Losing and Recovering the Plotline
November 17, 2024
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
1 Corinthians 5:1-5
1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
3 For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. 4 When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
Only a few times before a sermon have I said something like, “You know, this passage brings up this or that theme, and I think it would be helpful if we all took five or six minutes to talk with those around us about those themes because expressing what we think about them will help us be more ready to hear how God sees them.”
We’ve been preaching through 1 Corinthians, and this week we come to a passage that any team of pastors preaching this letter would have marked from the beginning of the series as a passage to handle with extra care. It’s actually one chapter of about five from this letter that is like that. This morning we’ve come upon a strange case of sexual sin and the theme of church discipline. So, no, it will not be a week where we pause to turn to our neighbors in the pews and ask, “What has been your experience in these areas?”
If you’re new and we don’t have experience of talking about hard things together, know that when we talk about hard things here, we try—we try—to do it in a way that recons with the seriousness of God, the seriousness his Word, the seriousness of us as his people, but as the same time, we do so believing that all truth is good truth, and that in Christ Jesus, we have become children of a good heavenly Father who loves us very, very much. So whatever he says is for our good. I hope all of us, whether new or not, will see that. Would you pray with me as we begin? “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
You may be better at this than me, but I find it possible to lose the plot of a story. Even with good writers on a good television series, I might lose the plot. If you binge-watch a show, losing the plot is harder. But if you watch a little bit here and then a little bit there, and then one season ends and another season takes a year before it comes back out, it can be hard to remember what’s going on. Even in a ninety-minute movie, if you watch it over three nights and those nights are separated by watching kids sports in Lancaster on one night and a church meeting on the other night, it can be hard not to lose the plot in a single movie. Wait, why, again, is their marriage so hard; what have they been through? Wait, who assassinated the president; why did they do it? Wait, how did they go back in time to get the affinity stones; why are there like 142 Marvel movies? I don’t know; I lost the plot.
That can all be funny. When it comes to God’s grand story of redemption and the life of a local congregation, it can be tragic if we lose the gospel plotline. The gospel plotline of God’s grand story of redemption goes like this: How a holy God redeems an unholy people from their unholy ways through the costly death of his Son, and then how he causes his children to walk into increasing holiness by the power of his Holy Spirit until the day when they will be with him in his holy new heaven and new earth safe and protected from everything unholy forever. That’s the plotline of God’s grand story of redemption. And in our day, just as in Corinth, there are lots of ways to lose the gospel plotline. And when we do lose it, all kinds of things go wrong.
This is why we gather each week: to remember the gospel plotline, to remember who we are and who God is. The church in Corinth lost the plotline, and God wanted them to get it back.
1. The narrow concern: the man’s sin
If you have 1 Corinthians open, please just keep it there. Look with me again at 1 Corinthians 5:1. The church was losing the plotline in a particular way.
5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife.
There it is. A few times Paul alludes to a report, as in 1:11 and 11:18. Paul had planted the church, stayed for eighteen months, and then moved on to other church planting ministry. While away, Paul gets a reliable report that speaks of the many blessings in their church, yet also their challenges. The report says a prominent member in their congregation lives with his stepmother as a married couple. The sin is present tense and ongoing. That’s why Paul says the man “has” his father’s wife.
Now, this could be a bit better than it sounds. The father may be dead. The father may have divorced his stepwife. The stepwife may be quite young and about the same age as this son. The father himself might have been quite a jerk, whether now or when he was alive. Perhaps the father and the stepwife never really had much of a good marriage.
We know none of that. It’s just guesses. If some of that is true, it might make us say, “Okay, well, perhaps, that’s a little more understandable.” Yet there is nothing still that makes this sin acceptable. This relationship is strictly forbidden in the Old Testament (cf. Leviticus 18) and even in Greek culture. And that’s Paul’s point, that this isn’t even acceptable in Corinth among pagans. Let that sink in.
When we began the series, I mentioned that Corinth was like Baltimore in that both are port cities. I also said Corinth was like Las Vegas in that it was a city famous for sexual sin. See Paul’s words again. “There is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans.” People don’t do that in Vegas, he says.
Thinking about losing the plot in our day, I think about two kinds of flags churches fly. On the one hand, there is the rainbow flag signaling full support of LGBTQIA+ agendas. While those issues are generally supported by the pagan, secular world, in some ways, it’s not even supported in the world. The secular world is increasingly becoming not okay with biological men transitioning and playing in women’s sports—especially violent sports like boxing and MMA.
