1 Corinthians
Mind-Blowing Questions
1 Corinthians 6
March 2, 2003
Intro:
A. [Transformed by an Elevator, Citation: Owen Bourgaize, Castel, Guernsey, United Kingdom]
A family from a remote area was making their first visit to a big city. They checked in to a grand hotel and stood in amazement at the impressive sight. Leaving the reception desk they came to the elevator entrance. They’d never seen an elevator before, and just stared at it, unable to figure out what it was for.
An old lady hobbled towards the elevator and went inside. The door closed. About a minute later, the door opened and out came a stunningly good-looking young woman.
Dad couldn’t stop staring. Without turning his head he patted his son’s arm and said, "Go get your mother, son."
1. Today, we are going to learn about change.
2. Today, we are going to learn about change that should occur in the Christian’s life.
B. [Book Reviewer Learns to Beware Spiritual Influences, Citation: Lauren F. Winner, "meetingGod@beliefnet.com," Christianity Today (11-12-01), p. 70-73]
While studying my way through a Ph.D program, I worked part time as the book review editor for a large website devoted to religion, spirituality, and morality. Beliefnet.com is multifaith. It has articles that would be of interest to evangelicals, Mormons, Reconstructionist Jews, Wiccans, Baha’is, Hindus, and just about everyone else on the planet.
I started this job with the naïve assumption that even though I’m a Christian, I could sally forth into this interfaith Web world unharmed. I’m capable of separating fact from fiction, truth from falsehood, I thought. I can do the interfaith thing and stick to my guns.
For the most part, I still think that’s true—I think God does want me to participate in interfaith conversations, both because I can offer a little leaven to the loaf and because I have a few things about fidelity, charity, and devotion to learn from my devout Hindu and Jewish colleagues. But I have also learned that the spiritual world, even just a spiritual website, is a dangerous place.
For the better part of a year, I had been happily reading and reviewing books about all sorts of faith traditions: volumes of Rumi poetry, memoirs by Jack Spong and John Dominic Crossan, books with titles like Two Days to a More Spiritual You and If the Buddha Dated. One night at about 11, I was sitting at my desk reading a vegetarian Wiccan cookbook when I got it: I read and write about books because I think they are important. I believe the books we read form us, and as a lifelong bibliophile, I think especially that they form me. What am I doing? I thought frantically. I’ve been spending eight months forming my spiritual self on books about Gaia! I hit the floor. I had words with God. I left the office and didn’t finish the cookbook review that night.
I don’t think flipping through the occasional book about Gaia is going to lead me straight to hell. But I do think Screwtape gets cranky when he loses one to Christ, and that he uses whatever tools he’s got to get her back, even innocent-looking, pop-spirituality books.
After my epiphany with the cookbook, I began praying for discernment before I went to work. I prayed to be surrounded by a battalion of angels. I prayed that Satan would be kept far behind me. I prayed before I opened a book, any book—even one published by a respectable evangelical publisher.
I prayed that God would make it clear if I was not supposed to read the book in question, and I prayed that if I was meant to read it, he would give me the right eyes with which to do it. If he told me not to read a book, I didn’t read it; I found someone else to write the necessary review.
C. Today I want us to consider 4 mind-blowing questions in 1 Corinthians 6…
I. Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?
1 Corinthians 6:1-8 (NIV), If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints? 2 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4 Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church! 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother goes to law against another--and this in front of unbelievers! 7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.
A. Paul asked: “…dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment…?”
1. Paul is basically saying that this is ridiculous!
2. Christians should not be taking one another to court.
B. Paul asked: “…are you not competent to judge trivial cases?”
1. If they were going to one day judge the world and angels, why would they take a case to the world to decide?
2. Paul said if they were going to judge the world, they were surely able to judge such trivial cases that don’t really amount to a hill of beans compared the kinds of cases that they would one day be judging.
3. Paul said that even those of little account in the church ought to be able to decide such trivialities.
4. But instead, Paul said they were having these disputes taken to unbelievers and Paul asked what they thought unbelievers would think of all this.
5. Unbelievers were going to think several things…
a. Unbelievers would see disputes and infightings amongst Christians, which they couldn’t think was good.
b. Unbelievers would see unforgiveness amongst Christians and that surely didn’t look good.
c. Unbelievers would see that Christians were coming to them to settle their disputes so the conclusion had to been drawn that unbelievers were wiser than Christians.
8. And Paul makes no bones about the fact that he said all of this to shame them.
C. Paul asked: “Why not rather be wronged?”
1. Wouldn’t it be better to just be wronged than to take it to unbelievers?
2. If you couldn’t get a believer to decide the dispute, wouldn’t it be better to just let it go than to display all of this before unbelievers?
D. Didn’t they know that the saints will judge the world?
II. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (NIV), Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is 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.
A. Paul told the Corinthians that they should not be deceived.
1. Paul said that the wicked would not inherit the kingdom of God.
2. Paul said that those practicing these kinds of lifestyles could not inherit the Kingdom of God.
B. The reason Paul was telling them that they should not be deceived was that they were taking their disputes to these kinds of people.
