november 13, 2011… · – i think week 1 – next sunday, were going to cover the rest of chapter...

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You guys doing good? Good. You look good. Today we are continuing this series called Cow Tipping and

basically what we’ve been doing over the last several weeks is we’ve been walking through this letter called

1 Corinthians. It was written to first-century Christians. This was a church that had developed some pretty

significant problems, and we’ve been kind of hard on them – if you’ve been here over the last several

weeks. We’ve been kind of rough on them, and so I’d actually like to speak up to their defense here just a

little bit by pointing out that church was a brand new concept to these Corinthian Christians. They hadn’t

grown up in church. They didn’t have the advantage of going to church camp, Bible bowl hadn’t been

invented yet, and so this was all new to them. They came to know Christ as adults and some of you have

been in that position before where you come into the church and even today – maybe you’re here right

now – and this just all seems really strange to you. You haven’t been in church in a long time, and you don’t

remember it looking like this when you were growing up, and you don’t speak Christianese yet, and there’s

terminology and actions that are just kind of odd and strange to you. This is the Corinthian Christians.

Right? They kind of tracked some old habits and some dirt into the church with them.

Now, for the record, can I just say, I love that? Like, I don’t want be a part of a church that is so sanitized

that people can’t feel like they can come here as they are. So, like I think a healthy church has kind of two

convergences of people that kind of flow in all the time: healthy, mature, gracious, Christ-followers and

then people who just don’t speak the lingo, and didn’t grow up in church. It’s all brand new to them. You

know, they come up to me in the lobby and say, “Hey, that was a blank of a sermon, Aaron. Way to go,” and

don’t even realize it’s wrong. Right? I love that, and I don’t want to pastor a church just full of sanitized,

mature believers or, just on the other way, a lot of immaturity. There needs to be some growth and

maturity going on, and Paul recognized this. I think at times you and I need to be reminded of it as well that

growth is a process. We’re all in process regardless of where we are with Christ, and yet at the same time

we shouldn’t excuse away prolonged immaturity either. That’s a big problem too.

And so that’s why Paul – that’s why I love Corinthians because Paul kind of comes out of the gates the first

four chapters. He just hammers away at beliefs doesn’t he? He says – this is pretty typical for Paul as you

just look through any letter he writes – he’ll always begin by saying this is what we need to believe now

that you are Christ followers because Paul understood then what you and I know to be true today: that

good decisions are almost always the result of good thoughts and good thoughts are always the result of

solid beliefs. You and I train ourselves to think in certain ways, and we get addicted to either good, healthy

thoughts, or we get addicted to bad, destructive thoughts. In fact, the medical community refers to this as

“neurological pathways.” It’s this idea that when I start thinking a certain way, I get addicted to that way of

thinking and it will begin to either look like a road or a rut. It’s almost like a path that we’re blazing through

our minds. They even say that even by the time you are at the age of 2 that you have begun to develop

some of the patterns for the way in which you think. And so is my thought life a road leading me

somewhere healthy, or has it turned into a rut? Albert Einstein famously gave this definition for insanity:

insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. Right? That’s a rut in

our life.

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So, Paul comes along to these Corinthians. He says, “Hey guys, I get it. It’s all new to you, but you need to

develop a new way of thinking that’s going to be based on solid beliefs.” So, in chapter 5 which is what we

covered last week, Paul pivots a bit to practical application and he’s going to stay camped out there pretty

much through the remainder of the letter. And so, he’s just going to address all kinds of issues that pop up

in our individual lives, as well as the life of the church. Now, a little bit of a heads up here, I mentioned this

– I think week 1 – next Sunday, we’re going to cover the rest of chapter 6 and the first part of chapter 7.

Paul is going to hit some issues there. He’s going to talk about intimacy and intimacy within a marriage

relationship, and that message is going to be rated PG-13. Okay? So, I wouldn’t – maybe even a little higher

– I haven’t written it yet. I’ll try to keep it tame. Okay? I wouldn’t recommend your bringing your kids in

here under the age of 14 or so next Sunday. We’ve got great children’s programming and student ministries

that they’ll love, but you might want to invite some adult friends who haven’t been to church in a while

because it just might blow their minds. It’s gonna get real good. I’ll be good; I promise. All right? We’re just

going to stay faithful to the text. Okay. If the text goes there, I’ll go there. It will be embarrassing and fun.

Now, the thing that I love about the Bible generally and the letter to the Corinthians, specifically, is that it’s

not idealistic, but that it’s intensely realistic. It’s one of the reasons why I love just kind of teaching through

this verse by verse, chapter by chapter, because there’ll be some topics and some issues that I would kind

of shy away from teaching, but because the text covers it, I’ve got to cover it as well. Paul just kind of lays

some stuff out there in the open. He says, “Look, here’s some real stuff that we need to talk about that

sometimes we don’t want to talk about in public.” Paul acknowledges that Christians living in community

with each other are at times going to face some disagreements and some conflict. So, we all know that

we’ve got issues in our lives, but very rarely do we ever get or want to get real about it. And I think for the

world – the world looks at the church – and the big turn-off that the world has with the church is that we

maybe try to hide some of the real stuff that we’re all dealing with in our lives. I was talking to a friend of

mine the other night. And he said, “You know, most of my unchurched friends and even the people that I

know who used to believe but now don’t believe, the issue that they always keep coming back to is

hypocrisy. That’s what’s turned them off. That’s what’s actually turned them off from the church and from

God – they’ve run away from it.” I would actually say that it’s probably not hypocrisy, it’s pretending. That’s

what the world hates, because we would all agree that we say things and believe things that we don’t

always follow through on, but it’s when we’re not honest about it. That’s what the world doesn’t like. The

world actually is attracted to transparency and humility. And that’s an important lesson for us.

