Joel M Bradshaw

9I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.11But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. 12For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 13God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”–1 Corinthians 5

I oversee Celebrate Recovery at my church. And as I welcomed everyone to the meeting last night, I publicly said that I was proud of them. Each of those people was facing their addictions. They were addressing the past things they had each done and the current rock bottoms many of them were facing. I called the room of people brave. It takes guts to face yourself. It is not natural to turn to Jesus for your hope when you have been your hope all this time. The natural addict focuses on themselves and not Jesus.

In my recovery I own the wrongs I have done and stay intentional about doing the right things now. And at Celebrate Recovery we never celebrate the sins or the addictions, but the transforming work that our Higher Power Jesus Christ accomplishes in us. He uses our broken, messy stories for His glory!

Why do I mention all of this? It’s because these are NOT the types of people Paul is condemning in our chapter today. Paul was writing to a church that had excused and justified public sin. You might have even said it flaunted sin or was proud of it. A repentant sinner brings glory to Jesus. A stubbornly unrepentant Christian drags the name of Jesus through the mud. That’s the big difference. This church needed to get its act together. Anyone who publicly celebrates sin that the Bible condemns is not right with God. And a church that does so should read this chapter of the Bible again.

There is hope in Celebrate Recovery. There is no hope for the stubborn and unrepentant. For the addict, bravery is found in self-denial and never self-love.–JMB