Desert Hills Bible Church Sermons
The Dilemma of Disputes, Part 1 - 1 Cor 6:1-6 (Robb Brunansky)
[ Pause ] >> Turning your Bibles to First Corinthians chapter 6 this morning, First Corinthians chapter 6 verse 1. It was great to be outside last week and enjoy our worship service together outside. It's great to be back inside as well this week. One of the wonderful things that the outdoor service allowed us to do is to do some upgrades and repairs here in the worship center. And so you can see how some of the natural wood has been able to be exposed and restored. And yeah, it's exciting and repaint a lot of the worship center, repair the ceiling and get it ready for Christmas with all of these amazing decorations. Thanks to all the volunteers who were here yesterday working so hard all day long to make sure that everything was ready for this morning. We're just such a blessed church to have so many willing and gifted servants to help and to make these things happen. And we praise the Lord for that. First Corinthians 6 is a passage that is highly relevant for our litigious society. The theme of the passage is lawsuits among Christians. In a country that spends around half a trillion dollars every year on lawsuits, that's trillion with a T, five hundred billion dollars a year on lawsuits, we find a topic here that Christians need to hear and understand to operate biblically in the legal sphere of our culture. And yet as Craig Bloomberg noted his commentary on 1st Corinthians, this passage includes teaching that is not as well known or obeyed in Christian circles as it should be. And I think it might come as a surprise to many people, that the New Testament has something to say about Christians and suing people. Lawsuits were not something that originated in our society and they were not only recently popularized in ancient Greco-Roman society lawsuits were a regular part of life, especially for the rich and famous. Lawsuits were a way to take advantage of those of the lower social stats that became a self-perpetuating scheme to make the rich richer. Judges were routinely bribed to render decisions that favored one party over another without concern for justice being done. We see a great example of this in the book of Acts chapter 24. Acts chapter 24, Paul is in prison in Caesarea and the governor's name is Felix who is over the province and he knew that he had no legal ground for keeping Paul in prison. He knew that Paul had done nothing wrong but he kept Paul in prison for two years until his governorship ended and then when his governorship ended he left Paul in prison under the new governor, Porcius Festus. Now why did he do this? Verse 26 of Acts 24, "At the same time too he was hoping that money would be given him by Paul." You see that? "Therefore he also used to send for him quite often and converse with him." This is why Felix kept Paul in prison despite Paul's widely known innocence. Felix knew Paul was innocent but he kept him in prison with the hopes that Paul would bribe him to get out and not only that but he cruelly would bring Paul out of prison to talk to him as a way of saying to Paul just a reminder the bribery store is open. You can come and you can get out of prison at any time if you come with the right payment and so Paul would get out over and over again go talk to Felix and Felix tried to solicit money from him to bribe him to get him out of prison. Now Paul of course did not resort to corruption to escape prison. Felix never got what he wanted from Paul but this was a typical example of how the Roman system of justice worked. Corruption, bribery and much injustice. First Corinthians 6 then not only was highly relevant for the people of Paul's day in Corinth but it is highly relevant for us today as well. We can relate to all of these ideas all too well can't we? We understand the corruption in our justice system. We've seen that play out in our society how corrupt our justice system can be. We understand there are judges who are unjust and wicked when Jesus in Luke 18 talks about the judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. We all say yeah we've heard of judges like that. We know we have judges like that. We have judges like that on the highest court of our land don't we? Judges who don't fear God, who are corrupt, who make unjust decisions. We understand that some people in our society who are wealthy or famous are treated differently in court than the rest of us. We understand that when some people commit crimes that they're well connected or they're well represented they will get a light sentence or no sentence at all whereas if somebody who had no money and no connections were to do the same thing they would receive a harsh punishment and a harsh penalty. We understand that lawsuits are everywhere in our culture and many times what determines who wins a lawsuit is who has the better lawyer not who has the better case. Money talks and our justice system just like it did in the ancient worlds and corruption reigns as Craig Bloomberg noted our society rivals and possibly even surpasses ancient Corinth in its passion for suing people. Lawsuits are everywhere, corruption is everywhere, injustice is everywhere. Now why does this happen? Well quite simply it happens because one person has been wronged or thinks they have been wronged or thinks they can convince a jury that they've been wronged by someone else and someone wants compensation for the wrong they've suffered at the hands of someone who was cruel or negligent or both and the recourse that societies like that in Corinth and like ours today have when you have been wronged by someone in society and there are financial damages that need to be dealt with is to take the defendant to court