 I'll begin reading here in 1 Corinthians 5 at verse 9. I'll read to verse 13. And we'll get into our study. Paul wrote, 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. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. That sounds like my board. Not even to eat with such, I shouldn't have said that. I don't know. I'm sorry. Not even to eat 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 that wicked person. Now as we've been going through chapter 5, let me refresh your memory here. Paul has been speaking concerning dealing with sexual immorality that had been discovered in the church. And what he's speaking about is purity. What he's speaking about is the purity that ought to be in existence there in the Corinthian fellowship. This man in the church has had an ongoing physical relationship, a sexual affair with his father's wife. Now he is not having an incestuous relationship in the sense that he's having intimacy with his own biological mother. But he is having a relationship with the woman who is married to his father. And that is still regarded as incestuous. The concern that Paul has actually extends to the condition of the church. The church in general, because the Corinthians are treating it lightly. They saw sin as being inconsequential. They didn't understand the depravity of it. They didn't understand the depth of it. This reminds me of what we find in the book of Jeremiah, the Old Testament. Jeremiah was a prophet who cried out against the nation of Israel. And in his writings and in his preaching, he actually confronted Israel with indifference concerning their attitudes towards sin. They didn't take their sin seriously. And when they didn't, it drew God's stern rebuke. In Jeremiah chapter 3, verse 9, that verse reveals that attitude that they had of indifference. It simply says it came to pass through her casual harlotry that she defiled the land. Casual harlotry. Sin was trivial. It had become trivial to the nation of Israel. And God brought judgment. Sin was now trivial to the Corinthians. So they need correction. Paul made it clear that instead of their attitudes that they were possessing, they should be mourning. They should be mourning over what has happened. They should mourn over their sin. They should mourn over their spoiled reputation in the community there. But instead, the Corinthians had been glorying. They were puffed up with pride over what had happened. And that mentality that they had ran contrary to everything that God teaches us in his word concerning his holiness. And therefore, Paul has to deal with that. And so as we've been looking at chapter 5, remember with me that Paul exercised his apostolic authority. And he rendered a judgment. He wasn't there physically. But his decision was made, and it was communicated. And he made it clear that he had authority to do this. And by that authority, given to him, he said the congregation is to disfellowship this individual who is sinning. Verse 5 tells us how it is phrased. It says, you're to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. You need to expel him. You need to take him out of, we'll say, the fellowship of the believers there, where there's a certain security. And you need to put them outside of that into Satan's domain, if you will. Because when he's no longer able to fellowship, when he's no longer able to have relationship with believers to be in the house of God, it's gonna cause him to think through what he's done. And it could be a path to a genuine sincere repentance. Now, why would he do something like that? Why would Paul say he needs to be disfellowshipped? He needs to be excommunicated. He needs to be no longer allowed to fellowship there in that body in Corinth? Well, his sin was beginning to actually infect the lives of the church. The church had become leavened. It became infected. And what that means is they became insensitive to sin. There was no sense of holiness, no sense of remorse, no call to repentance. And what had happened is leaven had found a place in their fellowship. Notice verse six. He says, your glory is not good. And then he asked the question, do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Everybody here who bakes, I'm not one who does, but I am a connoisseur of viking, knows that leaven, it doesn't take an awful lot to leaven an entire lump of dough. Just a small amount actually permeates. So in the Bible and the old as well as the new, the Bible and the new and old Testament speak of leaven often as being a type of sin. And the point is a small amount of sin that is unchecked is ultimately gonna begin to infect everything in that fellowship. And so this yeast, this leaven is to be dealt with. Galatians 5.9 says it like this, a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. And so sin will infect an entire congregation. Now, as Paul has been speaking about that, notice what he said in verse seven, he said, therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened. How did you become unleavened or without taint of sin? He says indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Sin that is ignored and tolerated is dangerous because it lowers the spiritual life of the church. We need