So, if you’ve got a Bible, go ahead and turn to 1 Corinthians, chapter 6. We’re just going to cover the first

part of this chapter here together today. Really, the issue is every one of us has our mess and our

imperfections – we understand that—but what happens when my mess starts to flow over into your life?

What happens when the mistakes that I make start to impact and influence you? You say, “Okay, Aaron.

You keep your mess over there to yourself.” But we start living in community together. We start doing life

together and you start getting your junk on me, then I’ve got a real problem with that. Here’s kind of the

set up for the teaching here in chapter 6.

When you decide to make a church home (and I realize that some of you haven’t made that decision

yet...you may be visiting here today, you’re church shopping, you’re checking things out, kicking the tires) –

whether you decide to make this church home or some other church home, the expectation and the hope is

that you’ll eventually get to know some people. You’ll sit in the same sections every Sunday. You’ll get to

know those people that sit around you. You’ll be in a Life group. You’ll be in a Bible study, and you’ll begin

to develop some relationships with others. You’ll find out about their personality. You’ll find out about their


life, and you’ll find out about their profession: what they do for a living. And then when you discover that,

we like to hire each other. It’s like, “Hey, I know somebody who does this, or I know somebody in this field,

or this person is really good at wood working. We’ve got a project at the house, I think I’m going to hire

them because I know them, they’re a believer, I think they’ll do me right, and I’d like to give them some

work and help put some food on their table.” It’s kind of a win-win. For me personally, the real estate agent

that sold us the house that we live in is a member of this church. The guy that installed the carpet in that

house that we moved into goes to this church. We had an electrical and a plumbing issue a couple of

months ago. Somebody that goes to the church owns a company and they sent somebody over to take a

look at it and to fix it. Our family doctor goes here; our family dentist, who I haven’t been to in over a year

by the way – (not making eye contact with that individual -they sit over here) goes here. All of our

babysitters go to this church. I sold a car to somebody on staff last summer. So, there are personal and

professional business arrangements that are all going on. It’s a good thing – don’t get me wrong. I don’t just

hire you if you’re a member of this church. Okay? I don’t want that rumor going around. This is not a

commune. All right? But if you do something and I know about it, and we have a relationship and it works

out, man, I’d be happy to give you the work and you all have done the same. Now, that’s the set up.

Here’s the issue. What if that person that you hire who sits in the same row as you here on Sunday morning

or you’re in a Life group or a Bible study -- what if you hire them for something and they don’t do a good

job; they don’t follow through; or they don’t do what you thought they were going to do? What happens

when they over-charge you or what happens when you don’t pay them what they think you owe them?

What happens when that kind of thing happens? Now, I’ll tell you what happens if it’s me. You become the

next sermon illustration. All right? Now, I’m only partly joking about that. In all seriousness, here’s the

question that I really want us to unpack together. How should Christians respond to one another when a

personal or business arrangement goes bad? And it will. All right? How should we respond to each other

when a personal or a professional agreement that we’ve got with another believer – specifically in this

church but it could certainly go outside of that – goes bad? How should we deal with it? Now, in our

country the answer almost always is, lawyer up and go for the jugular, especially if it’s a 1000-degree coffee

that spills in your lap or you find a finger in your chili. We see dollar signs when that happens, and we want

to go after them.

When I was in college, one of the part-time jobs that I had was I mowed yards for a company in the area,

and they sold one of their buildings and a new company took it over. I was there mowing one afternoon,

and the new owner of that building came over and he was kind of snooping around, doing some inspecting,

and there was a large wooden sign hanging on the front of the building that he wanted to remove. He

probably shouldn’t have been on the property any way. I don’t even think it had closed yet, but he was

there. He came over to me and asked me if I would stop mowing and come over and help him remove this

sign that was on the front of the building. It was suspended about 8 or 9 feet in the air. It was made out of

solid wood kind of screwed into this piece of plywood. So, we get up underneath it and we’re trying to

shimmy it loose, and his side ends up coming loose and it swings down and just nails me right here on the

top of the nose. Now, it was an instant blood bath. It was bad. I had blood and water just all in my eyes. I

couldn’t see anything, and I start walking away like trying to gather myself, and he just freaks out. Right?

He’s running laps around me, and he’s peppering me with questions, “Who are you again? Who do you

work for? I didn’t tell you my name, did I?” And then he said this – he goes, “It doesn’t look that bad.”

