1 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? 2 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? 3 Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? 4 If then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge? 5 I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you, not even one, who will be able to judge between his brethren? 6 But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers! 7 Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? 8 No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren! 

I am super excited for today since we are going to start our verse by verse preaching again from 1 Corinthians. Just to recap the things that we have seen so far, the church in Corinth that was started by Paul was located in a place that was very wealthy in the ancient world. It was right next to Athens. And there was always this comparison that was between Athens and Corinth. Corinth was not only wealthy but was also full of idolatry.
The greatest thing that was known about the Corinthians was the prostitution present. There was a temple for the goddess Aphrodite and people from all over the world, especially merchants that would trade on the ships would come there and indulge in prostitution.

And in such a notorious place is where Paul established this church. Paul went to Athens and it was an amazing place full of wise people and riches. Paul went there and tried to establish a church there and what happened? Paul stood on Marseilles? 3:52 And he was preaching. While he was preaching, people told him to get lost and that they would hear him another day maybe. They didn’t bother. So Paul didn’t have a successful ministry there. So Paul went to Corinth that was filled with all kinds of imaginable sin and started a church there and he had great success there.

It so happened that the oldest members from the world that became Christians and were coming to church, were bringing their worldliness into the church again. Everything they learned in their past behaviour, before they became Christians was being brought into the church. Paul addresses this worldliness. In fact, he uses the word ‘carnal’ to describe the believers in church. And though this message was penned 2000 years ago, I don’t think it is much different to the way we are right now in Goa. 

You see, Goa is known as a place where people from all over the world come to party. This is a party capital. Everybody comes here to have a good time. There are drugs, prostitution, gambling right outside the church. It is readily available but as we will see this morning, Paul is addressing that these things shouldn’t come into the church. The church should be kept holy. The church should be separated. 

In fact, the word he uses to address the people, though he calls them carnal, he also calls them saints. The word ‘saints’ describes people that are holy. Saints aren’t dead people. Let’s be very on that. The Catholic church teaches that saints are people who are usually dead. No, according to the Bible, people who are living, who believe in Jesus Christ, whose sins are washed, are the people who are called to be saints. 

But their behaviour has been carnal. There were divisions in the church. Remember in chapter 1 and 2, we read that there were factions based on personalities. There were people dividing themselves based on the preacher. 

“Oh I like Paul, he’s a great preacher.”
“No, I like Apollos, he’s a better preacher.”
“Oh l like Peter, he was the one who spoke the Gospel first.”
“Guys, you’ve got it all wrong. I belong to nobody except Jesus Christ. I am higher than you guys.”

There was a lot of boasting, pride and worldly wisdom which Paul was correcting, telling them that they were very far from the preaching of the Gospel and how God wants the church to behave. Paul is trying to bring the church back through this letter.

In the previous chapter, chapter 5, we saw that Paul was addressing the issue of a brother who was openly committing sin in the church. Now, the most under preached and least practised concept is church discipline.
The church has to discipline the brother or sister who is committing sin. And there are three steps Paul spoke on disciplining a member. First he tells them they must mourn the sin in verses 1-2; second they must judge the sin in verses 3-5; third they must purge the sin in verses 6-13.

So having dealt with how a brother who is continuing in sin, Paul commanded that the sinning member must be put out of fellowship.  Having addressed that, Paul moves on to the issue of two brethren that have been quarrelling with each other and have gone outside to the court for a judgement of the matter. Paul points out that their quarrel is trivial. In addition, they’ve gone outside seeking worldly judgement. Paul was disgusted, shocked and outrageous, asking them, “how dare you, having an issue with your brother, go outside to the court that is worldly, that has no understanding what justice is?” He says that it is shameful and unrighteous to take a believer to task before an unbeliever. 

Paul questions why they couldn’t resolve the little litigations and disagreements they had within the church. You see, we live in a time where suing a person has become very easy. Not so much here in India, but in the West. One of the most shocking things I saw on American billboards were lawyers advertising lawsuits! We would never see that in our culture here, but there in America, there were so many ads saying, “Hey are you injured? Call so and so experts.” “Do you want to sue somebody? Call me, I’m the greatest, I will get you the most money.”  I actually took some pictures of those billboards.