Additionally, there are secular countries in Europe that are far more progressive than America in what they affirm. But even in those medical communities within progressive countries, the medical community is condemning giving children gender reassignment procedures because it’s tantamount to child abuse because 1) it’s really not fully irreversible and 2) many young people who experience gender dysphoria tend to grow out of it later in life. Where Paul said, “This isn’t even done among pagans in Corinth,” we might say, “This isn’t even done among pagans in Sweden.”
Now, let’s go the other way. Some churches fly the Make America Great Again flag. I’m going to pray for our new president, just as I’ve prayed for other presidents. And there might be ten great reasons why you voted for the incoming president. Fifty million people did. That’s great. The secular world can understand why someone could have reasons to vote one way. But what the secular world doesn’t understand is when churches move from “there might be ten good reasons to vote for him” to when a church has unnuanced, unqualified enthusiasm for any political candidate. It’s confusing for the secular world because ten years ago many evangelicals were mad about a certain president who was often cast in a messianic light. And twenty years ago, many evangelicals seemed disappointed with one president who had an affair, noting that a leader’s marital character mattered. Again, the secular world can understand why someone might have a reason, but what they can’t understand is unqualified enthusiasm.
Again, I’m all for you and I doing our best political calculus to try to figure out how to make the best vote and be the best citizens of this wonderful, wonderful nation. We just had Veteran’s Day last week. It’s so wonderful what people have sacrificed so that this place could be so great. What a great thing we have here in America. But what I’m saying is that there are so many ways for churches to lose the plot, so many ways to get so far from the central plotline of the gospel by what we celebrate.
2. The broader concern: the church’s health and reputation of the gospel
And yet for all this talk of the man’s sin in v. 1, that’s actually not even close to Paul’s main concern. Look with me at vv. 1–2 again.
5 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
You see, don’t you, that Paul is not chiefly worried about this man and his sin. The stakes are higher than this man. More is on the line than this man.
Look at it like this. Consider a hospital. In this made-up hospital, on some random Sunday afternoon, a man shows up at the emergency room feeling nauseous. He’s felt nauseous for many days. First, it was only fatigue, then fever, then loss of appetite, and now nausea and abdominal pain—and also a rash that keeps bleeding. Awful, right?
As the medical staff begins to examine him, they learn he recently traveled for business out of the country. They look at his symptoms, ask questions, run tests. A few hours later, they realize he has Ebola, a highly contagious virus. Someone alerts the media, and a few hours later, the news reporters arrive, pressing into the different parts of the hospital, interviewing staff and patients, and so on, all with cameras rolling.
Now, the media expected to be disturbed. But they had no idea how disturbed they would be. Why?Because no one in the hospital was concerned. No one had put on a hazmat suit. No one had been quarantined in various wings of the hospital, separated to reduce spread. No one has installed special ziplock containment units. Instead, it’s business as usual. Well, not even that. Actually, in the interviews with the media, the hospital president is boasting about how unafraid the doctors and nurses are about the whole situation. In fact, they are all eating lunch together in the cafeteria to show how unconcerned they are and how everything is so under control.
Do you see? Paul’s chief concern is that they are unconcerned. The church in Corinth would like to fashion it as their humility that causes them not to judge. Look how tolerant we are! But is it our humility before a holy God that would cause us to flagrantly disobey him? What they describe as humility, Paul rightly names as arrogance. “And you are arrogant!” he writes. “Ought you not rather to mourn?”
The imagery of a hospital, I believe, is helpful. We can speak of the church not as a huddle for the righteous but as a hospital for sinners. I love that. You should love that too. And I think of the words of Jesus when he says, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners . . .” (Luke 5:32). I love those words. Praise God!
But what does the full statement from Jesus say in Luke? “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” He’s calling us to something. Yes, let’s not forget that the church as a hospital for sinners—yes and amen and praise God. But it is a hospital where the power of the Holy Spirit changes us, right?
Paul’s concern is that the church’s very existence is on the line. In the book of Revelation, when Jesus speaks to his churches, he speaks of being willing to remove the lampstand of a church if they don’t repent, to snuff out their light (cf. Rev. 2:1, 5).
A lot is at stake for a church. But the reputation of the gospel plot line, which is even more important, is also at stake—the gospel plotline of how a holy God redeems an unholy people from their unholy ways through the costly death of his Son, and then how God causes his children to walk into increasing holiness by the power of his Holy Spirit until the day when they will be with him in his holy new heaven and new earth safe and protected from everything unholy forever.
Going back to that hospital with the case of Ebola. Are we all very concerned for that man and the treatment he’s getting? Yes, we are. Are we concerned for the other staff and people in the hospital? Yes we are. But we’re also concerned for everyone in that community who hears about this hospital. Will the people in the community consider it a hospital where they come and get quality care? I doubt it. People will stay away.
