Take your Bibles with me and turn to 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6. We are going to read verses 1-11.

Last week, we looked at chapter 5, which is a chapter that was dealing with the need for church discipline. Paul was upset that the church had not judged this man and put him out of the church. He finished the chapter by saying this:

[!bible] 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 - KJV 12. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? 13. But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

Now, as you turn the page to chapter 6, you are going to see Paul is still talking about judging. Only this time, the matter at hand is less serious.

Apparently, there were people in the church at Corinth who had run afoul of other people in the church at Corinth, the kind of thing that would be handled by a small claims court. The "he bumped into my car in the church parking lot" or "she owes me $100 from last year" kind of thing. And instead of just dealing with it or taking care of it in the church - they were actually going to a secular small claims court over the matter and that was making the church look bad.

And so Paul was saying "you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't go to law against your brother or sister in the church. You should take care of that stuff in house, or even better, you should just take the loss for the sake of your brother."

Its very important that you understand this: Paul wasn't talking about serious criminal acts here, he's addressing the kind of civic disputes that were embarrassing the church's witness.

In Romans 13, Paul says this:

[!bible] Romans 13:1-4 - KJV

1. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
2. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
3. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
4. For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

God sets up government and one of the jobs of government is to avenge evil. That is their God-appointed role. To avenge evil. To punish evil doers.

And I don't believe they lose that God-appointed role because both people happen to be members of the same church. So you need to know this before we get into this chapter - if someone comes to me with evidence of physical or sexual abuse - we aren't "keeping that in the church" because of this chapter. We are going to involve the civic authorities.

I believe what was in view in 1 Corinthians 6 wasn't criminal wrongdoing, but civic disputes. With that out of the way, let's read our text:

[!bible] 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 - KJV

1. Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?
2. Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
3. Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
4. If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.
5. I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?
6. But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.
7. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?
8. Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.
9. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
10. Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
11. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

In this chapter, Paul starts with a problem (Church members suing each other) and builds to a great theological truth (that we are completely new creatures in Christ).

I want to cover this whole section, but I actually think it would be more helpful for us to work our way backwards - from the truth to the problem.

The truth is, very few of us are ever going to face the specific problem that Paul dealt with in the church. I've been in the ministry now for 20 years, and I have barely even heard of a Christian suing a fellow church member. (If that does happen - it's wrong. This passage makes it clear.)

But the truth Paul runs to from this problem is universal. It's applicable to all of us. So rather than focus on the problem, I want to focus on the truth.

If I were to summarize this section I would put it like this:

Because you have been transformed by Christ, you should live together as transformed people - bearing wrongs like Christ did, and when resolution is needed, seeking wisdom from fellow believers rather than from those under God's judgment.

So let's work through that together.

The first thing Paul is teaching us here (working backwards) is...

1. You have been transformed by Christ.

Look at verses 9-10 again:

[!bible] 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - KJV 9. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10. Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

Now, that is bad news. The unrighteous will not inherit God's kingdom. The unrighteous will not go to heaven. And Paul is pretty clear about who the unrighteous are:

• Fornicators, idolater, effeminate, abusers of themseleves with mankind - those guilty of sexual sin
• thieves, extortioners - those guilty of property crime
• drunkards - those who have given themselves over to substance abuse
• Revilers - those who try to destroy the reputation of others
• Covetous - those who want what other people have.
• Idolaters - those guilty of religious sin

There are many things on this list you may be able to look at and say "I'm good, I never did that. But slipped in there are a lot of sins we are all guilty of - like idolatry or covetousness" and the bad news is those sins - left alone - disqualify us from being part of God's kingdom.

But they aren't left alone. Verse 11 says:

[!bible] 1 Corinthians 6:11 - KJV 11. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

It doesn't matter what your past sin is - what matters is that you have been transformed by Christ.

In the Corinthian church they had former sexual sinners of all types, they had former drunkards, they had former thieves and extortioners, they had former idolaters - but in Christ - they had been washed and sanctified and justified.

• Washed means they have been cleansed from sin's defilement.
• Sanctified means they have been set apart as holy to God.
• Justified means they are declared righteous in God's eyes.

If you are a saved man or woman today, it doesn't matter what you were - it matters what you are - and you are washed, sanctified and justified in Christ.

As an aside, I've known preachers to use verses 9-10 to say that homosexuals cannot trust Christ. But I think they are being willfully ignorant of verse 11 - because I believe this teaches the opposite.

God can save anyone - and when he does - they are transformed. It doesn't matter what they were - it matters what they are in Christ.

This is where Paul was going with this. He wanted this church to think about how they were new creatures in Christ and to think about the implications of that for how they treat other people.

So the first point is you have been transformed by Christ.