Doesn’t look that bad?! I’m thinking thanks for the sympathy. I really appreciate that. When I was finally

able to kind of gather myself a little bit and get a little bit cleaned up, this is what he did: he pulled out his


wallet and handed me a $50 dollar bill and he said, “This never happened. All right?” I’m like, “For a measly

$50? I think it did. You want to throw a few more of those in there – I’m already starting to forget.” I didn’t

do that. I did take the $50. (laughing) Hey, man, he offered it. All right? So, he tears out of the parking lot

and it was just kind of funny. I wasn’t going to do anything. It was just funny seeing how scared and afraid

he was. Now, we all know the reason why, don’t we?

In our country there are somewhere around 20 million civil lawsuits filed every year. We have more lawyers

per capita than any other country. Americans spend more on civil litigation than any other industrialized

nation. We spend more on litigation. We spend twice as much than we do on new automobiles. I read

about a judge this last week who sued a dry cleaner for $67 million because they lost a pair of his pants.

They must have fit amazingly well. And it’s really no different within the church. We see – some of the

statistics are pretty depressing – Christians file 4-8 million lawsuits, often against other Christians, costing

$20-$40 billion. One attorney that I read [about] this last week said in his years of practice he has really

seen no noticeable difference between Christians and non-Christians in the filing of lawsuits. It has kind of

become our favorite way to try to resolve disputes. And this is what was happening within the church at

Corinth. Now, remember, I have already told you this a few times, there are only 50 or 60 people in this

church, and they’re all filing lawsuits against one another. This has gotten really, really messy and out of

hand.

Now, one of the reasons why we’re spending 17 weeks in the book of 1 Corinthians is because we can get

distracted by things that pull our attention away from the mission that Jesus Christ gave us. From my

observation and this is even just from growing up in the church and even in my own life, for so much of my

Christian life, I have had a very weak understanding of church ecclesiology. And that word, ecclesiology, is

basically how the church is to be structured, how it is to be put together. Americans, for the most part,

have a very poor understanding of that. I don’t say that as a criticism. It’s just an issue [that is] really ripping

the guts out of the Great Commission. We have a tendency to say, “You know what? It’s just about me and

Jesus. All I need is me and Jesus and my Bible and I’m good to go.” The church is kind of an optional thing.

Now, before you shut me down, I’m not talking about defending the church as an institution. I’m not talking

about defending the church as, hey, we’re right and everybody else is wrong. I’m talking about that

community of believers that Jesus referred to as “his bride.” And Jesus said, “I’ve called the church

together, not to be an institution or the protector of a religion. I’ve called the church to be together as a

community of believers for a mission that you cannot do with just me, Jesus, and your Bible.” Matthew

chapter 28, Jesus gives us this. It’s the Great Commission. He said, “I want you to go and make disciples of

all nations.” He did not say that to just pastors. He said that to everybody that would proclaim His name.

That’s your mission; that you would take ownership of, and you can’t do it by yourself. You need to lock

arms with other believers, and when you keep your eyes on that, when you’re faithful to Jesus in the

scripture, that’s the church. Now, the problem here with these Corinthian Christians is that they had

forgotten that. They had forgotten a whole bunch of stuff. That’s one of the big things that they forget, and

so they had taken their eyes off of the mission.

There is a term on the battlefield. I’m kind of a – I love World War II history, and anything I can read,

anything I can watch on that; I’m going to watch it. One of the things that I have noticed in that is that there

is a term on a battlefield when a soldier ends up accidentally shooting a fellow soldier in the midst of battle.

It’s called friendly fire which is kind of odd because there’s nothing friendly about it. Right? I mean, if I get

shot by somebody, you are not a friend. It’s really looked down upon [by] those of you who know history

well, and that for the obvious reasons. Like, if you’re in battle, and you’ve got enemy fire pinning you down


in a foxhole and then you’re buddy shoots you in the back, that’s not good. Right? You’d like to think that

you can look out for each other. And this is the kind of thing that Paul is talking about in the church. There

is a mission that we have been given as Christ followers. In a sense, it’s a bit like a battle – there’s warfare

going on in which we are trying to make the name of Jesus known. And when the church starts firing at one

another, then that’s bad news; and this is what was happening in the church and it involved litigation and

lawsuits. They are just suing each other. It would make for a very awkward prayer meeting, wouldn’t it?

You sit down. It’s like, “Okay, guys, you got prayer requests. Let’s hear them.” “Yes, I would like prayer for

the court case that I’ve got coming up this next week that you’re taking me to.” “All right, I’ll pray that you

lose and that you pay me the money.” This is kind of the thing that was going on here.

Now, although it is uncommon and it’s unanticipated, that kind of thing happening within our church body

here is always just around the corner; because I know for a fact that many of you in this room have

personal and professional business arrangements with each other. You’ve hired somebody within the

church to build you a back deck next spring. You hire babysitters. You loan each other money, and there is

always the potential for a discrepancy there, and so the question once again is: how should Christians

respond to one another when a professional or business arrangement goes bad? What steps should we

take to resolve this? Paul is going to kind of walk us through this here in chapter 6. The very first thing that

he says is that Christians – if there is a trivial, disputable, secondary matter, then we should have the

maturity and the wisdom to be able to sit down first and try to work it out, try to talk it through before we

go hauling each other off into court.