To make it more particular to us. I love the opening lines we use in our worship services. Will we use them forever? No. Have we at times updated them? Yes. But right now we say something like, “To the weak who are tired and need strength, to the wounded who are broken and long to be whole, and to the wayward who have strayed from God’s good love of love, we [meaning the leadership of the church, meaning those who have prayed for you and prepared the service for all of us together—we] welcome you in the name of the living Jesus.” I like that because it can be spoken over both Christians and non-Christians. Jesus is always welcoming anyone willing to come to him. And even for the Christian it’s important for us to be reminded that though we are needy, God has come toward us in the person and work of the living Jesus, welcoming us to receive rest and healing and forgiveness.
In this way, the lines encourage present-tense faith, not simply a past decision, which is the primary emphasis in the New Testament. “Now is the day of salvation,” Paul writes elsewhere (2 Cor. 6:2). And the lines fit well with the whole gospel-plotline arc of the service, which first confronts us with our need for Jesus, then invites us to lift our hearts to God, which shows us our need of him, so we have confession and an assurance of pardon in Christ, and we preach and pray as those saved by Jesus and who want to live for him. Finally, we’re sent out with a benediction, sent out with the blessing to follow Jesus, loving and serving his world. I think that gospel plotline to the service is helpful.
But it would be a bad takeaway if someone came week in and week out and took our opening words to mean that Jesus leaves us weak, wounded, and wayward, that he doesn’t change us, that it’s okay to remain in unrepentant sin. That would be losing the plotline.
3. The path toward health: church discipline
Thinking back to Paul’s letter, he has a plan to help this man, help the church, and help the reputation of the gospel. He wants us to follow this same plan. And it is actually the same plan Jesus gave his followers when he was on earth. We generally refer to it by the name of church discipline. But whatever we call it, we need to see it as the loving way Jesus helps his church not lose the plotline. Look with me at vv. 4–5.
4 When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
Now, what does that mean? I think we could be distracted by the provocative language of “deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.” I’ll come back to that later. But don’t miss the end: “so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”
Paul is saying that Jesus is coming back. And this man may die first or Jesus may come back first. But either way, this man will give an account to God for his sins. And when he gives that account, the only way he will be saved is if Jesus has died on the cross for his sins. And right now, whether that gospel has been applied to that man’s heart is ambiguous because of how flagrantly he’s disregarding the gospel’s claims upon his life. Indeed, since this was in about AD 60, his eternity has already begun, just as yours and mine will, which is a sobering thought.
The handing over to Satan and the putting out of the church is a way to say that the real issue is not any particular sexual sin. It’s an issue of the Lordship of Jesus. Jesus is not merely handing out forgiveness. He is. But he’s also becoming the Lord of all of life. And if you and I want the forgiveness from Jesus, as we should, then we must also want his Lordship, even if that is sometimes uncomfortable.
This passage in 1 Corinthians 5, I believe, presumes we are familiar with the key passage on the topic of church discipline, which comes from Jesus in Mathew 18:15–20. Please turn with me there now in your Bibles. I’ll read all of Matthew 18:15–20 and offer a few comments.
15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to borrow from a summary of these verses by another pastor named Jermey Treat (“Beautiful Repentance,” Reality LA Church). When preaching about this passage, he highlighted four things.
First, the context is family. The passage mentions brothers, meaning brothers and sisters. This implies family. This implies faith. If you think about 1 Corinthians 5, the woman is not named in the passage, presumable because she is not a member of the church. Pastor Ron finishes preaching chapter five next week on how we are to not judge those in the world but in the church. So, first, again, the context is family in both Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5. Second, the process is gradual. How many people are involved? Answer: as few as possible. Third, the motivation is love. The desire is to care for those we love. Fourth, the aim is restoration. The goal is to gain a brother, Jesus said. The goal is to keep people in the church, not send them away. The goal is to see souls saved on the day of the Lord. So, family, gradual, love, and restoration.
I go back to Ebola and hospital illustration. Imagine the patient did need care from the hospital. Imagine that the hospital was the only place you could get healing. It’s not that the hospital can take all the credit. They have the medicine, but it was given to them. Still, it’s appropriate for the hospital to tell the patient that they’d love to treat him and help him and work with him, but he must stop doing the very things that caused the problems in the first place and that they would even help you in that area. But if you refuse their help and you choose to infect others, you must leave the hospital. That should have the effect of being devastating. Not because the church kicked a person out but because he didn’t want in.