Everybody loves to sue their neighbours. They sue their family, friends, colleagues. This isn’t something new. It was there in ancient cultures as well. The Romans loved to sue one another, especially in Corinth. Back in those courts were not like the present day. We now have a court complex, we go inside with the judge who then hears our case. Everything happens in the court building. Back in those days, it wasn’t like that. Courts were held in market places, they were usually situated at the city gate, that’s where the judges would sit and where the crowd would gather. 

Now think about this. We’ll pick two people in the church, we’ll say Aashish and Sanjeev have a quarrel between each other. Sanjeev put his fence into Aashish’s property. What would Aashish do now? He would take him before the judge and the whole market would hear about the news about Sanjeev breaching 1 foot of Aashish’s property. They would come to witness the trial. The judge gets up and asks, “Aashish, how do you know Sanjeev?” Aashish would then reply, “Oh Sanjeev, he’s my neighbour, we both go to the same church, he’s my brother. But I’m here to sue him”

How ridiculous does that sound? It is such a pity that Paul has to question the audacity of the church to take their brothers to the court over trivial, worldly matters. The Corinthian people loved disputing and arguing, we already saw that. They loved taking each other to court so that they could trampled over them and have their egos and pride exalted with the other brother humbled in public.

Paul talks about how this isn’t Christian behaviour. Now translating that to our modern day situation. It is wrong for a Christian to take another Chrisitian to court. I know this isn’t a popular message to preach. Most books (of the world) written are about your rights. What are your rights? How can you be exalted? How can you attain everything and more? But how can a court judge a believer? That is the question this morning. 

Having said that, I want to step out of context here for a minute, just so we are very clear and understand the gravity of this. Now, let’s just say two people get married and make a promise before the Lord. They say “Before God I am making this promise. Until death do us apart, I am going  to stay with you in sickness and in health, in poverty and richness. I am going to stay with you no matter what.” They make this promise before the Lord, the church and their families.

Then they step aside, go to the judge and ask him to annul the promise made before God. Think about it, how can the judge, a human ruler, have that authority of annuling that promise? How can that judge who is unrighteous separate that which the Lord has joined together. It makes the whole case of divorce very serious, doesn’t it? 

We have got to be very serious about this. Just a quick thought since I will be referring to that again. It’s very important that we keep our word as a Christian. Let your yes be yes and your no be a no. It is expected of a Christian to live righteously and truthfully and to not cheat your brethren. But we live in a world that is so fallen. We live in a time and age where the world system has been indoctrinating us, teaching us, bombarding us with ideas and thoughts so that we will live like the people of the world.

Having disagreements isn’t wrong. We see that even Paul himself had a disagreement in Acts 15 with Barnabas regarding whether he could take John Mark on the journey or not. So as a Christian, conflicts will come and Paul isn’t against disagreeing with another brother. He isn’t saying there won’t be situations where you are required to put your foot down.  Let’s not swing the pendulum to the wrong side and say that there should never be a time where a Christian has to take up a matter legally. 

We are in fact obligated to take a person and make him stand in front of the judge so that the  law of the land can be applied, especially when it involves any kind of abuse. When there is any abuse, you have to exercise the God-given means of deterring that. God is the one who has placed the government within the society so that there is order. It is God’s design.  The Bible makes it very clear that you can use that force, that deterrent to bring that correction into that person’s life. Especially if it involves child abuse, spousal abuse, financial irresponsibility, child neglect and child abandonment. These are special cases which the church cannot ignore, they must be involved. 

So I definitely want to say that if there is any spousal abuse in the church, if there is anybody in our church that is being abused, we as a church will get involved in that. You can count me on that. No matter what it is, we as a church, we will get involved in that and we will have to stop that abuse. 

In India, we have a lot of spousal abuse, and that is not correct. We cannot condone that. We cannot turn a blind eye to it and say, “Well, it’s their business, nothing we can do about it.” No, that is not going to be permitted. And it will have to be stopped, even if it means that we’ll have to take that person to the police or even to the judge for punishment. And that has to be something that is very clearly defined by the church.  

In the church itself, sometimes you have leadership that becomes very abusive, right? There is financial irresponsibility that happens sometimes. When that happens, you have to confront that person. You cannot follow Paul’s approach and resolve it within the church. There will be times where you’ll have arbitration within the church and where you’ll have to take them to court. 

