Hope in broken relationships

Intro

Good morning brothers and sisters, friends. Today we will continue our seires on hope. And today we would like to talk about hope in broken relationships. Hope in ourselves, and hope in broken relationships.

In our lifetime, as we grow older we would see broken relationships in our lives. And the idea to be vengeful and quick to litigate, starts from a very young age. You know I have a few kids, don’t want to talk about the older ones, but yeah little one. He is two, even he doesn’t know how to speak, already knows how to tell on someone. He goes, point at his Big sister, some baby gibblish, second sister, some baby gibblish. The most funny thing is he sometimes even tell on me. He tells mum, baba, point at me… somebaby gibbirish. But don’t these wronged, broken relationships kind of continues and serioues. I used to go to this high school right in HK. It was suppose to be a bit prestige, but boys rite? We thought we were doing harmless prank to some of the smaller boys. You know at my time we don’t have some much awareness about bullying. But I think around 20 years latter, when some of us met together the smaller boy said after all these years, he still felt hurt and wronged. As we grow even older, there are more wronged, broken relationships and sometimes it seem hopeless to mend, hopeless to reconcile.

And broken relationships is also the main topic of our passage, 1 Corinthians 6:1-6. Here Paul addressed CHristians who were going to court and lodging lawsuits against one another. Rather than handling the issues internally, the church has allowed problems to escalte, and the church members are now going at it in the public squiare via a nasty lawsuit. While it may be hard for us to relate, we’ll see that Paul’s response to this situation has wide-reaching effectson how we understand ourselves, our community and our interpersonal relationships, regardless of the legal character of a given situation. This particular case study allows us to reflect on hope in broken relationships, and even more fundamental, our identity as a Christians. And so let’s pray:

Dear heavenly father, thank you today you’re speaking to us through your words. Lord help us open our hearts, show upon it, expose anything that is not pleasing it. Forgive us and give us the strength to follow you. IN Jesus name we pray, Amen.

1. Our identity in Christ - saints and judges (v1-4)

To pursuade these church members to not sue each other, Paul poses the Corinthians a number of questions to get them to consider their identity, their core being. It is only from their identity that they will see the absurdity of what happening between the family memebers.

1 Corinthians 6:1-4 “When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church?”

Let’s look again at verse 1, here Paul again reiterate that God has set Corinthians believers apart and made them holy, even with all their shortcomings. The church is to be GO’ds community that conducts its family affairs in ways that are not shaped by the brokeness of the culture in which it exsits. Identity as God’s saints means that we are to display an alternate way of doing life. God’s justice system runs differently than the world’s. Paul wants them to consider their identity as they handle these disputes, they are saints. Not holy in the sense of morally perfect, but in the sense that we have been objectively settled as people set apart from God. To be calimed santified, justified by God through Jesus Christ.

But more than saints, we are suppose to be future judges. In verse 2 and 3 Paul gives us a mysterious glimpse into the future - the way things will be when we are also resurrected. When God sets the world - when he balnaces the sclae of justice - he will include those whom he has made right in the process. The resurrection gives us the power to be conquerers and judges in the future world. So it should be the case that justice done in church should be superior to the system of justice in the world. When we have infighting, when we backstabbing , when we gossip, when we slander, these are all denials of the reality of God’s work in our midst and are different from the future he has called us.

We are saints and we are future judges, and all this means that we are a community that are called to be gospel-shaped. We are a family which should be able to handle our own business. Paul is not calling for anything radical; he is just calling for the church to handle its own business in line with gospel, full of grace and justice. They are individuals who have been made right with God - as a result, they ourght to make things right with one another. Probably it would be good I need to calrify something. You might ask then, how about all the sexual abuses that happen to the church? You have to understand this passage does not imply all things that happen within the church are necessarily in-house issues. Throughout history churchs have made the mistake of trying to handle things themselves that require the intervention of authorities.Things like embezzlement, abuse, sexual misconduct, any crinimal cases. The scope of this passage is limited to mostly civil cases, intra-church disputes.

Anyway, becausethe Corinthians forget about identity that has given to them, or they let the culture around them shape them, they have a crisis in identity - a case of gospel amnesia which leads to them acting like the unrighteousness.

2. Identity crisis - suing each other (v5-10)

Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 6:5-10 “I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers! Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

We are not given any information on the grevance, but we are led to believe it is not actually a serious matter. But anyway, there is a failure on both the individual and community. They both have forget their identity. First, you need to understand the legal system in Corinthin is very different from today, it is not so much to seek justice as more to establish one’s status, honour and position in society. The courts were often used by the fortunate to tread upon the less-than-fortunate. The court was a quick way to move up the ranks and establish one’s suprmacy over another. The reason that this sitaution is so shocking is not simply because it is a legal dispute, it is because on brother in Christ is seeking to get a leg up in the unrighteous world by means of treading upon another borother in Christ. The plaintiff, the accusor is willing to wrong and defraud the defendent - his brother in Christ through an injustice system for the eyes of the world to see.

But not only the individual failed to remember his idneitty in the gospel. Also the community. Paul here implies that rather than living like a community of siants, the church is living just like the surrounding culture. The long list of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God are not only actions they commit, but their very identities. The things that bother us most in this list maybe those we use our bodies. THis is because Corinthians Christians have a gnostic approach to spirituality in which the boyd can be used for whatever is desired. When the community find their identity in these idols, whether money, work, relationships, sexuality, things you consume, it will lead to personal and communial breakdown, and lead them become powerless against two members suing each other.

