According to the Scriptures

Damian Kyle: If I'm considering or tempted to sue another Christian, to begin with, I'm not going to do it. I will accept the wrong. That's how I look at it. And then to go to God in prayer for his wisdom over how to handle this unique situation and what do you want me to do with this situation in light of some unique aspect of it.

But to start there as opposed to beginning with, "I'm going to take them to court, and if God wants to stop me, let him try." That's very different.

Guest (Male): As we go through life, we are bound to have our fair share of problems and disputes. When someone does us wrong, the world would tell you take them to court and sue them. But Pastor Damian Kyle will suggest there's something much more important at stake, and that is God's reputation.

We don't want to communicate the wrong message to the unsaved world around us. And so, let's see together how to resolve our disputes in a God-honoring manner here today on According to the Scriptures. We're in 1 Corinthians chapter six. Here's Damian.

Damian Kyle: Now, Paul isn't content here with this first grid through which to run a temptation to sue another Christian through. He gives us a second one in the passage because this second grid is made up of a series of "do you not know" statements in verses two through six. And so, when he writes to them repeatedly here, "Do you not know?"

In the passage that we're examining, he uses the phrase "do you not know" fully six times in the chapter, and he's deliberately and he's forcefully, but in a sanctified manner, he's really smiting their pride and their arrogance in order to wake them up to their carnality and to become spiritual people in this regard. So here they are, proud of their wisdom, proud of their knowledge, proud of their intellect, and they're making one blunder after another spiritually. Paul says, "Do you not know?"

They thought they knew everything. You remember when Jesus was talking with the religious leaders, and he would say to them occasionally, "Have you not read?" The Jewish religious leaders considered themselves to be the experts in the Jewish law. One of the things you want to do is if you ever want to pick a fight with Jesus and try and make him look bad, it's always a bad thing to do, but it would be best done one-on-one and just get humbled there in some small closet.

Instead, the Jewish religious leaders waited until a large crowd was around Jesus, of his disciples, and then they would try to trap him related to some scripture. Then he would say, "Have you not read?" and then he would say something from the Old Testament scriptures that blew up their whole argument. It was clear that if they had read that passage and known it, that they would not hold the position that they held.

They would then be diminished in the eyes of the people as authorities concerning the scriptures. It needed to happen because of their pride, and then the esteem for Jesus would go straight up. Jesus would do that to just let them know you're not as smart as you think you are. If you're going to put your ignorance on full public display here, and people's souls and how they view God and how they view eternity, you're putting that in line, then I'm going to have to publicly humble you as a result.

I hope I'm not alone in saying that I have had a blind spot or two exposed in my Christian life. I don't care who we are as Christians. We all have blind spots. That's why the body of Christ has to work together—good relationships where we can come up to somebody where we see they're going off sideways a little bit and say, "Hey, Damian, what's going on here? Have you thought about this?" And then you go, "I didn't realize it. I didn't even see that. Thank you for coming to me."

We all have these kinds of blind spots where sometimes we can begin to operate in a way that the blind spot begins to do damage to other people. Then we need somebody to come alongside and say, "You're not seeing this clearly, and you need to see it clearly." Usually, though, when somebody's come up to address a blind spot in my life or even related to some passage, they'll usually introduce it with, "Well, I'll say something that's dumb," and then they'll say, "Well, that's one way of looking at it."

This is tremendous diplomacy. "That's one way of looking at it, but there's another way of looking at it as well." Then they'll say that. Despite all of the tact, you realize that what you've been saying or the position you've been holding has just been blown to smithereens right in front of your own eyes. Sometimes our pride and our spiritual dullness can force people to become more pointed in their rebuke of us, and that's the case here with Paul and the church at Corinth.

Their actions in suing other Christians at the drop of a hat without any serious spiritual thought reveals a spiritual ignorance on their part. Paul is forced to educate them and us on that. He says to them in this grid of "do you not know" statements in verse two, "Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?" What that refers to is in the thousand-year reign of Christ, the Kingdom Age, after his second coming, the Bible says we will rule and reign with him.