So, look at what it says in chapter 6, verse 1. We’ll just walk down through this together. He says, “When

one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the

saints?” So, that word grievance there is just another word for lawsuit. So, he says whenever you have a

lawsuit or discrepancy against another … Now, in your Bible, the word there might be neighbor which is

actually a pretty poor translation. That can actually lead to a little bit of confusion in trying to understand

this passage because he’s not necessarily talking about your next door neighbor – it could include that – but

it is much bigger than this. The word here is “another.” So, the context is when one Christ follower has an

issue with another Christ follower – that’s the issue here. And then he says, “Why would you dare go to law

before the unrighteous?” Now, when Paul uses that word “unrighteous,” that is not a derogatory statement

against the moral character of these secular judges. I have sometimes heard it taught that way; that this

means that Christian judges have more wisdom and skill than non-Christian judges. That is not what Paul is

saying. It’s not even a very fair statement. These secular judges I’m sure were very fine, upstanding people

who had a lot of wisdom and skill to try these cases. That is not what he is saying. He’s simply saying they

don’t have the mind of the Lord. They don’t see this through a kingdom perspective. They don’t have Holy

Spirit lenses. So, don’t rush off to them first, but go to the saints. Now, that’s a little bit of an interesting

term because for many of us the term “saint” means that they’re dead. Right? It’s like, “Aren’t all the saints

dead? Isn’t that like a qualification for a saint?” Actually, it’s not. When the Bible talks about saint, it simply

means; if you’ve accepted Jesus Christ into your heart, and you’re led by the Holy Spirit, then you’re a saint.

For some of you that’s like brand new information, isn’t it? You learned something today when you came to

church. Man, you’re a saint. Now, you may not always act like one. You may not always feel like one, but

you are one because of what Jesus has done for you and in you. So, Paul says, “Don’t immediately go

rushing off into the courts, but have a higher view of the community of believers.” That you go there. Now,

Paul – if you were here last week – uses the same tone here as he did last week. He is completely beside


himself. He cannot understand what he’s hearing and what’s going on here – that all of these believers are

taking each other to court.

There are a couple of reasons for that. Number one, it looks so unlike the church in the book of Acts. Acts,

chapter 2, is actually the birth of the church and I would encourage you to go back and read that this

afternoon. Just listen to the descriptors in that passage. These are believers – brand new concept. The

whole church is a different concept. They were led by the Holy Spirit. What was one of their defining

marks? “They sold their possessions and gave to everyone as they had need.” That implies that they might

have gotten ripped off a time or two and they didn’t seem to be all that concerned about it because they

trusted in the Lord and they were being led by the Holy Spirit in that. So, this looks so unlike the church in

Acts. Here’s another reason why Paul would have been beside himself. Here’s just a little bit of historical

context. In the first-century, it would have been completely unreasonable for the Corinthians to find

themselves in a court of law because the Romans and the Greeks were the ones who governed the courts,

and they would let the Jewish community try their own cases; oftentimes, the Jewish community would. So,

there would be synagogues located in every city and the Jews would primarily keep their issues out of

Roman courts. They would settle them in the synagogues and then they would tell Rome what the decision

was and the Romans would say, “Okay, we accept that. You can try your own cases.” We see a perfect

example of this with Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. What happened there? The Jews arrested him, they

brought it [to the high priest]; they couldn’t agree, so what? They took him to the Roman court. Did you

ever kind of wonder why all of that went down? This is why. They took him to the Roman court. They said,

would you please decide this for us. Rome said, “We don’t see any reason for him to be guilty.” They said,

“Well, we want him to be” And they (Rome) said, “Well, you can decide your own case. If you want him to

be guilty, he can be guilty.” That’s why all that went down in that way. So, there’s this new set of people

called “Christians” – brand new on the scene. Rome looked at them and said, “Hey, that’s just an extension

of the Jewish people and so we’ll let them decide their own cases as well.”

So, we’ve got all these new churches in the first-century. Rome says, “Hey, you guys can try your own

cases.” So, there would have been no reason for the Corinthians to find themselves in court. So, why were

they going? Well, because they didn’t trust that they would get what was theirs if they didn’t go. It had

even gotten so bad that they were trying to rip each other off. Look on down in verse 8 at what Paul says

here. He says, “But you yourselves wrong and defraud even your own brothers.” So, this is the idea that this

is no longer about them trying to get justice. This is no longer about them saying, “Hey, I just want to

rightfully receive what is mine.” They were like, “You know what, I want to squeeze and wring every dollar

out of you that I can.” Now, we don’t know a whole lot about how the legal system worked in the city of

Corinth, but we do know a lot about how it worked in the city of Athens, and Athens wasn’t that far away.

In Athens, the process of litigation – get this – the process of litigation was so common that it had become a

source of entertainment. Does that sound familiar to our American culture? Court TV. [The] People’s Court.

