The importance of sexual purity in the Body of Christ

What do we do with the tough scriptures? You know the ones that are for leadership but seem to create the most conflict. Here is a process mentioned in Scriptures by Jesus. It is dealing with a brother or sister that is caught is sinful activity. Remember that the Lord’s motivation in this whole issue is going to be love. However, as a good Father, He will desire to protect the bride from predators.

So let's start from the Gospel of Matthew.

Matt. 18:15 “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.
Matt. 18:16 But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that “by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’
Matt:18:17 And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.
Matt. 18:18 “Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
Matt. 18:19 “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.
Matt. 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.

This is a long process, and this is not for simple sins. This sins would involve things like; Sexual immorality over some time. It would include teaching false doctrine that is damaging to the Church as a whole. We will see this later. I will give you such an example that I encountered.

I had a 45-year-old man in my church, and he revealed to me that he believed that the Lord had shown him his wife in the church. He asked me what I thought. I asked him who it was and after some prying, he finally revealed to me that it was the 18 old daughter of my assistant pastor. I had also discovered that he had inappropriately attempted to lure her to himself. She had told him several times to back off. I tried to get him to see that this was not the Lord. She wanted nothing to do with him and that he should stop all activity.

After a few days, he attempted to make contact with her again at our house party for the church. She told me what had happened. I called in her father, my assistant pastor and we talked. I asked him if I could think for an hour on the matter to see if I could find a solution. I came up with five different scenarios and could not find one that accomplished a significant goal. How do I keep the woman safe? With his lack of repentance and resistance to her wishes to stay away. We finally concluded that the only way for her to be safe was for him to go somewhere else. I, however, was willing to meet with him weekly to help him through this matter. However, as a leader, I must protect the Body from the individual if the need arises. What that means I will try to help the individual as long as his actions are not causing damage to the Body.

Sometimes our actions have to swift and harsh to protect the body. A sin that comes into the Church can have an awful effect. Let’s look a what Paul said about a real situation the Corinthian Church he faced.

1 Cor. 5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! 2 And you are puffed up and have not instead mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. 3 For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed. 4 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, 5 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.
1Cor. 5:6   Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. 8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
1Cor. 5:9   I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. 10 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. 11 But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.
1Cor. 5:12   For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.

Paul was both brave and heartbroken that the Church had been so foolish to think that they were operating in pride that was deceiving. He speaks about removing that brother from the fellowship so the Church will not be corrupted. But listen to how he addresses the World versus the Saint. We are not to eat with a person who calls themselves a believer and practices a sinful lifestyle. Why? Because there is a special place in the Church. Being part of the Body of Christ is to be a holy thing. Those outside the Church Paul address differently. That is not the arena for us to have judgment. God will judge outside.

Again, this is for leaders, and it is a complicated process. I also pray that you don’t ever have to go through it. The purpose of this process is the saving of the soul and the health of the Body. It is not either or, but that both might be healthy. It is rooted in love, not anger.

Jude is one of the most sobering books of the Bible. I am going to post it all here.

Jude 1 Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,
To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ:
Jude 2 Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Jude 3 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude 5 But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; 7 as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Jude 8 Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. 9 Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” 10 But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves. 11 Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.
Jude 12 These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; 13 raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
Jude 14 Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, 15 to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”
Jude 16 These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. 17 But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: 18 how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. 19 These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.
Jude 20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
Jude 22 And on some have compassion, making a distinction; 23 but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. 24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
25 To God our Savior,
Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and power,
Both now and forever.
Amen.

Boldness added

Jude warns of deception that after we have come to Christ, we don’t walk according to Christ. He also speaks to the people who think that they are doing right that people feast amongst them without fear of their behavior. I want to remind us that this is as much the Scriptures as the Gospels.

Jesus gave us no other way to deal with all people but love, but He still wants his body to remain pure and holy. We see this in the Book of Revelation where Jesus discussed the Nicolaitanes.

But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
(Rev. 2:6 NKJV)

These were those who practice sexual immorality. Nicholas was a deacon at the
Church of Jerusalem and through off restraint of purity. We will keep it clean here.

Sexually immorality is a big deal to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To make a small thing of it is both unhealthy for the Church and Society. Read the seven letters to the angels of the seven churches in Revelation, and you will discover how Jesus feels about sin.

Now, the conclusion fo the story

Paul speaks again about the man who he had the Body remove in 2 Corinthians.

2Cor. 2:1 But I determined this within myself, that I would not come again to you in sorrow. 2 For if I make you sorrowful, then who is he who makes me glad but the one who is made sorrowful by me?
2Cor. 2:3   And I wrote this very thing to you, lest, when I came, I should have sorrow over those from whom I ought to have joy, having confidence in you all that my joy is the joy of you all. 4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you, with many tears, not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have so abundantly for you.
2Cor. 2:5   But if anyone has caused grief, he has not grieved me, but all of you to some extent—not to be too severe. 6 This punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for such a man, 7 so that, on the contrary, you ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow. 8 Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love to him. 9 For to this end I also wrote, that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things. 10 Now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, 11 lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.

What I want you to see is that Paul was praying for the man and the goal was his eventual repentance and affirmation. I started out by saying that the goal was always to love. However, the Church sometimes confuses Christ love with the worlds. Everything cannot be okay with the Lord. There must be a line for the church not in who we love, but in what we will tolerate in the Body.

So Jesus does tell us to kick out those who don’t repent. In Paul’s writings, given by the Holy Spirit. The word of God is Jesus in print. They are not suggestions, but the living oracles of God. It would be best if we as leaders would live by the Holy Spirit, checking against the scriptures.

My pray for all people is to come to the knowledge of the truth in Jesus Christ and if need be repent. This way we can worship with a pure heart and without malice.

I pray that this blesses you. No, this is not a teaching about loving people. So what I have left out was just not the topic of this teaching.