Judge in accordance with the Gospel – part 1

A nationally televised call-in show offering advice on moral issues once received a call from a twenty-two-year-old man who had a dilemma and here’s how he posed his dilemma. “For the past six months, I have been having a sexual relationship with my stepmother. How do I break this news to my father?” Now you might react to this by thinking “Well, this is a fallen world so these kinds of things don’t shock me.” But what if this was a dilemma posed by a member of our church? Could it happen? Yes! Today’s text confirms it has happened at least once! Should it shock us in this case? Sometimes, the thing that should shock us most is not the matter of a sin like this, but the matter of the church’s response of doing nothing when members of the body persist in such sin. If we are most concerned about honoring the Holy name of Jesus Christ, then doing nothing in the face of persistent sin by a believer in a faithful local church should lead to the shame and corporate repentance of the entire church for dishonoring our Lord who died to make us holy…in accordance with His gospel. Sin, and particularly persistent sin, is an obstacle to the gospel’s power to make us like Christ in this life, therefore, the church must be faithful to judge it for the sake of restoring the sinning brother or sister back to a right walk with Christ and with one another as the gospel demands we do.  

We invite you to come join us this Sunday morning for our in-person worship service at Leptondale Bible Church in Newburgh, starting at 10:55 AM. For those unable to attend, our service can be viewed live on the church’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/leptondalebiblechurch. This Sunday, we’ll continue a sermon series from 1st Corinthians titled “Written for Our Instruction” with a message from 1st Corinthians 5:1-13 titled “Judge in accordance with the Gospel – part 1.”

God bless!                          
Pastor Mike