to present the case before a judge and maybe a jury and allow the judge or the jury to arbitrate the case decide if or wrong occurred and if it did occur what should the damages be and just hope that you might get an impartial judge or jury. In a world awash with injustice and a world awash with evil in a world that prizes status and wealth above all other things the best remedy the world has in these circumstances is a lawsuit as the best the world can offer you go to court get your lawyers lawyer up present your case get a decision what about within the church can such a dispute arise within the body of christ and and how should people who are justified by christ who have the wisdom of god in christ who are set apart by god in christ whose minds and lives are shaped by the word of the cross people who are the holy temple of the living god how should such people respond when disputes arise those of a legal nature especially evoking a wrong that has caused financial harm that's what paul addresses here and and the way he addresses it once again demonstrates the sublime wisdom of the cross when we think about the dilemma of disputes within the church here's how paul expects us to handle them here's what paul expects of god's people here's what god expects of god's people we must handle disputes in a way that reflects our present standing as god's new covenant people and our future hope of resurrection and a new creation we must handle disputes in a way that reflects our present standing as god's new covenant people and our future hope of resurrection and a new creation that is to say we must not handle disputes the way the world handles disputes things should be different among the people of god things should be different in the church of jesus christ we must not handle disputes like people who do not belong to god and have no future hope but whose entire joy is bound up in the things of this world we are new creatures we are part of a new creation that is coming we have a new hope of resurrection life and the way we handle disputes should reflect that newness not the oldness of this present age and this world so how do we do that how do we handle disputes of these natures in the church in a way that reflects who we are and the hope we have for the future well paul gives us several things we need to understand if we want to handle the dilemma of disputes in a godly way that reflects who we are as god's holy people and the first thing that we need to understand is the reality of disputes the reality of disputes in verse one of first krentians chapter six does any one of you when he has a case against his neighbor dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints you know it would be so wonderful if as the church we never had any disputes arise in the body of christ they'd be wonderful how wonderful it would be if we all treated one another with perfect love and perfect grace perfect justice perfect righteousness we always had a clear understanding everyone always took responsibility if they made a mistake or did something wrong everyone was willing to forgive when they had been wronged and and show grace and we all work these things out with perfect harmony always doing what was right that's not for this world that doesn't happen here that's not reality in this fallen world there are disputes that are going to arise in the church there are disagreements that are bound to occur in the church there will be times when one person feels wronged and another person says i'm not liable for that i didn't do that or i didn't do it to that extent now these are different kind of circumstances than we found in first krentians five and first krentians five we had obvious sin didn't we we had a man who is in sexual immorality with his father's wife that was an incestuous relationship that is cut and dried it's not that is not difficult to figure out how to handle that it might be difficult to do it like we found in the church in krentians was having trouble executing what god wanted them to do but figuring out what god wants you to do in that situation is not the difficult part these are circumstances here of interpersonal conflict not obvious sin interpersonal conflict circumstances where one person says i've been wronged and another person says that wrong did not occur or i did not do it or i'm not responsible for it all right you're asking for way more than you should get for this wrong there's no clear and obvious sin involved because the matter is under dispute and the parties don't ultimately agree about what happened we might think about this happening in the church and and when you're involved in each other's lives and you're loving one another and you're serving one another you are ripe for these types of things to happen think about this you have a brother sister in the church and their car breaks down has to get repaired and they're going to be without a car for a few weeks while their car is in the shop and you're you have an extra car that you don't use and so you just call up you know brother so-and-so and you say hey you know what you can use my car for a few weeks while your car is in the shop i'm not going to need it and so just come you know i'll drive it over to your house and then you can just have it for a few weeks and i'll pick it up when your car is done and so thank you so much and so they have your car they're driving around for a few weeks and then you go pick it up their car gets fixed and you're driving home in your car that they just had for three weeks and you start hearing yo i never heard that before i loaned in the car what is this they broke my car they damaged my car and you call them up and you say hey brother so-and-so what did you do to my car what