Grievences Within the Church

Introduction

READ 1 CORINTHIANS 6:1-11

Good morning!

What a blessing it is to be together with you this morning, and to be able to worship our God together.

I hope that it’s been a good week for you, and I hope that you’re all keeping safe and keeping healthy during these times we find ourselves in.

The pandemic seems to be lessening in terms of it’s impact, which is great news, and I see our attendance here for in-person participation has grown significantly the last few months, and we’re getting some people back who’ve been immunized, and it’s great to be able to have a large number of our congregation here together.

There’s something about being together, isn’t there? What a great blessing this is.

Some who perhaps missed significant time assembling in-person feel this more than I do—after having been away for so long it makes you not take for granted this opportunity, doesn’t it?

Last week I was away and I was filling in for the Center Road congregation up in Saginaw, and I enjoy spending time up there, but boy did I miss being here! Just being away for one week really hit me hard!

There’s something about being together…

We not only have the opportunity to participate in worship together—to sing and make melody in our hearts together and to share in the bread and the cup later on, but there’s a great opportunity for fellowship together.

One of the highlights of my week is the fellowship before and after services, being able to talk and laugh and share with each one of you is a great blessing.

This fellowship that we have together as the body of Christ—to be able to call ourselves brothers and sisters in Christ, that is such an incredible blessing.

This fellowship we have together runs deeper than just a normal friendship…

I’ve made a lot of friends over the 24 years I’ve been alive, but none of those friendships run as deep as the fellowship within the body of Christ…

There’s something special about this fellowship of believers, which is what makes it so heartbreaking and so devastating whenever there are grievances against each other within the church…

It’s one thing if you have a friend and you have a grievance—most friendships are temporary anyway.

But when it happens within the body of Christ, and it leads to quarreling and division, that is a real shame…

We’re brothers and sisters in Christ! We are blood—the blood of the Lamb that cleanses us all!

We are supposed to be unified as one body—yet it doesn’t always shape out that way, does it?

Sermon

The fact of the matter is that we’re human…

As humans, we aren’t perfect, and we’re going to do bad things from time to time.

That doesn’t make it okay, but it’s just a fact of life.

Sometimes we act up and the only person harmed besides God is ourselves…

But there’s other times when we act up and we harm one of our own brothers or sisters in Christ.

This unfortunately happens frequently in our world today, but this isn’t anything new…

It’s evident that this sort of thing was running rampant in the church at Corinth…

We’ve already seen some division and strife within this congregation…

They were already fighting over what teacher they followed—whether they followed Paul, or Apollos, or still others.

The source of this fighting wasn’t the teachers, though… the source of the fighting was their own pride and their own selfishness…

Because it isn’t as if Paul and Apollos were teaching different things… perhaps their style or their presentation was different, but the content—their message was the same—Christ crucified.

Their own pride was getting in the way of the unity that they—and we—are called to, to be united in the same mind and the same judgment (1:10).

You’ll find as we go throughout the rest of 1 Corinthians that they had a lot of problems, but these problems had one cause—and it was their own selfishness and prideful thinking.

Instead of being focused on the gospel of Christ, they were focused on themselves.

This will of course not only lead to a lot of divisions and quarreling, but it even has led to grievances against each other.

And not even just grievances, but grievances to the point of being taken under law—before court.

You have a group of believers here who were not only divided about silly and petty things, but it’s to the point where they were even suing each other over some of these petty things!

They’re throwing lawsuits at each other!

Does this sound like a healthy congregation to you? It certainly was not, which is why Paul is writing this letter to them—these issues couldn’t wait until he was back at Corinth, this is urgent.

But this isn’t even the worst of it…

Because not only were they divisive, and not only were there grievances against each other, and not only were these issues taken under law, but it’s the unrighteous who are settling the disputes of the saints…

These grievances within brethren are being taken to court, and it’s being left up to judges who aren’t even part of the body of Christ!

What this creates is a circumstance that does NOT look good for the church…

Here the church is supposed to be the light of the world, meant to stand out and glorify God and draw others in.

