Does the Bible apply to real life? Some, of course, answer no to this question, but they are typically those who don’t think of the Bible as it really is – God’s very Word to us. But do any of us who have a high view of the Bible feel like it doesn’t apply to real life situations? I mean, if you’re being honest, perhaps you have felt sometimes that there’s a good portion of your life that you feel like the Bible doesn’t address? Maybe we cringe a bit when we hear that a church simply systematically preaches through books of the Bible, wondering how such a church would ever address the real-life issues that people are going through. Maybe we feel like applicable preaching requires us to talk about real life, and if possible, at the end of our preaching, perhaps tack on a text that may be loosely connected to what we’re talking about.
I hope that none of you in this room have thought, “Yes, that’s what we need to do.” I hope that none of you in this room do indeed feel like the Bible doesn’t address most of our real life situations. And I would dare say that if we do feel that way it may expose more of our ignorance of the Scripture than some deficiency in the Bible itself. There were several times in early days as a believer that I simply thought the Bible didn’t address a topic only to find out that I simply hadn’t read all of my Bible or had not read it carefully. There have been other times that I’ve had the opportunity to show someone in a counseling situation that the Bible addressed their specific situation when they thought the Bible was silent on that issue.
The reality is that the Bible is immensely practical. Throughout our preaching of the canon over the last decade and a half we’ve found ourselves preaching on singleness, marriage, sex, divorce, parenting, what it looks like to do our jobs well, how we should interact with believers walking in sin, how we should interact with other believers, how we should use our money, how we should think about giving, how we should respond to traffic laws, how we should respond to our elderly parents, among a myriad of other things, simply by committing ourselves to preach systematically through the Bible with a commitment to make the point or points of our sermons reflect the point or points of the scriptural text itself.
But in case you’ve missed how practical and applicable the Bible is along the way, this morning’s text should leave you no doubt. First Corinthians 6:1-11 deals with how believers should react when perhaps the only path seems to be engaging in a lawsuit. What do you do when one believer in the church hires another believer in the church to do a job, and at the end they have a disagreement and come to a stalemate? For example, what do you do if one believer hires another believer in Christ to build you a deck, agree on the plans, get to the completion of the project and the one brother feels like he didn’t quite get the deck he was paying for and the other believes her perfectly fulfilled the requirement? What do we do when one brother hires another to do his landscaping, and some bushes die a week later with one brother accusing the other of providing unhealthy bushes while the other accuses the one of not properly caring for the bushes and bringing about their death?
These things happen don’t they? These things happen between believers. And when they happen, we’ve got to think about what to do. How do such matters get decided? Now, we know that the world’s answer to this is that you engage in a lawsuit. You sue the person. A number of months back, I ran into an individual who informed me that he had taken off a few days of work because he was suing someone over one of these kinds of issues. He didn’t feel like the tile work he’d hired out to have done in his house was done right, and he was refusing to pay the person. Then, one of them sued the other, and they were going to have the matter argued before a judge who would make a ruling. That’s how our world works in regard to such matters.
But Paul tells us in our text that the church simply must work differently. He writes to the Corinthians in 6:1-11 appalled at the idea that they were suing each other over such matters. He can’t believe they would do this. Listen to the strong language he uses, asking in verse 1, “When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?” But why? Why does this bother Paul so much?
Well, he outlines all the things he sees wrong in this and why believers should respond differently than suing each other over such grievances in this text. And it’s this that I want us to see one another. And though some of the reasons Paul gives for why Christians shouldn’t respond as these Corinthians do specifically apply to this matter, others are broader and I hope will convict and encourage us this morning.
The first reason Paul gives for why the Corinthians shouldn’t have been engaging in lawsuits against one another is that:
In verses 1-4 Paul argues that the Corinthians should have been bringing such matters to the church. Notice two things in these verses: 1) how he urges them to bring matters to the church, and 2) why he things the church is competent to judge. He writes, “When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So, if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church?”
Now, I want to address a difficult element in these verses first and then move to easier ones and application. What does Paul mean when he says that the church will judge the world and angels? What makes this question even more difficult is that Paul seems to assume the Corinthians know what he’s talking about. He says, “Do you not know …?” which seems to suggest that they should know. And my guess is that we might say to Paul, “I don’t think I do know.” So what then does Paul mean?
