Lawsuits and Loose Living

Good morning.

I greet you in the name of the One who promised that He'll never leave us or forsake us. And as we have been thinking about our prayer list and all the people who are suffering from the effects of this sin-cursed world, I'm just so thankful that we have someone in which we can put our confidence and trust. And it's in His name that I come to you this morning.

I'm going to look back to our study in 1 Corinthians. You can turn to chapter 6. I'm just kind of always amazed at how the Sunday school and the message kind of fit together here this morning.

The title of the message this morning is "Lawsuits and Loose Living." That's not original with me, but in my studies I came across it and thought, "Well, that pretty well sums up this chapter." I'm going to start reading, though. I'm going to read chapter 5, 12b, and then 13a.

And we were talking last time about immorality in the church and how that we are not to judge those that are outside, but He says in verse 12, "For what have I to do with judging those who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside, God judges." And it's almost as if, as Paul says that, that that just reminds him of another issue that this church that's plagued with so much, so much problem, it brings that into his mind. And so he says here in chapter 6, verse 1, "Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints?

Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life? If you then have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge? I say this to your shame. Is it so that there is not a wise man among you, not even one, who will be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers. Now, therefore, it is already an utter failure for you to go to law against one another.

Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexuals nor sodomites nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God." And I'm going to stop there.

So here we have a problem, another problem that comes to Paul's mind, and that is that within the church, brothers are taking brother to law, to secular courts, to somehow settle their disputes. Now, Corinth was a very litigious society. That means they were a lot of litigation and courts and so on.

And it was to the point where the law courts and so on were actually a source of their entertainment. And so I did a little research. In Corinth today, they actually have excavated what is known as the Bema seat, or the Bible talks about the judgment seat, and it talks and actually in Acts 18 talks about when Paul was dragged before this judgment seat.

And it's been excavated, and you can actually see that. And it was located in the central marketplace. And again, Paul talks later in the book of Corinthians about the marketplace and meats being sold there. And the temple of Toapolos was up on just right up on the hill behind that. And so you can kind of picture how the whole thing was. And in this little judgment seat, there were benches and seats around, and it was there that cases were tried. And if you were part of the Greek society, you were expected to be served on the jury, and depending on the case, there were like in Athens, there were actually if it was a small amount, it was a jury of 40, and then it was 400.

And there were even some cases where there were thousands of people involved in making judgment. So it was public court, and it was a source of entertainment. And apparently, the Christians in Paul's day had found themselves being caught up in this whole thing.

I'm just going to just to give us a little bit of context, turn to Acts chapter 18, because I found this helpful to sort of imagine how this may have been.

Acts 18, and just read a few verses here, 12 to 17.

"When Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat, the Bema seat, in the courtyard or in the marketplace there, saying, 'This fellow persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.' And when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, 'If it were a matter of wrongdoing or wicked crimes, O Jews, there would be reason why I should bear with you. But if it is a question of words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves. For I do not want to be a judge of such matters.' And he drove them from the judgment seat. Then all the Greeks took Sotheby's, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat.

But Gallio took no notice of these things." So typically, Jewish people did not go to court to settle their differences. They settled their things internally. But here's a case where they wanted to get something on Paul. So they go to the judgment seat, the secular courts, and Gallio says, "If it's a matter of your own internal affairs, I'm not going to hear you." And they actually beat the ruler of the synagogue instead. And Paul goes away. And it's that kind of a society that was very common in the Corinthian setting.

And I just find it interesting. This book was written 2,000 years ago, but it's just so similar to our society today. I mean, just go down 81 and start looking at the billboards along the side of the road, and it's billboard after billboard of lawyers saying, "Hey, were you hurt? If you were hurt on a motorcycle, call this number. If you were hurt on the job, call this number."

Medical malpractice is rampant. Somewhere between 15,000 and 18,000 lawsuits are filed each year, with the average payment in 2018 about $350,000.

And what about law and lawsuits as entertainment? One of the things that I get into a lot of homes, and in the afternoon, there's these shows on television, and it's a court, a small claims court where people take their little disagreements before some judge. It's really an arbitration, not a true judge.

But Judge Judy, anyway, 10 million views a day. 10 million people tune into that every day to watch it as entertainment. And the Corinthians were caught up in this. And Paul is incredulous. And the word "dare," "Dare any of you," and the word is bold. "How can you be so bold?" is what Paul is saying, "as to take your disputes before the unrighteous and not to the saints."

