Does Not Rejoice in Iniquity

 

I’m Duane Matz and welcome to Today’s Living Word.

 

The greatest proof of the presence of the Holy Spirit in an individual or a congregation is the expression of Holy Spirit directed love. But what does this love look like? Today we’ll continue to look at love as found in the love chapter of the Bible….1 Cor 13!

 

We pick it up in verse 6, where we have another example of what agape is not! 1Co 13:6 love does not rejoice in iniquity.

 

Of course, I don’t rejoice in iniquity1 I’m a Christian. I hate sin and iniquity. Isn’t that what iniquity is?

 

Well, yeah, but it’s even more than sin. Iniquity  as defined in the Strong’s Concordance is “wrongfulness of character, life, or act” In other words, it’s where one’s character,  lifestyle, or actions are marked by sin.

 

Holy Spirit inspired love is never happy about that. It does not rejoice in iniquity displayed by self or others. It is disturbed by the marks of sin.

 

This is one of the dangers of conforming to the standards of the world, we gradually become comfortable with sin. Being comfortable with sin is another way of saying, “rejoicing in iniquity.”

 

It was one of the problems of the Corinthian church that Paul sought to address in 1Co 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 rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.

 

 These Corinthians were in essence rejoicing in iniquity, they weren’t letting that man’s sin disturb them. This is not the way of Holy Spirit love. What happens to that man in the long run if his sin of sexual immorality is not addressed?

 

1Co 6:9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

 

I hate to say this, but in our culture and even in the church today, we are relatively unbothered by the sin of fornication, sex outside the bounds of marriage. It is the way of the world that many of our young people have fallen into and the churches silence on the matter is simply “rejoicing in iniquity.”

 

I’m Duane Matz and that’s Today’s Living Word