The second thing these verses teach us is...

2. You should live together as transformed people, bearing wrongs like Christ did.

So we are working backwards and we've looked at the principle in verses 9-11. Let's go back a few verses and see the principle in verses 7-8.

[!bible] 1 Corinthians 6:7-8 - KJV 7. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? 8. Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.

Remember the setup for this chapter. There were people in this church in Corinth who were taking other people in this church in Corinth to their version of "small claims court." And Paul said they shouldn't do it.

In these verses he tells us what they should do instead - they should "rather take wrong" or "suffer yourselves to be defrauded."

What does that mean? It means they should turn the other cheek. They should forgive their brethren. They should allow themselves to be taken advantage of.

This harkens back to the sermon on the mount where Jesus called us to turn the other cheek, to give to him that asks of us, to go the second mile. Transformed Christians aren't supposed to be all about fighting for their rights, we are to have the attitude of Christ - giving and gracious and forgiving to a fault. God will take care of us.

Let's say someone in the church hits your car in the parking lot - and they can't pay to fix it. What do you do? Do you go to court with them? Or do you handle that expense yourself?

What would Jesus do?

I have these triplet nephews who are 3 years old - Graham, Jackson and Knox. The other day, there grandma gave them two of them cookies but didn't give the third one cookies - some kind of social media experiment.

When they asked little Jackson what he would do, he said "I'd eat all my cookies and not share." His grandma said "But what would Jesus do?"

To which little Jackson said "But I'm not Jesus, I'm Jackson!"

As believers, we need to learn to say "I'm not Jackson, I'm becoming like Jesus" and "give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." (Matthew 5:42)

So do you see the point here - we are transformed in Christ. We are new creatures in Christ. And when we come together in the church, when we deal with each other - we need to do it as transformed people.

So we've seen two principles:

1. We are transformed in Christ
2. We should treat each other like people who have been transformed by Chrrist.

There is one more principle we see in these verses. Let's look at verse 1 again:

[!bible] 1 Corinthians 6:1 - KJV

1. Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?

The third principle in this section is...

3. When resolution is needed, you should seek wisdom from fellow believers rather than from those under God's judgment.

Paul is upset in these verses that Christians are taking church members to secular court instead of getting this taken care of by the saints.

Now, Paul acknowledges that sometimes we do need resolution and wise counsel - but he's very clear about where transformed people should seek that wisdom.

In verses 2-4 he makes the theological point that one day, we as Christians are going to judge the world and we are even going to judge angels - and Paul's point is "if you can judge the world and angels, can't you judge a fender bender in the parking lot?"

Again, we aren't talking about criminal stuff here. That's what those who bear the sword of government are for. But if it is an interpersonal matter, or a spiritual matter, or a relationship matter - what does it say about us as a church if we have to go to the world for that?

If the world is going to be judged by the saints - why would we go to the world to have the judged judge the judges? If we have spiritual discernment and they are unjust, why would we want them judging our matters?

I think this passage sort of touches a nerve among modern Christians - because many of us take way too much stock in what the world thinks of us and what the world says.

This same principle of "why would you go to the world?" would apply to psychologists, to secular self-help magazines, to secular marriage counseling, to horoscopes. There are so many Christians who claim to be redeemed and transformed and saints - but they are getting every practical instruction in their life from those we claim are judged and unjust.

Now, this doesn't mean Christians can't benefit from professional expertise - I'm not really concerned about whether my doctor is a Christian, whether my accountant goes to church or whether my mechanic reads his bible. But when it comes to the spiritual aspects of life, to matters of right and wrong, we should be discerning about whose wisdom we're really following and whether it aligns with God's truth.

Christians should be going to Christians for help and conflict resolution - not to the world.

What does it mean practically to seek wisdom from fellow believers? It means going to mature Christians when you're struggling in your marriage, asking godly mentors for life advice, and valuing the counsel of people who know God's Word over the latest self-help trend.

It means giving up the wisdom of the world and embracing the wisdom of Christ. It means embracing the church, both the teaching and fellowship, as "the ordinary means of grace" that God wants to use to help you.

Conclusion

So here's what I want you to take home today:

• You are not who you used to be.
• You are washed, sanctified, and justified in Christ.
• That's not just a legal declaration - it's a life transformation that should change everything about how you relate to others.

The next time someone wrongs you, remember - you're not Jackson, you're becoming like Jesus. The next time you need wisdom for life's challenges, remember - you're part of a community of transformed saints, not the unjust world under judgment.

So if someone wrongs you - bear it like Christ did. If you can't doo that, then seek godly counsel first.

When you are tempted to respond like the old you - remember you are a new creature in Christ - you are a saint - so live like a saint.

Let's stand together for prayer.