to remember that Jesus Christ is without sin. And because Jesus Christ was without sin, the fellowship, the body of Christ is not to tolerate sin and make it acceptable in the body of Christ. The Bible says in 1 John chapter three, verse five, that in him, speaking of Jesus, was no sin. In 2 Corinthians 5, 21, Paul said he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we may be made the righteousness of God in him. So in him is no sin, he knew no sin. Jesus Christ died to set us free from the entanglement bondage, the control of sin. So when we allow it to remain in our presence, when we allow it to go unchecked, when somebody is sinning in this fashion and people are glorying rather than saying, this isn't a good thing, then the church is more like the world and the world doesn't have any reason to respect the church. And that's what's taking place here in Corinth. Now as Paul is writing here, Paul is giving them further instructions and we're gonna tie this in into the first eight verses. But in verse nine, continuing this says, I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Now what's interesting about this is it could refer to what he has just said here. It could be referring to verses one through eight. But there are commentators who actually speak about a lost letter from the apostle Paul. And there are some who are saying that he's referring to a letter that hasn't been, that we don't have possession of to this day. Whether that's true or not, I don't really know. I do know that we have all the inspired writings that we need to have a full account of what God would have for the church. But it is possible that he's speaking of something that has been called the lost letter of Paul, though I wouldn't be able to speak with any authority on that, I just say that just to let you know I'm a very smart man. But anyway, as we look at this, we need to see what he's talking about. Now let's put this in context cause we're gonna look at verses nine through 13 together. It would seem that there's been a misunderstanding by the Corinthians. So Paul has to clarify what he's speaking about. We need to remember the context. Corinth was notoriously filled with sexual immorality. So as he's speaking here and he's saying, I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people, the first response somebody would have, any thinking person would have is this. What are you saying? Am I supposed to just hide in my house and never come out? I mean, when you say I'm not to keep company or to be in contact with, well, the fact of the matter is is Corinth is a very immoral place to be. I mean, I can't walk outside of my front door without encountering that kind of sin throughout this entire city. It's just part of the warping wolf of this particular city. It's known for its immorality, as I mentioned to you. To be called a Corinthian was actually a word that was used as a slam because it was saying you are the worst character that there is, you're debauched. You're a Corinthian. And so it was well known to be a Corinthian, it was well known to be a person who was involved, engaged in all forms of sexual sin. It was well known. You're a drunk, you're a revilier, you're an idolater. That's what Corinthians are. And so Paul is speaking here and he's saying, no, wait a minute, I am not saying to you that you should just basically hide in your house all day long and never step outside the doors. What I'm speaking to you about, and this is what we're looking at, is we're speaking about you fulfilling your mission and fulfilling your calling. You are to be salt in a corrupt and decaying world. You're to be light in a sin-stained and darkened world. You're supposed to remember what you are. We cannot go out there and outdo the world. Sometimes the church tries to outdo the world. We speak about the grace that we live in. Oh, I can do those things and still go to heaven. We misunderstand grace. And so Paul is saying, no, that is not what I'm saying to you. Because the city is notorious for its sexual immorality, I'm not saying that you're supposed to hide in your home because that's gonna undermine your mission. Your mission is, what Jesus gave to us, is to evangelize the world. Your mission is to go out and take this gospel to all who will listen. It's like what it says in Matthew 28, 19 and 20, go out, make disciples all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. And surely I'm with you always to the very end of the age. Go out, he said. So he didn't say, stay in. He said, go out. We are in the world, but we are not to be of the world. We are to affect the world, but to remain unaffected by the world. And so we're not to be hiding in our houses, looking out the window because of all those centers that are running by. But what we're supposed to do is have a purifying effect on a corrupt land. So Paul is not encouraging a monastic, isolated way of life for believers. It was a sad time in the history of the church when many believers began to believe that they were supposed to be isolated. And there's a whole period in church history, you can look it up, it's called the monastic period. Very early in the church where people actually would do