Trust Me: The Yeast is Bad

I consider myself a pretty good cook. When I have time and enough energy, I really enjoy cooking, too. I love finding and trying new recipes and having people over to try them. But baking-that’s a different story.

I mean, I can make a mean tray of cookies, certain pies are a snap, but that’s about where my ability stops. Cakes are especially tough and any baking from-scratch is not going to happen without some major issues.

I have this niece who is just an amazing cook; honestly, she’s just amazing at everything she does! She’s one of these women who can “whip up” a gourmet meal, seemingly with ease, and is constantly making her own from-scratch bread – rolls, buns, loaves of bread, you name it. She was telling me about these buns she makes for hamburgers once and I, in my ridiculousness, thought to myself,

“I bet I can make those.” (Insert eye roll here.)

So, I went to the grocery store, got all the ingredients, including yeast, and tried to make them. I did the exact process listed on the recipe and these stupid buns wouldn’t rise! Guess why? It turns out my yeast was expired.

Here’s the moral of I Corinthians 5: yeast stands for sin in the Bible, sin is bad and separates us from God, so don’t sin. Have a nice day and thanks for reading!

Yeah, this is honestly what I wanted to leave you with this week – an uplifting, easy-to-understand message – I mean, it’s pretty obvious to all of us that the sin in question in this chapter is a “big one,” right? It was obviously taboo to the Romans, the Greeks, the pagans, and SHOULD HAVE been to the Corinthians. I mean, what in the absolute world was happening with these people?? But God was like,

“Girl, you crazy! You know there’s way more to this chapter than that and THAT’S what you’re going to talk about!”

So, sorry; I tried. The REAL message and question Paul is asking us about in this chapter is this:

How do we handle it when people who call themselves Christians choose a lifestyle of sin?”

And, Friends, this is a sticky, uncomfortable, touchy subject that most of us would just rather not have to deal with.

So here we go. First and foremost, to God, sin is sin; there is no “big” sin and “little” sin. To God, all sin is trouble and keeps us separate from Him until we accept Christ as our savior. Even then – especially then – we should allow the Holy Spirit to change us daily to look more like Christ. Even though we will all still commit sins – no perfection until we see Jesus face-to-face – our desire should always be to live and speak like Jesus and we should be quick to repent when we do sin. This is all true, but this is not the point of this chapter.

In the Corinthian fellowship, there was a man – thank goodness we don’t know his name because no momma would ever name her son after this one –was having an ongoing affair with his step-mom. Y’all. I can’t. Oh, and guess what? The Corinthian fellowship didn’t even have a problem with this situation!!! In the words of Charlie Brown,

“Good grief.”

Paul mentions that he had already addressed this situation in another letter, and still nothing had been done. The Believers were just carrying on as usual, still very proud of all the gifts in their body, patting themselves on the back about how spiritual they were, etc. And Paul wasn’t having any of it – he wanted it addressed. Um, okay...

That’s what I want to spend the rest of the time talking about today – just how, exactly, do we address ongoing sin in our fellowships of Believers and why should we even try?

So here are my thoughts – don’t throw tomatoes at the messenger, promise?

First, I’ll talk about the why. It is very important to address sin in any fellowship of Believers. Why, because quite simply it will multiply. Just like that expired yeast I used in my buns, when sin is introduced into the fellowship, it spreads all throughout the body of Believers and, before you know it, you don’t have just that person sinning, but several more, then several more, then…you get the picture. And God, remember, is holy. He can’t even look upon sin. Without God’s blessing in our fellowships, what is the point? Um, I’m not sure there is a point.

Also, we must address sin in our fellowships because we need to offer protection to our young Believers. As we all know, Believers come to God and to our fellowships from all different kinds of lives. We’re definitely going to encounter some “yeast” with these infant Christians. So what if you have someone struggling to stay faithful in their marriage and they find out about another’s affair? And what happens when this baby Believer finds out that this affair is common knowledge, has been going on for a while, and it hasn’t even been addressed? What are we teaching this new Christian? Is this going to help him in his walk with Jesus? Um, nope!

Secondly, and maybe the more difficult one, let’s talk about the how do we handle sin in our fellowship. Yikes, this is tricky, Friends! The first thing I would say is sin in ourselves or fellow Believers should always break our hearts. One of the things I found the most interesting about this chapter is that, while Paul whole-heartedly rebuked this sin, he was actually more upset with the fact that the Corinthians weren’t bothered by it in the least. Check out what he has to say in I Corinthians 5:2,

You are so proud of yourselves , but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame. And you should remove this man from your fellowship.

The whole basis of our salvation as Christians is that we admit we have sin in our lives, we are separated from God, and need a savior. So when we are lost in our sin, before salvation, God’s heart is broken. When we encounter sin, in ourselves or others, it should break our hearts because it breaks God’s heart and we should do whatever we can to help our sister or brother to be restored to her/his relationship with God.

Then, the next step should be for us to talk to this person in love about the sin in her/his life. In love. The deal is, if our hearts are truly broken for these fellow Believers, our words should come from a place of love and concern– not in ugliness, pride, or with harsh words. Most of us, as Believers, are well aware of our own issues and sins. I mean, I’ll be honest, I sure don’t want to be judged unfairly, none of us do. But when a fellow Believer is living in sin – by choice – the hard, but loving thing to do is to go and have a conversation with this fellow Believer, that could go something like this,

“Hey, Friend. I heard that you were drinking way too much. Is that true? What’s going on? You know that’s not good for you and can really tarnish your witness for the Lord. How can I help you, what can I do for you? Let’s pray and start meeting, studying the Bible together. You can beat this. I’m here for you.”

Now look, this is just an example and it makes this confrontation look super easy. And it’s not! None of us want to be judged or be accused of judging, but as Christians we are called to keep each other accountable. Also, difficulty can show up in how this person reacts to your confrontation – they may accept it and want to change or refuse to accept it and be angry with you for confronting them. Neither of these responses is your responsibility! Praise God, right?

And remember, restoration should always be the goal. This is not an excuse to get rid of a Believer, to punish the person for breaking the rules, or to show how wonderfully holy we are. This is an opportunity to help a sister or brother be restored to her/his relationship with God and her/his community of Believers. Again, restoration should aways be the goal when we confront sin in the body.

To close, there are many Scriptures in the Bible regarding confronting sin in the Body of Christ, here are a few,

James 5:19-20 My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back, you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back from wandering will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins.

2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 Take note of those who refuse to obey what we say in this letter. Stay away from them so that they will be ashamed. Don’t think of them as enemies, but warn them as you would a brother or sister.

So, look, Guys, this confronting sin in fellow Believers is a real challenge – I mean, it’s way harder than even baking or making pottery or any craft could ever be for me. But, we are up to the challenge, right? Because it could truly be the difference between heaven and hell for some of the people we are called to love the most. And there is nothing more loving than making sure someone makes it to heaven.