Our Future Reign and Past Redemption Changes Our Present Relationships

Transcript

Good morning, extended family. I’m not sure about the accent. I’ll have to you know, you guys can tell me about that. My name is Alex Duke. It is a privilege to be with you this morning. I met Thomas several years ago. He is a kind, intelligent, thoughtful brother. And he’s the only one I know in whose office would have on the bookshelves sort of the anthology of the Beastie Boys next to the anthology of Richard Baxter. OK, so you are blessed with a unique, godly brother. It is it’s thrilling to be with you this morning. Now, now we should open God’s word together, as has been mentioned a few times. We are in the midst of First Corinthians, a series called Christian Living in the Current of Culture. Last week, Pastor Greg, whom I had the privilege of meeting in the sort of in the meeting before the service, preached from First Corinthians

five. His sermon was called The Harder Side of Church Discipline. And I confess as a guest preacher, I was happy not to come to you to teach on church discipline. And given what Thomas said, I’m happy not to be the next two weeks. Instead, I get to talk to you about whether or not you should ever see two members of the same church on an episode of Judge Judy. According to the uninspired and uninspiring ESV subtitle, we’re going to talk about lawsuits among unbelievers. So what we should do is we should read the passage and we should ask the question, is that really all this passage is about? Like if you’re not on the cusp of suing someone else in this room, do you have the opportunity to kind of tune out for the next thirty five ish minutes? Well, of course, the answer is no.

Let’s read the passage together. First Corinthians chapter six. I’m going to read all of it, all the way from verse one, all the way down to verse eleven. First Corinthians chapter six. If you’re using a pew Bible, it’s page eight. Ninety seven.

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 than 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? 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

— 1 Corinthians 6

(ESV)

?

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. Are thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God

— 1 Corinthians 6

(ESV)

.

And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God

— 1 Corinthians 6

(ESV)

. So here’s what I want to try to convince you of this morning. And Lord willing, the main burden of this sermon will mirror the main burden of our text. What Paul has for the saints of Corinth is what we have for one another here this morning. So here it is. Here’s the title of the sermon. It’s our future reign and our past redemption changes our present relationships. That’s the main idea. That’s what I want to try to convince you of. A shorter version of basically the same thing would simply be to say what’s behind and what’s ahead changes how we live now. What’s behind and what’s ahead changes how we live now.

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Present Problem

Let me pray and then we’ll get started. Father in heaven, we ask that you would help all the relationships between the members of this church to be deeply, distinctly, and meaningfully Christian. That they would be shaped by our status as citizens of the kingdom of heaven. That they would be shaped by what Jesus has done. Well, Lord, I pray as a visitor that when the citizens of this city look inside this church, that they would see something different, that they would see something attractive. We pray all of this in Jesus’s name. Amen. There are three points to this sermon. They sort of track backward through the main idea of this sermon. So we’re going to start with the present. We’re going to go to the future and we’re going to go back to the past. We’re going to start now, go ahead, and then see what’s behind.

So the first point is the Corinthians’ present problem. The Corinthians’ present problem. Now, most of 1 Corinthians is Paul addressing problems. If you were here last week, you saw in 1 Corinthians 5 that the Corinthian church is not doing what they should do. They’re not confronting sin. They’re not engaging in church discipline. 1 Corinthians 6 is similar but different. They are doing what they shouldn’t do. Instead of confronting sin like Christians, instead of confronting disagreement like Christians, they’re taking one another to court. This gets mentioned several times. So look down at your Bible. I’m just going to sort of flag them for us. Verse 1, the Corinthians are letting their disputes be judged by the world. Verse 4, they’re asking for a ruling by those whose way of life is scorned by the church. Verse 5, they’re revealing sort of in their actions that they basically think everyone

in the church is either too stupid or too immature to deal with it, so they have to go somewhere else. Verse 6, the abstract becomes concrete. They’re taking each other to court. Okay, so what are they taking each other to court over? It’s a tough question, but I think we get some clues as to how to answer it. Look at verse 2. Paul mentions trivial cases. Verse 3, Paul mentions things of this life. Verse 4, he describes disputes about such matters. What matters we are to wonder? Verse 7, he talks about lawsuits. I think the best clues to answer this question, what are they going to court about, comes in verses 7 and 8. Verses 7 and 8, in which Paul, he tells us, folks are not being killed and injured. They’re being wronged and cheated. I think that gives us a helpful understanding of what’s going on.