Well, some commentators point out that Paul could be referencing the Greek translation of Daniel 7:22, where the text seems to suggest that the Lord will appear and hand over the judgment of his enemies to the saints. And while that may be it, it may be something as simple as recognizing that if we are believers, united with Christ, then we will share in the rule and reign of Christ. So, think for example of how Psalm 2 pictures Christ judging his enemies. God says to the Son here that he will give him the nations and, “You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Psalm 2:8). That’s clearly judgment, isn’t it? But then listen to what the Lord says to the church in Thyatira in Revelation 2:26-27, “The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.” That’s a picture of us sharing in Christ’s judgment over his enemies – which will include the world and even angelic beings who will receive judgment for their rebellion against the Lord. So, I think that’s most likely what Paul is referencing here.
Now that we have addressed that more difficult detail, the point is obvious. If the church is going to be part of that judgment to come where we will judge the world and angels with Christ, then surely the church is competent to judge trivial matters like a grievance over the building of a deck, or landscaping, or whatever particular grievance these Corinthians were dealing with. And I should note that these are the kinds of things Paul is referring to. He’s referring to what we call civil cases, not criminal cases. He’s not saying that if someone commits murder in the church then you should say, “Well, let’s keep this from the authorities, and we’ll handle this ourselves.” Of course not. That’s a criminal case where the state or federal authorities bring the charge. We’re talking about a civil matter where people just have grievances against each other – like “He put an unhealthy plant in my landscaping and it died a week later” kind of matters. That’s what Paul is referring to in these verses.
And notice that Paul isn’t suggesting here that we should never face such difficulties or disagreements where we’ll need mediation. Paul assumes we will. He doesn’t put his head in the sand. He simply says that when we do have grievances against one another, come to the church. Find someone in the church or a few in the church or the pastors of the church and let them help mediate the issue. After all, not only will we judge the world and angels, but unlike the world, we have the Spirit, we understand sin, love, and Christian unity much better than the world. The church is simply uniquely and gloriously competent to judge, so why would you turn elsewhere? That is reason number one. But we can note a second:
Notice in these verses how Paul not only encourages us to come to the saints but is appalled that believers would law such cases before unbelievers, before those who aren’t part of the church. He says in verse 1, “Does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?” Again, in verse 4, “Why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church?” Or again, in verses 5-6, “I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brothers, and that before unbelievers.” He then notes in verse 7 that whoever wins the lawsuit, you’ve already lost just being there in that position before unbelievers. What does he mean by that? Well, when two believers have a grievance against one another and you go stand in a court to let unbelievers rule in the matter, you do great harm to the witness of the church.
What’s the unbelieving judge thinking when two known believers stand in his court with a lawsuit against each other? Logically the judge could think, “Obviously the church isn’t competent to handle these kinds of real-life issues among its members. Obviously, the church is made up of people that are just as selfish, greedy, and bitter as the rest of us; they are no different. And obviously the gospel is powerless to transform people so that Christians don’t operate just like the rest of us.” All of that would be false. All of that would be an unjust assault on the gospel. But could you blame a judge for thinking that if two believers stand before him in a civil lawsuit against each other? Of course not.
And that’s what Paul is so appalled over – that these believers would be willing to ruin the witness and reputation of the church, the gospel, and Christ. And all of that over a trivial matter! This is why Paul asks them, “Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?” (v. 7). Aren’t you more driven by making sure the world sees the glory of the church, the gospel, and Christ than you are having some nice deck or healthy plants in your landscaping? Aren’t you willing to lose a few dollars on a job rather than risk the church, the gospel, and Christ looking weak before Christ’s enemies?
And with this line of questioning, Paul is moving us deeper and deeper into the issue. Paul is looking at the hearts of the Corinthians, and he is forcing them to do the same. And this brings us to our third reason why Paul is appalled and why we shouldn’t bring lawsuits against our brothers and sisters in Christ:
Paul wants the Corinthians to take a good long look in the mirror. Whereas they should prize the gospel, the church, and Christ so much that they’re willing to suffer wrong and be defrauded in order to exalt the gospel, instead they’re actually wronging and defrauding others. And not only that, but they’re wronging and defrauding their own brothers in Christ (v. 8).
