Bad News But Good News

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

To set this up a little, Paul was writing to this church at Corinth, because there was disorder in living, in worship, in how they dealt with one another. 1st Corinthians is a letter of correction.

There was some in the church that were having disputes and they were running to the courts to have their disputes settled.

Paul, in the previous verses, that this should not be! One believer of the same church taking their problems to the outside world to be handled????? In Paul’s mind that was absurd!

This shouldn’t be happening!

This is how those outside the church, those living in and for the corrupt city of Corinth! Exposed to all kinds of debauchery, some of these Corinthian (so-called) Christians were living as the unbelievers!

The believers, the ones that truly believe in Jesus Christ, should be able to work out their problems!

If you believe that Jesus is the Way, Truth, and the Life, then you would seek the way of forgiveness!

I envision the believer’s dispute going this way: The offender would quickly after the offense, seek to make it right with the offended. The offended would not be so offended by the offense, but entreat the offended with a heart of forgiveness.

That is the way a dispute would be with true Christians!

So, out of this Paul teaches them and us something.......

1. The saints taking each other are acting like those people who are:

Unrighteous (not right with God)

Fornicators (sexually immoral)

idolaters (worshipping something other than God)

adulterers (

effeminate (soft-homosexual)

abuser of themselves with mankind (homosexual)

thieves (

covetous (greedy)

drunkards (

revilers (slanderers, verbal abusers)

extortioners (swindler)

These folks are in continual sin....gladly going about their day offending God and desiring to be filled the world rather than God!

Happily sinning!

These are the people that you are looking like, when you go to the law against someone, because you, FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST, cannot seem to work it out.

This is out in the open for the unjust to see. The ones suing don’t look like Christians at all, they look like those that will not inherit the Kingdom of God!

Then, Paul, reveals to them what has supposed to have happened in their lives......These guys WERE like this before but now they are.....

Washed........to make pure, to wash away

Hebrews 10:22 “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.”

Ezekiel 36:25 “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.”

What is the pure water??? Jesus and His pure life and shed blood, that is what washes us before God!

1 John 1:7 “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

Sanctified..........to dedicate, to make holy, to set apart.....the food laws and other laws like them, were done to set the Jews apart from everyone else. So the folks would know that they are God’s people.

Not so, for us now, we are set apart, because of the Holy Spirit!

Something happens at conversion, it is a change of heart/direction, then also, a process begins to happen over the lifetime. A separation from the world and society, as the Holy Spirit, pulls you to Jesus! Some of the things we used to do we immediately stop, then some things we learn to trust over time. Paul said that he had to learn to be content in whatever state that he was in.

Peter said that we are to grow in Grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Justified..........put right with, show to be right, to declare righteous......this was not done by our effort, only through the perfect of Jesus and Him taking our place to suffer and die, to appease the wrath of God for OUR SIN!

1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:”

Romans 3:20 “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

Romans 3:24 “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:”

In the Name of.........In the person and the work of all 3 Persons of the Trinity.......The Lord Jesus, The Holy Spirit, which is of God! Paul also states “our God”

We and they should act like something happened, whenever they believed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ! This cause and effect according to Paul, we believe and therefore we are washed from our sins, we are set apart by His Holiness, we are justified before God! Clean from sin, a new walk in life, no guilt before God!

This new walk is powerful! I am not saying that it is all going to come together right away, but I will say that there is a definite change of direction when we come to this saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and we believe it!

2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

Romans 6:4 “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

The Corinthians Christians should not look at all like those that were not washed, sanctified, and justified! Their walk of life should be different. Differences between brothers and sisters should be worked out not taken to some court!

We are new!!!!

So, out of all this brings me to the heart of the message........the bad news but good news......

Did you hear all the things that Paul said if that is happily in you now, that you would not inherit the Kingdom of God?

It was a long list.....Paul states again in Galatians 5:19-21 “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

But 1 Corinthians 15:50 sums it up for me: “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”

Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God....that is a pretty sobering thought!!!

Think back to that list we read about earlier and also in Gal. 5, that is pretty exhaustive, it covers a lot of ground. We make a lot out of other folks, homosexuals, thieves, swindlers, those caught in adultery......we make a big deal about those, but we never look at the whole counsel of God and see our own unworthiness!

We see everyone else’s but not ours!

We must be like the tax collector that came to the temple and prayed: Luke 18:13 “And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.”

This is the only way to walk in a newness of life, this person had put to death the deeds of the flesh and those deeds are no more dominate in their lives, but only Christ is directing our course now! I must remain humble in order to believe and follow!

This is the reality of life, but this is what I will say, there were a lot of what we would call “rotten” people living in Corinth and in the world today, but thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, there were some in that city that were that way but they are not now, they are washed, they are sanctified, they are justified!!!

Isn’t that GOOD NEWS!!!!!!!! This phrasing: “As such as were some of you: but you are......”

These folks that we look at participating willingly and happily in these sins against God, do we look at them with disgust or do we look at them with them with the hope of Titus 3:1-7.........

We didn’t save ourselves, Jesus saved us by unmerited favor or love!

If you have not been washed, sanctified, justified, in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God, then let’s start a process toward having this knowledge and then believing this AWESOME GOOD NEWS!!!

If you have been washed, sanctified, justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God, then let us put down all those weights and let us live unto God, then let us realize that the same HOPE that lives within us, is possible for those in the dreadful list Paul gave of those that will not inherit the kingdom of God, only if they believe!!!

Romans 10:14 “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”

That word preacher just simply means.......ANNOUNCER!

We can announce by our newness of life created in Christ Jesus!

We can announce by our knowledge of Jesus Christ!

Can’t live for Jesus without knowing Him!!

Our willingness is the key, there is a lot of bad news out there, but the true bad news is being at enmity with God, separated from Him, sin does that, but there is greater GOOD NEWS than bad is that we are redeemed not by our works but by the precious Blood of Jesus Christ!!!

Ephesians 2:7-10 “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them (good works).”