1. Paul is asking the Corinthian Christians why they were taking their disputes before wicked people who were not going to inherit the kingdom of God.
2. Paul was saying that they ought to have better sense than this.
C. Then Paul reminds them that these Corinthian Christians used to do these kinds of things.
1. Paul said that some of the Corinthian Christians used to be sexually immoral.
2. Paul said that some of the Corinthian Christians used to be idolaters.
3. Paul said that some of the Corinthian Christians used to be adulterers.
4. Paul said that some of the Corinthian Christians used to be male prostitutes.
5. Paul said that some of the Corinthian Christians used to be homosexuals.
6. Paul said that some of the Corinthian Christians used to be thieves.
7. Paul said that some of the Corinthian Christians used to be greedy.
8. Paul said that some of the Corinthian Christians used to be drunkards.
9. Paul said that some of the Corinthian Christians used to be slanderers.
10. Paul said that some of the Corinthian Christians used to be swindlers.
D. But then Paul says they were washed.
1. Paul says they were sanctified.
2. Paul says they were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
3. And since they had been washed and sanctified and justified they ought to know better than to take their disputes with one other before unbelievers!
E. Didn’t they know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?
III. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself?
1 Corinthians 6:12-20 (NIV), "Everything is permissible for me"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"--but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"--but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." 17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
A. Paul was quoting some famous quotes of their day—not teachings of Christ…
1. Lot’s of people said, “Everything is permissible for me.”
a. People say similar things today.
b. However they modernize it a little by saying, “I can do anything I want to do—as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else.”
2. Another popular saying of Paul’s day was, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food.”
a. They used that statement to justified sinful things they were doing.
b. Our modernization would probably be: “If it feels good—do it.”
3. Paul is quoting poplar sayings of the day.
B. But then Paul goes on to rebut them…
1. Some people may think that everything is ok to do, but Paul says not everything is good for you.
2. Some people may think that everything is ok to do, but Paul says that they will make a slave out of you. (If you don’t believe that, just ask the drug addict, alcoholic, or sexually addicted.)
3. Some people may think that because any food is ok for any stomach, doesn’t mean that sex should happen anywhere under any circumstance.
C. Paul said that for a Christian to have sex with a prostitute is to unite Christ with a prostitute.
1. Disgusting isn’t it?
2. But yet Paul is right; that is exactly what is happening.
3. Therefore the Corinthians should not be participating in sex outside of marriage.
D. Rather, Paul tells them that they should FLEE from sexual immorality!
1. There is a wonderful example of this in the story of Joseph…
2. Genesis 39:1-12 (NIV), Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. 2 The LORD was with Joseph and he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the LORD blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the LORD was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So he left in Joseph’s care everything he had; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, "Come to bed with me!" 8 But he refused. "With me in charge," he told her, "my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?" 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. 11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, "Come to bed with me!" But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.
3. Joseph FLED from sexual immorality and God eventually rewarded him for it!
4. And that is exactly what Paul said the Christians should do—FLEE from sexual immorality.
TRANSITION:
1. Now that we’ve studied through this chapter, we must ask, “Why did Paul tell them to stop suing each other in public court, remind them that the wicked would not inherit the kingdom of God, and about refraining from sexual immorality?”
2. Why did the apostle Paul write this stuff and is there any connection between the three subjects?
3. Are these just three random topics here or is there something that connects them that we need to understand.
4. I believe there is a single thread that links them and I will word it in the same question form that the apostle Paul used…
IV. Do you not know that we have a totally different worldview?
Romans 12:2 (NIV), Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.
A. Paul told the Romans that they should understand that there are two different worldviews out there and they need to have God’s worldview and not the world’s view of itself.
1. Paul said they should no longer conform to the pattern of this world.
2. Paul said they should no longer look at the world the same way the world does.
3. Paul said they should transform their worldview to God’s worldview.
4. In other words, stop thinking about things the way the world does and start thinking about things the way God does.
B. And Paul told the Romans that the way they should do this was by renewing their mind.
1. Paul told the Romans they should change their thinking about things by renewing their minds.
2. Paul told the Romans that when they had renewed their minds and started thinking about things the way God thinks about them, they would be able to test things to see if they were God’s will or not.
C. Of course the way we change our thinking is to reeducate ourselves.
1. We reeducate our minds into thinking about things the way God does.
2. We pray and ask God to get rid of any stinkin’ thinkin’ that is getting in the way of renewing our minds.
3. We pray and ask God to get rid of the strongholds that get in the way of renewing our minds.
4. We pray and ask God to open our minds and give us understanding of His Word.
5. We pray and ask God to enable us to live out the principles that we learn from His Word.
6. We pray and ask God to open our eyes and enable us to see things the way He sees them.
7. We pray and ask God to open our hearts and enable us to feel the things He feels.
8. We pray and ask God to open our ears and enable us to hear the things He hears.
9. We pray and ask God to give us His mind so that we don’t just believe everything we hear and see.
10. We pray and ask God to give us His Spirit so that we will be able to discern what His will is, His good, pleasing and perfect will.