things that were of the utmost extreme. They would actually, someone actually brick themselves up in cells. And they would have just at the bottom of the cell where all the bricks would meet except for a certain space, they would have an opening at the bottom of the cell where somebody would slip in food for them, trays of food, and they would consume it and then they would slip the tray out and they would do things like that. There were others who would actually climb on top of poles and they would sit on the top of poles and some of them stay there for the rest of their lives. There was one by the name of Simon the Stylites, they called him, who actually stayed on it for a good portion, many years. And pilgrims would come to see this guy who was up there on top of a pole with the platform and his body having no bath or anything was rotting away. And worms were actually forming, actually starting to consume his flesh and worms would fall off him or dead pieces of his body would fall off and pilgrims would come and pick up the worms and take them home and would collect them as relics, as tokens of his holiness. So that's how extreme it actually became in the history of the church. God did not call us to do those kinds of things and so Paul is not saying that at all. What Paul is writing about is the purity of the fellowship. And he's saying, what I'm saying to you is you need to have pure fellowship, notice verse 10. He said, 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. So I'm speaking to you about the purity of the Christian church and not speaking concerning the depravity of the world at this moment. Again, sexual immorality was rampant then. I believe what we live in today is very similar though. The Greeks, and we'll see this as we go through 1 Corinthians. The Greeks believed that sexual impulses were natural desires that should be fulfilled whenever I desire that. It's common knowledge that Greek men believed that you had a wife that would produce legitimate offspring and create a stable society and you had a lover on the side that you would use for your pleasure. And that was a common way of thinking at that time. It even got to the point where one of the highest forms of love that some of the philosophers taught and believed in was actually man-boy relationships. So it had become very filthy. The entire society was saturated with sexual immorality. That's how the society was. And so if you had an impulse, a Greek would say to you, then fulfill it. It's no different than if you're hungry, you have a biological need to eat or if you're thirsty, you have a biological need to drink. Well, if you have a biological desire to have a relationship intimately, it's the same thing and that's what they would argue. The body for food and the food for body. In other words, it's natural, fulfill your needs. And so they had these appetites that they were constantly fulfilling and that was the attitude of the society that the church had been planted in. This attitude is obviously the majority attitude that we have today. And it's not just here in the United States, it's worldwide. All we need to do is just look at the advertising for the latest movies or the latest comedies or to listen to some of the lyrics and some of the songs that are sung and just to look at the titles of some of the books that people are reading, the new TV programs that are being produced and even sports. Celebrate sexuality, we know that. Here in the United States, sex is sold as natural and there are very few people who ever speak of it in terms of its negative repercussions. In the United States, the entire definition of purity and even family has gone through redefinition, we know that. There's an epidemic of pregnancies amongst the unmarried. Venereal disease is on the uptick and children born out of wedlock to unmarried parents are victimized by every negative thing that society has to offer from abuse that takes place in their life to a lack of education, poverty that goes on with that. And we're all aware of that or we ought to be and that has been what has taken place just through this quote unquote sexual revolution that we, the United States have been involved in. There's an epidemic of pregnancies, epidemic of disease. And so the answer, the answer to this is being presented as distribution of condoms or government sponsored birth control. And that's being presented as the answer but that obviously is not the answer at all. Those who retain their purity are looked at as being backwards and unsophisticated instead of wise instead of being virtuous. And that's what's happened here. They were similar during the time of the Corinthians. And so Paul isn't saying that you should live a monastic life. He's just addressing the conditions of the society and he's saying the church should be holy. And second, he's simply saying that believers need to be believers. He's saying don't live as if you don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't live in such a way that if somebody sees you living they can't distinguish you between you and a non-Christian. There are a lot of believers that I've encountered and there have been times in my life when I've had periods