How could you do that? And Paul is basically in disbelief. And we talked this morning in 1 John about loving the brotherhood and loving the brothers and what all that means. And after all that kind of teaching, how could you be so bold as to take your disputes and go to the secular society for your judgment? He makes this statement. He said, "Saints are going to judge the world." And don't you know that? And don't you know that you're going to judge angels? And commentaries spend a lot of time trying to figure that all out. To me, it's not important. If Paul says that's going to happen, then I'll accept that. Apparently, we're involved as Christians, as His saints, in some kind of a judgment, spiritual judgment.

And he says, "If that's the case, why are you taking these things to the secular court?"

And really, it reveals some underlying problems, I think. So why is this a problem? What would be the problem? Well, we already mentioned that brothers should settle matters within the brotherhood and not by the unrighteous. And someone quoted it said, "Even in our litigious society," which they sue everyone for everything, "lawsuits between blood brothers and sisters and blood family members are actually rather rare."

And so if they're rare in that setting, how much more in the Christian brotherhood should they not exist? The second thing that I think this reveals, this mentality, is a separation between the temporal and the spiritual. And Paul touches on that later here in this chapter.

And so in their minds, there's spiritual things, and then there's temporal things. And we could say probably we would relate more to saying, "Well, that's business." You hear people say that, "Well, that's business." But this is, and this is spiritual. This is a church matter. This is a business matter. So that makes a difference. And so they were making that distinction between the spiritual and the temporal, which was probably a result of their Gnostic thinking, the dualism that we separate the physical and the spiritual.

Another thing that it revealed was a lack of wisdom. And Paul says, "Isn't there one single wise man? Isn't there one wise man in this congregation that can make this judgment? Where's the wise among you?" And then it reveals a wrong mindset, the whole idea of my rights and the things that I deserve.

And I was thinking about that. When you really analyze it and boil it all down, most disputes, most lawsuits, most conflicts have their root in one of two things, either a greed for gain. It's often involved money and things like that, or revenge. And I've heard people say this already, "Well, I don't care about the money, but he needs, that person needs to pay for what happened." We hear that kind of a mentality.

James chapter 4, these are very familiar verses, but I want to read them in this context.

James 4:1-4. He says, "Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desire for pleasure that warn your members? You lust and you do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and you do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is empty with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."

So these disputes and these things that happen, James says, they come out of our desire for pleasure, our desire to have, our greed, our lust. That's where they come from. Romans says, Romans 12:19, "Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath. For it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord." And so the idea that I'm going to take my brother and haul him into court reveals that their whole mindset and the way of thinking was not what it needed to be. Number one, what's the motivation so that I can get what's coming to me? My rights were violated. Or that person needs to pay for what they did.

And both of those are counter to what a true Christian should be. And it's no wonder that Paul says, it's already an utter failure for you to go to law against each other in the first place. You're already there.

The other thing that it reveals is that it says they were actually doing wrong among themselves. They were in verse 8.

Verse 8, he says, "You yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brother." And so there was a sense in which they were actually wronging each other in the church. And so

shady business dealings, maybe, taking advantage of each other. And that's just as wrong. And Paul goes on to warn then, and he says, "This is serious, serious business."

He says, "Don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?" And then he says, "Do not be deceived." And as I was studying this, I was just, the thought crossed my mind, how often in the New Testament that phrase comes up, "Do not be deceived." "Don't be deceived." And behind that is the fact that apparently we can get caught up in this. We can be deceived.

And then he gives this whole list of horrible things, and we'll come back to that. But I just want us to understand that when God looks on this, we have what we talked about this morning in 1 John, what His heart is, that we love one another, that we care for one another, that we open our hearts up in compassion. And instead, we have brothers and sisters in the church who are actually taking their brother to law to somehow gain something. And it just, He says, it's already an utter failure. "Do not be deceived. The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God." So He views it very, very seriously.

Well, maybe you're thinking, "Yeah, that was a problem there. But it really doesn't affect us as Anabaptist conservative people." But I have two examples. I'm going to give them in a general way. I don't want to necessarily have specific enough to point it out. But in our community here, a number of years ago, we had a very sad case where there were some visitors who came to church, fairly young people, got involved in a shoving match or something afterwards, and someone was injured. And they were very upset. But the father of the person involved, my understanding is that he said, "We'll see in court."