When I was growing up, it was with Judge Wapner. Right? Any of you remember him? Judge Judy. Judge

Judy was just on last night. We turn on a TV and we will legitimately sit down for a half hour and watch two

people sue each other for entertainment. We’re not that far off from this culture. Not only that, but

historians say that in the city of Athens, the process of litigation was so common and people found

themselves in court so often that everybody in Athens was a lawyer. Sounds frightening, doesn’t it? But all

that means is that they knew the process so well that they could defend themselves. They found

themselves in court so often that they were really educated in the whole process of law. So, it was just very


common – so what this is is you wrong me, immediately we’re going to court. We’re not going to talk about

it. We’re not going to try to deal with it, and that had crept into this Corinthian church.

Now, keep in mind, how did I start this morning? These Corinthians were brand new to the church. Most of

them came to Christ late in life. They had already developed their neurological pathways and so for them

this is the kind of culture they grew up in. Now, all of a sudden, they’ve got to change and they never made

a clean break. Paul says, “You should be transformed by the renewal of your mind...and you never did. So,

you brought this in to the church with you and I’m tell you, it’s going to corrupt everything.” It’s a little bit

like last week in chapter 5. He said a little bit of leaven just works its way through the whole bread. It’s

going to corrupt everything. He says, “Guys, if you keep it up with this attitude, it’s going to bring the entire

mission of the church down.”

Look at what it says in verses 2 through 5 here. He says, “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?” There’s that word

trivial again. Highlight that. Write that down. We’re going to talk about that here in a minute. Verse 3: “Do

you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!” [Keep

that passage up on the screen here for just a minute.] I’m going to be real honest with you. What Paul just

said, I don’t fully understand. What’s more than that, I don’t fully understand how it’s going to work. But

what he just said is that one day you and I as co-heirs with Christ, we’re going to sit actually in judgment on

the world and then he says, we’re actually going to judge angels, which actually sounds kind of cool, if you

ask me. But, this – what he’s doing here – I don’t think he really fully means [for] us to understand all of

what’s going down. If you want to do some additional study on that: Daniel 7: 22; Matthew 19:28; Luke

22:30; and Revelation 3:21. They all reference this idea of us sitting in judgment of the world and of angels

with Christ. I have no idea how that works. I don’t even fully understand why that would be the case other

than we just are co-heirs of Christ. But here’s the point Paul’s trying to make – don’t be too distracted by

that. Here’s the point he’s trying to make, “You have more wisdom than you can possibly understand

because you are led with the mind of Christ. You have the Holy Spirit living within you and one day, you are

going to be making some really heavy calls. Don’t you think that you can try some of these trivial cases?

Don’t you think you could have enough wisdom and maturity to work this out in the here and the now?”

That’s all he’s saying.

Now, when I was growing up, forms of punishment didn’t really influence me all that much. Groundings

didn’t mean anything to me – especially as I got older. I was like, “Yeah, bring it on. I can do the time.”

Spankings – man, that didn’t really – you know, I was like, “Go ahead.” You know? I remember I squared off

with my Dad one time. He goes, “You can either be grounded or get a spanking.” I was like, “Give me the

spanking. Give me what you got.” Right? Defiant kid. Lectures would usually bounce off of me. Let me tell

you this, though. When a parent or a teacher or a coach would look at me and say, “Aaron Brockett, you

are better than that.” Man; that did something to me. That’s what Paul is saying here to these Corinthian

Christians. This is what he is saying to you and me. It’s like, “Guys, you are so much better than this. You’ve

got wisdom that you don’t possibly even know you have. You have the mind of Christ. You are led by the

Holy Spirit.”

Now, let’s finish out the passage here. Verse 4, “So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before

those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame…” So, he’s shaming them here. They

should be shamed. “Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the

brothers …?” So, he says, “Guys, you should have the wisdom and the mind of Christ.” Here’s a good way to

kind of summarize these few verses. Since you and I have the mind of Christ, we should have the wisdom to


be able to handle some of these agreements that have gone bad in our lives. Whenever there is a personal

or a professional arrangement with another believer, especially in the church, rather than immediately

hauling them off into court – I’m not even saying that you will never find yourself there, because you might

– but the very first step is to go to these exhaustive extremes. You say, “You know what, both of us are led

by the mind of Christ. Both of us have the Holy Spirit. We should be able to sit down here and work this out,

and if we can’t, then the next step is to find a third person. An arbitrator, mediator, a godly man, woman or

organization that can sit down – a third party, objective person – and do we agree ahead of time that

whatever they tell us to do, we should do? Can we agree on that?”

Now, let me just give you a few examples of how this can go down in everyday life. All right? Let’s say that

you’ve got a house for sale and somebody in the church really needs to relocate, and you want to cut them

a good deal because you love them and you want to provide a good place for their family to live. So, you

decide to sell them your house and you just give them a really, really good deal. But something happens in

the closing – any number of things [can] pop up – and it just gets messy real fast. What do you do? Let’s say

that you want to have some kitchen cabinets built or maybe a backyard deck – some kind of a house project

– and so you know somebody in the church that does that kind of work and you hire them. It gets drawn

out, they overcharge you, and the craftsmanship is really, really poor and all of a sudden there is just an

impasse there. What do you do? Let’s say that you decide to sell a car. Somebody in church can’t afford it.

