Now you remember, as we began
studying this epistle to the Corinthians, that there had divisions
and factions had developed in the church there, and they were
so deeply divided, there was so much dislike between these
different factions, that they ended up suing each other in
court, taking one another to court. In our lesson today, Paul's
going to rebuke them for that behavior. Now I can summarize
his rebuke with three statements. First, if differences do arise
among brethren in the church, they're to be settled in the
church. They're to be settled among ourselves
on the basis of love and grace. They're not to be settled before
the wicked who don't know anything about love or grace. Taking each
other to court out in the public, all that does is give unbelievers
a chance to blaspheme the God we worship. and hold our beliefs
in our preaching and derision. So they're to be handled in the
church if these differences do arise. Second, we ought to be
careful not to offend our brother so that these situations don't
come up in the first place. That's where we really ought
to be looking at. Believers are to be forgiving
and loving But we're not to take advantage of that forgiving nature
by just doing whatever we want and say, well, he's got to forgive
me. No, we're to try not to be offensive so that these situations
don't come up in the first place. But third, if a brother does
do something to wrong us, and we're still in this flesh now,
these things, this will happen, whether it's a minor thing or
a big thing, whether it's intentional or it's unintentional, these
things will happen because we're still in the flesh. And if it
does happen, True believers are to simply endure those misunderstandings
or hurt feelings. We should be patient and loving
and forgiving with one another, not to seek revenge or compensation. You know, unless it's absolutely
necessary from anyone, but particularly our brethren. We're not to seek
revenge of our brethren. And that's the summary of Paul's
rebuke here to the Corinthians. So in verse 1 of 1 Corinthians
6, he says, now dare any of you, having a matter against another,
go to law before the unjust and not before the saints? Now, Paul's
not condemning courts of law or the justice system in any
way. The judicial system is very necessary
for our society. You know, if we're summoned to
court or summoned to jury duty or anything like that, we ought
to go serve. This is a necessary function
of our society. Who better to serve on a jury
than you? I'd be very happy if you're serving
on a jury. So he's not condemning the court.
He's not saying that we shouldn't go to court if a situation arises,
you know, civilly out in the world. What he's talking about
here is two believers, two brothers who have a disagreement. The
last place those two brothers should ever find themselves is
in a court of law sitting on those two opposite tables going
to war with one another. That's the last place that they
ought to find themselves. They ought to be able to settle
that difference between themselves, they're brothers. Brothers. And if they can't settle this
dispute between themselves, they need to find a third brother
to settle it for them. Rather than go before a judge
in a court of law, who more than likely is an unsaved man, doesn't
know anything about scripture, doesn't know anything about the
most important person and important, well, the most important person,
Christ and his word. They don't know anything about
the most important person in your life. He's not near as qualified
to settle that dispute as any brother. I mean, you think about
this. Two brothers. taking one another
to court. They broke the bond of brotherly
love publicly. Now, the only kind of family
that does that is a dysfunctional family. Isn't that right? Well,
the family of God is not dysfunctional, not in any way. Christ is the
head. We're his bride. His children
were members of his body. We are not a dysfunctional family,
fussing and fighting and feuding with one another. We're a family
of peace and harmony. And it's always sad to, you know,
you see it on TV, it's very sensational, you read about it in the paper,
a family taking one another to court. You know, it's over, it's
always over, you know, the will or money or property or something,
you know. And usually it's wealthy people,
they've got more money than they do sins. But it's still sad because
they are still a family taking one another to court. And when
we see that as outsiders, we think less of that family for
doing it, don't we? Well, unbelievers the same way
when they see that happen in the family of God. Those folks
act that way because they hadn't been taught any better, but you
have. We've been taught better and
we ought to act like it. That's what Paul's telling us.
And I'll tell you one of the most sure ways to cause permanent
hard feelings with someone is take them to court. You just
take them to court and there's going to be hard feelings probably
forever. Because what happens when you
take somebody to court? If you're going to win, you've
got to tear that other person down. You've got to expose their
faults. You've got to very publicly expose
what they've done wrong. And if you're taking your family
member to court, What you have to do in order to win is go to
court and open court and air your family's dirty laundry.
And if a believer does that, all that does is bring reproach
on our Lord and reproach on the gospel that we preach. And Paul's
condemning that kind of behavior. What he's telling us is you don't
have the right to do that. He said, dare any of you do that?
You just don't have the right to do that. And no believer really
should want to do that at all. Now, verse 2, he goes on, he
says, Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?
