JUNE 22, 2025

God’s Good News Story: The Church Alive & Growing

The Book of 1 Corinthians – Part 5, Chapters 5 & 6

Call to Integrity

 

Today we continue on our multi-year journey through the New Testament where we are seeking to understand the historical, chronological and missiological of the 1^st Century Church so that we in the 21^st Century Church can keep the ‘CHURCH  live & Growing”. As we have made our way through the Book of Acts we have stopped at vatious pouints to delve into other books of the New Testament that sem to have been writtenat that specifric point in time. We just completed study of Acts 19 and it seems that at this point in the 30 plus year time span that the book of Acts covers, that Paul took the time to write to the Church in Corinth.

In the past messages we discovered that the Church in Corinth which Paul and his DreamTeam of Silas, Timothy, Aquilla , Priscilla & Apollos had spent about a year and a half planting churches, leading to salvation, baptized and given basic disicplship to a large number of believers. After he and Aquilla & Priscilla had left and went to Ephesus it appears that the cosmopolitan atmosphere in Corinth of debauchery, hyper-sexuality, materialism, and prideful academia had caused them to become Defiled, Divided, Disgraced, Deluded,  in a State of Disrepair,  a Directionless Church, Disobedient Church.

Paul, the model Evangelist, Church Planter, Pastor, Discipler, Encourager, Disciplinarian,  Spiritual Physician and Building Consultant responded to those problems with some prescriptions to help with the spiritual sickness. He also  REMINDS them of their HIGH

CALLING TO…

 

1. Be Holy
2. Develop a Fellowship of Harmony & Love
3. Glorify God.
4. Have the Mind of Christ.
5. Be God’s Sanctuary & Temple
6. Honor & Respect Faithful Spiritual Leaders
7. Live as Obedient ‘Beloved Children’ of our Heavenly Father. And today in Chapters 5 & 6
8. Live Your Life With Integrity & Godliness.

 

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines Integrity in this way. – “Integrity is defined as the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change. It also refers to firm adherence to a code of moral or artistic values and is often associated with consistency and uncompromising adherence to ethical standards. In a broader context, integrity can also describe the state of being a united whole”. 

 

“In the Old Testament, one of the Hebrew words translated “integrity” means “the condition of being without blemish, completeness, perfection, sincerity, soundness, uprightness, wholeness.” Integrity in the New Testament means “honesty and adherence to a pattern of good works.” https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-integrity.html

 

Obviously, Jesus is the only person to perfectly embody Integrity & Godliness, but we His body, His family, His Church are called to follow the example of Jesus and through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we are to strive to live with Integrity & Godliness.

Sadly, the Church in 1^st Century Corinth (as well as much of the 21^st Century Church) did not/are not displaying a Godly Integrity. I am combining two chapters today becaue they flow together to address the issues of Integrity in the Church.

 

Few of us are shocked by the fact that the world we live in is filled with people and actions that would NOT be described with the words INTEGRITY & GODLINESS. It is out there, but sadly, we have become numb to the ungodly behavior and actions of this world. We may not be shocked, but we should be sadly grieved by the sinful behavior in this world. We cannot become so acustomed to sin that it no longer grieves us. However, today in Chapter 5 & 6, Paul is not ‘shocked or grieved’ about the sin in the world…He is ‘shocked & grieved’ by the sin in the Church, and the lack of concern to deal with that sin.

 

Let me make a sidenote, this is not an apology or a sidestepping of the issue of sin. But I want to remind you, especially those of you are who new or visiting our church, don’t think that FBC Broussard is a judgmental, legalistic, overly controlling church. Our very Mission & Purpose Statement is “Loving God, Loving One Another”. I want you to know that you are loved, cared for and welcome to our church no matter your background, mistakes or sin. (Now obviously if you are a threat or danger we will need to deal with that properly.)

So, please remember that today as I address some very sensitive and difficult topics.

As someone has said, “The Church is not a museum for saints, it is a hospital for sinners”. So, we here at FBC Broussard do not want to be a puffed up, elite legalistic countryclub for believers, but we also don’t want to be a boozy, smoozy, ‘what-ever-you-want-to-do’ place either. Taking the hospital theme further, you go to a hospital sick and expected to be given the best care possible, not to keep you sick, but to help you get well. One of the ways hospitals do that is by having safety and health protocols. They seek to provide a clean, sanitary environment for people to get healthy and well.

 

So, bring your sin-sick, broken heart and soul to church. My hope is that you will be greeted by caring, loving people who are seeking to live their lives in Integrity & Godliness. Our goal is that you will see formerly unhealthy sick people who have been healed from their sickness of sin and are living in freedom, though we may still need a litte ‘rehab’ every once in a while. LOL.

 

The Staff and leaders of this church desire for you to come as you are and to leave better, healthier, saved and discipled people. In order for that to happen the Church needs to work on their purity, integrity and godliness. If the church is not healthy, how can we expect to bring healing in others? Therefore the truly, LOVING thing to do is address problems before they become life-threatening illness or diseases.