But with these grievances, all they’re doing is not just tearing down each other, but tearing down the church in the process.

Imagine you’re one of those judges, and you have one of these cases brought before you.

Here you have two Christians—part of the same body of Christ—bringing this issue before the court.

That doesn’t look too good for the church, does it?

That judge must be thinking, “Aren’t these people supposed to love each other? Aren’t they supposed to be unified? Aren’t they supposed to be one body or something?”

*Sarcastically* That’s got to look good to nonbelievers, doesn’t it?

But there’s more to it than just that!

Because what is also going on here is not only an embarrassment to the church, but it’s also a reversal of the order that things ought to be in…

How it SHOULD be is that the saints will, in some capacity, judge not only the world but even the angels! (6:3).

But when the Corinthians were bringing up what the ESV translates as “Trivial Cases” to court, the order has been reversed…

Instead of the saints judging the world, those who are unrighteous are judging the saints—literally, in a court of law!

This order of things is reversed…

Instead of the righteous judging the unrighteous, now it’s the unrighteous who judge the righteous—and that isn’t how things ought to be.

This not only embarrasses the church, but the order of how things ought to be is flipped upside down…

Look, having any sort of grievance against a brother or sister in Christ is bad enough, but if it gets taken to the point of being brought before a non-believer in the court of law, then that is an entirely different issue.

This shouldn’t be settled by an unbeliever—it should be settled by a believer, preferably by the two parties who are in the dispute in the first place, but if not that then at least some other believer!

Make no mistake about it, this is a major issue, one that the Corinthians should have been ashamed of (6:5).

Paul is shaming them here, not only because they’re having these issues in the first place, but also because apparently there wasn’t anybody among them that was wise enough to settle the disputes!

Could they not have at least done what Jethro had told Moses to do and appoint judges from among themselves to hear their cases? (Exodus 18).

Now, going off of what Paul has said to this point, he makes a really profound point in verses 7-8…

He tells them first that the fact that they have lawsuits with each other at all is already a defeat for them.

In other words, even though in a court room one of them will win and one of them will lose, the fact that they are in that situation in the first places means they’ve both lost before the trial has even begun.

Think of this great fellowship that we share together—as brothers and sisters in Christ—they’ve lost that in the process of bringing this to court!

If you find yourself in a dispute with a brother or sister in Christ and you find it being escalated to the point of being taken to court, then you’re doing something wrong…

But Paul doesn’t stop there… because he goes on to say here that instead of participating in these lawsuits, they should consider suffering wrong or being defrauded…

Instead of taking extreme measures to have your way in a dispute, perhaps take the place of humility and suffer the wrong or be defrauded.

The fracturing of a relationship that occurs in this is far from worth it—why not just suffer wrong? Why not be defrauded?

Now, don’t think I’m telling you to be a doormat and let people walk all over you, because that’s not what I’m saying.

There’s a difference between being wronged by someone and being taken advantage of—brethren don’t take advantage of each other, and if they do then I’d question the sincerity of that brother or sister’s faith.

Don’t be a doormat, but don’t defend yourself to the point of a lawsuit either.

The Corinthians were to the point where instead of suffering wrong and being defrauded, they were the ones who were wronging and defrauding each other!

Instead of taking the position of humility, instead of taking the wrong, they stuck to their pride and insisted on escalating a situation to the point of a lawsuit…

Except in this battle, there are no winners…

Make no mistake about it, this is a serious thing that the Corinthians were doing…

They were not only divided… they were not only quarreling… they were not only having grievances with each other, things that were just trivial, but they were taking matters not even into their own hands, or the hands of a believer, but into the hands of the unrighteous…

This is so severe that Paul intends to shame them—and to show them just how bad this really is.

They are so focused on being right, or winning the dispute, or being the one who comes out on top, that the church was suffering because of it…

What we’re seeing here is more than just pettiness… this is more even than the righteous having the unrighteous settle their manners with a brother… but this was the righteous inching toward unrighteousness…

These brethren were behaving in a pride-filled way and were escalating the situation to the point where it fractured relationships within the body of Christ.