In other words, I think we’re talking about financial matters, or what today would be considered civil court, or even small claims court. Again, think Judge Judy, not law and order, okay? Think Judge Judy, not law and order. At 2 p.m. and probably 2.30 and 3, I mean, it’s unbelievable how much money Judge Judy makes. If you Google it, I’m not going to tell you. Just Google it. At your local CBS affiliate, Judge Judy is not sitting down, sort of discerning capital murder cases, all right? She’s talking between, who knows, but basically probably two people who can’t agree on like a rent payment plan or something like that. So I think something similar is going on in Corinth. They are facing genuine problems, genuine disputes, genuine disagreements.

But they’re comparatively small ones. I want to address a question right off the jump that might be confusing, one question you might have after reading this passage. So is Paul forbidding all legal disputes between all professing Christians? Well, of course, the answer is no. If a Christian or even a member of this church commits a crime against you, robbery, manslaughter, murder, et cetera, well, then, of course, you’re going to have to pay for it. Well, then, of course, you can. And I dare say you should. And probably you must report it to the authorities. God has established all our Romans 13 and other passages. Such authorities have been established by God to dispute matters like this, not just among unbelievers, but among all people. This is not about criminal situations. What’s going on in Corinth, I think, is that they’re taking small problems. They’re unable to deal with them.

And so they’re taking each other to court, sniping at each other. They’re accusing one another, you can imagine, of lying. They’re saying, well, he said he would pay back in six months, but it’s been eight months and I’ve only gotten 70 percent. You know, we don’t get the specifics, but you can imagine the kinds of things. They’re playing he said, she said, they’re stealing from one another, they’re cheating from one another when they should, Paul says, if they’re Christians and they are and they should be following in the footsteps of their savior, rather than doing this, they should be like, you know, it actually would be better for me to maybe be slightly slighted or wronged or cheated than to take this issue out of the church and before unbelievers. And I think it’s worth pausing already and simply asking the question, when facing conflict,

and because I’m a member of your extended family, I know conflict exists in this church because it exists in my church and every other church I’ve ever heard about. When facing conflict, and because I’m a member of your extended family, I know conflict exists in this church because it exists in my church and every other church I’ve ever heard about. When facing conflict, have you ever considered that it might be best for the church if rather than fighting for righteousness or for your own way or for truth or for whatever, it might be best for the church if you are wronged, misunderstood, maligned, misrepresented? It’s hard to answer questions like that are so abstract, but I bet as I ask the question, there are situations that were not abstract and very concrete that filled your mind. What should you do in those situations? Well, you should pray for wisdom. You should ask your pastors for help. You should certainly at least consider one option on the table

is to follow the footsteps of Jesus and say, you know what? This is not worth fighting about. But the church in Corinth, we don’t know its name, probably Corinth Baptist Church, it’s clear that they do not look like Jesus. And Paul, he’s sick of it. He can’t believe it. He is incredulous. And so he asks a series of rhetorical questions, I think I counted eight or nine, to shock them, to wake them up, to put smelling salts under their nose so that they will understand what they are doing, to shame them. Are you really doing this? Am I hearing this right, saints? Are you really doing this? Are you saints? Are you really doing this? Are you really doing this? Do you think this is best for the cause of Christ in your neighborhood? The result is a shameful, verse five, defeat. Verse seven.

Why does Paul care so much about something seemingly so small? You should look down at verse six with me, I think we get an answer. But instead, one brother takes another to court, and this in front of unbelievers. When a church fails to deal with conflict and disagreement, it loses its ability to stand out and speak up. Do you understand? When a church fails to deal with these things, it loses its ability to stand out and to speak up. A fractioned, disunified, self-seeking, litigious church fits in perfectly with a fractured, disunified, self-seeking, litigious world. A fractured, disunified, self-seeking, litigious church has absolutely nothing to say to a fractured, disunified, self-seeking, litigious world.

I am from Kentucky. What some of you all probably think is the Bible Belt. From what I understand, Portland, Oregon is not the Bible Belt. What would you call it? Perhaps part of our nation’s secular suspenders, a liberal lapel. I’m not sure. I could keep going with these. I have more, but I’ll stop. I don’t know.

But brothers and sisters, I do know that this city is full of image bearers. Who were made by God and for God. They were made to know Him. Now it’s true, their rebellion has wrecked and ruined that relationship with their God. Their sin has filled the world with static. Their fallenness has filled the world with fog. They cannot hear God clearly. They cannot see Him clearly. And so what do image bearers do in a foggy, static-filled world when they want to find truth? Where do they turn? Where do they look? What do they listen for? Well, of course, one option is that they should read the Bible. But the second thing they should do is that they should come here on a Sunday morning at 10 o’clock.

