Today’s message is from 1 Corinthians 6:1-11. This passage talks about lawsuits and about sexual immorality and a number of other sins against God. But what it is really about is humility and trusting God (which is pretty much what the whole Bible is about).

Remember as always, as we read the passage, that we are reading the word of God. Through the Bible, God teaches us about himself, about ourselves and about our relationship to him—who we are and who he is. He is our Creator and Redeemer. We are his creation. Also, as we read the passage and as I talk about it, think about how it applies to you.

And, as always, I encourage you to read your Bibles every day. Make it a habit. To use the analogy from C. S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair, the word of God may seem clear when you read it, but in the world, the air is thick and is likely to confuse your mind. You need to be reminded every day about who God is and who you are.

¹If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints? ²Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? ³Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! ⁴Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church! ⁵I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? ⁶But instead, one brother goes to law against another—and this in front of unbelievers!

⁷The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? ⁸Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.

⁹Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders ¹⁰nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

¹¹And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:1-11)

“If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints?” Apparently they were daring to do just that. Verse 7 says, “The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already.” They were having lawsuits.

The apostle Paul is writing to the Christians as believers, as saints, as God’s holy people. (That’s what saint means, holy person. All those who believe in Jesus—all those who belong to Jesus—are saints! Are you a saint? All those who belong to Jesus are saints.) Why would saints take their disputes before ungodly—literally unrighteous—people rather before the saints? “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers,” Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6:14, “For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common.” Why would they be taking their lawsuits before secular, worldly judges? Keep that question in mind while I go on to verses 2 and 3:

²Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? ³Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! (1 Corinthians 6:2, 3)

The saints will judge the world. The saints will judge angels. Do you expect to, some time in the future, judge the world or to judge angels? The apostle Paul—the Holy Spirit speaking through the apostle Paul—says that we will judge the world and we will judge angels. (Now, I have to say that I’m not completely sure what that means, but I think the word judge is probably used in the sense of the Book of Judges—in the sense of to govern.) In any case, what Paul is telling them is, “This is who you are in Christ, so why are you not acting like it?!”

Why were they not acting like saints? Well, in chapter 3 Paul told them that they were fleshly, not spiritual. They were baby Christians. They needed to grow up. (And I think that I can add that when he rebuked them Paul expected them to grow—that because they were believers—God’s holy people—they would grow just as we expect babies to grow when we feed them and take care of them. (The “immoral brother, back in chapter 5, to carry the analogy a little further, needed his diaper changed.)

So, in what way did the Corinthians need to grow? How were they acting like babies? Back in chapter 3 Paul says that they were fleshly (the NIV says “worldly”) because there was jealousy and quarreling among them. (1 Cor. 3:3) And that’s also what was going on when there were lawsuits among them.

But there’s a more fundamental reason why there were lawsuits among them. I said it earlier when I just started to speak. They were not humble. They wanted what they wanted when they wanted it and they didn’t trust God to provide it for them when they wanted it. In fact, they probably knew that God would not provide it for them, so they were trying to go around him. (It doesn’t really say that, but I know human nature (what the Bible calls “the flesh”) and I am pretty confident that they were at least thinking that way subconsciously.

⁴Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church! ⁵I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? ⁶But instead, one brother goes to law against another—and this in front of unbelievers! (1 Corinthians 6:4, 5)

Paul is telling the Corinthians that it would be better for them to appoint even men of little account in the church to judge there disputes—probably those the world would consider completely incompetent to judge a lawsuit. He was telling them to that they should not even worry about the things they were disputing about.

In one of the stories, a church was looking for a new pastor. After a search, they hired a man who was a retired Naval officer to be the pastor. He started out by talking to each of the members of the congregation and asking them what they knew about the other members. He said that he wanted get to know all the people as well as he could. But, as the story goes, he used some of the information that he received to essentially blackmail some of the people into agreeing to some of the things he was proposing to do.

At one point this pastor was trying to persuade the elders to agree to some change he wanted to make. Most of them were willing to agree, but one elder was especially resistant. The pastor suggested that he and that elder go for a walk alone.

Now this church was against divorce and remarriage and this elder had been divorced and remarried, but most of the congregation didn’t know about it. The pastor tried to use this information to “persuade” the elder to his point of view. When they got back from their walk, the elder told the other elders what had happened. They decided that the pastor needed to be fired.

However, according to the church bylaws, the congregation had to approve the hiring and firing of pastors. The congregation was divided on the issue with some supporting the pastor and others wanting him fired. In fact, it became like an armed camp. The elders, who normally sat with their families on Sunday, started sitting together as a group.

On the Sunday when the vote was to be taken, things were not very peaceful. When one of the elders or anyone who was in favor of firing the pastor got of to speak, the organist, who supported the pastor would play at full volume to drown him out.

At one point, while the pastor was coming forward to speak, he tripped and fell (or maybe he was tripped by one of the elders, no one was ever sure). In any case, the pastor took a swing at the elder and a free-for-all broke out. Somebody called the police. The pastor, the elders and some other people were arrested. When the case came up in court, the judge turned out to be the star player of the local synagogue softball team that uniformly beat the churches team. When the judge had heard the story, he told them that he wasn’t going to sentence them to anything. He said, “You guys are Christians. You ought to be able to settle this among yourselves.” How humiliating. (And I might add that I believe that it’s definitely a bad idea for a church to hire someone they don’t know well as pastor.)

