Wrong Rights

I. When was the last time you heard a political stump speech focused making sure we do all of our responsibilities as citizens?

When was the last time you heard someone complaining about their lack of responsibilities in life?

Never. It’s usually about our rights or our perceived rights. Whether it’s constitutional rights, civil rights, legal rights, property rights, sexual rights, etc.

- We all like being right…and we hate being wronged...

When was the last time you broke the law and turned yourself in for it? Speeding? Rolled a stop sign?

Never!

Usually, when we get caught doing something wrong we think things like “Why aren’t you out there stopping real criminals!?! I’m a good citizen! I’m a good person!”

We think that we’re not like those other people who deserve to get caught…the ones who REALLY do wrong.

Discussion:

What’s one perceived right that really matters to you personally?

What’s one of your responsibilities in life that you really don’t like?

II. We live in a time where everyone is focused on their rights…even when they’re doing wrong.

A time when wrong is called right and right is called wrong…a time of great confusion and inconsistency…a time with lots of perceived rights and freedoms that leave people bound and broken.

III. Paul is writing the the Corinthian Church about their confusion over License and Legalism and challenges them to instead embrace a life of Liberty...

To live in legalism is to be culturally captive…and to live in license is just as captive!!!

+ They were proud of their sin! They were missing the mark and not functioning according to the desires, designs, and decrees that God had given for life…and they were proud of it.

+ They thought they were so great but they were thinking just like the world around them…everyone was fighting for their perceived rights…even within the church community. There were some who were wronged financially and they were taking others to court to recover the small amount lost, and to publically shame their opponent.

1 Corinthians 6:1-11

1 Corinthians 6:1–11 (NIV)

1 If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? 2 Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4 Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers!

7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. 9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Disputes & Judgement

If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? 2 Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4 Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers! 7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters.

Better To Be Wronged Than To Do Wrong

“Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?”

+ Their focus on their rights made them blind to the wrong ways they were trying to bring justice…the right thing done the wrong way is still wrong.

+ Jesus set an example of laying down His rights and picking His responsibilities and even carrying the responsibility, the penalty, of the lack of responsibility of others on Himself at the Cross…a few weeks ago we looked at Philippians 2 where it lays it out for us!

Matthew 5:10-12 (beatitudes we covered this Summer in the Park)

Matthew 5:10–12 (NIV)

10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

1 Peter 3:13-18

Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.” 15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 17 For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. 18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.

Better To Do Right Than To Do Wrong

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

+ Wrongdoers will not inherit the Kingdom of God…grammatical construction is those who persist in this lifestyle. This is an important list of things we’re not called to live in as followers of Jesus…again this is not about judging those outside the church but about choosing to live according to God’s definitions and designs for life.

- Repentance is not saying “I’m sorry” to God. It’s a change of heart and mind that results in changed behavior, changed direction: Transformation!

+ Sexual Immorality - porneia = any sexual acts outside of the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman.

+ Idolaters = putting anything else before God…your life revolves around that.

+ Adulterers = sexual acts of unfaithfulness to the covenant of marriage…imagine how you would judge if I did this or the things under sexual immorality, if you’re not married…than why the double standard???

+ Men who have sex with men = the pairing of these two words implies the active and passive participants…NOT referring to Pederasty, sex with young boys…

- if that were the case there would not also be admonitions against any sexual activity between men and men and women and women in Romans 1…Jesus and the apostles wouldn’t have continued to point back to Adam and Eve as the original ideal of how marriage and sexual relations should be, despite being in a pluralistic.

+ The fact that this is listed alongside other sexual sins, and other sins of the heart, reminds us that the point here is about the PRACTICE of such things, not about temptation.

+ The world has tried to make sexual attraction the definition of your identity…it has simultaneously tried to split sexual expression from gender…and made the sex/gender that you feel be the core of your identity.

+ Instead, it’s recognizing that these are temptations to live in ways that actually go AGAINST the definitions, designs and desires that God has for your life. To follow Him is to align yourself with what HE says about who you are and what you’re called to do with your body, your time, your life!

+ The world doesn’t do that with many other things that the Bible calls sin…in fact, for those things the world says that there’s always a chance at redemption…which doesn’t make sense, because with the previous things it’s somehow simultaneously your choice AND immutable part of who you are that you didn’t choose…Think about that one for a while.

Better To Do Right Than To Do Wrong

Goes on to list other lifestyles that will keep you out of the Kingdom:

+ Thieves

+ Greedy

+ Drunkards

+ Slanderers

+ Swindlers

+ Paul is not saying that people aren’t actually feeling those feelings or temptations, but that they’re not called to that life anymore now that they’re in Christ:

1 Corinthians 6:11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Washed…Sanctified…Justified...

+ Definitions...

We Must Be Made Right to Do Right

+ This requires accepting His Definitions, His Designs, His Desires, and His Destiny…this is what we call the Will of God.

+ This is only possible IN and THROUGH Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:17–21 NIV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Romans 12 says that we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds…all of these scriptures tell us that we can be made new in our identity and calling!

We don’t have to self-justify and call things right that God calls wrong…we don’t have to stay in bondage…

...we don’t have to put the focus on the wrongs of others to get the focus off of the wrongs that we do!

You don’t get to be whoever you want to be…and you’re not stuck being defined by your sin...

We Must Be Made Right to Do Right

Invitation…to be washed, sanctified, justified.

Challenge…to submit your perceived rights to God’s desires and designs!