Sermons

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Family Matters
June 24, 2001
Series on I Corinthians
Pastor Dan Baumgartner

This morning we get a chance to continue in our series on the book of First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul’s letter to a young church in Corinth (Greece). If you’ve been here on previous Sundays, you’ll remember that in the first four chapters, Paul mainly dealt with some general attitudes in the church…pride and arrogance, in particular. Then in chapter 5, he began to respond to some reports that he had heard from Corinth…disturbing reports about things going on in the church. We continue that today in I Corinthians 6.

I Corinthians 6:1-11

I had to laugh this week. Our special music people always do a great job of contacting me the week prior to a service, and finding out what the scripture and topic might be. Martin Stillion is especially faithful in trying to match a song to the sermon topic. So it was about mid-week that I received an e-mail from him saying “Oh, sure, Dan…I have all sorts of songs about Christians suing each other!”

At first glance, we might be puzzled about how this section fits with those before and after. Last week Jeff did a great job in looking at chapter 5, where Paul talks about a case of sexual immorality. Today we will deal with lawsuits within the church, and then next week it’s back to sexual immorality. But we need to remember that Paul’s concern, stated over and over again, is the importance of the wholeness of the Christian community in Corinth, and the things that might threaten it.

The problem Paul begins with is that there are apparently those within the Church who are taking each other to civil court. Their disputes are being carried into the public arena, Christians are suing each other, and their conflicts are aired out as so much dirty laundry. Why should that bother Paul? It probably doesn’t bother most of us at all. Lawsuits are absolutely commonplace in our culture. Perhaps you have had the uncomfortable experience of a friend of mine, whose young child perceived an injustice being done and said immediately, “We should sue them!” Lawsuits are commonplace in our world.

Lawsuits were also very commonplace in Corinth’s Greek culture. The legal system there was, in fact, extremely developed and incorporated many, many ordinary citizens. …legal arguing was almost a pastime, and to some degree, the average person fancied himself as something of a legal expert. There was an intricate system of public court cases, appeals and public jury duty. It was also a system very vulnerable to abuse…those with money and power could afford to hire lawyers, manipulate the judges, and win easy judgments against those less able to defend themselves. One social critic of the day had the audacity to say that Corinth at the time was full of “lawyers innumerable perverting judgment.” So that’s the Corinthian culture’s experience with a legal system.

Now Paul, on the other hand, came from the Jewish tradition. The Jews preferred to handle legal disputes “in house.” It was a family matter, and they didn’t want or need to involve people from outside, who didn’t share or understand the role of their faith in everyday life and behavior. And so, perhaps naturally, Paul is SHOCKED that the Christians would drag each other into the courts of the culture. The disputes were family matters, and need to be handled as such. By suing each other, the witness of the community to the culture was damaged. By suing one another in secular courts, the Corinthians were in essence showing more allegiance to the culture than to the faith. They are acting as though they are no different than everyone else in Corinth.

Paul really takes them to task over this. He says, “Don’t you know that one day you will judge the world…even angels?” That IS a future part of the role of believers, though there’s some mystery in that. But those words come right from Jesus in Matthew 19:28, Luke 22:30, Rev 3:21, as well as the Old Testament book of Daniel 7:18, 22. And Paul says, “If you are going to be part of that huge task, don’t you think you should be able to judge simple, ordinary matters? Property disputes, daily disagreements… Is no one wise enough to make decisions so that you don’t have to rip apart the family of faith before total unbelievers?”

But Paul doesn’t stop there. It’s not JUST that the Church is dragging one another before unbelievers…but even coming to the point of lawsuits in the faith community is a losing proposition. No one wins. The community is hurt. People do harm to one another as they try to win the suits, they become wrongdoers even in arguing against one another…they defraud and wrong each other, and treat each other no better than those outside the faith community. And so Paul says, “Wouldn’t it be better to allow yourselves to be wronged or defrauded, wouldn’t it be better to choose to lose rather than tear apart the community?” [It sort of makes your hair bristle, doesn’t it? “Better to be wronged than to do wrong!” That is totally outside of our sphere of thinking].

It’s at this point that Paul broadens his teaching. Wrongdoing, in virtually any form…hurts not just the person, but the community. The Kingdom of God is something different than doing wrong to one another. He lists out other wrongdoings: sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, homosexual behavior, robbery, drunkenness, greed…these are things that hurt the community. Now we tend to read only some parts of this list. But what Paul says is that these things are wrong, and they hurt people. It’s really quite clear. Sexual immorality, adultery, homosexual behavior…these things are WRONG. They damage individual people, they hurt the witness of the community, and they make it difficult to instruct our children or new Christians about how to live godly lives.

But…Paul doesn’t stop with sexual actions. Idolatry (worshipping things that are not God), greed (which we seem to overlook so often)…these things too hurt people, and the entire community. And you are not to be about them. When you are…you demonstrate your allegiance to your world…not to God. You’re not being the church. Paul would find it amazing what today’s statistics tell us: that Christians have affairs, get divorced, cheat, file lawsuits, buy into consumerism and different forms of idolatry just as often as non-Christians. The bumper sticker that says “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven” is probably more accurately characterized as “Christians live no differently, they just know they’re forgiven.” Paul would take great exception to that.