Well, to get back to the passage, people, in the flesh, want to be right. They want to have victory. And (from personal experience) I believe that our enemy the devil tries to persuade us that nothing is more important than the issue that we are disputing. It is absolutely essential that we have victory. It’s necessary to satisfy justice (or something like that) for us to win. (Paul is talking about disputes over material things in today’s passage, but in the case of spiritual things, we all know that if we don’t have blue hymnals, the whole congregation will wind up going to hell. And we can prove it from the scriptures!)

Anyway, in the case of the material things (things of this life in the NIV, verse 3), we think you can’t trust the church to settle the dispute. Maybe we think the church doesn’t have the authority to enforce a decision, but the secular courts do. Or maybe we know that it won’t go in our favor, but think we can persuade a secular court.

Lawyers that argue cases before secular courts have the goal of getting the best possible outcome for their clients. In a criminal case, that means an innocent verdict or at least the lightest possible sentence possible even if the lawyer knows you are guilty and even if he knows that it would be better for you to go to prison. And in a civil case, the goal is to get biggest possible settlement if you are doing the suing and the smallest possible settlement if you are being sued.

Some years back, a family was awarded a settlement of $8,000,000 for pain and suffering because the car dealership had scratched their new car that they had recently purchased and tried to repair the damage by repainting the car. (It wouldn’t have been as good a paint job as the factory paint. Trying to get the situation straightened out had caused the family much pain and suffering.) Unfortunately for the family, on appeal, the award was reduced to a mere $4,000,000. (Oh, well, it was still a victory.)

Our enemy the devil tells us that it is absolutely essential for us to have victory. But what he promotes as victory God says is utter defeat. Victory means rather be wronged—exactly the opposite of what the world thinks it means. (“What do light and darkness have in common?” Paul says in 2 Corinthians) Even the fact that the Corinthians had lawsuits meant that they had been completely defeated. This is a spiritual battle. You need to put on the full armor of God—the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation. You need to take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and pray about everything—keep on praying for all of the saints. (Eph. 6:13-18)

Do you think it’s a spiritual battle to decide to let yourself be wronged? How many battles have you fought like that? How many victories have you won? How many times have you been defeated? Our enemy is not flesh and blood but the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Eph. 6:10) Our enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Pet. 5:8)

You know, Christians usually say that we should not have lawsuit among ourselves, but it’s OK to sue a non-believer. I’m not sure about that. Paul says, “Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.” That seems to imply that Paul is talking about not just believers, but non-believers when he says, “Why not rather be wronged?” He says. “You yourselves cheat” implying that he is also talking about non-believers who cheat when he says, “Why not rather be wronged.” So we need to consider carefully what to do when we are thinking of suing or are being sued by someone outside the church. I think it depends a lot on your motives. Are you trying to benefit yourself or help others?

You see, it like this: If you break one of God’s commandments, you are a lawbreaker, just as if you had broken any other commandment or broken all of the commandments. And if you don’t trust God in one thing, you don’t trust God. And not trusting God leads to rejecting God. Rejecting God is rejecting salvation. The wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God.

How easy it is to say, “I have to cheat just a little bit on my income tax or I won’t be able to pay my rent.”—or whatever. It’s not trusting God who says, “Do not steal,” and who says, “I will provide.” Look at the list of sins—sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, male prostitution, homosexual sex, stealing, greed, drunkenness, slandering and swindling. All these result from: “I... I... I have to have something and God is not providing it. I have to have this or that and God is not providing, so I have to take matters into my own hands. And “have to have” in most cases really means “I’d like to have” or “I desire to have.” We say that we have to have a lot of things. But here is something we really do have to have: It’s faith. We have to trust God.

Thinking you need to take things into you own hands because God doesn’t want to give you something you think you need is really the ultimate in selfishness and pride. (Remember Amnon wanting Tamar in last Wednesday’s Bible study. He took matters into his own hands and the result was not good to say the least.)

⁸Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. ⁹Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

¹⁰And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. ¹¹To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5:5-11)

When God is not doing what you want and you try to take things into your own hands, you are trying to make yourself equal to God. Satan the devil wanted to make himself equal to God. He said, “I will ascend above the tops of the clouds. I will make myself like the Most High.” (Isa. 14:14) He wasn’t able to do it. In fact, Jesus completely defeated the devil by going to the cross. (Does that tell you something about how to defeat the devil? I think so.)

³Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. ⁴Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

“In humility consider others better (greater or more important, I think, literally) then yourselves.” Our attitudes should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Jesus is both greater and more important than anyone else. But he was able to say that he was gentle and humble in heart. All the universe, including us, was made by and through him. We would have no existence and no life without him. Yet he said, “Even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

²⁸“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

¹¹And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:1-11)

“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God.” The wicked are those who don’t belong to Jesus—the unbelievers. Some of the Corinthians had been committing the very sins that Paul listed, but they were washed clean by the blood of Jesus. Nevertheless, some were still sinning, even though they were now believers. I think Paul was convinced that, because they were believers, when he rebuked them, they would repent—the Holy Spirit would lead them to repentance and the blood of Jesus take away all unrighteousness. All this applies to us, too. We too are being warned about all these things. But when we confess our sins, the blood of Jesus takes away all unrighteousness. And we praise the Lord for that! Amen!