Jesus will rule the world with a rod of iron, Revelation chapter 19, Psalm 2. It's not like we're going to be making the decisions. He will be making the decisions, but he will use us as glorified saints at that time for the enforcement of his law and his decisions in that Kingdom Age. If we're going to judge the world one day as Jesus intends and plans for us to do that, shouldn't we be able to settle our own problems with one another as Christians without resorting to the unsaved to settle them for us?

If we're going to judge the world one day, what are we going to the world to have them judge situations in our lives? Can't you take care of this? You've got a history of what's coming in your future. Don't you know who you are as Christians, what your future's going to be, your relationship with the world? Can't you address these kinds of things even now? Then the other "do you not know" statement there in verse three: "Do you not know that we shall judge angels?"

This refers to fallen angels. We know from Jude verse 6 and 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 9 that angels will be judged, and we know that Jesus will be that judge of those fallen angels. Again, we will judge angels in the sense of our union with Christ and our identification with him. We'll be in full agreement with whatever judgment he lays out, and we will carry out his judgment. In that sense, we'll be judging angels when he does so.

The idea is the world should be coming to us, Paul is saying, for the resolution of their conflicts instead of the other way around. The church at Corinth, by and large, was still far more impressed with the world and the way that the world did things and the wisdom of the world than they were with God and the way that he does things and his wisdom for dealing with issues in life. They've got it completely backwards as a result.

In verses four through six, in the light of these things, it seemed incredible to Paul that these Christians couldn't resolve their problems by finding a Christian capable in their whole congregation. Is there not even one in there? He's not only put the sword in, but he's twisting it a little bit here. Isn't there even one Christian there within your assembly who can resolve problems and is capable of righteously judging the situations that you're taking one another to court on according to the Word of God, rather than taking these things before unbelieving judges in the human courts?

Paul is not saying that the wrong a Christian does to another Christian is to be ignored or just to be blown off. It needs to be addressed. Otherwise, we're just reinforcing bad behavior in a Christian's life. If they've made a victim of us in some way, then they will move on and make a victim of somebody else and so forth. If nobody said anything or did anything, then the problems are never fixed. Problems need to be addressed, but Paul is saying they should be addressed privately by Christians who are gifted by God for doing so and not before the unsaved world.

What this going to court against other Christians communicates to the unsaved world is that we are as Christians no different than the world. When push comes to shove, when my ego has been hurt or something has happened in terms of money in my life and these kinds of things are threatened, then I can be very good at all of the God talk. But when I begin to pay a price in some way, I just resort to everything just the way that the world does things. We're no different when our money or our power or reputation is at stake.

It also communicates that the Bible and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all useless. No matter what you would believe about the Godhead that we sang about, people would look at Christianity from the outside and say, "I can't think too much of their God. If they can't fix the kind of things they're bringing in front of us every week, what kind of a God do they serve? What kind of wisdom does he have? What kind of confidence do they have in him?" That would be the conclusion that you would come to.

The result of doing all of this then is that the judges and the court personnel get to see and witness Christians fighting publicly in a courtroom. Often it comes across as very petty and very selfish. It's a bad look for Christianity. We have a saying: don't air your dirty laundry in public. I don't know that anybody says that anymore because every bit of dirty laundry is being aired in public today in our modern culture, but the wisdom of it still holds.

There are certain things that we should be careful not to discuss publicly. They should be kept private. Court cases have a way of digging into the lives of the people who are involved and making public knowledge of things that would best be handled confidentially with a small group of trustworthy Christians. You remember when Jesus taught in his Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5 verse 25, he said, "Agree with your adversary quickly, and while you're on your way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge."

It's a legal setting. "The judge hand you over to the officer and you be thrown into prison. Verily, verily, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny." Jesus is saying several things there, but one of the things he's warning against is that once it enters into the system, you now lose control of it. Once Christians put this issue in the hands of that system, they have lost complete control of that situation.

We've handed that control over to an entity that doesn't believe the way that we do, doesn't think the way that we do, doesn't understand justice the way that we do or what is right or wrong the way that we do. We're delivering it over to an entity that is very unpredictable, even in the United States of America where we have, comparatively speaking, a pretty good system. Because people are involved, it certainly isn't perfect at all.