And if the world should be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge
the smallest of matters? You know, the saints, they're
not going to be the judges of the world in the sense that we're
going to sit and decide faith and pronounce judgment on anyone.
We know what our Lord said in John 5, 22. The Father judges
no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son. The Son,
Christ, is going to be the judge. But we will sit beside Him. We'll
watch Christ judge the world, and we'll agree. We'll approve
on His judgment. Not necessarily take part in
deciding the judgment, but we'll sit with Him in judgment. And
believers are given a spiritual wisdom and understanding that
the rest of the world does not have. And one day, we will reign
with Christ. Now, we're children of the King.
We've got some understanding that the Lord's given. Well,
shouldn't you be able to judge and decide the smallest of matters?
Because what we're talking about here is worldly issues that come
up. Those are the smallest matters compared to the spiritual matters
that we deal with, compared to the spiritual matters that we
have some understanding about. These are the smallest matters.
Shouldn't you be able to judge those things for yourself? You
ought to. And when we go before unbelieving judges and have these
unbelieving lawyers file mountains of paperwork and fight these
issues for us, what we're really saying is that we don't have
a brother, we don't have a believer in our midst who has the wisdom
and ability to solve this matter for us. So we've got to go to
the ungodly for help. And those folks don't know anything
about belief. They don't know anything about
God's Word. Their judgment is based on an eye for an eye and
a tooth for a tooth. Their judgment is not based on
mercy and grace. They don't know anything about
mercy. But by God's grace, we do. God's revealed that to us
and we ought to be acting like it. Now, verse 3, he goes on,
he says, No ye not, that we shall judge angels? How much more are
things that pertain to this life? Now, these angels that Paul's
referring to here are the fallen angels. Angels who are already
under God's judgment. Now you know you and me aren't
going to deal with those angels. We're not going to deal with
Satan and his angels. And we're not going to judge
them. All judgment is committed to the Son. But here's the sense
of what Paul's saying. By God's grace, we believe the
Word of God. They don't. We bow to the will
of God. They don't. We look to Christ
for everything. We look to Him for all of our
salvation. They don't. We lovingly worship the Lord
Jesus Christ. They don't. They'll have to bow
the knee to him, but they don't do it lovingly, willingly. We
do. God gives us grace to act in
some wisdom. By God's grace, he's made us
righteous. He's given us a righteousness
they don't have. So believers will judge the angels,
and we really should judge the world because of our way of life,
because of our faith that stands in contrast to them. Look over
Hebrews chapter 11. I'll show you, I think, what
he's saying here in Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 verse 7. By faith,
Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved
with fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his house. By the
witch, he condemned the world and became the heir of righteousness,
which is by faith. By the witch, he condemned, he
judged the world. Now, he didn't pronounce condemnation
on the world, did he? God did that. He condemned the
world by comparison. He believed God. Noah believed
God. And his faith, which stood in
comparison to the world, judged the world or condemned the world.
And that's what Paul's telling us. We'll judge the angels by
comparison. Now if the Lord gives you some
wisdom to know more, understand more than those fallen angels
who at one time were in the very presence of God. These fallen
angels were at one time around the throne of God. Now you have
more understanding than they do. God's given it to you. It's
by God's grace. Well then, shouldn't we have
enough wisdom to resolve earthly disputes that come up amongst
believers just over these small worldly things? Certainly we
should have more ability to be able to resolve these disputes
than some attorney who's never been in the presence of the Lord,
either spiritually or in reality. We ought to be able to judge
these small matters that pertain to this life. Now verse four,
he says, if then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this
life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.
Now, the King James translation is probably not as clear on this
verse as it should be or could be. Almost everyone agrees that
Paul's continuing his rebuke in the same vein that he's been
on. What he's saying is you have cases of this everyday life that
have to be decided. Well, then why would you want
to set that case to be decided before lawyers and judges and
people who are outside of the church? Those people who are
outside of the church have no standing with you. They're not
held in esteem by you. Not like people in the church
are. They don't fear God. They don't know God. They're
the least esteemed. Why would you want to set your
cases before them to decide them? Well, you could set them before
people in the church who are esteemed, who have esteem among
God's people. It could be pastors or elders.
