First Corinthians 1 Cor. 6:4-8 Lawsuits show spiritual immaturity and defeat
1 Corinthians 1 · Roger Henderson · Oct 4, 2020
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 28
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261920314172

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, so today, the part in blue we're going to talk about today, Paul's talked about, he uses words like the audacity of these Corinthian believers to take other believers to court. He talks about their ignorance, their ignorance of scripture. Now these last two points in 5 and 6 and 7 and 8, he's going to talk about their immaturity.

And we're going to talk about a section that I came across that was really kind of cool from Macaulay talking about When is it legitimate to go to court? And he has some charts on that. And then we'll finish up here about the, he sees that it's a spiritual defeat for them to be taking each other to court.

Okay, with that in mind, okay, here's one of my favorite charts. This is one of our brother Hal. And the reason I put this chart up here, I put it up last week, is that this, in my mind, without having understanding of your wonderful position in Christ, who you are in Christ, you can't see why Paul is so exercised.

But he's saying, you have the very life of Christ, your position with Christ in the heavenlies. That's who you are. But in your earthly condition, as you're walking on this earth, you're taking your brothers and sisters to court. Why are you doing that? That is totally inconsistent with who you are in Christ. So that's why I put this chart up this week as well. Because it just points out the fact of the total inconsistency of the believers and how they were acting and why Paul was so exercised by that.

Okay, so let's go on here. So I'm going to do a quick review. last week so he starts off does any one of you when he has a case against his his neighbor or his brother and Has here is the idea of this is something that's ongoing. This just isn't a one-time thing It's a continual thing that's going on. There's continual butting of heads so to speak a continual thing that's happening in that body of believers and they have a case against one another and it can be an affair or a matter but also can be the idea of a lawsuit or And we see that word used in First Thessalonians 4, 6 talks about not overstepping the rights of and wronging his brother in a matter or a lawsuit because the Lord is the avenger of all things. So that's how it's used. And it's his brother here.

So and he uses this idea. So I like to kind of put this In you know something that subject verb and direct object so basically the subject here is any one of you and Any one of you that has a case against his brother, and it's the I did dare. Do you dare? And the idea is a verse there in Romans 5 7 it says for For one would hardly die for a righteous man, but perhaps for a good man someone would dare to die so he's saying Do you dare to go to law or to the law courts? And the idea is to judge there, so it's referring to taking your case to the unbeliever. And that's just not the place where a believer should be going, to the unbeliever.

It's inconsistent with who he is in Christ. Okay, then it goes on, but basically it points out the fact about the unrighteous. And here he does a comparison. He says, before the unrighteous and not before the saints. So he's comparing. He's saying we have the unrighteous and we have the saints. And both are defined. The unrighteous are those who are unjust.

And this is unjust and unrighteous in God's mind. These people might be The people outside the church could be, in the world's estimation, very good people, very outstanding people. But in God's sight, until they trust the Lord Jesus as their Savior, they're still unrighteous, they're still unjust, no matter how good they seem, or how good they seem to themselves. But the saints are those Not anything of their own ability they trusted Christ as their Savior and they're declared holy and righteous and just because of Christ and they're called set-apart and And that always always comes across as plural the Saints plural And this is kind of pointing out this this Comparison here so so Paul will now give his argument on why why should the Saints and Why should they be put in this pedestal in terms of judging and interacting with their brothers?

We hear a lot today about we have a lady put forward to the Supreme Court, and I've read part of her resume. You know, universities and studying, she's been in all these different things. But that's not what God's looking at. He's not looking at our standing before man, how many universities, how many degrees we have. He's looking at our standing before Him. That's what counts. Okay, so here's His first argument. His first argument, or do you not know that the saints will judge the world or nations? And basically, Constable kind of points out, and if you go through and look at Daniel, there's several verses that talk about the Millennial Kingdom and talk about the interaction of the saints with the Lord and what's going to happen.