pothole did you hit who did you back into what why is my car making this noise it never made before and and he says i don't know what you're talking about i never heard a noise when i drove it i'm not responsible for that it was fine the last time i drove it i don't know i that wasn't me well there's no clear sin there right we don't know if he's telling the truth we don't know if he's lying we don't know what happened to the car we don't know how to how to how to navigate that's not a church discipline situation but you know what it is a problem in the church isn't it because now you got two people and one of them saying hey you need to pay to fix my car and the other one saying hey i didn't do that to your car how do we resolve that and these are the types of things that happen when you begin to love each other and you begin to let other people use the things God hasn't trusted you and then they break something they damage something they're negligent with something whatever it might be so what do you do about that that's what paul's talking about here and so you can see how very practical all of the doctrine that we've been looking at in first Corinthians becomes when we get here because here's kind of the nuts and bolts of real life isn't it you have a conflict with somebody there's a disagreement how do you handle it what do you do well i'll tell you what y'all see you at judge duty hang up you're gonna drag this in front of all tv world pay for my car these aren't just theoretical concerns these are things that can touch the realities of our everyday lives now before we go any further in thinking about what paul is saying here i want to add something crucial to understanding this passage paul's not talking here about criminal matters he's not speaking of criminal law he's speaking of what we would call today civil law paul's not talking about what do you do if one person in church murders another person in church or if one church member sexually assaults another person in the church or someone in the church commits some crime against someone in the church you know some churches have taken this chapter to an extreme and they have used it to cover up child abuse in the church to cover up sexual abuse that has happened in the church to cover up the other kinds of horrific things that have been done to people in the church by people in the church and they they use a passage like this and say well we're not going to report the pastor we're not going to report the children's teacher the sunday school leader because we're not to use the court system we have to settle those matters in house let me clearly and unequivocally say that paul is not talking about criminal matters if someone in the church sexually assaults a child sexually assaults an adult or commit some other crime within the church we should immediately immediately call the police as soon as we are aware that a crime has been committed we don't say well this is that happened on church property and this is the kingdom of god the government's not going to get involved in that no when there is criminal behavior the authorities must be invoked and roman 13 is very clear about that roman 13 is very clear about that roman 13 4 tells us that the state's job is to get involved in criminal matters roman 13 4 says this for it the government is a minister of god to you for good for if you do what is evil be afraid for it does not bear the sword for nothing for it is a minister of god an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil you notice here the government in god's view the government is a minister of god it's a servant of god the church is to serve god government is to serve god and they have spheres of authority where they have jurisdiction and when a crime has been committed government has the sword government has the jurisdiction to punish criminals whether those criminals are in a church or outside a church government should be invoked to deal with criminal behavior and the evil that's in view in roman 13 is not moral evil that are sins but not crimes there are sins that aren't crimes right things that are wrong that god doesn't want you to do but they're not criminal and being somebody being proud worshiping an idol these are sinful things but they're not crimes and they shouldn't be crimes you shouldn't go to jail for being prideful can you imagine you shouldn't be having this whole service in prison i mean this you shouldn't go to jail for being an idolater regardless of what some people say today you shouldn't go to jail for being an idolater that's a a religious thing that's not a criminal activity it's a sin it's not a crime but there are sins that are crimes murder theft sex crimes kidnapping things like these these are criminal acts and the government is ordained by god to wield the sword to punish criminals and so what paul is talking about in first krymphean six does not contradict roman's 13 he's not saying don't get the government involved if somebody gets raped at your church or somebody gets molested at your church the government needs to be involved in that situation he's talking about interpersonal conflicts interpersonal conflicts civil matters now with that understanding then we can see how believers are to handle legal disputes that are not criminal in a way that accords with who we are in christ in verse one notice paul says does any one of you when he has a case against his neighbor dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints there's going to be disputes in the church it's going to happen we're going to love each other and sometimes when we love each other somebody's going to do something that creates a problem how do you resolve it and paul says when that happens you've got