Leaven in the Lump - Pastor Stacey Shiflett

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Leaven in the Lump

1 Corinthians 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

Intro: Paul is dealing with a very specific issue in the church of Corinth.

Surrounding that primary issue were several other issues that were manifested in this situation.

I. The Picture of the Leaven

No less than three times, Paul referred to the sin in the church as “leaven.”

·        6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

·        7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

·        8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Sin is likened to leaven in several places of Scripture.

Passover, Israel were commanded to remove all leaven from their homes.:

·        Exodus 12:19 “Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses…” 

·        Exodus 13:7 “there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee.”

God forbids mixing leaven with sacrificial blood:

·        Exodus 23:18 “Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread…”

·        Exodus 34:25 “Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven…”

What is corrupted must not be joined to what is holy.

Leaven is incompatible with sacred worship.

No grain offering burned to the LORD may contain leaven

Leviticus 2:11 “for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the LORD made by fire.” Leaven here signifies impurity or corruption unfit for God’s altar.

The teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees corrupts like leaven

·        Matthew 16:6, 11–12 “then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.”

·        Mark 8:15 “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.” 

This verse refers to corrupt Pharisees and corrupt politics refers to Herod.

Jesus defines the leaven of the Pharisees as hypocrisy.

·        Luke 12:1 “Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”

Hypocrisy spreads and puffs up, just like leaven.

False doctrine is leaven

·        Galatians 5:9 “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” 

Small doctrinal errors, left unchecked, corrupt widely.

In our text, the leaven was the open sin of fornication.

It wasn’t just fornication, but it was a bizarre, unnatural level of wickedness and perversion.

Fornication is strictly forbidden in Scriptures.

FORNICATION: Mentioned 28 times in the New Testament

FORNICATORS: 5 times in the New Testament

·        1 Corinthians 6:18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.

·        1 Corinthians 7:2 Nevertheless, [to avoid] fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

·        1 Corinthians 10:8 sNeither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.

·        Ephesians 5:3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;

·        1 Thessalonians 4:3 For this is the will of God, [even] your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:

This is a serious sin!

Some of the clearest Scriptures on it are in 1 Corinthians 6:

·        9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

·        10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

II. The Publicity of the Leaven

·        1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.

There are two different types of sin in the church; private and public.

Private sin is dealt with privately, at least at first.

Public sin has to be dealt with publicly.

If you announce it on social media, it is now public.

If you flaunt it and brag about it and tell about it to your friends, it is now public.

The Apostle Paul states that the sin mentioned in this passage is public knowledge.

Common knowledge.

It is not rumors; it does not come from an unreliable or isolated source.

It is commonly reported…

The nature of the sin was so egregious that everybody was talking about it.

It had obviously been told to Paul in a letter presumably.

It is being dealt with and talked about publicly because it was done in public.

III. The Pride at the Leaven

·        2 And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.

·        6 Your glorying is not good.

To add insult to injury, the church of Corinth was circling the wagons around this man.

They were not heartbroken.

They were not praying and fasting.

They were not talking to him and trying to help him.

They were not meeting with him and urging him to repent.

They were puffed up.

They were protecting him.

If you read this entire passage carefully, you will notice that Paul rebuked the church for their toleration of the sin more than he rebuked the man that sinned.

His repeated references to their pride and glorying is significant.

The church should never get “used” to sin in the church.

They should never get accustomed to it, or defend it.

If the church of the living God won’t confront sin, who will?

If the church of the living God won’t condemn sin, who will?

If the church of the living God won’t cast out open, flagrant sin, who will?

IV. The Persuasion of the Leaven

·        3 For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,

Paul made a judgment from a distance.

He didn’t need to know the circumstances.

He didn’t need to meet the people and get to know them.

He didn’t need to hear the details.

He knew all he needed to know.

“THERE WAS FORNICATION.” (vs. 1)

End of story.

Situational ethics has robbed many Christians of righteous judgment.

Well, there’s things you don’t know. Maybe so.

Well, there are aspects to the story that you haven’t heard. I’m sure.

But when it is sin – it is sin. Period.

V. The Polluting of the Leaven

The pollution is addressed in verse 6.

·        6 “…Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?”

We’ve been talking about the leaven this whole time.

But why get so worked up about a little leaven?

Because of the LUMP. In this case, the lump is the local church.

The church of Corinth was the “lump” that Paul was talking about.

And the issue was that this little bit of leaven was putting the entire lump in jeopardy.

The lump was bought and purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ.

The lump was the body of Christ; the bride of Christ.

The lump was worth protecting and they church members failed to understand that.

Paul is having to call long distance to remind them that it was WAY BIGGER than one man.

This was not about a member of the church.

It involved and impacted THE ENTIRE CHURCH.

If you let one man fornicate and stay on the church roll, you have to let everybody.

The danger was the negative effect that this sin would have on the entire church.

RESEARCH:

QUESTION: How much leaven do you have to add to a lump of bread to make it leavened bread?

ANSWER: Any non-zero amount of active leaven will eventually make a dough “leavened” if you give it enough time, warmth, and moisture.

The Lord knows they were giving this “leaven” enough warmth.

It was just a matter of time before the entire church filled up with fornicators.

VI. The Purging of the Leaven

·        4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,

·        5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

·        6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

·        7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

What did he mean when he said PURGE OUT?

PURGE OUT: to cleanse out, clean thoroughly

He doesn’t leave it open to interpretation.

He gave practical, literal instructions about what to do and NOT do.

·        9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:

COMPANY: to mix up together; to keep company with, be intimate with one

·        10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.

·        11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.

TO EAT: take food together with

·        12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?

·        13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

PUT AWAY: to remove