They should look for the body of Christ in healthy local churches. Brothers and sisters, as image bearers get closer to your church, the fog should fade away. The static that they hear because of the sin in their own lives should fade away. They should look at a healthy church. Churches full of Christians who have been redeemed. Not former sinners, but present-day sinners who are repentant.

It’s worth asking the question when the image bearers of this city peer in to look and to listen to this church, to see what it says about God, about the world, about relationships, about forgiveness and grace and love and holiness and hope, what do they see? What do they hear?

Now, we all have our best foot forward this morning. So what if they sat in on, I don’t know, a coffee shop conversation? You’re still representing the church Monday through Saturday, brothers and sisters. What about at this exciting members meeting, 515? Oh boy, I’ve seen some things at members meetings. It’s all putting Christ on display. I hope the image bearers of this city, when they discover, come across this church, I hope they hear the gospel. I hope they see people who believe the gospel.

The Gospel Message

If you’re here this morning and you’re one of those image bearers, you’ve walked through those doors and you are not professing Christ as your Savior, you have not trusted in Him, then welcome. I’m not from here, as has been made very clear. I’m not from here. But the beautiful thing is, I have the same message that my brothers and sisters here do, so I can speak for them. That message is the gospel.

That message, if you’re here and you don’t know Christ, is that you were made by God and you are therefore accountable to Him. You are not the expert on yourself. Have you ever felt that? You’ve been afraid to say anything because you’re afraid of what it might communicate.

Friend, you have sinned against God. In other words, you have decided to reject His rule and to live your own way. You have sinned against God. You have decided to reject His rule and to live your own way, to do what you want to do, to be who you want to be. Another question. Have you ever wondered, friend, if the decisions in your life matter more than just the immediate consequences? Do the decisions in your life matter at all beyond the immediate consequences? Well, of course they do. I’m here to tell you, on the authority of God’s holy word, they have eternal consequences. One of those consequences of our sinful decisions, Scripture says, is death. And I don’t mean just physical death, that one day you might be hooked up to some machine and the line will stop moving and you will stop breathing. I mean, that’s true unless Jesus

comes back for all of us. I mean something slightly different. Spiritual death. That your sin means that you will die, you will be eternally separated from the God who made you, and forever experiencing His judgment. Christians have always taught that God is holy and just, and so He judges sin perfectly and proportionately. He never overreacts. He never underreacts. And so the question, friend, is if you’re here visiting, what do you do to escape God’s perfect proportionate justice? Well, you trust in Christ. We’ve been singing about Him all morning. He is the Son of God. He is God the Son. He took on flesh to live a perfect life. If you’ve never read the Scriptures, open to one of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and just start and see what happens. What you’ll see is that Jesus describes His life as having a particular mission.

Yes, He comes to teach and do all sorts of things, but the main thing He has come to do is to die on the cross for sinners like us. Again, if you’re here this morning and you’re not a Christian, like, and you mean not to be a Christian, you can change that today. You should.

The debt Jesus paid on the cross purchased the salvation of His people. And of course, a dead savior offers the world nothing, so He rose again three days later. His sacrifice is accepted. Our debt was paid in full. Peace with God is available. Eternal life is activated. Friend, you need Christ.

Christianity is not primarily a set of moral ideas or philosophical conjectures or even historical claims, though it includes all of those things. It’s an invitation to turn from your sin and to trust in Christ. That’s the message that churches for 2,000 years have had to offer the world. The Corinthian church had a problem. Because they were taking each other to court and doing all sorts of other things, but one of the bad things that they were doing, taking each other to court, their small disagreements were filling their immediate world with static and fog. And in so doing, they have wrecked their witness and muddied their message. All right, so that’s point number one. That’s the present-day problem that the Corinthians faced. Now, in the passage, I wonder if you saw that Paul gives them two solutions to that problem. Remember, we’re talking about how what is ahead and what is behind changes how Christians live

Our Future Reign

now. So here’s the second point. Here’s the second point. What lies ahead, and if you’re interested in punctuation, you could put a colon, and I’ll just already tell you what it is. Our future reign. What lies ahead, colon, our future reign. What lies ahead for those of us who trust in Jesus? Well, lots of things. Some of them are hard. Suffering, sorrow, your own sin, believe it or not. It sticks to you until you die and get to be with Jesus forever. Other people’s sin, same thing.