two options for how you can resolve that problem option number one is you can go to law before the unrighteous verse one you can go to law before the unrighteous now the unrighteous when paul says that he's not taking a backhanded swipe or being passive aggressive against judges in his day he's not talking about their character he's talking about their position before god paul had some good judges can read about it next he had some bad judges in the roman justice system he experienced the whole gamut from very good to very bad he's not saying every judge is corrupt and crooked and unrighteous he's saying that the vast majority of judges in a secular society in a legal system don't know christ they're not justified that's what unrighteous means here doesn't mean they're unrighteous in their character although some of them may be he's saying they are not justified before god they're not christians they're not saints and one option you have is to go to law before an unbeliever to go to a secular justice system and present your case before a an unbelieving judge and get a verdict or a settlement before that judge the second option at the end of the verse is to go to law before the saints now here paul is not saying you can go to court just make sure your judge is a christian he's saying don't go to court at all take up your issue in the church settle it among the people of god defer judgment to god's people skip the judicial process go to the church leadership and ask them to decide to dispute between the affected parties and it is very clear what paul expects us to do do you dare go before the unrighteous in other words these are not two equally viable options for the christian one of them is an audacious act of rebellion against god one of them is the expectation for the people of god if you go before an unrighteous judge an unbelieving judge you make use of a secular legal system and you go before that system for judgment paul says that is a daring act of audacious rebellion against god another way we could we could put it as almost like an exclamation how dare you take your matters to an unbeliever to settle that for you rather than the saints this is what christians are to understand this is a very strong way of condemning believers going to law before the unrighteous in society and paul puts it as a question in fact paul's going to ask several questions throughout this entire section and commentators have noted that paul doesn't even really make an argument here he just goes question question question just boom boom boom rapid fire hitting them with question after question to show how foolish they are pursuing each other in secular courts and so here's the first question do you dare go into the secular world with your problems rather than dealing with them in the church disputes are going to arise in the church that doesn't bother paul that's that's just a part of life in a fallen world but what does bother paul and what does bother the lord is when the people of the church take those disputes outside the church and ask unbelievers to try to resolve them for them now that brings us to our second point in understanding how to handle being wronged in a way that reflects our present standing and our future hope and it's this we need to understand secondly the role of the saints the role of the saints and we see this in verses two and three in these two verses we have four questions that show the role of the saints and expose how little the Corinthians actually knew compared to what they thought they knew look at verse two or do you not know that the saints will judge the world now compare for a moment this question with paul statements in verses 12 and 13 a chapter 5 he says there what have I to do with judging outsiders those who are outside god judges verse two do you not know that the saints will judge the world so in a short space of time don't judge the world don't judge those outside you're going to judge the world what do we do with that well paul here we have to understand chapter six is speaking eschatologically he's speaking about the future when christ returns he's speaking about the age to come and so we don't judge the world now we're not sitting in judgment on the world now but then we will when christ returns we will have this amazing role this incredible function of judging the world at the final judgment when christ returns this idea comes from the old testament in daniel chapter seven daniel chapter seven this is where it's most clearly expressed in the old testament daniel seven verse 26 says this but the court will sit for judgment and his dominion will be taken away his would be this last human king that comes from the fourth beast his dominion will be taken away annihilated and destroyed forever then the sovereignty the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the highest one his kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom and all the dominions will serve and obey him do you see that there's judgment there's a court that's going to sit what happens when that court sits all the kingdoms of the earth are taken away from the beast and his servants and they are given to the people of god and they will judge and they will rule over all of these glorious kingdoms in fact these all these kingdoms will be destroyed by the son of man who will then institute his eternal kingdom he will be the king of kings and the lord of lords and he will reign forever and ever and we will judge with him at that return and we will reign with him forever now we can't go into detail in Daniel 7 it's really fascinating chapter but the point is clear for our purposes that we have a future judgment in which we play a part as judges over the world over the ungodly world