And actually there in Daniel 7.22, it talks about judgment was given to the saints, believers, who have been saved, who are now in the Millennial Kingdom with Christ, are the Most High God at a time came when the saints possessed the kingdom. So they actually have two functions, right? They're going to be judging at Christ's direction, and they're going to be possessing this kingdom.

So we're going to be busy. We're going to be busy doing stuff. I know Mike's talked about, you know, he wants a certain place here and maybe Donna has a place over here and Bonnie's going to have a place over there. So we're all going to have sections where we're judging. So anyway, it's going to be wonderful.

So anyway, he makes this connection here saying, or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And it's assumed to be true. And it's a world or nations. And it's based on the truth that's to follow. So he's going to back up that statement. He's going to compare that statement. We're going to judge the world.

He's going to say, well, if you're going to judge the world in the millennial kingdom, and he's going to say, that speaks of what you are right now. You have abilities in Christ that allow you to make judgments now. And that's what the last half the verse is.

Are you not confident to constitute the smallest law courts, smallest matters, the least of least weight, and actually NSAB, a marginal translation has, to try the most trivial cases. Imagine the, you know, think of the Supreme Court Justice. Would he be able to judge traffic court? Would he be okay, or she okay, to do a traffic court? Well, you'd think, that's a no-brainer. They're doing this, why can't they do a traffic court?

Well, that's what Paul's point is. You're going to judge the world at Christ's direction. You can't settle a dispute between your brothers and sisters in the church. That doesn't make any sense. You obviously have the qualifications, but it's qualifications in Christ. So, the constable says, in light of the future judgments, any decision the believers make must be in the church court, is relatively trifling, considering what the magnitude of the decisions they'll be making in the millennial kingdom.

In some ways I'm not looking forward to that. But we'll be perfect, so it won't be a burden. Anyway, enough of that. You start thinking about that, why am I judging nations? Wow, that sounds like a lot of work. I thought I was going to be just floating around in a cloud in heaven. This idea, we've got to work and judge people, that sounds like a lot of work.

And so, okay, verse three, or do you not know? So this is the second argument. So the first argument was to the fact that why shouldn't you be judging your brothers and sisters? Why shouldn't you be bringing the problems to the church? The first one was you're going to judge the nations and millennial kingdom. The second is that you're going to judge angels. You say, Whoa, I'm going to judge angels. That sounds like it. That's you watch some of the TV programs. You're like, well, I'm going to judge these guys. I don't know.

So basically this phrase, it's the second time he's used it in this little section. It's used six times and it's the idea that it's something you should know and actually the verb tense has it that way. It's a perfect tense so it could be brought across as, you Corinthians have known this in the past and continue to know it up into the present. So Paul had been teaching them apparently something about this.

What's interesting is in looking through scripture I couldn't find this truth enumerated this way in another passage. I didn't do an exhaustive look, but I did a kind of, you know, a search real quickly and said, I don't see this showing up another place. So, but Paul says they should know this.

We'll judge, to sit in judgment upon. And first of all, okay, and then kind of a resume of the angels, if you will, they were created of the highest order being under God, and they're at his beck and call. They're superhuman beings. But in spite of that, in spite of that, our position in Christ, we have an honor higher than the angels. And then we get a little bit of a glimpse of that possibly in 1 Peter 1, chapter 1, where it talks about angels' desire to look into the things of salvation. They don't quite understand it and it's interesting that these amazing beings don't understand the things which which once we come to know Christ that we understand pretty seem pretty basic and pretty understandable.

So that's that's his second argument and then he says and then once again he does comparison how much more the things of this life if you're going to judge angels It should be a, quote, no-brainer to judge the things here in this life, right? So then he goes on in verse 4 and kind of wraps it up for this little section. So if you have law courts dealing with the matters of this life, so once again, the Roman courts, they did a good job at doing things well in the world issues, but not in the jurisdictions of the saints.

