I mean we rub shoulders all day long with people that aren't Christians. You know at the pizza place or at the gym or the mall or the grocery store. I remember Pastor Chuck saying that he doesn't have to ask the person checking out his groceries, excuse me before I pay, is your life pure before God? Because if it's not, I don't know if you should be touching my food unless you're born again. That's not what the Lord intended at all. We're all around people all day that don't know Jesus and I'm able to share with them who Jesus is and how much God loves them. How can I do that if I were in a monastery? It's the very fact that Christians that are active in the world, people have the opportunity to hear the truth of the gospel. The author C. Neil Straight was quoted in author by the name of Lloyd Corey's book which is entitled, quote unquote. He said this and I quote, "'Sin does not serve well as a gardener of the soul. It landscapes the contour of the soul until all that is beautiful has been made ugly, until all that is high is made low, until all that is promising is wasted. Then life is like the desert, parched and barren. It is drained of purpose. It is bleached happiness. Sin then is not wise but wasteful. It is not a gate but only a grave," end of quote. See, sin's the problem but Jesus is the cure. And the next verse as we conclude is the key for purification in the church. Remember, he's not talking about you being in contact with non-Christians but rather how you are to deal with non-Christians and Christians in the church. But he says, but now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is sexually immoral or covetous or an idolater or a reveler or a drunkard or an extortioner not even to eat with such a person. Though sexual immorality is normal and acceptable in the world, maybe wanting what you don't have or wanting something that someone else has is acceptable in the world or idolatry or revelry or drunkenness or extortion which is to steal by violence in the Greek. Don't even eat with such a person that is calling himself a Christian but living in sin. And we know, especially in the culture that there was a practice of eating with people and at their table there would be a communal bowl and you would dip in the same bowl and eat the sauce that was on their bread that they dipped and then hopefully they're not double dippers or triple dippers or whatever and then you would all, it was a very intimate thing. So you cannot have Christian fellowship with the person that is naming himself a Christian but living an unrepentant sin. But really if someone is in sin and around friends that love the Lord there is going to be a discomfort. There is. Somebody that you care about living in sin should not feel comfortable in that sin because those that love the Lord and love his word will confront their friend who is in sin in love. And if their friend continues in sin then they're estranged from their brothers and sisters in Christ but more seriously as I mentioned earlier they are estranged from the Lord. However, if they repent from their sin they're restored to the Lord. That's the message tonight. Church be holy. In a world that cries toleration we are seeking restoration and it comes through our purity. Paul writes, what have I to do with judging those 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 this isn't regarding us dealing with those that are in the world and are non-Christians. You know have I had a meal with non-Christians? It's a great way to share the gospel. It's a great way to talk to them about the Lord but we need to be focused on our walks with the Lord and the purity of the church. And so as harsh as it may sound put away the person living in sin calling himself a Christian. And the goals, these two. That man's salvation. As repulsive of a sin as it might be I don't wanna look at that. I don't wanna think about that. Restoration. So on the personal level restore the sinner, restore the man. Thank God that we're here restored. And secondly and finally, purity in the church. Because there's power in purity. And when we're living pure before the Lord the church does powerful, mighty things. Nothing cripples us like unholiness or compromise. So as we're already a few weeks, oh not a few weeks yet, almost two weeks. Into this new year when you feel the pressures to conform do not be conformed to this world but be transformed. And may the Lord be with you tonight. May he bless you, may he keep you. May he cause his face to shine upon you. May he be gracious unto you. May he lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.