You say, “You know what, we’d just love to bless your family, we’ll give this to you non-interest payments –

you just pay whenever you can.” But it’s been six months and you’ve not seen a payment. What do you do

then? What if you have a roommate who claims to be a Christian, but they eat all of your food. All right?

They never pay their share of the utilities. You haven’t seen rent money out of them in three months. This

has never happened to any of you, right? Every roommate is great, but they just – this is all hypothetical –

have friends over all the time trashing your stuff. What do you do then? Well, here’s the suggested pattern

even from following through this text. The very first question we need to ask is what is their mindset? What

is their mindset? Do they claim to know Christ? Now, here in just a minute, I’m going to address what if

they are not a believer, what do you do then? But for the time being, what is their mindset? Do they claim

to be a Christ follower? If they do, we are obligated to go about this Matthew, chapter 18 style. You can flip

over and look at Matthew 18 later this afternoon. Basically, that’s just this issue of hey, if I’ve got a

problem, I need to sit down. I don’t need to talk about it. I need to talk to you through it. We need to sit

down together and say, “You know, we’re at odds here. We need to work this out together and if we can’t,

we may need to find a third person, arbitrator, or a mediator to help walk us through this.”

Now, I want to focus real quickly here on that little word in verse 2 that Paul mentions. It’s that word

“trivial” that I asked you to underline or write down. This helps us to understand the whole passage. He’s

talking about trivial, disputable, secondary matters that we should just sit down and try to work through.

Now, it’s real important that when we’re trying to understand what Paul is saying here in 1 Corinthians 6

that we balance it with what he teaches in Romans 13. Do you remember what Romans 13 says? Paul

wrote both of them by the way. In Romans 13, Paul says that God has helped to institute government for

the good and the protection of its citizens. We may not necessarily care for that government. We may not

necessarily care for the policies of that government, and yet, somehow, God in his sovereignty is able to

work through those channels to exact his purposes. Even though I may not agree, if it’s within the confines

of ethical, moral, and Biblical guidelines, I am to submit [to] and to respect those governing authorities. I

know that’s about as exciting as telling my 4-year-old she needs to eat her Brussels sprouts, but that’s what

Romans 13 says. So, with that caveat in mind, I have had some people come up to me and say, “Because of


what 1 Corinthians 6 is saying, that no Christian should ever find themselves in litigation ever under any

circumstances.” And that word trivial indicates that this isn’t always the case here. So, here are a couple of

questions that we need to ask ourselves. When you find yourself at an impasse with another believer …

here’s the first question: is this a sin or is it a crime? Is this a sin or is it a crime? Now, what I mean by that is

if this other person lies to you, if they are not totally forthcoming, if they don’t do good work, if they

overcharge you - hey man, that’s wrong – have they committed a crime against the state or have they

broken any laws? And if they haven’t, then this is a trivial, disputable, secondary matter, and I need to sit

down and talk with them about it. If it’s a crime – if we’re talking murder, theft, rape, abuse, clearly

breaking the law – then you have an obligation to report that to the authorities and quite possibly even

take them to court. So, Paul here is not prohibiting all lawsuits. He’s discouraging the trivial ones. That’s

important enough to write down. That kind of captures the whole teaching. He’s not prohibiting all

lawsuits; he’s just discouraging the trivial ones. So, is it a sin or is it a crime? That will determine my next

steps.

Here’s the next question that’s real important: am I representing Jesus well? Am I representing Jesus well?

So, you’ve got to stop and ask yourself, what’s this going to cost me? What’s this going to do to the

friendship? What is this going to do to the name of Jesus? What will this do to our church? You’ve got to

ask all of those questions and Paul addresses this in verse 6, so we’ll read verses 6 and 7 here: “… but

brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers?” So this is the idea that we’re kind of

ruining the name of Jesus or we’re giving the Gospel a black eye in front of unbelievers. They’re saying,

“Look, you guys can’t even work out your own issues.” Verse 7: “To have lawsuits at all with one another is

already a defeat for you.” It’s just already a defeat. “Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be

defrauded?” So, I’ll have some people ask me – especially when it comes to this passage – they’ll say, “Well,

what if the person isn’t a believer? Does that mean we can take him to court right away, then? What if [he

is] – does that mean we should never?” I think we have to take every issue case by case and here are, I

think, a couple of good principles to just write down and be thinking about. What are my motives? What

are my motives? Am I just, “They did me wrong and I just want to correct it. That’s all I want. I don’t want to

gouge them.” Or, is my motive revenge? Is my motive opportunistic? It’s like, “Hey, I see this as an

opportunity to get a little extra money.” If that’s the case, then we’re in violation of this principle.

Then the other question is what will the result be? You know; you get down in this drag out fight, what’s

the result going to be on the other end of that when the dust settles? Paul is simply saying to us, “Hey, slow

down a minute and just be under control. Be controlled by the mind of Christ and be led by his Holy Spirit.”