The church is the place, Paul says, where the power of Jesus is present. This is what Jesus means with his famous words, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” That’s not a verse primarily to encourage you when you have a Bible study and only two or three show up. “Well, bummer. Only two are three are here. But that’s okay. Where two or three are gathered, Jesus is with us.” The context is to remind us that when two or three people are doing the difficult, messy work of trying to gain a brother or sister, Jesus is there too. Church discipline isn’t something that Jesus steps away from. He moves toward it. His presence and power are with his people when they follow in costly obedience.
When people often think of church disciple, they often think of extravagant cases, times when someone digs in their heels and won’t budge and it’s ugly and the whole church membership gets called for a meeting and, man, it’s ugly. Did I say that it’s ugly?
Certainly that can be a part of church discipline. But I consider that the highest rung of the ladder of church discipline. In over ten years of being one of your pastors, I can think of only a handful of cases that church discipline went that far or would have gone that far. What I mean is that often, particularly in the case of a marriage blowing apart, one or both parties just leave.
What about the lower rungs of the ladder of church discipline? How often does that occur? I would tell you that there is not a single week where this does not happen among us. One brother goes to another brother, or one sister goes to another sister, or a small group goes to another small group and says something like, “I love you, but I’m concerned about this pattern, and maybe I’m not seeing it rightly, but I’m worried for you and for us.” That happens all the time. Praise God for that. Think what a terrible cauldron of sin and bitterness and gossip this place would be if no one ever worked with others to make each other more holy. It would be awful.
Do these sorts of conversations happen as much as they should? Do you do this as much as you should? No, you don’t, and we don’t. And do we do them as well as we should even when we do them? No, we don’t. But nonetheless this is God’s plan to help us not lose the plotline, the plotline of how a holy God redeems an unholy people from their unholy ways through the costly death of his Son, and then how God causes his children to walk into increasing holiness by the power of his Holy Spirit until the day when they will be with him in his holy new heaven and new earth safe and protected from everything unholy forever.
Conclusion
Now, we’re at the end. I must say that I wanted to do so, so much more. I wanted to take us to Galatians 6:1, which tells us that as we see others in sin, we must seek to restore them gently while also keeping an eye on our own lives. I wanted to take us to Hebrews 12 and the long passage that tells us that when God disciplines us, he does it because we are his kids, and he loves us. I really, really wanted to do that. It’s so important that we know that God loves his children.
And I really wanted to acknowledge times when church discipline has gone wrong. Remember when I said at the start the lines about “turn to your neighbor in the pew and talk about church discipline”? Remember how I said we wouldn’t do that? It’s because so many of you only have a context for Christians and churches doing a terrible job at discipline. In fact, you probably won’t tell me this, but you have been scoffing in your heart at my whole sermon because of the terrible church hurt you have.
Well, I can’t touch all that. I have to rest in the fact that I’m not here to give a comprehensive, four-hour seminar on what courageous and humble, faithful and God-fearing, people-loving and redemptive church discipline looks like. I’m simply trying to preach one passage, explaining the passage in context, drawing out some of what it means for us, and highlighting the gospel plotline within the passage.
And so maybe that’s where I’ll close, with the strange irony of v. 5 and the line about handed over to Satan. The aim of Satan is certainly not redemptive. Satan wants the destruction of flesh and soul. But—but!—how like our God to perform an unlikely twist as he accomplishes salvation.
Sometimes stories surprise us with a plot twist. Thankfully, that’s what Jesus is doing all the time. What people and Satan mean for evil, God turns for good. What a wonderful plot twist. Consider how the death of the Christian, God makes our promotion to everlasting glory. What a plot twist. Consider how God the Father makes the crucifixion of the Son of God the means to offer salvation to all. What a plot twist.
The real gospel plotline is beautiful. And I hope and pray God will help us help each other to remember it, how a holy God redeems an unholy people from their unholy ways through the costly death of his Son, and then how God causes his children to walk into increasing holiness by the power of his Holy Spirit until the day when they will be with him in his holy new heaven and new earth safe and protected from everything unholy forever.
Let’s pray. “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
Sermon Discussion Questions
How have you experienced the local church and other brothers and sisters when it comes to church discipline? What has been good? What has been hard?
Read and discuss the parallels of Matthew 18:15–20 with this passage in 1 Corinthians 5:1–5.
Pastor Benjamin spoke about the “upper rungs of the ladder of church discipline,” those events that involve the whole church. He said those are rare. But he also said the “lower rungs” are common—and they should be. Do you agree or disagree? Why? In what ways have you seen the “lower rungs of church discipline” (i.e., the first steps) be both common and good thing?
Read and discuss the parallels of Hebrews 12:1–17 with this passage in 1 Corinthians 5:1–5.
Are there ways in your life that you have lost the gospel plotline? Are there sins you have grown tolerant of? If so, how and why? And what should you do to get your love for Christ back?