But how close is this like today’s world. First the justice system. American and Australia have difference in their courts, but I’m sure we here would resonate with a cheif justice said, “One reason our courts have become overburdened is that Americans are increasingly turning to the courts for relief from a range of perseonal distresses and anxieities. Redemies for perseonal wrong, that onces were conisdered the responsibility of instituation,are now boldy asserted as legal entitlements. The courts have been expected to fill the void, created by the decline of church, family and neighbourhood unity. Another court justice said, “ I think today we are too ready to see vindication or vengeance through adversary proceeding, rather than peace through medication… Good Christians, just as they are slow to anger, should be slow to sue.”

But while is their decliner of church, family and neighbourhood unity, deeper still maybe the decline of forgiveness. Our culture has taken a strongly inward turn. While other cultures have stressed the importance of community and the need to forge a personal identity that negotiates and aligns with common good, now Australia has stressed looking inward to forget our own identity based on our desires,and then move outward to demand the society honour our inidvidual interests. In this climate, forgiveness is either discouraged as imposing a moral burden on the person, or at best, offered a way of helping yourslef acquaire more peaceful inner feeling. But more than that, there is a new shame-and-honour culture emerged with the help of social media. Because this turn towards self, individuals are seen being oppressed and controlled by society’s expectation, roles and structures. Greater honour and moral virtue are assigned to people the more they are victimized and subjugated. That’s why you have a graceless culture today, a cancel culture. There is little forgiveness on the net, and it propels down to other areas of our life.

3. Recovery of identity - forgiveness (v7, 11)

When we live in a world with wronged relationships , we are to reclaim our identity, relearn who we already are in the resurrection of Jesus. Our identity in Christ allows us to absorb the blows because Christ absorbed them on our behalf, v7 Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? This only make sense if you have nothing to lose, if suffering wrong is not an ultimate threat to you, if being defrauded is not the ultimate loss to you. Suffering wrong and being defrauded are not ultimate grievances because CHrist bore the ultimate grevancne in our place. He endured that wrong that we ought to have ended. He was defrauded of what was rightefully his in order to give us what we never deserved. If Christ abosrbed alll of our wrongs, then when others do the same to us, we can practivce gospel memory, which will give us the resources to absorb the blows of others. And that’s what forgiveness is about. That is what Christian pursuit of reconciliation is all about.

When we recover our identity, when we grasp the resources of the gospel, We have the power to forgive. In verse v11 it says “ANd such were some of you. But you were washed, you were santiiced, you were justified in the name of Lord Jesus Chirst.” What does this three words means. “You were wahsed”, that is the flith of sin has been removed. “You were santificed”l the grip of sin had been released.” you were justicied”. The identity of sin has been replaced. What is the implication of this? Because of Jesus’s forgiveness of our sins, we can forgive others for not asking to pay. We do not need to be cold to them anymore, we do not need to go to court with them.

In the rest of the sermon, I would like to talk a little more about forgiveness. As a biblical view of forgiveness is often misunderstood and misapplied. A major critic recently is if is always about unconditional forgiveness, what about justice? What about victims of abuse? there are two main forgiveness directive from Jesus. I read for you Mark 11:25 “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” This text seems to say you need to forgive somebody no matter what they do, but what about justice? There there is this verse in Luke 17:3-4 “Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”” Here it seems to promote a different way of forgiveness. If someone sins against you, instead of forgive them, rebuke, and only when they repent, forgive. Does it mean we don’t need to forgive until there is repetenance?

The key to understand is that the two verses is used in two aspects of forgiveness. In Mark 11, forgive them means inwardly being willing to not avenge oneself. But in Luke 17, it means to reconcile to them. There is then, a kind of forgiveness that ends up being inward only and another kind that isuses outwardly toward a possible resotred relationships. The victim of wrongdoing in either cases must forgive inwardly, while reconciliation depends on whether the perpetrator recognize his wrongdoing and repents or does not. Therefore, biblical forgiveness is never simply individualistic, GOd’s concern is for the outer and social healing of the commmunity as well. But also, CHristian forgiveness never underminds the pursuit of justice. Doing justice is at its essence loving your neighbours enough to want them to be freed from the evil at work in their hearts, therefore it is possible to pursue both justice and forgiveness, to renouce revenge and still pursue justice for the good of all. Maybe we not put it in more practicaly terms, how to we practice forgiveness?

First, by refusing to continue hurting the person directly. You refuse vengence, payback, and the infliction of pain in roder to relieve the sense of debt you feel. Second, by refusing to cut the person down to others. Don’t run them down in front of others. Third, by refusing to inidulge in ill will in your heart. Don’t hoping for thier pain or demonize the offender. This is hard, but the gospel, God’s forgiveness, and the spiritual wealth from God gives us the resource to forgive. And then the gospel calls us also to speak the truth and honour all the time, to endlessly forgive, to never give up on the goal of a reconciled, warm relationship.

This is so hard brothers and sisters. and to be honest, I struggle as well. I struggle to forgive like Jesus forgives me. There is this one person, I’m not sure if I’ve shared it. That have made me hate and hard to forgive in the past year. Just making sure you know it’s not somebody in this church. In my mind, in my words, I’ve shown signs of not forgiving. I have these pictures in my head, about causing this person pain. But I come to the Lord, I ask lord to grant me the heart of forgiveness. As time goes, I thought I’ve forgive this person, I thought it has no power over me. But then this year one day when I wake up, some events again trigger me, my emotionals are coming, I know then I really have not forgive this perseon. But as this year on the topic of hope, on the topic of resurrection. In a way the forgiveness that can be excruciatingly hard, like a death, but I leave it to God’s end, and by forgiveness it lead to a resurrection and to new freedom and peace.

Brothers and sisters, I know this is hard, but let’s practices God’s memory, how much God has forgive us, so today let us forgive others. As a community, let us be a witness to the present world of the new creation by showing that we can, by the power of SPirit, solve and heal our broken relationship. Let’s pray.