of time in my life when you would have met me on the street and you wouldn't even have known I was a Christian because my life wasn't reflecting the values that I professed. There were times when if you met me you would have said this guy needs the Lord because I wasn't always living up to what the gospel of Jesus Christ taught. And so that's true with a lot of people and what he's doing here is he's speaking concerning the kinds of sins that people are involved in. He speaks of this immorality. Notice what he's saying here. He speaks of people who live according to the standards and principles of the ungodly world system. He speaks of sexually immoral people. Now when he uses the term sexually immoral that refers to every sexual sin imaginable. It speaks of what we call fornication. Fornication is sexual intimacy between unmarried partners. It speaks concerning adultery, having sexual relationships as a married individual with someone other than your own wife or husband. It can speak of incest. It can speak of homosexuality. It can speak of bisexuality. It even carries a connotation of pornography and even ritual prostitution. Sexual immorality is a word that actually is a broader word. And so as he's using that he speaks of this kind of sin and that's what he's saying in verse 10 when he says, I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of the world. He's talking about people who are engaged in any form of sexual sin. He speaks of other sins like covetousness and extortioners as well as idolaters. The covetous, the word covetous speaks of greed. It is not being content with a moderate profit. I call them material maniacs. It's just you don't wanna make a small profit. You wanna make a large profit off of everything. I, excuse me, my watch, you have this little piece on it that it's like spring loaded and you put it here and it attaches to the face of the watch. I don't know any of that. I'm no watchsmith, obviously. But I know that one of my watches, the little spring came off. And I was in purgatory. I was with Marie. We were shopping in a mall. And as we were walking, I stopped into a store that sells watches. And I walked in and I told the salesman that I need to get one of these pieces here. And he has this big old box of all those little spring loaded, whatever they are. And he pulls one out and hands it to me and charges me a dollar for it. And I thought, well, I need this, Vic, I'm not gonna make an issue out of this. And I left, well, shortly after I lost it again. But I didn't go in there and went to a different place. And when I walked into the different place, guy behind the counter, I said, you know, I need to get a piece for my watch, explained it, showed it to him. And he takes out one of those little things, the same thing, hands it to me and he says it's on me, it's free. Now, some people wanna make a dollar and other people wanna be of service. People who have a covetous heart do not think of being of service. They think of making the dollar. No matter what, I'm gonna make a profit. I'll lend money to my brother and I'll charge him for the money that he needed in his emergency. And they have no qualms about that at all. Instead of just saying, you know what, freely I've received and freely I'm gonna give. Sometimes what we do is we try to make profit even off of those who are in the greatest need. That happens all the time. When people have difficulty and they begin to apply for some credit and they end up with a credit card that's 24.9% or they need to borrow money before a payday and before you know what you're spending for the rest of your life on the amount of money you borrowed because somebody's making exorbitant interest. That's covetousness, that's greetingness, that's making a profit to the harm of somebody else. And so he speaks concerning that, that is what's going on. And that's a sign of the last times, by the way. In 2 Timothy chapter three, verse two, Paul said, men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient parents, unthankful and unholy, lovers of themselves and lovers of money. And that's exactly what we see today. He speaks of extortioners. The word extortion in this context speaks of somebody who is stealing using violence. It's a word that we might speak about. Gangsters, if you will, they're armed robbers, they're hijackers. One of the thought is these are people who take advantage of other people and they take what is not due to them. He speaks of idolaters. Idolaters are rejecters of God, literally. They're pagans who are involved in false religion. He's saying, listen, these are the kinds of sins that are common and I'm not saying that you shouldn't ever be around these people. You'd have to leave the planet to get away from these kinds of things. Now obviously there is no perfect society. There is no such thing as a Christian city or even a Christian amusement park. There have been those who've wanted to make Christian amusement parks. But I have to tell you, in the early days of the Jesus movement, we used to have Jesus days at Knott'sbury Farm or Disneyland. Some of you are old enough to maybe remember that. As I look out here, I might have one or two or that old. But they