Our Attitude Towards Sin

I Corinthians 5:4-11

Are you one of those really neat and organized people? So, what is it about a mess that you don’t like? For those that live with a person that is passionate about keeping things clean, you know that you can forget to clean something up, or straighten something and they always have the same reaction – "hey clean that up!" This is a common point of contention in a marriage where one of the spouses gets so frustrated with the other who never seems to obtain the same attitude they have regarding cleanliness. They just don’t seem to be listening and you feel they are just disregarding you and simply don’t care. It is like this married couple where the wife wants to keep things clean and the husband actions continues to completely disregards his wife’s wishes. The wife is so frustrated she says it over and over again about keeping things clean. What the wife says: "This place is a mess C'mon, you and I need to clean up. Your stuff is lying on the floor, and you'll have no clothes to wear, if we don't do laundry right now!" What the husband hears: blah, blah, blah, blah, C'mon blah, blah, blah, blah, you and I blah, blah, blah, blah, on the floor blah, blah, blah, blah, no clothes blah, blah, blah, blah, right now !

But there is another relationship where the focus is on the Attitude towards being clean, clean on the inside, clean from Sin. It is our Lord and savior King Jesus' highest priority – It is why He died; it is what he will do before he comes again for His Bride – the Church. And it is our attitude towards sin that we will study tonight.

Let's look at the passage:

"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 new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed [I Cor. 5:4-7]."

The greatest nightmare of my life, was the night that I was handed over to Satan. It was 6 years ago now this month. I had been living in the sin of pornography as a Christian man and after God had intervened dozens and dozen of times to stop me from moving from the visual images to the physical act. Until one night, as I picked up the phone and made a fateful phone call and at that point God said, "turn this one over to Satan so that his sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord!" And you see what happened to me should never happen to those that have put there faith in Jesus Christ. But it does, when God has to say - out of his abundant love - "hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord."

Unfortunately it is not popular to talk about, if fact the topic is avoided, but it does! And whenever God has to turn one of his over to Satan, He stands weeping not because he has given up on them, (because he never will) but because he sees the consequence they have allowed into their life and his heart grieves [Gen 6:6]. And as our Lord watches us choose to willingly pursue to live in sin – He records ever tear we shed and he waits for one of His to return.

This is not what God wanted for your life.  You where not created to live in sin but to live in Holiness. You where not created by God to live apart from him, you where created to live fully-filled with his spirit, totally encompassed by God not the world! Sinning will keep you from Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit will keep you from sinning. The greatest Challenge facing the Church today is the growing warped attitude towards sin. Casually turning back to live in your old sin nature! And it is the story I hear almost every day. The story of Christian men and woman that casually and willfully fall into sin, and in the process destroy their lives, destroy their families and destroy their eternal future. But not here, not with you in this class, and not on my watch as your teacher!

And so let me ask you tonight, What is your Attitude towards sin? You must keep the right attitude towards sin, it is this that Paul addresses in Chapters 5 & 6 of I Corinthians. Paul shifts his focus to another dimension of living a healthy spirit filled life. It is the attitude of Christians that willfully live immoral lives and what the churches responsibility is in terms of discipline. Paul was addressing a very serious and public matter. The text implies this was a well know issue being done by a well know man in the community and Church. Perhaps a man of affluence and influence in the community that was also part of the leadership of the church. In Fact the Church took pride in the fact that a celebrity was attending their church more then the sin he was willfully committing.

How often do we see this in the church, sin running ramped, not being dealt with, allowed to continue, and the Church continues to look the other way, as if to be numb to sin. In fact it is a major issue in the Church and in the lives of Christians. We have stopped taken sin as serious as God does! And each year the Church slips further and further into compliancy with respect to sin. God tell us to keep the right attitude towards sin.

Again, I ask you, What is your Attitude towards Sinning?