Romans chapter 5 builds on this theme and it does it in a little bit of a way that is more clearer than Daniel 7 and Daniel 7 is very difficult chapter for a number of reasons but Romans 5 is a little bit clearer and he says this in verse 17 for if by the transgression of the one death reigned through the one much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness notice now will reign in life through the one jesus christ this is an amazing statement death reigns now but the day is coming when because of the grace of god those who have received god's grace through jesus christ in the gospel will reign with him in grace forever isn't an amazing statement that reign is going to involve judging the world because all judgment has been given to the sun because we are in the sun by faith and one with him when he sits in judgment on the unbelieving world we will sit in judgment on the unbelieving world with him what a glorious thought to consider that when christ judges the wicked of this world we will not be part of that throng of people being condemned but as his justified people we have already been declared judged we have already been declared righteous by god justified and we will participate not in being judged by god at the judgment but in rendering judgment on the wicked at the judgment that's our future role to sit with christ judging with him and reigning with him and the conclusion from this future role of judging the world is in verse two in verse two he says this at the end if the world is judged by you are you not competent to constitute the smallest law cords or to put in a better way as it says in the nazby footnote are you not competent to try the trivial cases here's an argument from the greater to the lesser if you're going to judge the world at the eschaton when christ comes back that last day are you then not capable of figuring out who's liable for the damage to that car that got borrowed in your church earthly lawsuits have some impact but they're temporary you're going to be part of a judgment that affects that affects the eternal destiny of people are you not then competent to judge something that has zero eternal impact at all? Paul says this is the kind of logic that says this if let's just say somebody here was like really strong huge body builder go outside in the parking lot and they could pick up a Honda Civic you know the really strong person say you can if you can pick up a Honda Civic then you can pick up a communion cop right that's what Paul say if you're going to judge the world that's picking up the car are you telling me you can't pick up a communion cop but this is too heavy for you the expected answer is yeah we should be able to try trivial cases of this world and render a true verdict reach a just settlement for all the parties involved because of who we are what we've been called to do now notice verse three the third question do you not know that we will judge angels now it goes to another level doesn't it you're going to judge the world well that's pretty big human beings and next you're going to judge angels more powerful greater than human beings greater than anything in this world man you think about angels nobody in the bible sees an angel in that's unveiled as an angel in their powerful state and is like hey how's it going as al molar says if you encounter an angel like that you need a new pair of shorts afterwards it's it is a traumatic experience to encounter an angel these are massively powerful beings Paul says you're going to judge angels now what angels in the carthar study bible the note on this verse says this since the lord himself will judge fallen angels it is likely this means you will have some rule in eternity over angels and so macarthur says that this is not talking about his judging demons in a judicial sense but ruling over holy angels using the word judge like it's used in the old testament book of judges to rule and so judging in scripture it can mean that it can it can mean something different than just sitting in a judgment seat and judging it can mean to rule over somebody so macarthur argues that here we're going to rule over good angels now here's another explanation of what paul means in this verse i am inclined to think that glorified believers will help judge the fallen angels and exercise some rule over the holy angels that's also john macarthur in his commentary on first korean six we will both judge in a judicial sense fallen angels he says and judge in the sense of ruling over holy angels and so all right john what is it are we going to judge evil angels and rule over good ones or are we just going to rule over good ones because you said both things which john macarthur should we believe commentary john or study bible john the study bible notes were written after the commentary so maybe his position evolved and over the years but i think the the point here is this is a difficult thing to interpret and some people don't even agree with themselves about how to interpret it all right and so it's a very very challenging text because the bible actually never talks about this anywhere else this is it is the only place that talks about judging angels and so paul almost certainly received this as a direct divine revelation from god that had never been revealed anywhere else in scripture and i think it's kind of humorous that paul says to the krentians do you not know this thing that i just got by divine revelation that had never been revealed to anyone else in all of history up until now to humble them right because they thought they were really hot stuff now they got all their prophets and their preachers and their exhorters and their people with words of knowledge and so paul comes along and says you got