To have lawsuits flying all around the church? Man; that is already a defeat of the Gospel. It’s just really,

really sad. So, how are you going to make an impact in the name of Jesus Christ if you’re attention is

constantly diverted into litigation? How are you going to make an impact for the Gospel if your money is

tied up in court cases? Paul says, “You know what? There might come a time period when you say, ‘You

know what? We just need to eat it. We just need to eat it because it’s just not worth it. We need to

represent Christ well.’”

Plato, who was not a believer, said this. He said that, really, man will always choose to suffer wrong rather

than to do wrong. Jazz musician Billie Holliday, she one time said this, “Sometimes it’s worse to win a fight

than to lose.” It’s just this idea that I would rather have God’s blessing than monetary victory. I would

rather, instead of trying to protect my property; I would rather protect the reputation of the Lord. Now,

that’s counter-cultural, and that’ll get people’s attention. I wrote down this little axiom in my notes that

might be helpful for you too. It says being right doesn’t always give me the right. Being right doesn’t always


give me the right. Jesus gives us this classic example at his own trial and his own crucifixion. Jesus’ rights

were violated when he was arrested. He wasn’t tried fairly. It was an undue process. He was not guilty, and

yet he was found guilty. Now, how crazy would it have been if Jesus would have counter-sued? Case No.

454, The Son of God v. The People. “Your Honor, I would like to sue for character defamation and bodily

injury on a cross.” But Jesus didn’t do that. Jesus gave up – He had the right, but he gave up His rights as the

Son of God so that you and I could be called children of God. And I’m so glad that He did. Now, let me just

get real honest with you. It is so much easier to preach this text than to live it. It’s so much easier for me to

get up here and lay out these principles and carve it up real nice and tidy, but then you get wronged, you

get hurt, well, that’s a whole other issue. But it’s also an opportunity.

About 4 ½ years ago, Lindsey and I were living in Louisville, Kentucky, and our house had an unfinished

basement, and we really wanted to finish it out. So, we hired somebody that went to that church, who was

a relatively new believer, to do the work for us. He was kind of in between jobs. He wanted to start his own

construction business, and so we said, “Hey, this would be a great opportunity. Why don’t you do this for

us?” And, right away, we could tell that that probably wasn’t the best decision on our part. First of all, he

liked to talk … a lot. So, I’d come home and he’d be talking to Lindsey, he’d be talking on the phone, he’d be

talking to his partner. It was like, “Dude, I see you talk more than work.” We kind of got this feeling that he

was – it was in the winter months – kind of stretching it out a bit because he got to work inside and he

didn’t have another job yet to go to. I just got that feeling. It ended up costing us more money because of

that. We looked past it – got it finished, and right at the same time we were starting to get the basement

finished, I got a phone call from Traders Point and we really felt like –this was a process of 6 or 7 months –

and we really felt like God was calling us to come to this church. So, as soon as we felt that confirmation,

the basement got finished which is great timing. Right? Spend several thousand on a basement and then

move. So, we didn’t even get a chance to really live in it that much. We put the house up for sale and it took

a year for us to sell that house. Some of you have been in that position. For a year, we had two mortgage

payments going on – trying to sell that other house.

Finally, we got an offer from somebody who lived in Florida. They put down a good faith deposit. We set up

a closing date contingent upon a clear home inspection. One afternoon when the home inspection got

finished, I got a phone call from my agent and she said, “We’ve got an issue.” She said [there are] a few

minor problems that we can fix, but she said there’s a pretty significant one in the basement. The bathroom

that we had installed before we moved out got plumbed wrong, and the crock of the sump pump was filled

with sewage because it was running right into it. We didn’t know because we had moved right away. We

didn’t have much of a chance to live in it. We would have caught it a lot earlier; we just didn’t know. So,

we’re scrambling. We have a week to close, so I called a plumber and asked if he could fix it. He said, I think

I can. It’s going to be close. He said, “I’ll warranty the work. I’ll do all the right paperwork; make sure it’s all

up to code. It will cost you about $3,000.” It’s like all right. It’s what we have to do. So, we did it all. At the

day of closing, we couldn’t be down there. We had to do a Power of Attorney and we said, “Hey, let’s

disclose everything that we found in the home inspection. Tell them that we covered it all. Show him all the

paperwork, all the receipts for the plumb work. It’s all good. It’s all been covered by warranty.” And I’ll

never forget. I got a phone call from my real estate agent that afternoon. I thought it was a phone call to

say, “Hey, congratulations, it’s a done deal.” But she called, and immediately I could tell something was

wrong. She said, “Aaron, the buyer just backed out because of this plumbing issue and he didn’t think that

you were being very forthcoming with him. He thought you were lying about it, and he wants his deposit

back.” Man, I was so mad. Right? I’m sitting there at the desk, and my eyes are closed, and she says these


words, “Do you want to sue? I think you’ve got a case. You can pursue [this] to keep the deposit. You can

sue the guy who put in the basement.” Man, I wanted to. Right? Every kind of fleshly part of me was like,

“Yea, I think we should do that.” I said, “No, I need to talk to Lindsey about it. We need to think about it;

pray about it.” I hung up the phone, went home and talked to Lindsey about it, and of course – you know,

she’s like the Holy Spirit in my life – so, she kind of like talks me off the ledge and we called a couple of

godly people that we knew and we kind of prayed it through, and I called up my agent the next day and I

said, “No, we don’t want to do that. Just let him go and we’ll just eat it.” All right?

