judgment

When I was seven, the church I grew up in decided to find a new pastor. The rationale was probably less than spiritual -- hard to say, seeing that I was seven. Anyway... having received my spiritual diet from the same man through eleven years of childhood and adolescence, I remember exactly three sermons. The first and second were Sunday night messages on eschatology and generational shifts -- interesting, but not exactly life-changing material. The third was on the front end of a church split.

My pastor could easily be described as passionate, but I never found myself passionate about the same things. Amidst the innocence of my high school Christianity, an ugly division was occurring at my church. A deacon began a sexual affair with a family member of another congregant. This deacon's brother (also a deacon) had an employment-related falling out with another congregant, who happened to be friends with the family affected by the initial impropriety. As I blindly attended youth group every Sunday and Wednesday, our leadership was being split at the seam.

Behind the public scene, our pastor had ineffectively addressed the issues with the parties involved. Imagine my surprise on a random Sunday morning when our pastor called out the sin to the congregation! I will never forget these words:

"You can fire me tomorrow for what I must say, but this Body cannot tolerate corruption."

[Or something like that.]

A couple thoughts crossed my mind: 1) A pastor can be fired for doing his job? 2) Why was I unaware that there was sin in the camp? 3) What happened to our awesome deacon's wife? [Sudden realization that I hadn't seen her in weeks; she used to be my junior high leader.] 4) Who are these people that attend my church?

The fourth question rang the loudest. If I can go to a church for eighteen years and not know the people's hearts or struggles, is something lacking?

BTW: Our church was growing. Just months before we had wrestled with adding a service and were on the verge of hiring a full-time associate pastor. We had every reason from our pew seats to believe that we were moving in the right direction. I was proud to be a member of my church.

Most of you do not like what Paul has to say in 1 Corinthians 5, even if you don't know it yet. If you read it as God's word, and you should, it'll get under your skin. I would guess that 95% of American believers do not attend a church that operates according to this passage, which leaves the American church open to a corruption that Christ did not orchestrate or intend. We can justify it or we can deal with it.

Brothers and sisters: if you love the Church, deal with it!

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has is father's wife. And you are proud! Shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.

Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a batch without yeast -- as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people -- not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the reedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, and idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you." (1 Cor. 4, emphasis added)

My first thought is how backwards the church has become. We have no problem exercising judgment on those that do not claim to hold to the teachings of Christ. We want to change American laws and call out the media for their blatant disregard of Christian values. To this I say, what should we expect of the lost but to behave like the lost? The same was true in the Old Testament: God never asked His people to condemn the pagans for their practices; he was concerned with the Jews for adopting them, as if they hadn't been set apart for holy living.

A few summers ago, I reconnected with one of the girls (Lauren) that used to work on my camp staff. She had always been a brilliant girl; she admittedly struggled to connect with other female Christians because she felt "above" them. While in college, she began a relationship with a male believer and the two fell into sin. During this season, her boyfriend began attending a scripturally sound church and received strong rebuke regarding their relationship. As a result, she began attending the church purely out of obligation. Here are her words:

...There is so much I could say. I can't understand what happened but I do know that God used my sin, my idol of Andrew [her boyfriend] to keep me going to church and eventually He freed me from it. We broke up in January. Andrew didn't repent, he is in another relationship and has left the church -- to the surprise of many people. He was living with men from the church by this point and they followed scripture to the point of not eating with him. This was really hard to watch, I saw my own sin and didn't understand why God hardened his heart. I had a really hard time submitting to the people who were leading me at this point and continually commanded me not to talk to him after we broke up, trusting God's sovereignty and letting Him lead me. I only stayed at the church after we broke up because they were the only people who really loved me in my life and I was so broken and humbled that God could teach me.

These last 8ish months have been so painful and so glorious. God has been disciplining me over and over and bringing my sin to light. And I finally know myself as a sinner and God as God. It took quite a few months of rote obedience before God gave me pieces of understanding. God is my rock and I fail so much to obey but the fruit of obedience is wonderful and I'm so thankful for what God saved me from (by now on our plan Andrew and I would have been married almost a month).

Lauren continued to submit to the leadership of this body and grew in grace. The church's willingness to operate under scripture allowed her to approach God in humility for the first time and eventually led her to meeting her future husband under pure circumstances.

That said, this teaching is hard. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. If the American church began operating under this passage, we would lose a lot of people. The majority would find it impractical -- even if we desired to know the hearts of our people well enough to know their sin, most growing churches are designed in such a way that leadership doesn't even know the names of every congregant.

Here's my take: if the structure is the barrier to exercising this passage, then the structure is corrupt, not the passage. Tear it down! A spirit-filled pastor can give a sound message every single week (and many do), but if he does not know the hearts of his people, the church risks being infiltrated by the so-called believers that regularly commune with those seeking His face.

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God -- having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. (2 Tim. 3:1-7)

By not exercising judgment upon our own body, we corrupt ourselves and harden the hearts of those living in sin. When Paul says that we must hand them over to Satan to destroy their flesh, he is suggesting that some may find grace in the firmness through which we deal with their sin. Continual acceptance and tolerance of a believer within a life of sin can only lead to a seared conscience. For that heart, there is no return.

Our culture (church culture included) has taught us that we are not in position to judge one another. From a believer to one that doesn't accept Christ or his teachings, I would agree; Paul says this much. But if we assume that it is not our place to speak judgment upon the sin of other believers through the love of Christ, we have given the church over to the enemy. If our only excuse is that the church could not facilitate this passage because of its size or structure, then our church needs to reform itself in a manner that allows itself to exercise obedience. No structure is too sacred and no believer too untouchable to submit to the Lord's commands and His desire for purity.