Step 1: Grieve Sin – The Right Attitude [I Cor. 5:2]

Three weeks ago I went to a funeral, it was a point of morning the loss of someone I loved. It is amazing all the emotions that you get in touch with when there is a funeral! "And you are proud! [v.2]" Shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? The word used for grief is the word for grieving and mourning over the dead. Paul makes a powerful point – when you willfully chose sin you chose death and none of the life of Christ – the Holy Spirit cannot operate in you. You are living as the dead live, you are going through the motions in your life, your faith becomes robotic! You can't hear from God, feel God, learn from God – the Benefits uniquely given to Christians are not accessible! "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord [Rom 6:23]." Death is Death, have forgotten what Christ has said to us. Remember what He said to the Adulterous Woman? "Woman where are your accusers? They are gone sir, and Jesus said neither do I accuse you now go and sin no more [John 8:10,11]."

"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer [Rom.6:1-2]?" You are "dead to sin", but Paul said you can be dead "in sin." Let's go back to the text. What is paul trying to say? He is saying the Corinthians should have been so grieved by this mans sin that it should have driven them to prayer. The Corinthians should not have been boasting in their so-called spirituality and strength as a church but mourning over the sin in their midst. They should have been begging for God to restore the fallen brother or remove him and the sin from their fellowship through love and correction.

This is the right Church Discipline. Don’t be "dead in sin" but rather be "dead to sin."

Step 2: Get Rid of Sin - The Right Process [I Cor. 5:7]

Mold in homes can be devastating. A friend of ours wife got so sick she was in a wheel chair for three years. You know the only thing you can do with a little mold is to get rid of it, cut it out!

"Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed [v.7]." Paul says, get rid of sin or sin will get rid of you! The Church must wake up to the effects of habitual sin – it’s effects hurt the Christian and are so powerful they will impact the body! You can’t live for sin and live for Christ! Sin has no restrains, it spreads death and if it is willfully allowed to continue in your life it will spread death in you and in the Body! Here’s the point. If a person willfully lives in sin and shows no sign of repentance that person is saying sin is acceptable, they live for sin not for Christ. And if that person is in any position of influence or leadership in the Church the Church must put him out of the fellowship, until he repents. A Church leader who lives for sin will influence others to live for sin.

We must keep the right attitude towards sin - Step two is, "Get Rid of Sin" come as you are to the cross, but you don’t stay as you are at the Cross. You are accepted as you are if and when you repent and receive the gift Christ Gives you. And Christ's Spirit – The Person of the Holy Spirit - will rein in you! Why, because it's the righteousness of Christ that makes you acceptable to God not sin that makes you acceptable to God.

"But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life [Rom. 6:22]." The right attitude towards sin!

Step 3: Separate From Sin - The Right Time [I Cor. 5:11]

My extended family is in the food business, and when I lived in San Diego I was around food all the time and you can not help but always be eating, and what happened..you put on weight! It is true you are what you eat!

"But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat [v.11]."

Paul says this the best defense is a good offence in the matter of Sin. It is simply to separate yourself from the ongoing consistent influence of sin. Whether it is a person, place or thing of sin!- If you hang around a person of Sin all the time you will be influenced to Sin. If you hang around a place of Sin all the time you will be influenced to Sin. If you hang around a thing of Sin (internet, chat rooms, books, trinkets, horoscope, etc.) You are what you associate with! And God says separate from sin and put a perimeter fence around yourself. This is not to say you don’t live in the world. To the extent you have been given the strength from God, go where he calls you to go, to witness to others. But you must know the difference. When the sin is overcoming you more then you are overcoming it you must separate yourself from it immediately. Paul says – don’t even eat with them! The Bottom line is to protect your faith, relationships and integrity.

We must have the right attitude towards sin.

Grieve Sin, where must you Grieve sin, Get Rid of Sin and where must you Get Rid of Sin? Separate From Sin adn where must you Separate from Sin? PRAY with me the truths found in 1 Corinthians 5:7. "Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."