But that’s not all. What else lies ahead for Christians? Well, some of them are amazing. We receive the fullness of the salvation that Christ purchased on the cross 2,000-ish years ago. We get the gift of eternal life. We get resurrected bodies. I don’t exactly know what those are and what they do, but it’s exciting. At the marriage supper of the Lamb, brothers and sisters, we will eat and drink and be merry because tomorrow never comes.

There’s no sun because God himself is our light. There will be no tears. There will be no sin because the Lord will be there. I’m not painting like a hopeful picture. I am painting your certain future if you’re in Christ. The Lion will lay with the Lamb. Our swords and spears will be turned into plowshares and pruning hooks. We won’t need them anymore.

That awaits us all. That’s what lies ahead for Christians. There are some things that lie ahead for Christians that are amazing, admittedly, but they honestly are a bit confusing. I think 1 Corinthians 6 mentions one of those a few times. So, look down again at the passage, verses 2 and 3. Verse 2, Paul says, the Lord’s people will judge the world. You might be thinking, I thought that was Jesus’ job. Verse 3, we will judge angels. Well, what’s going on here? What does this mean? Well, I think at the most basic point, it is a reflection of what Jesus tells Peter in Matthew 19. Maybe you’ll remember Peter in his very Petery way is basically bragging about being a Christian. And he goes up to Jesus and he’s like, so like, come on, what do we get when we get in glory? And Jesus is very kind to him. And he says this in Matthew 19, verse 28. There’s

a similar passage. I’m not going to read both, but you could write down Luke 22, 30. It’s a very similar passage. But here’s what Jesus says in Matthew 19, 28. Truly, I say to you in the new world, when the son of man, that’s Jesus talking about himself, will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. Okay. Another thing Peter says, or Paul says in verse 3 again, is that we will judge angels. What does that mean? Well, you may have heard people, you know, with all the best of intentions say, when someone dies, what do they become? Maybe you’ve never heard this. Some people say, when you die, you become an angel. God bless those people. That is not true. Human beings made in the image of God are forever fixed over the angels. And certainly so those who have been

united to Christ by faith, when we get to glory forever, when we enter into the kingdom of God, we will in some capacity join Christ in ruling over, I think, the heavenly angels and judging the fallen angels. That’s as much as I can say about what that means. If you have more questions, ask Thomas. He’s a smart guy. He’s got Richard Baxter and the Beastie Boys to turn to for wisdom. Here’s the point, though. The point of this passage is not, what does it look like to judge angels? That’s not the point. The point of the passage is this. It is the triune God’s delightful intention to entrust to us Christians some kind of role in matters of supreme eternal significance, i.e., judging the world and judging ruling over angels. So, shouldn’t we train for that job now by figuring out how to judge way matters of

relatively small significance? Do you get the point? In other words, Paul tells the Corinthians, Here’s one solution to your problem. Start living with the proper perspective, and that perspective includes, Christian, your certain future reign with me in glory. Now, this is straightforward wisdom. I mean, if you’re a Christian, you’re going to have a certain future reign with you in glory. Now, this is straightforward wisdom. I mean, live with the proper perspective. You can probably find that in a fortune cookie, right? And I think it’s especially easy when that perspective is relatively narrow. So, if you want an A in a class, you should study. If you want to tomorrow. If you want to lose weight this month, you should probably stop eating ice cream every night. If you want to save up money to buy an engagement ring, anyone? No, sorry, keep that

to yourself. You should probably not buy a 75-inch TV or a new car. Very basic. You learn nothing in that 30 seconds. But in 1 Corinthians 6, Paul pulls the camera out quite a bit more. He says, let’s take the perspective of eternity and let it change how we live now. Now, I admit, the broader our perspective, the more abstract preparation can feel. So, for example, if I tell my five-year-old son, Johnny, Johnny, you need to start living like a man and preparing to be a husband. He’s going to look at me and say, okay, daddy. And then he’s going to start acting like he’s Spider-Man because he believes that he is, in fact, Spider-Man. He can’t figure it out. It’s hard to have an eternal perspective. It feels abstract to have an eternal perspective. You might be thinking, I don’t know what it looks like to have an eternal perspective,

to which I would say, no, you’re wrong. You do. I mean, I’m confident you do. Why? Because we are standing in a beautiful building and the lights are on. Very bright, in fact. What am I talking about? Well, in other words, this church pays its bills. It gives money to things, to ministry, to pay the salaries of men and women who are committed to doing ministry. All of that is proof of an eternal perspective.