all your gifted your uber gifted people there your prophets and everything don't you even know this thing that i just learned god revealed to me as i was writing this i don't know maybe paul told them when he was with them and they should have known i don't know but at any rate this is not something we find anywhere else in scripture so we don't know exactly what this is going to look like but we do know this we are going to judge angels someday whatever that looks like whatever that means we will have a position of superiority over some angels or all angels god knows we'll learn when the time comes but paul draws a conclusion from this at the end of verse three how much more should we be able to judge as the implied verb matters of this life if we're going to judge angels these beings that are supernatural beings that are so powerful and so much greater than us today if you're going to sit in judgment on them shouldn't you be able to judge things in this world that are insignificant and small and ultimately in eternity irrelevant christians are called to exercise discernment to exercise judgment and to be competent to handle earthly disputes in the church because of who we are and what our future holds for us i remember one spring training a few years ago all the mlb teams were sweatshirts and t-shirts team logo mlb logo all that on it and then really large print the main thing that you could see on the front of the sweatshirt where the words train to reign train to reign and that's what spring training is right before you go to train so that you can win the world series and reign as world series champions for the next season and that's what we're doing here we're going to reign someday beloved we're going to reign with christ we're going to judge the world we're going to judge angels this is your training ground to get ready you should be able to exercise some discernment to help brothers in conflict come to a biblical godly resolution problems will arise in the body of christ and because of our role in god's kingdom as the church we should be able to help them navigate that to a biblical outcome third if we want to handle disputes in the church in a way that honors christ we need to understand the reasoning of unbelievers the reasoning of unbelievers and we see this in verse four we need to understand how unbelievers think we think about well what should i do about this dilemma this dispute how do i handle this well how do unbelievers think and paul asked the sixth question in a row in this passage in verse four so if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church law courts here in verse four is similar to what it means in verse two such cases in the esv the csv such matters if you have these types of matters that pertain to this life do you appoint them as judges to decide them who are of no account in the church this is a very harsh way of describing an unbeliever maybe one of the harshest ways in the whole bible it's translated in a number of different ways and as we renders it who are of no account in the church the esv translates it who have no standing in the church using a legal phrase they have no legal standing to make a judgment of the people of god in the church the csv translates basically the same way the niv translates it like this those whose way of life is scorned in the church and that is easily the harshest translation in english of all and the niv despite its harshness and its tendency often to shy away from a literal meaning in translation here is probably the most accurate as to what the readers would have understood paul to be saying that the church scorns their way of life the church despises the unbeliever's way of life the greek word here means to disdain to reject disdainfully or to treat with contempt it has the idea of something or someone that is totally useless and beneath your consideration it means to regard another person as of no significance and therefore worthy of mistreatment it can indicate an attitude or manner of treatment of someone or some entity that demonstrates that entity has no merit and no worth and scholars have been absolutely stunned by paul's language here some have said well maybe paul's not talking about unbelievers maybe he's talking about believers in the church who are despised by the world because this word is used to describe how the world thinks of christians in first Corinthians 128 and so maybe he's saying that this is how the world thinks of us they're just we are despised and so we should put people who are despised by the world in charge of judging the church but as shocking as it is i think that what paul intends in this verse is that as christians when we look at the reasoning of the world we find it to be totally and utterly useless unhelpful good for nothing we despise the thinking of the world and we should that doesn't mean we despise the persons but the way of thinking the way of reasoning the systems of thought the logical patterns we look at that you know that's foolishness just like they look at us and they say we believe what's foolish we are foolish in our reasoning we look at their reasoning that's foolish it's foolish to reject christ it's foolish to live a life of sin and ungodliness and put yourself under the judgment of god without repentance we disdain that that that has no benefit that is not useful and paul is reminding the Corinthians in a shocking way that secular justice systems that are run by unbelievers who do not know god are not even worthy of being considered as useful for christians when it comes to their in-house disputes totally useless to the church of no standing of no account of no value to the church but now why is it that we would look at these secular courts and