And that's exactly what happened. And it dragged in a whole bunch of people who really had nothing in it, church leaders and others that had nothing to do with it. And the result of that was disaster. And we talked this morning about the blot and the shame that when we don't love our brother, that that brings on the looking world and how they, when they see that supernatural love, they look on and say, "Wow, that's something that I want to have." But the opposite is true. When something like this happens, it's a tremendous stain and a tremendous blot upon the kingdom of God. And that was a local case here. There was another example.

And I think I have the basic facts right here. Some young people from the same church were involved acting foolishly in vehicles. There was an accident. Some people were killed. And the insurance company would pay bereavement money if they would sue the other insurance company. And so in this case, we're not technically, I'm not suing my brother, but my insurance company is, from my brother, is suing the other brother's insurance company. And the church was divided on it. Some said, "Well, that's okay." Others said, "No, this is wrong." And it led to a church division.

Again, a self-inflicted wound, a self-inflicted disaster. And I think about the damage that that does to souls, young souls that are involved in that, maybe a young person who's struggling and the damage. What about the testimony to the outside community? And in the end, I don't know that the people involved ended up at either church. And I just look at that and say, "What a blot on God's kingdom." And God is not pleased. And so He says, "Don't be deceived." So how should such things be handled then? So we're human beings. We rub shoulders with each other. Sometimes conflicts arise. And we talked about that a little bit last message when it comes to dealing with conflict within the church and how we're supposed to go and talk to them.

But the first thing is just really simple. And He says, "Keep it within the brotherhood. Keep it within the brotherhood. Don't, whatever you do, don't take these petty things and take them outside the brotherhood."

Second thing we can do is to root out covetousness. And I think, again, as I look at it and say, "What is the motivation? Why would we do a thing like that?" And oftentimes it's, "I want to get something out of that." Root out covetousness. Be honest.

Give a good measure. Be generous. Luke 6:38 says, "Given it shall be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you." And I think about oftentimes the disputes that come, maybe even between brothers, as someone feels like they were taken advantage of, maybe, as I said, a shady business dealing, something like that. And it puts a measure of responsibility on all of us to, I think if we all strive to be honest and give that good measure and do our best, think of how that can eliminate that right at the root, the root of that.

So we're not to take advantage of each other. And within the brotherhood, and I think we need to be really careful with that. It's easy sometimes maybe to do that while we take advantage of each other. And I think even amongst the brotherhood, but even outside of that, I mean, what kind of reputation do we have in our businesses in the community? Do we get a good, fair measure, a good shake, a fair shake?

Do they trust us? And I think if that's in place and that's the foundation that we build our lives on, it eliminates some of this problem where these kind of things come to place. The other thing that He says is that we need to be willing to accept loss.

He says, "Why

do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren.

Why don't you accept the wrong?" And we look at the example of Jesus, Jesus' example. And if we turn back to Matthew chapter 5, again, very, very familiar verses, Matthew 5:25 and 26,

"Agree with your adversary quickly while you're in..." I'm sorry, verses 40 to 42. "If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away." I think that reveals the spirit that Christ wants us to have. It's just the spirit of, "Look, I was wronged, but I'm going to, I'm not going to, I'm not going to hold that. I'm going to, you can have my cloak also." Be willing to suffer wrong. And that's, I think Paul sort of in frustration says, "Why are you here anyway?

Don't you know that you should be willing to accept wrong?"

And then the other thing is, "Agree with your adversary quickly." And that's Matthew 5:25 and 26. "Agree with your adversary quickly while you're on the way with him. Lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hands you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Surely I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny." So agree with your adversary quickly. And then the last one I wrote down here is, "Love one another and forgive one another."

Love does not take advantage of others, neither, but love also forgives when taken advantage of. So it's both, it works both ways. No, if I love my brother, I'm not going to take advantage of him. But when I'm taken advantage of him, I will forgive.

And again, when I see that, if that love is working in the brotherhood, there's no need for lawsuits. There's no need to take my brother to the law.

Many commentators, they look at this and they say, "Well, yeah, this is talking about in the church, but outside of the church." And now we're, that opens it up, again, that whole idea of that dualism, that there's a business sector and the spiritual and secular. And when I look at Jesus' example, He doesn't make that distinction.