used to. They used to have Jesus people things. And you'd go to the amusement park and it was supposed to be a Jesus day. And there was just as much flesh there as any other time, I guarantee you. People cutting in line, people getting mad. There's no such thing. I mean even churches is a place where you say, oh, you know what, at least I'm in the city of God. No, you're not. You're not, I promise you. You know, we still have people who are rude. We still have people who do what they shouldn't do. So he's not saying that you would, that there's such a place as a perfect society. He's simply saying you would have to leave if you thought you were gonna find one because it doesn't exist. It's interesting how Jesus prayed in John 17, verses 15 through 20. And Jesus said, my prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world and I have sent them into the world, for them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message. They're in the world, but they're not of the world. I am not saying father, take them out of the world. I am saying keep them while they are in the world. And may they not become like the world. So we are in, but not of the world. He says in verse 11, but now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is a fornicator or a covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner. Not even to eat 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 that wicked person. Interesting portion of scripture here. What do you do when you know that there's a brother or a sister in your fellowship who's been in sin? Remember the context here. Everybody knows about the sin here. This man has been with his father's wife. What do you do when you encounter an individual who has had church discipline? Paul is speaking about, that's a very sticky subject by the way, and I wanna treat this with respect and grace because there are those who believe in what is called shunning. How many of you have ever heard that word? I'm just interested, shunning. Shunning is practiced in certain church fellowships which is like this. If you were part of this fellowship, you have church discipline. You have been involved in sin. It's well known. It's well documented. So you're now outside of the church. You're no longer welcome in. And I'm walking down the street and I see you. If I'm shunning you, I may walk across the street and pretend like I don't even see you. And they call that shunning. You're not to have anything to do with that person. You don't have anything to do with anybody that's associated with them because this person's in sin. Is that what Paul's teaching us to do? Is Paul saying that next time you see this guy have absolutely nothing but an unkind, hardened cold spirit towards him. There are those who believe that. But at the same time, he is not saying just accept their sin and them too. That's where a lot of people make a big mistake. Is in the name of grace, we kind of like bypass their entire sin and what they've gone through and in a way almost give a complicit permission for them to continue in sin. And that's not right either. One of the things that makes this a bit difficult for us in the 21st century to understand, and I said this before as we're looking at the earlier verses, is that in churches today, if somebody actually is caught up in sin and the sin is exposed and the church gets involved and someone confronts them, they don't repent. That person who confronts them brings a witness, they still don't repent. Then that person is now brought before the elders of the church and they still don't repent. And then they're asked, listen, until you get it right with the Lord, you're gonna need to not be part of this fellowship because you're in sin and you're unrepentant and what you're doing is you're producing leaven that's gonna infect the whole church. And so you need to really come to the Lord. You need to come back to God. You need to deal with your sin. And this person says, I don't need you. I don't need this church. Last time I looked, there are plenty of churches throughout the city. I don't have to come here. You're harsh, you're judgmental, you're self-righteous. Where's your love? Where's your grace? I have discovered over the years that people in terrible sin are the first to scream for grace. They are the first. And they judge you for judging them. And they say, who are you to judge me? And they're judging you. And you can open the scripture and you can say, is it not true that you were involved in fornication? We were making love. No, no, you were fornicating. We're engaged. You're engaged in sin. That's what you're doing. Don't judge me, man. God is my judge. Yes, he is. And he will deal with you. But what we want to do is restore you. And you need to understand that if you continue in sin, your life is not gonna be blessed. There are repercussions to it. And I can tell you this, and I don't say this for any other reason other than to make it practical, I have over the years had to do these kinds of things. And I am speaking from experience. I am telling you that overwhelmingly, people who are caught in sin and confronted for it, overwhelmingly just decide to walk out the door. And once they do, I'll