The line has become blurred between the righteous and the unrighteous… they’re becoming indistinguishable… and when they become indistinguishable, that’s when the salt of the earth has lost its saltiness, and it’s no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot…

It’s for this reason that Paul brings up the unrighteous or the wrongdoers in verse 9…

Most English bibles call this group the ‘unrighteous,’ but when you look at the original language, you see that there’s some word play going on by Paul…

In verse 8 Paul tells them, “But you yourselves wrong and defraud...”

Then in verse 9, he begins talking about as the ESV calls it the unrighteous, but another way to translate this word would be as the NIV does, the wrongdoers…

You can’t necessarily see this in English, but in the original language this word wrong in verse 8 and this word unrighteous in verse 9 are the same word… one appears as a verb, the other as a noun.

These people were wronging each other, which is why Paul then talks about the wrongdoer, or the unrighteous…

Specifically, what Paul says about the unrighteous, is the fact that they will not inherit the kingdom of God…

Now, it might seem like verses 9-11 seem like it’s own little section that should be isolated from verses 1-8, but these do go together…

So, who are these unrighteous that Paul is talking about?

Is it the unrighteous people who are judging the believers? While this is true of them, I don’t think they’re specifically who Paul has in mind…

…Paul is talking about them—the Corinthians, the ones who are having these lawsuits with each other!

They are the ones wronging each other, they are the wrongdoers or the unrighteous!

This is so important, and this is so urgent for Paul, because he sees the reality that these people’s souls are at stake with this very issue.

The righteous ones are slipping back into unrighteous—and it’s being done by their own pride.

Now, perhaps there was a false rumor going around that perhaps if they kept this behavior going that they would still inherit the kingdom, but that isn’t the case…

Paul tells them, “Don’t be deceived...”

The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom, just as the sexually immoral won’t, just as the idolaters won’t, just as the adulterers won’t, just as those who practice homosexuality won’t, just as thieves won’t, just as the greedy won’t, just as drunkards won’t, just as revilers won’t, and just as swindlers won’t.

This is quite a list from Paul—a catch-all list of those who won’t inherit the kingdom, and look who’s among that group: the unrighteous.

The Corinthians were on the fast track to this group—the unrighteous or the wrongdoers, which is why it’s so imperative that Paul addresses this issue with swiftness and frankness, because their souls are at stake.

Paul gives this list of vices, and the unrighteous are among the list.

He tells them, “Don’t deceive yourselves… if you think you can be part of this group and still inherit the kingdom, you’re wrong...”

Paul’s list of vices here shows not only a comparison of the fate of the unrighteous, but also as a contrast to who these Corinthians truly were.

Because Paul notes here, “And such were some of you...”

Before becoming Christians, some of the Corinthians were part of this list.

They, like all, were lost before they were found…

But Paul ends this with a message of hope: this list of vices, this used to be you, but not anymore.

Not anymore, because YOU WERE WASHED… YOU WERE SANCTIFIED… YOU WERE JUSTIFIED in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You were formally a part of those ways of life, but not anymore—those things are behind you, and for better.

You’ve already left this life behind—don’t go back to it.

FIX MICROPHONE/MASK

If you have a grievance with a brother or sister in Christ this morning, reconcile it.

Whether that means reaching common ground, or you suffer wrong, reconcile it.

Jesus said on the side of the mountain that if you are offering a gift at the altar and there remember a brother has something against you, leave quickly, don’t even bother taking the gift with you, because it doesn’t matter.

The reconciliation with your brother is much more important than the gift you leave at the altar…

This should tell us something about the importance of reconciliation—especially with a brother or sister in Christ.

Be reconciled today—and if you find yourself in the list of vices from Paul in verses 9-10, my advice to you is the same: be reconciled.

Except the one you need be reconciled with is God.

Be reconciled with God today—be washed, be sanctified, be justified, accept God’s gift of salvation today.

Let’s stand and sing.