In fact, He says, "We're going to respond that way to our enemies, people outside, people that are our enemies. That's how we're supposed to respond." And so this whole idea in our society that's so much into this, "I'm just going to get my rights. I'm going to sue. I'm going to take my brother to law.

This person didn't pay their rent. We're going to evict them. They're going to go take them to the law and get what's coming to us." I just, when I look at what the Spirit of Christ and what He says, and couple that with what Paul says here, I just do not see any room for that at all.

Even if we're horribly wronged, our attitude should be an attitude of Christ, which is forgiveness and love.

Now there is, as a side note, there are, there's laws of the land. We have authorities out there that punish evildoers. And God ordained it so. But that's their business. And our response, if we're wrong, needs to be one, like I say, as Christ had, to be, to forgive and to love.

That brings us then, so that's the one problem. The other thing that Paul wants to address here is the whole idea of loose living or immorality.

Again, He confronts three wrong ideas that people have. And I skipped verse 11. We'll come back to that. I would like to read verses 12 to the end of the chapter.

"All things are lawful for Me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for Me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Foods for the stomach and stomach for foods. But God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For the two," He says, "shall become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body. But he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own, for you were bought at a price.

Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." So in this portion then, Paul addresses wrong ideas about moral purity. And remember, again, Corinth was a very evil city and it was steeped in immorality.

It was part of their everyday life as a normal citizen of the city, part of their religion, part of their worship. And so there was this statement that was making its rounds that says, "All things are lawful for Me." It was definitely a statement used by the Corinthians.

Some people kind of think it maybe came from Paul. I found no place. I mean, Paul talks about freedom in Christ and so on, but I couldn't really find anywhere where Paul actually says that everything's lawful for Me. But the Corinthians were using that. And he addresses this again in chapter 10 as regards to meat offered to idols. So this was something that the Corinthians said a lot. Well, all things are lawful. And Paul says, here it's in the context of moral purity.

And so it could be that these were some of the words of Paul that Peter says, "Men take, and they twist them to their own ends." But the first wrong idea is that we're not under law, but we're under grace.

And Paul says, "No, not all things, all things are not helpful or expedient. And I'm not going to be controlled by my appetites." If you're controlled by your appetite for food, you're a glutton if that has taken control over you. And if our sexual appetites are out of control, then we're guilty of immorality.

And Romans 6:2 says, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" Absolutely not. Certainly not. Certainly not. So the first wrong idea was that all things are lawful. Paul says, "No, that's really not true. All things are not helpful. All things are not expedient.

And I'm not going to be brought under the power of that." The second statement that was making its rounds was, "Food for the stomach and stomach for food." And the idea behind this is that sexual desires or the sexual appetite is no different than any other appetite that we have, say for food.

And Paul says, "No, that's not true. Your body is not just a body. It's a body that will be resurrected." In verse 14, verse 14, he says, "But God raised..." Now the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God both raised up the Lord and will raise us up by His power.

It's a body that's going to be resurrected.

1 Corinthians 15, a little further ahead in this book, it says, "If the dead do not rise, then let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." And then he says, "Do not be deceived." That statement comes again, "Do not be deceived."

We don't just, our bodies are going to be resurrected. And so therefore we need to be careful that we don't lose sight or don't put any stock in the resurrection. If our bodies are going to be resurrected, then there's something special about that. It's not like a dog that just dies and there's nothing left.

And if we analyze it deep down in, this is the reason why most people, including a lot of Christians today, don't make a whole big deal about some of this stuff, living together before they're married and so on, because it's just natural. I mean, it's a natural thing.

And why not? It's just like any of the other appetites. And while they may not say that, some of them actually do say that. But while they don't say that, I think that's the thinking that's behind that. And Paul says, "No.

It's not just, it's not just, it's not the same. You're not comparing apples and apples."

And then the third thing we already touched on, another wrong way of thinking, is that our bodies are only temporary or they're mortal. It has to do with what we said about the resurrection. It's the Spirit that lives forever. And therefore, what goes on in our bodies doesn't really matter.

That's the Gnostic, the whole Gnostic ideas. And he makes three statements here. He says, "No, your bodies are members of Christ." Think about that, members of Christ. Number two, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. It's the dwelling place. God dwells within our bodies.

And the third thing he says in verse 20 is, "Your body doesn't belong to you. It belongs to God. It belongs to God." And so think this out. If our bodies are members of Christ, he said, "Should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot?" God forbid.

