1 Corinthians 5:6-8 God Desires Sincerity and Truth

1 Corinthians 5:6-8  Your boasting is not good.  Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough?  Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast — as you really are.  For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.  Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

In the above verses, Paul beseeches the Corinthian church to rid themselves of the sinful lifestyle of the unredeemed.  He identifies an example of this sin in their midst: incest.  He warns them that the open sin, old yeast, that is tolerated in their community, will eventually corrupt them as a body of believers.  In addition, this sin will despoil their witness of holiness and goodness within the city of Corinth.  Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.  This yeast of sin does not reflect God, but consists of malice and wickedness.  Open sin that parades itself as light will eventually blot out the true message of Christ as the light of the world.  Even Jesus said, No servant can serve two masters.  (Luke 16:13)  A Christian cannot serve God and the devil and remain true to the Lord.  Therefore, Paul tells the Corinthians, Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast.  He tells them not to go back to the lifestyle of slavery to sin; instead, they should know who they are, free IN CHRIST to serve the living God who has given them the blessed promise of eternal life.  He says, as your forefathers were freed from slavery by the Passover lamb, so are you free in THE PASSOVER LAMB: Jesus Christ.  Paul wants them to understand the significance of what has happened to them; they are no longer slaves to the passion of this world, but they have been set free to live lives of holiness, lives for God's glory.  If they go back into the world of their past experiences, they will once again enter into Egypt, under the control of the Pharaoh, who epitomizes Satan.  As Paul told the church in Galatia: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  (Galatians 5:1)  He did not want them to be in a place of weakness where they would once again live lives of darkness, doing the will of Satan and not the will of the Spirit. 

As we look at Paul's admonitions to the Corinthian church about open sin in their community of believers, we must also look at our lifestyles today within our communities of believers.  Do we display more of the world than of God?  Are our hearts captivated by the secular world and its view about life, what is real and what is not real?  We must be aware of the yeast of sin within our own lives.  Sin is as a prevailing wind; it will bend you to its will a little at a time until you no longer look as you once did.  If you have ever looked at the trees on a cliff overlooking the ocean, you will notice how bent they are.  The prevailing wind has made its mark on them.  The constant pounding of the wind has distorted the trees, even greater than their DNA or the pull of natural forces such as gravity.  They live their lives at the will of the wind.  Are we living our lives at the will of sin?  Are we so embedded in this environment, that we feel right at home with it, not realizing the wind, the yeast, has contaminated us to such a point that we have bent to its will?  Paul is concerned that the conditioning to the will of sin will bend the Corinthians away from God and toward slavery to sin.  If we are not eating of the bread of sincerity and truth, we can easily become captive to the world's interests, not to God's interests and his plans for our lives.  We are no longer slaves to this world but love slaves to the Lord: But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (Romans 6:22-23)  Paul is contending for the faith of the Corinthians, making sure they do not reject this great and precious gift in their foolish and wayward actions that pull them toward sin and darkness.  

What does God desire for his sons and daughters?  How should we live our lives?  As the redeemed of God, we should not be living the lifestyle of slaves to Pharaoh, attending to his interests.  As members of the body of Christ, we should not behave as slaves to Pharaoh, seeking out the pleasures of his kingdom.  Do we not understand when we live as if we have not been delivered from the hands of Pharaoh, as if we are not free IN CHRIST, we are living the life of slaves to sin?  As Christians we should know we have crossed over the Red Sea and the Jordan River to live IN CHRIST, who is literally the Promised Land.  We are living resurrection life RIGHT NOW, for He was raised from the dead, and we are alive IN HIM.  WE SHOULD LIVE HIS LIFE OF LOVE, HIS LIFE OF SERVANTHOOD.  This is God's desire: to show his face to a lost and hurting world THROUGH US.  If we do not really believe we are newly created IN CHRIST for God's purposes and look forward to eternal life with him, we might as well live as the heathens do, for life is short and we should make the most of it.  If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”  Paul goes on to say, Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”  Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God — I say this to your shame.  (1 Corinthians 15:32-34)  Paul asks the Corinthians to live a life of holiness, a life that reflects Promised Land dwellers.  We must all rid ourselves of the old lifestyle of Egypt, of malice and wickedness, as we learn the new way: peace and love in Jesus our Lord.  The Passover Lamb has freed us from slavery to sin.  Paul wrote this beautiful prayer that fits so well with our study today, and we pray it with you, dear brothers and sisters: May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.  May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.  (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13)