I don’t think that that is what Paul is referring to here. So I just want to balance that out before we move forward on this. There’ll be times you’ll probably say, “What in the world? Are you saying we should let abuse continue? We’ll let whatever happen and don’t say anything?” No, that is not what Paul is saying. There are times where you would have to step in, and you would have to deal with a situation. And as a church, we are not going to take a back step on that. We are going to be very proactive in stopping the abuse that happens in the life of another person in the church.  

But what Paul is actually saying here is, you as a Christian cannot focus on the small, trivial issues that pertain to this life. Why are you taking your brother before the unbelievers and making a big show out of it?  It just doesn’t make sense. The way Paul puts it, he says, your personal right is nothing compared to the importance of the kingdom of God. He says to let go of your personal rights. Maybe you are right, he isn’t saying that you’re wrong. But you must let go of your personal right so that the kingdom of God and the Gospel are not put to shame. 

Let’s say two people enter into a business contract, and they both are believers in the church. Something happens between them in the business and one person has taken more money. The other person says, “I deserve more money.”  Then they both start fighting with each other within the church. Now how do you deal with a situation like that? Now, just imagine that that person who defrauded you is sitting right next to you in this church today. 

How, as a Christian, ought you to behave with that person? To that, Paul says, “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?”  In fact, he gives you four different points on how to deal with a situation like this by bringing in an eternal perspective. 

NUMBER ONE: He says that believers are going to be judging the world. You are going to be judging the world. 

In Revelation 20:4, it says, “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgement was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” 

He’s talking about the millennial kingdom of God. The people that have not received the mark of the beast are the people that will live and reign with Jesus Christ a 1000 years, and judgement will be committed to them. In the world to come, the order is going to be reversed. The saints, the church will be ruling along with Jesus Christ, and we will be making all the judgments upon the world.  

NUMBER TWO: Paul says that we are going to be judging angels.  Now for angels, we know there’s a judgement reserved for them. We see that in 2 Peter 2:4 and also Jude verse 6. Now we have never seen an angel, but we know they exist, because the Bible says so. Sometimes we can even feel that because God ordains His angels to protect us. In the age to come, in the kingdom of God, we are going to be ruling over the angels as well. The original order of design God made when He created Adam is going to be reversed. You know why He created Adam? So that Adam could have dominion over the earth and all of God’s creation.

God’s plan was that he would replace the angels that are ruling over this earth with man. Right now, Satan is the god of this age. He is the ruler of this world. But there is going to be a time where he will be bound and thrown into the lake of fire. Hebrews chapter 1 and 2 talks about Jesus Christ being made lower than the angels. However in the time to come, He will be made above the angels, and be given a position right next to the Father. 

So, number one, believers will be judging the world; number two, believers will be judging the angels. This is the eternal perspective that we have to have. When you are defrauded by a person and you want to pass a judgement, take them before a judge and sue that person, think about it. This brother that I’m taking to stand before the judge will probably be ruling over the world. Knowing that, how can I take this person and make the unrighteous people pass judgement over him?

NUMBER THREE: He says, unbelievers should not judge believers on disputes between believers. Paul uses the word, ‘utter failure’.  In verse 7 he says that it is to your utter failure that you would take a person in the church and make him stand before a judge in this world. It is an utter failure of the church to go before the unbelievers for justice, in matters between brothers. 

NUMBER FOUR: Paul says that believers should judge other believers. He asks, isn’t there a person who’s the least among you? The word ‘least’ can be understood in different ways,  but I believe Paul is saying that the least esteemed person in the church would have more wisdom than the unrighteous judge. Paul is writing, asking them, ‘Why don’t you have one of the least persons decide on the matters between you both?’ 

Not very popular, right? How many times have we seen this happen? Anybody witness when there’s a dispute between two brothers, and the church  says, ‘Well, who is the least person here? Let that person pass judgement about who is right.’ 

It’s very clear in the scriptures as to how we should deal with problems between brothers. It’s very easy for us to take that person and go stand before the courts. But Paul refutes this and says you can’t just be doing that. In fact, Paul goes on to give us a much better way. This is something that Paul is going to use in the book of First Corinthians. He says, rather why don’t you let yourself be cheated?

Why don’t you let yourself be wronged? It’s a radical way of living your life. It’s so different from the way the world projects their approach on us. If you want to live a life that is Christian, that is close to the Word of God, this is Paul’s advice. If you have a dispute with your brother in the church, why don’t you let yourself be wronged?