And then Constable kind of points out this is in reference to disputes between Christians, but why take them to the heathen court? Okay, then lastly in this verse here, how could you appoint as judges ones being a little esteemed in the church? So maybe we need to think about that just for a little bit. How could you appoint as judges to sit to judge? Little esteem to despise, to treat with scorn.

So, and then once again, this is where it's important. The believer has this high calling because he's in Christ Jesus. And an unbeliever does not have that. The judges of this world have a high position in this world system, but not in the church. Okay. Oops, I don't want to go backwards. Okay, so that was a quick review. So now, you think Paul would have kind of lightened up? well now he's a double down as they say right he he he live into them so to speak and now he's gonna so let's read these four verses and he's gonna even be more severe in his his issues with the Corinthian church I say this to your shame is it so that there is not one among you one among you wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren but brother goes to law with brother and and that before and that before in believers actually then it's already a defeat for you that you have lawsuits with one another why not rather be wronged why not rather be defrauded well I think that verse 7 is just a really last part of that is really interesting and challenging and then lastly he says on the contrary you yourself wrong and defraud you do this even to your brethren or to your brother Pretty sad, pretty sad testimony to the believers there. Okay, so let's just kind of start through this.

He says, I say this to your shame. The word shame here is the idea A sense of wrong, a wrong action, a withdrawal. You know, the term, hang your head in shame. True shame is feeling terrible about what has happened and almost wanting to retreat from that and saying, well, I know that's terrible and I shouldn't have done that. And you don't want to be part of it anymore. And it's used here in 1 Corinthians 15, 34. Become sober minded as you ought stop sinning for some have no knowledge of God.

I speak this to your shame So Paul's motive here is actually which is interesting he wants he doesn't just want to shame them He wants them to feel shameful. He wants to arouse in them a sense of shame. That is really really strong And this is actually I taught this section back in chapter 4 where he says, I do not write these things to you to shame you. So here he's saying, I don't want to shame you. But he's changing his view now for this issue, but to admonish you as my beloved children. So this is much stronger.

He wants them to have a sense of shame in what they're doing. And he wants that to come from themselves, them to feel shameful. Whereas the other case back in chapter 4, he was just to admonish them as beloved children. Quite a shift in his focus here, quite a shift in his intent.

So here's, is it so that there is not one among you, not one wise man among you? So Linearity has it thus, is there not among you not even one wise man? So wise man here is Sophia. Believer endowed with spiritual and practical wisdom and this wisdom has to be God's wisdom and James has a good thing to say about this James 3 13 who among you is wise and understand him let him show by his good behavior his deeds and gentleness of wisdom so true wisdom from God has is worked out in the believers life is shown by their behavior and It's not just, you know, you've come across people that can speak well, they can talk well, they can tell you a good thing, but their true wisdom, this verse is talking about, is really lived out in their life. They practice the wisdom that they talk about in their behavior, in their deeds.

Who is able to decide? So once again I did the Subject verb and direct. I thought this was helpful. So the wise man the who in this last part who the wise man will be able so this really to me spoke of the fact that This is the word from dunamis or dynamite Who has the power to be wise and it has it has to be sourced in God these two verses kind of speak of that in Ephesians 3 20 and Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we can ask or think according to the power that works within us.

So it's God working within us that gives us the wisdom. And then this verse is just super too. 2 Corinthians 9.8. And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that always, having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed. So God is able. He has the power. And since His life is operative in our life, is living itself out through our life, we have the power to decide, and that's the direct option, to decide, to give a judgment.

We may not see that in ourselves, but I think This is why Paul is upset by that. There's not one among you, there's not one person that can't decide the things of believers in their body. It's between brethren. But here's what's happening. So he presents the case. There's not one wise to do that. But what's the reality of what's happening in Corinth?

But brother goes to law with brother and before the unbeliever. This is the reality of what's happening and this is why he's upset. to judge his brother, and judge here is Kreno, to have a lawsuit, to go to law, and it's the same word that we saw earlier back in verse 1, and therefore before unbelievers. So the believer is to be a witness to the world for Christ, but he's certainly not being a witness when he's doing this. The witness can either be Christ's life, or it can be Adam's life, or the self life. And in this case, they're not displaying Christ's life. And that's why Paul's upset.

