The Principle of Separation
Text: 1 Corinthians 5
Proposition: The principle of separation applies to each disciple personally and to the whole church corporately as a command to reduce and end the spread of sin.
Introduction: Purifying things has become a growing concern in our world today. Samaritans Purse like many other ministries is aggressively trying to help in the purifying of water, food and even air. In a recent report they said, “Four million people in the developing world die each year from diseases caused by cooking smoke—more than the combined number of annual deaths caused by HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis.” So they developed a stove, made on location with poured concrete. It has a tin stove pipe which removes the smoke from the house and is much more efficient using less wood.Purifying is something we all are becoming more aware of, pure water through filters, pure food, pure air. Purification is really all about the Principle of Separation, taking out contaminants, toxins, impurities so that life is safeguarded.
This morning Paul reminds the church about this principle of separation. He has been speaking to them about the power of God and the wisdom of God, the call to be servants and stewards of the mysteries of God. Now he moves from the spiritual practices of their hearts and minds to the issues of relationships and morals, an area of concern for every disciple of Christ. Let’s read 1 Corinthians 5 to see this principle of separation in action.
I. The Principle of Separation Confronts the World’s Situational Ethics.
You know what I mean by ‘situational ethics’, it’s a term that means what’s right and wrong changes because of situation, a philosophy that says ‘the end justifies the means’. In the passage before us Paul is saying that there is a Christian in the Corinthian church who has been sleeping with his step mother and the church hasn’t said anything about it one way or the other. In fact Paul says that the church is kind of puffed up about how accepting and inclusive they are as a church. You’ll notice that Paul doesn’t say anything about the step mother just the son who is having sex with her. Likely the reason is that the woman is not a Christian nor part of the church, just the man is and the Corinthian church is tolerant of what he is doing. Paul says that even the Greeks are appalled by such behavior. Situational ethics, the end justifies the means, is the sin that has tempted this man to do call wrong, right. Likely he’s said, ‘Look, I can do this and it will make me happy, if I don’t live with her who will take care of her, she’s better off with me than with my Dad’… perhaps the church was saying to itself, ‘he helps in the church or he gives money to the church or people will think we are a good tolerant group so we should just look the other way’...the end justifies the means. That slowly changed into an actual pride in the church to welcome immorality as an expression of how accepting they could be. They had completely lost their way in terms what the Word of God said about sexual immorality, even the specific issue of a man sleeping with his step mother (Leviticus 18:8; Deuteronomy 22:3027:20). The principle of separation calls disciples of Jesus to use godly wisdom to see what is corrupt or polluted and to separate it from what is truth. Just as you wouldn’t drink water that you know has been contaminated by sewage, separate what is morally corrupt from your life as well. When you do that it will confront the situational ethic argument of Satan, of your sin and of the world system and culture. Did you think Paul would be popular in Corinth for writing what he did? Was what he said the truth spoken in love? The principle of separation will be a confrontation, it will cause resentments and accusations to be made against youbut to drink sewage water because you want to be thought inclusive, or tolerant or broadminded won’t go well for you nor for the persons who follow your example. So count the cost, if you don’t separate yourself from sin and seductions there will be a cost to you. If you do separate yourself from deception by applying the truth of Scripture and upholding the moral compass the Lord has set within your heart there will also be a cost…in some cases rejection, in some cases accusation. Count the cost, confront the lie, separate from ungodliness.
II. The Principle of Separation Is Governed By Three Rules.
1st Rule – the purpose of separation is to restore or preserve what is good. That’s true whether you filter the air in your house or whether you have to confront sin in a fellow believer in Christ. For their best, Paul says to surrender them to the scourge of Satan’s deception. The hope is that sin indulged in without limit will bring such a ruin that sin itself will be exposed and the person will repent and turn from it. It’s an action that is sometimes done by a person, by a family, by a whole congregation as their heart breaks for the ruin in that person’s life and soul. Look at how Paul describes it in verses 4,5, “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” In other words separation is not done to punish but done but to bring a ruin that reveals truth. That’s what ought to govern the hearts of people who use this principle, not a rigid judgmental attitude but one governed by love and a desire to either restore or preserve relationship with Christ.
2nd Rule – the purpose of separation is to respond to blatant sin because its influence spreads like yeast. In Old Testament times people use a little bit of bread dough with yeast in it to start a new batch of bread. But once a year the people were instructed to get rid of all yeast, put it out of the house. It called them to start with the unleavened bread of the Passover meal. This bread was a yeast less bread, perforated or pierced through to bake quickly. It was a bread used in the Passover meal to picture the night of deliverance, a yeast less bread that God would use to picture the body of the sin-less, perfect Son of God, the sinless Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. Paul’s point here is simple, “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” If you do not recognize the importance of the principle of separation the whole body will experience the spread of a human wisdom that justifies sin. So let sincerity and truth be what guides you in stopping the yeast like spread of immorality.
3rd Rule – the principle of separation is governed by the target. It is not a separation from the people of your community but instead a separation from the Christian who openly and brazenly promotes sin. Look at verses 9, 10, “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.” His point is to not greet, welcome nor fellowship with a Christian who is in a stubborn rebellion against God and invites you to join that or at least sanction it by your demonstrated tolerance. They might be tangled up in immorality, in an open covetousness that says more is good always, in an open idolatry that replaces God with other beliefs or philosophies, in a person who is a reviler, who assassinates the character of others and sees nothing out of place as a Christian in doing it, in an extortioner, one who steals with violence and promotes this as normal Christian conduct… these are the examples Paul puts on the table as people who are believers in Christ that the church needs to practice the principle of separation on. The church is never to seek to separate itself from the world even if all these traits are being shown by any person who is not a Christian. This is why the church has been put in the world, to reach out and into messed up lives. Not as people who have it all together but as people of the Word and as people of the God Who does have it altogether. The Principle of Separation governs disciples of Jesus, it’s corrective to the Christian and protective to the church, rightly representing and serving the Lord.