But really, Paul's saying, couldn't you pick anyone else in the church? Couldn't you pick anyone who
has any understanding about the problem at hand to be the arbitrator
here? That has to be better than finding
the most wise unbeliever. It has to be. Any believer who
has some understanding of God's Word, who has some understanding
of the way of God and the will of God, has to be able to judge
better between two believers than someone outside who has
no interest or no understanding of God's Word. But that's what
they've done. So, verse 5, Paul says, now I
speak to your shame. Is it so that there's not a wise
man among you? No, not one that shall be able
to judge between his brethren? Now, when you were a kid, didn't
you just hate it when your mother said, you ought to be ashamed
of yourself. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Maybe I'm
the only one that ever heard that all the time. That's exactly
what Paul's saying here. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
You ought to be ashamed that you've let this molehill grow
into a mountain. Because these are earthly small
matters that you've ended up taking out and being made a big
issue of in a court of law. You're bragging on all your knowledge
and wisdom. Remember early in his epistle,
he said, you brag about your knowledge, all this knowledge
and wisdom that you have. Well, then how come you don't
have enough knowledge and wisdom to be able to resolve these matters? And if you really had true wisdom,
you'd have had the wisdom to prevent these things from getting
to be such a big deal in the first place. You just don't have
as much wisdom as you think you do. If you did, this wouldn't
be an issue at all because you'd have had the wisdom to keep it
from getting to be such a big deal. But instead, because you
don't have that kind of wisdom, he says, verse 6, But brother,
goeth to law with a brother, and that before the unbelievers.
Now he's talking about brothers, spiritually brothers, members
of the same family. That's bad enough if two brothers
get in a fight and then it can't be resolved, that their love
for one another doesn't overcome it and they can't work it out.
But if they can't, a third brother really ought to come in and arbitrate
this situation rather than an outsider. Because when you get
an outsider to come in and try to resolve this thing, like I
said before, all you're going to do is air your family's dirty
laundry to that outsider. And you're just going to bring
shame on the whole rest of the family because everybody's going
to think the whole family is just like you two that are fighting.
And like I said, that's a dysfunctional family. We read about those things
in the newspaper and we just think the whole family's that
way. It just brings shame on the whole family. Recently, I
read this story about Colleen McCulkin. That little boy, is
that his name? In the Home Alone movies. That kid made millions and millions
of dollars from those movies. Just millions. Now he's an adult. I guess he's not in movies anymore,
but he's still got all those millions left over. Or he thought
he did. Because he found out he's bankrupt. And you know why he was bankrupt?
His brother that he put in charge of his finances, he trusted his
brother to manage his affairs, take care of his finances, his
brother stole six million dollars from him. His own brother. Well, they couldn't resolve it
and he takes him to court. He's suing his brother for six
million dollars. And we read that and honestly
it just brings shame on that whole family because you think
Where were these kids' parents when they were growing up? Didn't
they teach these brothers to love one another? I mean, Janet
never would let our girls fight. I mean, she just would not let
them do it. You're sisters, that's all you
got? You love one another. Didn't anybody ever teach them
that? Certainly. Didn't they teach them not to
steal from their own brother? It brings shame on the whole family.
And if we do that as children of God, we do the exact same
thing. All we would do is bring shame
on God's family. Didn't anyone teach them any
better? Doesn't their religion teach
them any better than that? We claim to be followers of the
Prince of Peace. Well, then how can you go to
war with one another in court? If you're truly following the
Prince of Peace, how can you do that? And when we do that,
or if we would do that, we just show no concern for our brother.
We show no concern for the name of Christ, the name that we love.
Now, what if a brother really does do something wrong to us?
How do you handle that? Well, look at verse 7 and 8.
Paul says, Now, therefore, there is utterly a fault among you,
because ye go to law one with another. Why do you not rather
take Why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? Nay,
ye do wrong and defraud, and that your brethren." Now this
word fault, Paul says there's utterly a fault among you. That
word fault is defect. He said there's a serious defect
in your character. There is a defect in your brotherly
love. There's a defect in your wisdom.
There's a defect in your conduct. There's bad conduct going on
here. If there weren't some defect in you, you wouldn't find yourselves
going to law against one another. And there's a serious defect
in their conduct because apparently there are real legal issues here. If this just happened out in
the world, there are legitimate legal issues. Someone legitimately
is defrauding someone here. And Paul says, you're defrauding
your brother? I mean, don't you defraud anyone is wrong, but
your brother? Children of God conduct themselves
with honesty and integrity. There's a defect in your conduct
here. And if there wasn't a defect
in your love, then you'd suffer this wrong from your brother.