We love to give to the church because we believe in eternity. We love to make eternal investments. That’s all Paul is encouraging here. He’s saying, brothers and sisters, saints at Corinth, you need to have an eternal perspective, which includes your future reign. We will be judging the world and angels when we enter God’s kingdom. Okay, so again, the question is not what that exactly entails. The question that I want us to consider as we close is, how in the world is it possible that we are qualified to do that in the first place? Which brings us to our third and final point. What lies behind, colon, our past redemption?

Our Past Redemption

What lies behind our past redemption? Paul is saying to the saints at Corinth, what you’re doing now forgets what you will do in the future. It forgets what lies ahead, but it also forgets who you are. It makes you look like the world in front of the world, and who you are is Christians. How did you become Christians? How did you get qualified for this important, extremely amazing job? Well, let’s remember, look down with me, please, brothers and sisters, and let’s look down at verse 9 and refresh our memories. Hopefully you’ll see how, in context, he’s not just giving a random list of sentimental things. He’s trying to remind them of their past, which qualifies them for their future. First Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9.

For do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? In other words, they won’t have the same jobs that I’ve just described for you. Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God

— 1 Corinthians 6

(ESV)

. Let’s stop there for a second. I’m fairly certain that most of us in this room, like the Corinthians, are Christians.

And so when you read that rap sheet of rebellion, I wonder what causes the most personal flashbacks for you. Greedy. Idolater. Maybe before you knew Christ, you were so greedy. All you wanted was more money. Maybe you idolized people’s opinions of you, your classmates, your parents, your peers, your kids.

Sexually immoral, adulterers. Maybe before you knew Christ, maybe before you knew Christ, you could not control yourself. Those desires ruled over you. You were defined by them. Slanderers, swindlers. Maybe before you knew Christ, you loved to gossip. You loved to tell people something that they didn’t need to know, especially if it stole a little bit of glory from them and added a little bit to you.

Brothers and sisters, I hope we do not read a passage like this and think to ourselves like the Pharisee who beats his chest. I’m so glad I’m not like them. We need to keep reading. Verse 11. That is what some of you were. If you have your own Bible, you should circle that word were. I mean, you can do it in the pew Bible if you want. I’m just here for a week. It’s an important word.

Brothers and sisters, if you’re a Christian, that’s 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

— 1 Corinthians 6

(ESV)

. Amen? Do you want to cut the root of unnecessary, godless, witness-destroying, squabbling among Christians? From frivolous Judge Judy lawsuits, to Facebook arguments, to church members refusing to assume the best of each other, to husbands who refuse to submit themselves and honor their wives by serving their wives, to wives who refuse to show grace to their husbands. Do you want to cut the root of all of that? Do you want to end all of that? Forget the Christian world, forget the world out there. Do you want to end all of that in this church? Then, brothers and sisters, remember what Jesus has done, not for them, not what he needs to do for them. Remember what he’s done for you.

He has washed us clean of any guilt and shame. He has washed us clean of any guilt and shame, of any need to jockey for position or to make ourselves look better than we really are. Brothers and sisters, he’s made us holy. So when I call you saints, that means holy ones, sanctified ones. He’s made us holy, sanctified. In other words, the perfect life that Jesus really lived has been credited to our account. We are, in one sense, holy, no asterisk.

Yes, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit and we must fight sin, we must fight to be holy, but we need to remember in that fight, we are simply growing into what we already are in Christ. Brothers and sisters, as you’re fighting sin, this is not aspirational. You are fighting sin because you are holy in Christ. Keep that in your forefront of your mind. And finally, that’s the only reason it makes any sense to say that we are justified. Us, sinners of all people, those who know our rebellion up and down, left and right, we stand righteous before a holy God because we stand united to Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, we will reign because we have been redeemed. What Jesus has done for us in the past secures our future and motivates us in the present. So this passage is titled, I think somewhat unfortunately, Lawsuits Among Unbelievers. That may not be a current problem facing this church. It’s a problem that faced the church of Corinth, but it was simply a symptom of their temptation and of their giving in to sin. Now that’s something every church is facing. And so just like the saints in Corinth, to fight this problem and to fight every problem connected to our battle against sin, we need to remember that what lies behind, what lies ahead, changes how we live now. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, thank you. Thank you for the gift of this passage. We thank you for the ministry of the Holy Spirit to enable us in this battle for holiness.

And oh Lord, of course, we thank you for the gracious work of Jesus Christ to die on the cross for sinners like us. And it’s in his name that we pray. Amen.