Well, we have a great example of that, and that is Jesus Christ. Being God, He did not hold on to His right of being God but He humbled Himself and came down to this Earth and He died like a human for you and me. What if Jesus had to say, “Hey listen, it’s my right! I need to protect my life. I want to be within my rights, and I don’t want to be humbled here.”

What if Christ were to think in that manner? Where would you and I be this morning? 

Paul says in Romans 12:17, “Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. 18 If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men. 19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 Therefore  “If your enemy is hungry, feed him;  If he is thirsty, give him a drink;  For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”  21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Oh what a radical way of living, to not avenge yourself but give place for wrath because God is the One who is going to avenge you. You see sometimes we can just let go of things. Yes, I understand it is within your right. You got defrauded and hurt and you are now suing this person in church. I understand it completely. But listen, you can let go and you can let God deal with that person. You look up to God and say. ‘Lord, you avenge me. You correct this brother.”

We have a great example of David and Saul in the Old Testament. David had all the rights, he was anointed as the king. He was given the kingdom. It was also prophesied that the same Samuel who anointed Saul is the same Samuel who anointed David. He told David that he was going to be the next king. David had all the rights and power. God was with David, with all the great, mighty men gathering to him, none to be compared to the armies of Saul.

The Bible describes David himself to be a mighty man of valour. He could have gone up to Saul and claimed his right and the kingdom. But David didn’t do that. He told himself that he wasn’t going to deal with Saul but let God handle him instead. Did David not get an opportunity to kill Saul? Oh yes he did, in the worst possible ways that too. But he said, no, I am not going to touch the Lord’s anointed.

Sometimes we can just let go. And it is important that we do so, in order to not put the Gospel to shame. In front of the unbelievers, do not go and display all your dirty laundry. Don’t show how prideful you are. Don’t show how much you care for the things of this world. Paul says that you cause more damage that way.

Now think about it, in my own body, if my left hand is against my right hand and my right hand thinks, ‘Okay I’m going to deal with this left hand.’ It takes the gun and shoots the left hand. What’s going to happen? Who’s going to suffer? My body, as a whole, is going to suffer. Same goes for the body of Christ. If, in the church, you have people who are fighting within themselves, the whole body is going to suffer.

If a husband and wife are fighting and suing each other, they that are supposed to be one body that is joined together, will suffer. There is no winning party here. By winning, you are in the court against your brother. You’ve become a loser. Rather, be willing to suffer loss; be hesitant to sue your brother before the unbelievers.

In the words of Jesus Christ, he says in Matthew 5:40
“If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also.  41 And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.”

He goes on to say if one slaps you on one cheek, turn the other cheek. Now, don’t take these words as Jesus’ permission to let abuse continue. Christ isn’t advocating for abuse here. Rather, when somebody is trying to hurt us, we have to behave as Christ behaved. He was quiet like a lamb. They beat him, they mocked him, they scourged him, they plucked his beard, they placed a crown of thorns on his head, they nailed his hands and his feet. And not once did he retaliate back. 

Now Paul isn’t only addressing the believers here, but this is a principle that you can take to the world as well.

So when disputes arise, you can go for two solutions. First, you can have an arbitration within the church. You can call the least person or the leadership of the church and let them decide on the matter. We have to be peacemakers.
However, if you need to go to court, be very careful that your Christian belief is not mocked. People shouldn’t know you’re a Christian because of the way you sue, but because of the way you love. What did Jesus say? “By this, men shall know you are my disciples, if you love one another.” 

You can even apply this principle to the people that are outside the church, by loving them and showing them that you are not attached to the things of this world. Because all these disputes are temporary. Things are going to change one day. I’m not looking for mansions on this earth. I’m looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. I’m looking for a heavenly city that is permanent.

Go ahead and take my coat, my jacket. Here, it’s yours to enjoy. But I want to tell you that if you don’t believe in Jesus Christ, you’re going to find yourself standing before Him and He will be judging you. I’ll probably be right next to Him as well, judging the world.

Paul encourages us to respond like Jesus. I’m going to close with these words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 5:44,
“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Perfect Christianity is when you are able to love your enemies. You are able to look into the eyes of your enemies and say, “I bless you.” When they curse you, when they hurl abuses at you, you tell them, “I pray for you.” That’s when you become the perfect person as your Father in heaven is perfect.