And if there wasn't a defect in your love and your understanding,
you'd take care of this matter in the church rather than expose
your brother by fighting with him out in open court. Now, what
I'm about to say is completely against human nature, but it's
true. Anything that's against human
nature typically is true. It is much better to be wronged
personally and suffer that wrong personally and be defrauded than cause a rift in the unity
and love of the brethren by seeking revenge. Now that's so. Going
to a court of law will cause permanent harm. Look in Proverbs
18. Solomon gives us something here
in Proverbs 18. Like I said, if you go to court
with someone, you're going to cause permanent hard feelings
between those parties. In Proverbs 18, look at verse
19. A brother offended is harder
to be won than a strong city, and their contentions are like
the bars of a castle. Once you've offended him, once
you've caused that rift, boy, he's harder to win back. He's
harder to win back than invading a strong walled city because
the hurt ran so deep. The hurt runs deeper when you're
hurt by someone that you love. So just avoid it altogether.
You're better off now, I'm telling you, talking to believers, you're
better off suffering that wrong and causing that rift to be permanent
inside the church. Now that's the instruction in
these matters. But I want to give you a blessing.
Here's the blessing to the child of God in this lesson. What if
a brother really does do you wrong? And he really did. He
caused you to lose some money some way and you'd say legally
he's required to pay that back to me. Now he wronged me. And
I'm going to go to court and force him to give back to me
what legally belongs to me. A brother lied about me. Hurt
my reputation out in the community. I'm going to sue him for slander.
That's what I'm going to do. Because legally, I have that
right. I have that right to get my compensation
from him. What if you find yourself in
that situation? Look over at 1 Peter 2. When
you find yourself in that situation, just hang on a minute. 1 Peter 2, verse 19. For this is thankworthy, if a
man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if when
you be buffeted for your fault she shall take it patiently?
But if when you do well and suffer for it, and you take it patiently,
this is acceptable with God." Now you bear these injustices
patiently, and you cover your brother's sin with love. That's
pleasing to the Father. Now, if someone wrongs you, like
I said, you just hang on just one minute. What about me? What about the one I've wronged? Oh, what about when I wronged
the Lord? What about when I sinned against
the Lord? How did He handle that situation
with me? Oh, well, there's a whole other
matter. Look here at verse 21. For even
here unto were you called, because Christ also suffered for us.
leaving us an example that you should follow his steps, who
did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, who when
he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened
not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously."
When our Lord Jesus Christ was hauled into court, he was hauled
there on trumped-up charges, wasn't he? People lied about
him. They said he did this, and he did this, and he did this,
and he never did. Our Redeemer never one time opened His mouth
to defend Himself. Not once. He didn't attack His
accusers and try to tear them down even though He could and
even though they deserved it. He never did it. And He did it
because He suffered for us. Now you just try to imagine that.
You try to imagine the situation that our Lord was in when He
suffered for us. And you just spend the rest of
the afternoon thinking about how He suffered for us. For His people. Because look
at verse 24. Here's what happened. Here's
how He suffered for us. Who His own self bear our sins
in His own body on the trip. That we being dead to sins should
live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed. Our Lord
Jesus Christ took our sin. And when I say that, I mean that
he took our sin. He actually became guilty of
the sins of his people. Every sin of every one of his
people, every sin we ever committed, he took it in his own body. He became guilty of it. So that
every accusation thrown in his face was true. Not because he
did it. Because I did it. Because you
did it. He suffered. All those sins were
sins against Him. Sins against Him. Yet He suffered
for them. He bore our sins that He might
bring us to God. He bore the iniquity of our sin. He bore the shame of our sin.
He bore the punishment of our sin because He loves His people. And when our Lord suffered for
our sins, When He took our sins, He took the filth of them. He
took the guilt of them. He became guilty of our sins.
He took the disease of our sin in His own body on the tree.
He healed our souls. That sweet balm of Gilead was
applied because He shed His blood as payment for our sins. I don't think we can fully understand
how diseased our souls really are by nature. But He took that
disease. and made us whole, that we should
live unto righteousness. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
bore our sins, we are made holy and righteous before a thrice
holy God. And we have that righteousness
because He bore our sins in His own body. He personally bore
our sins, those sins that were against Him. that we might follow in his footsteps. You reckon I might be able to
bear some small injustice from one of my brethren? Because I
can guarantee you this, that's small in comparison to how I
offended him. I guarantee you it's small in
comparison. You reckon maybe that we could
bear those things from our brethren in order to keep peace and unity
in our family? We will if we follow that. That's fine. All right. The Lord
bless you.