So, Paul wants them to see that what is characterizing their hearts and actions right now is the same things that characterize those who are going to hell. He writes, in verses 9-10, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
Now, when Paul says, “Inherit the kingdom of God,” he means have eternal life. Think of the description of judgment in Matthew 25, where the Lord will separate the sheep on his right and the goats on his left and then “say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’” (Matthew 25:34). That’s what Paul is referring to when he says that these people will not inherit the kingdom. He means they won’t know eternal life on that last day. He means they will go to hell.
This should shake the Corinthians. You can’t be consistently characterized by these descriptions and think you’ll avoid hell. You can’t be consistently characterized by sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, pursuing homosexual practice, stealing, greed, getting drunk, swindling money from someone, or reviling your brothers. People who are characterized by these kinds of behaviors won’t inherit eternal life. It doesn’t matter if they can say, “But I walked an aisle” or prayed a prayer or were baptized. Their life showed that their profession of faith simply was untrue. And the reason it’s untrue is because the gospel transforms us. It puts in our hearts a desire to obey and a willingness to repent when we disobey.
Now, clearly Paul doesn’t mean we’ll never sin, even in the ways listed here. But he is showing that people who are characterized by these kinds of things are showing that they don’t know Christ. And I think the reason he’s bringing this up to the Corinthians is to say to them, “So tell me how you’re different. Tell me why you shouldn’t be in this list.” I think he wants them to see that the kind of wicked and evil desires that those listed in verses 9-10 have are the same kind of wicked desires that have driven them to bring these lawsuits against one another.
They need to repent, don’t they? They need to show that this isn’t who they are or who they’re going to be. And if this is us, we need to repent as well. Let’s not be characterized by those practices that will characterize those going to hell, but let us repent. That is, another reason believers shouldn’t bring lawsuits against each other is because when we do we show that we’re being driven by the same sinful desires that characterize those going to hell, and that should be a wake-up call for others.
But it’s fitting for Paul to follow such stern and terrifying warnings with encouragement, isn’t it? And he does so here. His final reason why believers shouldn’t engage one another in lawsuits is because:
After giving this long list of those who will not inherit the kingdom, Paul says in verse 11, “And such were some of you. 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.” Paul says, in essence, “I don’t think you are those people in verses 9-10. I know that’s who some of you once were, but I don’t think that’s who you are now. I believe that you’ve known the saving work of our Lord whereby he cleansed you of your sin, set you apart for his service, and declared you righteous before him. I believe you’re going to repent and turn from these things.” That’s what Paul is saying in verse 11, I believe.
You see, when we are saved by faith in the crucified and risen Lord, believing in the gospel for our salvation, then the Lord does an amazing work. He frees us from condemnation that we deserved because of our sins. Therefore, we no longer have to operate like the world, like those who are captive to seeking their own good, their own gain, and their own glory. We’re free not to chase after those things because we have all we need and could desire in Christ. And having all we need and could desire in Christ, we’re free to love others, build up others, sacrificially give to others, and give up our own lives if necessary for the gospel, the church, and Christ. The gospel frees us to be the kind of people who will say, “If me getting more money means the church’s witness might be compromised, I’ll go without it. I don’t have to be greedy because I have all things in Christ.”
And I want to say to us as a congregation that I too trust the Lord has done a glorious work in your lives. Some of you, before coming to Christ, were caught up in drunkenness, sexual immorality, homosexual practice, greed, adultery, and the like. But the Lord saved you from that. And he does save from those things. No sin is too great for the Lord to bring you out of through the power of the gospel. And maybe some of us this morning have slipped back into those things. You’ve walked in adultery, you’re giving in to sexual immorality, drunkenness, pursuing homosexuality, and being driven by greed. And if so, I want to say to you that Christ has washed you, sanctified you, and justified you by the Spirit so that you don’t have to walk in those things anymore. You can be free from those practices that characterize those going to hell. So, turn from them and demonstrate the power of Christ and his gospel.
In fact, as we come to the table this morning, let it be a time for all of us to repent of those things that characterize those going to hell, to visibly demonstrate the power of the gospel, to pray for one another – that we would not walk in these ways, and to pray for others who do not know Christ and are walking in these ways mentioned in verses 9-10 to know the power of the gospel this morning and through faith in the finished work of Christ hear Paul’s words: “And such were some of you. 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.” Amen.