So okay, so actually what I did here, just as a little bit of an interlude. Let's think about, and Macaulay went through this and I thought it was good, so I just kind of took this and I put a few comments in here. When may a believer legitimately become involved in civil court? So this is McCauley's opinion. I thought it was pretty good. And I added some verses in there to kind of make it a little bit stronger possibly. So his first point is, we have a civil obligation. Believers have a civil obligation. If required to answer a charge or to testify, a Christian must respond.

Remember, Peter and Paul were asked to, they were actually, they weren't asked, they were drug into court several times to testify. Well many times we're asked to testify, sometimes because of our position, because of our expertise. I know Courtney does, I think Bob is expert witnesses. You have a knowledge that You may be required to, and you don't say, well I can't do that because I'm a Christian and I can't, the Lord wouldn't have you do that, I don't think. He wants you to be open, to testify what you know and understand. So you have an obligation to do that.

A Christian lives under the law of the land, not just as much as others, and it reminded me of what Christ said, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar, and to God the things that are God. The problem we may have here is that there are different Caesars out there. We've got the local Caesars, and we've got the state Caesars, and we've got the national Caesars, and all those Caesars. You may have problems with some of those Caesars, but the bottom line is that if you're asked to, you know, if they ask you to come to court and do something, you should be willing to do that, unless it's something that, you know, anyway.

So, second point. we may need to make clarification of agreements. I thought I was a little bit weak in this area. I thought this would be good for Mike. McCauley talks about insurance claim, contractual stipulation, real estate transaction, and as such may require legal interpretations that only can be provided by a court. What occurred to me was that people sometimes, who you've signed up with, maybe your insurance or your real estate, They don't perform to what they said they were going to perform in the contract.

So you say, well, okay, this guy said he was going to build me a fence, and he never built me a fence. And the contract says you're going to build me a fence. Well, I guess you could possibly not say, well, I guess I wasn't supposed to have a fence. But normally you'd say, well, I think I should have a fence because I paid you for that.

So that's a legitimate case, I think. Okay, thirdly. when we need action in a criminal matter. This one, you know, to me is pretty straightforward. If you have, you know, if you have information, we shouldn't hesitate to sign a complaint against one who's broken the law. If you see something happening or you're an eyewitness to something, to refuse to say anything seems very wrong. You should, you know, say what you know and not hold back, basically.

And then lastly, we may need to go to court as a last resort. And I think this is a last resort. Negotiations is better than litigation, but not always possible. Negotiation assumes cooperative party cooperation. Many times, that's not possible because of the disposition of the parties.

And I thought, if you think about it, Paul wasn't shy about his citizenship. He was a Roman citizen, and when that proved to be helpful to his ministry, he would say, hey, I'm a Roman citizen and I have the rights of a Roman citizen. And he appealed his case to Caesar, right? That's why he got to Rome. So he didn't hold back. He was willing to report what was his.

So anyway, that's Macaulay's four points. But I think actually verse 7 here has a really interesting point, kind of another little take on this. So let's go on to verse 8 here, or actually verse 7, excuse me. So let's just do the whole thing here. So in this little section it says, actually then it is already a defeat for you that you have lawsuits with one another.

So the subject here really is kind of is you have lawsuits with one another, that's the subject, and it's already a defeat. So what he's saying here, the fact that you entered into a lawsuit against a brother outside the church, and you took them to the civil court there in Rome, he's speaking to the Corinthians, you already are defeated, you already have lost the case, in a sense, before you ever said a word. He's not concerned about the details of the case, he's just concerned about the honor and glory of Christ. So he says that, Paul reminds them that they already lost before the judge ever gave his verdict. The shame of people who profess to love one another and put the welfare of others before their own, suing each other, was a defeat in itself.