E. And when our minds have been transformed, we will begin to understand the answers to Paul’s questions to the Corinthians…
1. Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?
a. Don’t you understand that a non-believer looks at the world in a totally different way than a believer and therefore has no possible means of coming up with an appropriate settlement for a lawsuit between believers?
b. Don’t you understand that if we cannot forgive and settle disputes ourselves and have to take them to unbelievers, that we have been totally defeated already?
2. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the Kingdom of God?
a. Don’t you understand that since we “get” the Kingdom, we have been changed?
b. Don’t you understand that since we “get” the Kingdom, we are saved by the grace of God and transformed into new creations?
c. Since we were once sinful people like this but were then washed and sanctified and justified, we ought to understand that unbelievers just don’t understand and should be pitied and not revered has having a superior wisdom that gives them authority to settle our disputes!
3. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself?
a. Don’t you understand that we have been changed?
b. Don’t you understand that because we have been to Calvary, we no longer have anything to do with immorality?
c. Don’t you understand that because we have been washed, sanctified and justified by the blood of Christ, we FLEE from sin and immorality?
d. Don’t you understand that we are different than the world and do not chase after the lusts of the flesh like the world does?
F. Don’t we understand that we have a totally different worldview?
1. Don’t we understand that unbelievers should not judge us?
2. Don’t we understand that we’ve been washed and sanctified and justified?
4. Don’t we understand that we are members of Christ’s body?
5. Don’t we understand that we don’t look at science the way they do?
6. Don’t we understand that we don’t look at paying our bills the way they do?
7. Don’t we understand that we don’t look at buying things the way they do?
8. Don’t we understand that we don’t view abortion the way they do?
9. Don’t we understand that we don’t look at government the way they do?
10. Don’t we understand that we don’t listen to the news the way they do?
11. Don’t we understand that we don’t view Israel the way they do?
12. Don’t we understand that we don’t look at Saddam Hussein the way they do?
13. Don’t we understand that we don’t look at war the way they do?
14. Don’t we understand that we don’t have the same worldview that they do?
15. Don’t we understand that we are no longer to conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing our minds?
16. Don’t we understand that if we are in Christ, we are a new creation?
17. Don’t we understand that if we’re in Christ, the old has GONE and the NEW has come?
G. Now we see why Paul asked these mind-blowing questions to the Corinthians…
1. Now we know that Paul wanted to transform their minds.
2. Now we know that Paul wanted to get them to view the world differently.
3. Now we know why Paul asked them: “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?”
4. Now we know why Paul asked them: “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the Kingdom of God?”
5. Now we know why Paul asked them: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself?”
6. We’re different! And we should NEVER forget it!
7. 2 Corinthians 6:17 (NIV), "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord."
Conclusion:
A. [Don’t Recycle Old Life, Citation: Len Sullivan, Tupelo, Mississippi]
In the late 1920s my grandparents married and moved into Grandpa’s old family home. It was a clapboard house with a hall down the middle. In the ’30s they decided to tear down the old house and build another to be their home for the rest of their lives.
Much to my grandmother’s dismay, many of the materials of the old house were re-used in their new house. They used old facings and doors, and many other pieces of the finishing lumber. Everywhere my grandmother looked, she saw that old house—old doors that wouldn’t shut properly, crown molding split and riddled with nail holes, unfinished window trimming. It was a source of grief to her. All her life she longed for a new house. When God brings us into the kingdom, the old way of living must be dismantled and discarded.
B. [True Meaning of Repentance, Citation: Lesslie Newbigin, Mission in Christ’s Way, pp. 2-3]
In Mission in Christ’s Way Lesslie Newbigin (d. 1996), long-time missionary to India, writes about the true meaning of repentance:
I remember once visiting a village in the Madras diocese. There was no road into the village; you reached it by crossing a river, and you could do this either on the south side of the village or on the north. The congregation had decided that I would come by the southern route, and they had prepared a welcome such as only an Indian village can prepare. There was music and fireworks and garlands and fruit and silumbum (the performance of a South Indian martial art done on ceremonial occasions)—everything you can imagine. Unfortunately I entered the village at the north end and found only a few goats and chickens. Crisis! I had to disappear while word was sent to the assembled congregation, and the entire village did a sort of U-turn so as to face the other way. Then I duly reappeared.
This is what metanoia means. The TEV translation gives a misleading impression by translating it: "Turn away from your sins." That might make it look like a traditional call for moral reformation. That is not the point. There is nothing about sins in the text (Mark 1:15). The point is: "The reign of God has drawn near, but you can’t see it because you are looking the wrong way. You are expecting the wrong thing. What you think is ’God’ isn’t God at all. You have to be, as Paul says, transformed by the renewing of your mind. You have to go through a mental revolution; otherwise the reign of God will be totally hidden from you."
C. Has your mind been blown by God?
1. Do you think differently than the world?
2. Has your life changed?
3. Have you become a new creation?
4. Are you letting God open your eyes to the Scriptures really say or are you hanging on to your own personal opinions?
5. Are you willing to give up even your own interpretations of the Scripture?
6. Won’t you come today and ask God to blow your mind?