Now, let me tell you … this is not … I wrestled with giving you that illustration because I’m very well aware

of “rock star” preacher illustrations. Right? Where I step up to the plate and smack it out of the park and

say, “Have a good week.” I’m not telling you that was easy. I’m not telling you I didn’t sin because I am

pretty sure I sinned in my thoughts repeatedly. Okay? All I’m telling you is that at the end of the day, what

won out was that I wanted to be led with the mind of Christ. Now, I know that some of you have your own

personal issues here today. For some of you, this sermon is like, “Hey, this is nice food for thought. I’ll tuck

this away for later.” Some of you, you’re right now in the very heat of something and it’s kind of hitting a

little bit too close to home. I would never presume to tell you what you should do. I would never presume

to tell you that what I did there is what you should do. The only way I would give my advice and counsel is if

you asked for it, and even then, you could just totally ignore it. That would be fine by me.

Let me just leave you with these four thoughts. In whatever situation you find yourself, represent Jesus

well. Be guided with His mind. Be led by the Holy Spirit, and at the end of the day, trust that God’s got your

back. God’s got your back. Now, if we had gone into litigation – you know this, we would have had to take

our house off the market, pay double mortgage payments for who knows how long, utility payments, pay to

have the yard mowed, and court fees. We just said, “You know what? Let’s just not do that.” The day after

we decided not to do that, we got another solid offer from a young couple and we closed three weeks later.

Now, I guess that is the step up. Hey, look at that: it all works out. Right? But I’m just telling you – I tell you

that just to say God’s got your back.

So, Paul says to these Corinthians and he says to you and to me today, “Look, at one time you were driven

by rage and revenge, but now you are led by mercy because you have a new mind in you. At one point you

were just consumed with being right, but now you’re just concerned about being right before the Lord. At

one time it was just your agenda – that was all that mattered – but now you’re looking out for the needs

and the compassion of others.” The world doesn’t see that enough from the church. I think the reason why

the world isn’t all that interested in the Gospel is because the world rarely sees the Gospel in action. And

that’s the Gospel in action. My unbelieving friends and family would have a lot more interest in Jesus if they

could see Jesus in me. All I’m saying is that it’s not easy in some moments to do that. It’s a lot easier to

represent Jesus well when things are going well, but when things are falling apart and money and property

are on the line, when you step up, it’s like a megaphone for the voice of Jesus into the life of the world.

There’s no other reason why you should do that, but I can see Jesus in you and I can see how the Gospel

has made a tangible impact in your life. That’s the point of the passage. Now, it’s time to make it the

priority of our lives.

Today, in response to this, we’re going to take communion together, and if you’re visiting with us today or

if you would not say that you’re a Christ follower, then that’s okay, you can just let the tray pass. Nobody’s

going to think weird about that at all. You can just sit, and here’s what I would ask you to do. I’d just ask you

to spend some time. If you’ve been estranged from the church for a while, if you’re outside of Christ, I’d

just ask you during this time to pray and say, “God, I had no idea that the Bible ever got that practical. God,


is there anything that You want me to know as a person here today. I believe I’m here, and God, I’m at least

open to hearing from You today.” Make that your prayer. For others of you, as you take communion, I just

want to encourage you to receive this teaching into your hearts, as difficult as it to hear, and say, “God,

how do you want us to apply this to our lives right now? God, we know there’s going to be an issue coming

up in the future. Give us Your mind and Your spirit and leading in that.” And then for others of you, maybe

right now your heart is so jaded towards God and so cold towards God that you probably should just let

communion pass you by today and that’s all right. That’s fine. Paul’s going to later say to the Corinthians

that you should do that. You should evaluate your mind and your heart before you take communion

because this is our response back to this teaching today.

So let me pray and we’re going to respond and then we’ll close this out this morning in worship. Father, we

come to you right now and we thank You for this teaching. Thank you that it’s so applicable to our lives.

God, it’s not easy, but I pray that You would give all of us the conviction to represent You well, to know what

steps we need to take, to know when we should maybe file some sort of a litigation suit against somebody

and when we should not. God, I just pray that You would help us to be guided by Your mind and Your spirit.

If there is anybody in here today that is far from You, angry with You, has been hurt by those who bear Your

name, God, I pray they can receive some healing this morning. That they would know that this is a place of

grace, that they are more than welcome to come here just as they are, and yet, when they give their lives to

You, they don’t’ stay that way very long. So, we ask this in Jesus’ name. And the church says, Amen.

november 13, 2011… · – i think week 1 – next sunday, were going to cover the rest of chapter...

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