Things enter into that realm and Jesus is saying things can go downhill very quickly for you. Take care of it in as quiet a situation and with as small a number of people involved as it possibly can be dealt with. The world then comes to think to themselves that our faith and God is useless. Then it makes them feel very free to reject Christianity, and very free to reject the wisdom or the perceived lack of wisdom on the part of God based upon the evidence that they see in front of them in that courtroom.

We can win our case monetarily, but we can lose the case in that it costs us our Christian witness before the world. People use the phrase today when someone does something and someone might say, "Well, sue me. So sue me." There are a couple of different ways it gets used, but one of the ways it gets used is in response to someone who is making a mountain out of a molehill concerning some wrongdoing or some imperfection in another Christian.

If they sued that person, they would look very petty and very small in doing so. If somebody's nitpicking, well, "So sue me. See how that turns out for you." There's some wisdom in making you stop and think. I don't know where all the lines fall related to all of this, but it does seem that a fair number of Christians in the church were sue-happy. Our culture is sue-happy, and they wrongly brought this into their Christian lives and into the church as a result.

Finally, Paul in verses seven and eight asks us as Christians to take all of these things through a third grid, basically of counting the cost. In verse seven he says, "Why do you not rather accept the wrong?" rather than taking the matter before unbelievers. Even if you're the one who's been wronged, when the stakes are so high, when we're talking about the reputation of God Almighty, of the salvation of people and the reputation of Christianity before the unsaved world, why not just absorb the loss?

Paul makes very clear what he would do concerning the kinds of things that the Corinthians were suing one another over. He is basically saying, "I would accept the wrong, and I would allow myself to be cheated." That's what I would do with a clear understanding of what is at stake here eternally. Making that kind of a decision is very helpful in terms of anybody that's being tempted to sue in the way that they were.

It's very helpful to receive very wise counsel from those that you respect and to make that our starting point. Paul gives us—who do we respect? Among all Christians in history, whose instruction and counsel would we respect more than anyone else than the Apostle Paul's? This is what he says: make this your starting point. In other words, if I'm considering or tempted to sue another Christian, to begin with, I'm not going to do it. I will accept the wrong.

That's my starting point. And then I go to God in prayer for his wisdom over how to handle this unique situation and what he wants me to do with this situation in light of some unique aspect of it. I hold the promise that if any of us lacks wisdom, James chapter one, we are to go to God for that wisdom. "What do you want me to do with this, Lord? My position is I will not sue here on this, and that's my starting point. What do you want me to do with this?"

It's much better to say, "Lord, I'm going to take this position here, and if there is some remote reason that I'm not seeing that looks like you and is sanctified, then you can talk me forward." As opposed to saying, "I'm going to sue them, and then if God wants to stop me, let him try." That assumes that we possess a tremendous spirituality that we would even recognize any attempt that he would make to try and stop us once we get on that bandwagon. The first lends itself much more to dispassionate spiritual decision-making.

Again, verse seven: "Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated?" Verse eight: "No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat and do these things to your brethren." In verse eight, Paul is making the point that in suing your brethren and taking them to court and taking the reputation of God and the church and Christianity into that court with you, then you will be committing a sin, an offense that is far greater than anything that anyone could have done to you. That would be the more grievous offense.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to According to the Scriptures and our message based in 1 Corinthians chapter six. Pastor Damian Kyle is our Bible teacher, and today he's been helping us navigate the issues we're bound to face with other believers in a God-honoring way.

If you'd like to get the CD that contains today's message from 1 Corinthians, give us a call: 209-545-5530. That's 209-545-5530. I should also mention Pastor Damian's messages are found at accordingtothescriptures.com, as well as oneplace.com, and on most of the major podcast apps. So if you missed one or two messages on the radio, there are many ways to catch up.

It'd be our honor to pray for you, so keep those prayer requests coming. Leave a comment or prayer request at accordingtothescriptures.com, or you can email us at atts@ccmodesto.com. Again, that's atts@ccmodesto.com.

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