Pretty strong, again, pretty strong testimony there. But the last part here is what I really thought was interesting. So the first point is, why not rather be wronged? And this may be a hard one. So you're in the right. Actually, I remember Hal Malloy talking to me. He says, Roger, you can be absolutely right, talking about arguments with one another. You can be absolutely right about your point, but you may You may offend your brother or sister by making that point so strong.

Why not back off? Why not say, okay. And so that stuck with me over the years. So this is not exactly this case. Maybe being wronged here might be some financial thing or whatever. And he's going to talk about that. Permit yourself to be, permit yourself rather to be wronged, to suffer wrong, to suffer. It's in the passive voice.

Then I thought about Christ. You know, Christ was terribly wronged, right? He was slandered, abused, but he never said a word. He never defended himself. And I'm not saying that we should go around doing that necessarily, but it gives pause for thought. Sometimes, in some situations, it might be better to be wronged and let the Lord work it out. Actually, I had a discussion with a brother who was very upset about Holly Hills. There's a lot to this story, but anyway, I said, well, couldn't you just accept being wronged? How about that? He didn't. That wasn't what it was about. So anyway, I'm telling you nothing about the case. But anyway, it's one of those things, I tried to use this. I hadn't actually thought of that verse.

Being wrong can actually be a very powerful statement sometimes. Secondly, why not be defrauded? This might be a little bit harder one when somebody defrauds you. be defrauded, allow oneself to be cheated, passive voice again. Oops, I can't go back. I can't go back easily. So actually there's some details here. Good, good, good. So actually, so Paul has a couple of additional points here, I thought. So Paul, and this premise, this is from Macaulay. It's better to be wronged than to be wronged. It's better to be robbed than to rob. Pretty obvious. Neither is desirable. But if one is inevitable, why not take being wronged or cheated for Christ's sake?

And I was going to add one additional thing that kind of fit in here for me, that's helped me over the years. I was going to say, it's better to give than to lend. Doesn't exactly fit in this, but sometimes if you're trying to help a brother or sister out, you lend to them. Then there's always the tension about repaying it. Why not just give it? And it kind of fits in here, I thought at least. Why not just, if you have the means, just give it and say, I don't, you know, the Lord has blessed me, here it is.

If this helps you out, that's great. Better to Better to give than to lend that's kind of a corollary to some of this But but all these are are this is trying to work out these things between your brothers and sisters and it's always a lot more complicated There's a lot more issues and feelings are being hurt and money many times You know, we've had issues in our body and I know Mike and Vern spent a lot of time with different people and they were involved in the financial thing and I And it was finally settled, but sort of settled, but not really. They're still hurt around and anyway, it's tough. Okay, so he's going to wrap it up here in verse 8.

On the contrary, you yourselves, and this is what's really sad. So it goes through about being wronged and being defrauded. And then he says, well, you know what the actual reality is? On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your brethren. So he says, I talked about this, but the reality is you're wronging and defrauding one another, your own brothers. This is actually kind of a pretty sad section if you think about it. You do wrong and defraud. You're committing wrong and defrauding.

Colossians 3.25 says, For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality. and you do this even to your brethren, rather than allowing yourselves to be wronged and defrauded, you wrong and defraud your brother in Christ. Pretty sad.

So my last little thought here is from Constable. Christians should be willing to give to one another rather than trying to get from one another. In other words, there should be no going to court with one another at all. Nevertheless, if the Corinthians insisted on going to court, it should be a court of believers in the church, not of unbelievers outside the church. And one last, just one last little thing, and Mike can tell the story better than I, Mike had the privilege of talking to two brothers, one in our church and one outside our church, and he was, they came to him as a judge, just like what we're talking about here, and Mike listened to those, and he decided, he gave his opinion, and they accepted it.

One was okay, okay, you should do this and resolve that and it worked. So it does work. Praise God for that. And it can work. We thank you father. Thank you for our time today, Lord. Thank you for the blessings we have father. Thank you for the wonderful life we have in our savior. We ask in his name. Amen.