Certainly not. And sometimes we have this idea about God sees everything that we do. And that is true. But he's actually saying when we sin in a sexual way, like here, it goes beyond that. We're actually, in a sense, we're dragging Christ along in that horrible thing that we're doing.

You drag Christ alongside when you indulge in sexual immorality, when you look at that image, when you look at that picture. Because since He's members of us, we're members of Christ, since our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and since our body belongs to Him, then when we indulge in that, it's as if we're dragging Christ. And he says, "You're making your member of Christ, a member with a harlot."

The sexual relationship is unique. God designed it for a husband and wife for life. It's an intimate relationship.

And he says that He who is joined to a harlot is one body with her. And people try to say, "Well, it's the same as all the other appetites." No, it's not. Because someone that has a one-night stand and meets that person later on in the supermarket, there's something different about that than somebody that you shared a meal with or took a trip with. There's something that happened there that we can't quite explain. It's a miracle. It's that mystery that Paul talks about. I like how Warren Wiersbe said it. He said, "When a man and woman join their bodies, their entire personality is involved. There is a much deeper experience, a oneness that it brings with it, with deep and lasting consequences.

Sexual sin is the most serious sin a person can commit against his body, for it includes the whole person. The sexual experience affects the total personality." And think about this. Sex outside marriage is like a man robbing a bank. He gets something, but it is not his, and he will one day pay for it.

Sex within marriage can be like a person putting money into the bank. There's safety, security, and he will collect dividends. But Paul is saying, he's trying to, he's approaching this whole thing from the standpoint that Christ is, that your body is the temple of God.

And how can we dare take that and make it a member of a harlot?

He said, "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him." And so if we claim to be joined to the Lord and then indulge in sexual immorality, then we bring Jesus right into the bedroom with us. And what a horrible thing that is. It's a lot worse than He just sees what we do, but we're actually involving Him in that. And so what are we supposed to do? He says, "Flee. Flee sexual impurity.

You were bought with a price. I was bought with a price. What was that price? Jesus died. He died to purchase Me. And so I belong to Him." Isaiah 53, "He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. And by His stripes, we are healed." And then Romans 6 tells us that because He bought us and paid that price and freed us, we no longer have to live as slaves under sin. We don't have to be under that bondage.

Now I'd like to go back in closing here. I'd like to go back and read verses 9 to 11. And I'd like to leave us with a note of encouragement here.

And this might seem kind of funny when we read this list. But he says, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you." So here he tells the Corinthians, he said, "Some of you were these people that on this list. But you were washed. But you were sanctified. But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God. Such were some of you out this horrible list." And so as Paul's writing here, some of the people were thinking, "Yeah, that used to be me. I was one of those people that was a thief." One of the things that they had problems with at the bathhouses and so on that were a part of the city, thieves would come in and steal their clothes while they were there.

He gives these other things, homosexual relationships, extortioners, people who...

loan sharks, drunkards, revilers. "Such were some of you. But you were washed. You were cleansed. You were cleaned up by the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sins." He said, "You were sanctified." That means to be, the word means to be made holy, made right. "And then you were justified. You were rendered innocent of all those horrible things that we were involved in." And I guess that just was such a blessing to me to think about that, what a great gift we have in the salvation that Christ offers through His blood. The power is available to each one of us today as we face these realities, as we, in relating to our brothers and sisters and those outside, when we feel like we've been wronged and the things that we're faced in relationships, that power to cleanse us is available.

When we're battling the onslaught of the impurity in our sex craze culture out there today, that power is available. And He can do to us and with us what He did with the Corinthians and say, "That was your old life, but you've been washed. You've been sanctified. You've been justified. You're right before God." So I'm going to leave you with the question that the hymn writer asks.

He says it this way, "Would you live for Jesus and be always pure and good? Would you walk with Him within the narrow road? Would you have Him bear your burden, carry all your load? Let Him have His way with thee.

His power can make you what you ought to be. His blood can cleanse your heart and make you free. His love can fill your soul, and you will see 'twas best for Him to have His way with thee."

And we know that by experience, that if we let Christ have His way with us, we can have victory in these areas that we struggle with. The area of relationships and what happens if I've been wronged? And how am I going to love my brother? And how am I going to stand against all this stuff that's out there in our world? "Let Him have His way with thee. And His power can make us what we ought to be." And.