 

All of this to say is that in the Book of 1 Corinthians we see a Defiled and Disobedient Church. They were not following Purity and Integrity “Protocols’ as they should. Thus, much of this letter is rather challenging and confrontive in nature. Today is a prime example. The Corinth Church had let Defilement, in this case sexual Defilement, infect the church internally as well as their testimony externally to the community around them.

 

Listen as I painfully recount these failures found in Chapter 5 first.

 

1 Corinthians 5:1-13…¹ It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. ² You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. ³ For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. ⁴ In the Name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, ⁵ I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. ⁶ Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? ⁷ Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. ⁸ Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. ⁹ I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; ¹⁰ I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. ¹¹ But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. ¹² For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? ¹³ But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

 

Whew, this chapter is not a favorite one for most of us Pastors and Church Leaders. However it contains instructions and actions that need to be addressed if the Church is to be a place of Integrity & Godliness (a clean and sterile hospital). ‘Church Discipline’ is the term that is at the core of this passage.

“Church discipline is the process of correcting sin in the life of the congregation and its members. It seeks to protect the church from the effects of unrepentant behavior. Church discipline is biblical, an implication of the gospel, and promotes the health of the church”. (Bing)

 

 

 

Church Discipline is a difficult and often overlooked and sadly, sometimes abused practice. It should however be thought of more as “the ministry of loving confrontation’; with the purpose of purity and restoration.

 

Listen to what Carl Laney says in “The Biblical Practice of Church Discipline. (pp. 354)

“The Church that neglects to confront and correct its members lovingly is not being kind, forgiving, or gracious. Such a church is really hindering the Lord’s work and the advance of the Gospel. The Church without discipline is a church without purity (Eph. 5:25-27) and power (Joshua 7:11-12a). By neglecting church discipline a church endangers not only It’s spiritual effectiveness but also its very existence. God snuffed out the candle of the Church in Thyatira because of moral compromise. (Rev. 2:20-24) Churches today are in danger of following this 1^st Century precedent.”

 

Godly loving correction is essential to spiritual health, growth, and maturity in the Body of Christ, the Church.

Sadly, many churches today want to focus only on ‘positive’ ‘affirming’ “tolerance’ in their talks. This may draw a big crowd of people, but what quality of believers are they developing. We must always be seeking to grow in our faith, integrity, purity and Godliness. It takes intentional effort to do that, and sometimes it takes being lovingly held to a higher standard.

 

Pastor, Seminary Professor and Commentary writer Daniel Akin in his Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary on 1 Cor. lists these key points. (adapted)

1. Neglecting Church Discipline invites the ridicule of the world around us.
2. Pride instead of sorrow leads us to ignore Church Discipline.
3. The absence of Church Discipline will lead to the Church being infected and defiled by sin.
4. Church Discipline must be exercised under the Lordship of Jesus Christ for the good of the whole body.
5. Church Discipline must be grounded in the redemptive work of Christ.
6. Church Discipline must be exercised in the Community of Faith and not the world.
7. God judges those on the outside while believers judge those on the inside. (aka the Church)

 

Chapter 6 reveals the practical application of WHY we need to have a church of Integrity & Godliness.

Simply put, it is because God has designed the Church to be the ‘judges’ or arbitrators among Christians who are having disagreements. If Christians in the Churches are not people of Intergrity & Godliness, how can they derive upon just judgments and resolve conflicts.

 

1 Corinthians 6:1-20… ¹ Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? ² Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? ³ Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? ⁴ So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? ⁵ I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, ⁶ but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers? ⁷ Actually, then, it is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? ⁸ On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your brethren. ⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. ¹² All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. ¹³ Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for

the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. ¹⁴ Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. ¹⁵ Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! ¹⁶ Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” ¹⁷ But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. ¹⁸ Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. ¹⁹ Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? ²⁰ For you have been bought with a price: therefore, GLORIFY GOD IN YOUR BODY.

 

There is sooooo much that can be said about this chapter, but the bottom line is that the Church is to ‘police’ itself, it is to be a place of loving confrontaion of the disease of sin, and a place full of people seeking to be ‘spiritually healthy’ dedicating their bodies, soul and spirit to the Glory of God.

 

Christians need to be aware of sin and its deadly consequences. The Church must address these issues wisely, lovingly, firmly and without apology. It is not LOVING to let someone pridefully march to their own drumbeat.

Let me reread this section…6:9b-12.

 

^9b Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. ¹² All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. 

 

Let, me close with this biblical reminder…

1 Cor. 6:19, 20...¹⁹ Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? ²⁰ For you have been bought with a price: therefore, GLORIFY GOD IN YOUR BODY.

 

Take Away.

Let’s seek to become people of Integrity & Godliness in every aspect of our lives. It will bring us freedom, strength and victory, and it will most importantly bring GLORY TO GOD!

 

Will you commit to this challenge!