Now, you may be squirming a little bit – I am -- because Paul is sticking his nose into things that are pretty close to home…whether that is how you conduct your affairs, the lifestyle you are living, your sexual practice, or the greed that is so rampant in our consumerist day. I think that’s good. I think Paul fully intends to make us squirm. And as we’re squirming, he tries to convince us to totally re-think, reframe how we look at life, in the light of four things:

First, in the light of faith, how we will handle our everyday, ordinary affairs is very important. Rental agreements, painting contracts, insurance settlements, property purchases, how we run our business or what kind of employee we are. Questions come up virtually every day. Will we bend the rules, live in the gray areas, play by the rules everyone else uses? Or something different? How do we deal with ordinary things within the family of God? I bought a used car last year from an individual. I questioned him extensively about the car, and any problems it had. After buying it (you know where this is going), I found four or five things wrong with it that he SURELY knew about, but didn’t tell me. Should he have told me? Would I have told someone if I were the seller?

What about when you have a dispute with another Christian? That’s what Paul dissects here. Are you pushing for the letter of the law…or for what is right? Would you look for a way to resolve the dispute? Would you settle for something less than what you felt you deserved if it would avoid a battle between Christians? A number of lawyers from Bethany have actually participated in a Christian reconciliation and mediation group here in Seattle. There are other similar groups around the country. It provides a great alternative, and I think gets at just what Paul is talking about. It provides a Christian forum for working on serious disputes. It makes for reduced costs, for neutral hearers…and most importantly, it provides a picture for the secular world that maybe these Christians really are different.

Secondly, Paul calls us to see things in the light of the whole community. Would you try again to settle a broken relationship IF you realized it was impacting the wider community? These things don’t just hurt the two people involved…it’s much more than that. Every community has people who “don’t get along,” or who hold a grudge of silence or just avoid other people. It’s never good for the sake of the rest of the community. Others are forced to tiptoe around, or change plans to avoid putting particular people together. Our children watch us do it, new Christians see it lived out, they know EXACTLY what goes on. It hurts the whole community…not just the people at odds.

Thirdly, Paul calls the Church…to see world in light of eternity. Remember, he said, you are going to judge the world with Christ one day. There is life beyond the one we live in now…will that change how we live this life? If we are after things with significance for eternity…life will be different.

If we knew we would die in the near future, I know we would act differently. I know I would. I would spend more time with the people I loved, and tell them more often. I would give time to things that would really make a difference.

If I knew someone close to me was near death, I know I would act differently. I would be bolder in making sure that they knew I loved them, and that God cared about them, and in Jesus gave out His grace and forgiveness.

I sat in a Middle School gym last week for a graduation ceremony, and listened to a speaker give the keynote address. He was a successful business person, with an interesting story. His own credentials were held up quite a bit, but I guess as speakers in public schools go, he was fine. The kids heard a lot about the importance of being smart, of working hard, of being successful and climbing up. But as I sat in the top row and looked out on all those families gathered, and knew from experience how many were broken and hurting, how many kids were lonely and unloved, how many grasped at things to define who they are…my heart welled up inside me with this intense desire to shout out: “There’s more! There’s a God who knows and loves you, there’s a reason beyond yourself to live!, this world is NOT the end of the road!” There was no sense of eternity. Paul says, no, see the world in eternity’s light.

Finally, and most importantly… Paul’s words call us to live out our identity. The last verses of this passage refer to the list of unacceptable behaviors, and Paul says, “This is what some of you USED to be. BUT then something happened. You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Those can be very Churchy, theological sounding words. But they’re simple, really. Paul is reminding the Corinthians that their lives can be different, should be different, are becoming different…because their identity has changed. These words are almost a call for the Church to remember the meaning of its baptism:

You Christians are people who have been washed, sanctified, justified in Jesus Christ. Your sins have been forgiven in Christ, you have been given right standing before God in Christ, you have been set apart for service in Christ’s name…you have become part of God’s family. Paul is practically doing a baptism service right here.

A couple of weeks ago we baptized our friend Andy Siu. When we baptized Andy he knelt down and we poured water over his head, because Christ has forgiven his sins. Whatever he was, whatever he had done…washed away. When we baptized Andy we celebrated the road that he was on, as a follower of Christ, called to mature in service and ministry. When we baptized Andy, in a sense, we walked beside him into presence of Almighty God, witnessed him standing clean and pure before God, because Jesus Christ had made it so. A new person! At the end of his baptism, I made the sign of the cross on his forehead and said “Andy, you are a child of the covenant. You have been marked as one of Christ’s own forever.” A new identity. A new person.

Paul asks the Corinthians to reframe their whole thinking in this light. He asks us to. We are not to be participants in a normal civic, social and economic value system who also happen to be Christians. We are Christians…who happen to be in a particular culture and system right now… which is not as important as being in God’s family. Paul’s words are not light. He says, “Remember, because of God’s grace poured out in Christ, you are different people…you’re in the family of God!… Now act like it.” Let’s pray.