tell you what the general trend is, is they find another church and they begin to invite their friends to that church because that church accepts them and loves them and welcomes them and you don't. And that church you're going to right now is real harsh and critical and that pastor's a hypocrite. I have heard that so many times. And they don't ever tell the people. They don't really tell the people what they've been up to. They don't tell them the story. They don't tell them the full story. They only tell them their side of the story. And they always look good. They look a lot better than the pastor who's trying to restore them. I guarantee you, that is common. That happens all the time. See, so in churches that do not value and fellowships and believers who do not value relationship with a church body, who do not value being loved enough to be corrected, that they will find some place else to go and they do. And they take their sin with them and they infect the other fellowship they go to. It's inevitable. It happens all the time. It happens all the time. We've seen it many times. I'll go one step further and I'll tell you this. There have been times when I, in tears, with tears, have pleaded with people, you've got to get right with the Lord. You have to. Who are you to judge me? And I am not judging you, my brother. I'm telling you the truth. I'll never forget. I got a phone call. It was a Wednesday. I was preparing a Wednesday night Bible study. And my secretary said, somebody's coming in. They have an emergency. They need to speak to you immediately. I said, well, they speak to one of the other guys because I'm preparing the Wednesday night study. No, they're coming at lunchtime. They're insisting on seeing you. They say that they will not take more than just a few minutes. It's going to take just a few minutes. I said, let me know when he comes in. I get a call from my secretary. He's here. He wants to see you immediately. And I said, okay. So he comes into my office, sits down with me, looks at me and says to me this. He says, pastor, I want to ask you a question. I said, yes. Does God forgive every sin? And I'm thinking, well, of course, if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Does God forgive us every sin? Absolutely. Our God is a gracious, loving, forgiving God. The blood of Jesus Christ has been poured out. And I shared with him because I thought he was asking a genuine question. He says, even the sin of adultery? I said, God, God forgives every sin. Adultery is one of the sins that Jesus died on the cross to forgive us of. He said, thanks a lot, that's all I needed. He got up and walked out. And I thought, this was an emergency. You could have heard that in any Bible study. Well, it comes back to me. He started an affair, left his wife divorced her in order to go with his girl and he wanted my permission to do that. And that's why he came in so that he might hear a story of grace so he could apply it later on to a situation he was yet to enter into. Man's heart is deceitful. It is devious. And when you really want to sin, you will even try to get permission from God to do it. And so we have to be careful, guys. What is Paul talking about? That we should hate sinners? No, what he's saying is that the church should have such a love for Jesus and a desire for his holiness that sin does not become the common thing in the fellowship where people continue lightheartedly to do whatever they want and consider themselves solid, mature, going to heaven, knowledgeable believers. So he's saying, do not give these people the impression that their sin is acceptable to God and you can do that if you do not speak with honesty to them when the occasion fits. My sister Rebecca, my sister Rebecca is six years younger than I. And when I got saved, she was 14 years old, went in the military, got out. She had been going to a church in the area, not a Calvary Chapel, it's another church. There was a woman there who was involved in some form of leadership who seduced my sister and introduced her to lesbianism. My sister at the age of 18 got involved in a lesbian lifestyle that lasted almost 30 years. My sister, whom I love with all of my heart, she's my baby sister. I see her, loved her, but I never compromise what God's word said with her. Never gave her permission to continue in sin, never gave her an idea that it was acceptable to God. I remember sitting down in front of my sister Madeline's house with my sister Rebecca and I opened up the Bible and I read passages to her out of scripture. I said, thus saith the Lord, Rebecca, this is what God says concerning your sin. This is what God says concerning your lifestyle and this is what God says he can do if you turn from your sin. I did that because I loved her. Oh, there are people today who would say, oh, you hypocrite, you self-righteous, you know, she was born that way in the whole nine yards. There's absolutely, by the way, no genetic proof that that's true. There's no unbiased study ever been presented that says that a person is born homosexual. But they tout that as being true and you're backwards because you don't believe it, right? But the church has God's word, right? And so what