say we have no interest in going to them we have no interest in presenting our case to them one commentator named Eaton answered that question with a series of questions he wrote this do pagan judges know about love between the brothers and sisters do they follow the example of christ do they know about the new life that is in christ do they know about god's request for humility do they know the leading of the spirit do they live for the glory of god what do pagan judges know about such matters the answer is obvious right they don't know anything about him they don't think like that when a case comes before a pagan judge they don't think to themselves well what would most glorify christ in this lawsuit we know how unbelievers reason Ephesians 4 17 tells us that their minds are darkened and they're and futile and their in understanding is clouded over in dark and they can't really think clearly about truth and justice and righteousness because they don't know christ they don't have the ability to think biblical thoughts to think god's thoughts after him and so they will never make judgment focused on the glory of christ or the wisdom of the spirit of god revealed in scripture now someone might object and say well that's true but in this situation with my broken car i honestly don't care how what the theology of the judges i just want so brother so and so to pay to fix it i just want a certain outcome i just want justice in my situation so i'm not concerned about all that stuff but you see how that answer that objection fails to account for who we are in christ can the christian ever say this is just a lawsuit this has nothing to do with christ i'm not concerned about theology with this i'm not concerned about the glory of christ here i just want justice according to the letter of the law it's all i care about if we're not concerned about the glory of christ in a matter in the church are we not off on the wrong foot to begin with the only concern we have is that our rights are upheld rather than ensuring that the grace and love of christ and the humility of christ and the forgiveness of christ and the righteousness of christ and so on are applied to our situation biblically perhaps we need to reevaluate what it means when we say that we are in christ you see paul is reminding us that there are no secular matters in that sense that there's no such thing as just a legal matter for a christian everything is spiritual everything is related to who we are in christ and who we are in christ should impact everything in our lives there is nothing in our lives where we say that's off limits from my new creation who i am in jesus christ that my salvation has nothing to do with that issue there's no issues like that there must be a greater concern than simply i want what's coming to me in this particular instance and those greater concerns to the christian are always outside the scope of what an unbelieving judge can factor into his decision because he didn't think that way he's unable to reason that way now sure it's true perhaps that according to the letter of the law an unbelieving judge might do a better job of applying civil law to my case than a group of leaders in my church that's true get the lawyers get the judges you may get a better settlement according to the laws of the state of arizona from people who are experts in those laws then you will get from elders who are engineers and teachers and pastors and so on but is the letter of the civil law your highest concern as a christian is that what's most important you see paul is putting his finger on a problem that is very real in the hearts of christians today as it was then and it's that we often put a higher priority on earthly rights and possessions than we do on biblical principles and eternal values if we are truly people from another world if we are those who are the temple of the living god indwelled by the spirit of god living in the wisdom of god would we want to bring our disputes to be settled by people who embrace the wisdom of the world that led them to crucify the lord of glory when we think about how the unbeliever reasons we understand he can't think through our disputes at the most profound level and so paul is shocked and outraged that the carinthians who one day will sit in judgment on unbelieving judges want unbelieving judges to sit in judgment on them why would you choose that why would you do that is your greatest concern the same thing that their greatest concern is whereas a christian is there something greater than this damaged vehicle or this financial loss that concerns you there's a lot more to say about this in verses five through eight but that's enough for this morning it's enough that we ask ourselves this critical question when i am wronged how do i handle it how do i handle it do i handle being wrong the same way unbelievers do or do i handle being wrong as someone who belongs to christ is controlled by the word of the cross and submits to the wisdom of god in christ or my greatest priorities earthly status and possessions and wealth and rights or are my greatest priorities heavenly realities that correspond to the new creation that is coming of which i am apart do i handle mistreatment in a way that reflects my present standing before god in christ and my future hope of glory or do i respond to mistreatment in the flesh making me virtually indistinguishable from the unbelieving world my prayer is it is the church when we are wrong it would be manifestly clear that we belong to christ and that we follow him and that people would see us in those trying and difficult situations and they would say there's something different about those people they care about something we can't even begin to understand