we do is we say no, God says if you're in Christ, you can be a new creation. That includes a reorientation of your preferences to the point where not to say that you will suddenly have an attraction for the opposite sex, but you will have an attraction for Jesus who will change your life. We will present to you Jesus Christ who can transform you and let him work on you from the inside, that's what we do. Because the word of God says you can be a new creation. So when I'd be doing somebody a favor, if I stood up here as a pastor and I said, oh, by the way, you can continue in your sin and go to heaven, it's just one sin some people still struggle with getting mad once in a while and getting mad is a sin and sleeping around with people of the same sex who has a sin too, it's all the same, is that true? Well, with my sister Rebecca, I shared with her, I said, Becky, this is what God's word says. And all of you who've been in this church know that on an Easter several years ago now, Sunday, I give an invitation and we remain firm and there was never any change of oscillation and we remain firm in that. I did not know she was here. I gave the invitation. My sister Rebecca came forward, gave her heart to Jesus Christ. It's been between 10 and 15 years and she walks with Jesus Christ now. I speak to her twice a week about the Lord, things of God. My mom tells me, this is a saint, this girl is a saint. She loves me in the name of Jesus Christ. See, so God changes people. If we have this tendency of saying, oh, I'll just accept the sin. No, Paul says you don't do that. And when you allow that to thrive in your midst, then you pollute the entire body of Christ. And you people could come to church here and say, well, he speaks one thing but does another because we're aware of this sin that's being undoubted with. It's not being dealt with. Paul says, don't allow that to take place. He said, if this person's in these kinds of sins, and he again uses as examples. He speaks of a fornicator. He speaks of covetous. He speaks of extortion. He says, don't have fellowship with that person. Why? Because what you're doing is you're giving them a false sense of security. A reviler in verse 11 is a person who spreads malicious statements about someone to injure their reputation. We all know what a drunkard is. So he said, this is not what you're to do. You have to deal with them in love. And there are those that I have encountered who at one time went through this fellowship, went through church discipline. And if I do see them on the street, I don't put my hand over my eyes and avert my eyes lest I turn to stone or something. You know, I will greet them and I will ask them sincerely, how are you doing? Well, you know, how are you doing? I'm not doing well. You know, you can't do well. Have you gotten right with the Lord yet? Well, I'm right with God. Did you walk away from the sin? Did you repent? I haven't seen you. You know what? I never saw it as a sin, something you thought. Well, you still love them. You still treat them with love. But you don't have intimate fellowship with them because it gives to them a false security, a sense that they're right with God. Paul in verse 12 asks the question, what have I to do with judging those who are outside, speaking outside of the church? Who am I to judge the world? And then he says, do you not judge those who are inside? Do you not have the proper discipline within the confines of the fellowship? Judge those who are inside speaks to those who are members of the church. But those who are outside, God judges. Therefore, and going back into its context of church discipline, put away from yourselves that wicked person. God wants to bless you and God wants to bless your relationship. So, follow his counsel. If you do, it ensures holiness in the body of Christ because the word of God isn't something we just get up and talk but don't really walk. And people who are showing up will see that you're serious about loving Jesus. And even to the point where sometimes people may look at you as being self-righteous and hypocritical and judgmental, those are all things that if you're walking with the Lord with sincerity, you can expect to be set of you. If I had a dollar for every time somebody called me a hypocrite, I wouldn't have needed that lottery. But you do things for the right reasons. And the right reason is because church discipline is intended to bring correction in the life of a believer to put them back in the will of God to be blessed by Jesus Christ and enjoy the fellowship of the body of Christ. It is corrective because it restores that person to a right relationship with God. The teaching of the word of God is intended to communicate in a preventive way so that they may avoid certain things. But when they don't avoid those things, then church discipline is enacted in such a way as to bring correction with the heart of restoration so that this brother or sister knows the joy of walking with Jesus Christ and has fruit in their life and avoids so much pain. Avoid so much pain. There was so much pain that I see the body of Christ go through that the church frankly didn't have to go through. They did not have to go through that. They didn't. They didn't. One last thought was in this room and I might have shared this within the last several months. Perhaps some of you remember this. I was in this room. It was right down here. I finished a Sunday morning service. Man walks up to me. May I speak to you, pastor? Yes, of course. I gave my heart to the Lord. I'm glad to hear that recently. I said, praise God. I thought he was through, so I turned to walk away. He said, I'm not through. So I said, oh, okay, what? Because I want to tell you something. He said, I went to your church when you were at Ontario High School. Some of you may remember way back when we used to be in Ontario High School. And I said, yes. He said, and I enjoyed the music there. He said, then you came out and you spoke. And as you spoke, I got angry. And I got so angry that when I left, I said to myself, I'll never come back. I don't like this guy at all. I said, well, thank you. You're a blessing to me too. I appreciate that. He says, oh, I left, angry at you. He goes, and so this Easter, he said, I was driving around here in Chino and I drove past here and I saw a line of cars entering into the parking lot. So I thought that would be a good church to go to. Obviously, there are people who show up there, I'll go. He goes, I got in line, but it took so long to get into the parking lot. I decided to go somewhere else and I came back the next week. He says, I came in here, I sat down. He said, and listened to the worship and once again, I'm thinking, man, I really like this team. And then you came out. And that's what he said. And then you came out. And now I'm feeling very good. Thank you for your encouragement, my dear one. He goes, and I'm thinking, that's the guy I don't like. And so I said, yes, is there a good ending to this? I mean, what's up? And he goes, well, I listened this time. And it had been a year in between from when he had gone to Ontario. It was when we first moved in here in 92. And so he said, I didn't know you had moved because I thought you were still over there at Ontario High School. He said, but I gave my heart to the Lord. And I said, well, that's wonderful. I'm not through, okay. He goes, but I need prayer. And I said, what can I pray for? Of course. Well, I got a phone call from a girl that I've been intimate with. And she told me that she has HIV and that I need to go and have a test. He said, so I went and had tests. And then I was told to contact any that I've been intimate with because I could have possibly transmitted this to others. He said, she said that she was positive. So I went, I had my test. He said, I was discovered to be positive with HIV. And so I called others that I had been with. And then she called me back and she said, you know what, I had a second test and I'm negative. Go and have another test. So I went back with great hopes that I too would turn out negative. He said, pastor, it turned out positive. I have HIV. And as he was speaking to me, I asked him, when did you become infected? It had happened in between his first visit to church and the second when he got saved. If he'd had gotten saved, if he'd listened and gotten right with the Lord the first time you heard the message, we buried him. He died of AIDS. We buried this young man. He stayed faithful to the Lord and in this fellowship for many years. And we cared for him and we loved him and we buried him. It's love. Forgive me. It's love that makes someone say, don't do it. It can kill you. It can kill you. Don't do it. Sin is not free. There are repercussions to it. He served the Lord here. He was in ministry here. He helped in missions here. We cared for him for many years here and he died here and we buried him. Sexual immorality? Paul says no. It is destructive. It destroys everything that it touches. All of these other sins have no place in the body of Christ. When they're exposed, they need to be dealt with. You don't hate the person who's doing it. You love them enough to tell them the truth. You don't give them a false sense of security like they're okay with God. You let them know what the truth is. But they don't come back to church and sit amongst the people and infect it like leaven because when somebody's under church discipline here and they show up, they're supposed to call us. Then we have a meeting with them. Then we speak to them and we pray with them and we embrace them and we welcome them home. That's how it works. You don't just sneak in back door kind of because we have had people do that where they'll walk in and kind of hide in the back. And then it's brought to me. So-and-so it's here today. Really? Well, one of you guys will need to talk to him after fellowship and ask him how he's doing. That's what we do. Does that sound cruel? That's what we do. Take him aside. How are you doing? How are things going? Well, I just, how are you doing? How are things going? I repented, man. I got away from that. I just need Jesus. You're welcome back. I still think you're wrong till you get right with the Lord. You need to repent because you're not gonna know God the way you should know God if you walk in sin. It's really love and mercy. It's not judgment and harshness. It's concern.