Sermon preached by John A. Huffman, Jr.
November 20, 2005
Copyright © John A. Huffman, Jr.
All rights reserved.

LAWSUITS AMONG BELIEVERS

When any of you has a grievance against another, do you dare to take it to court before the unrighteous, instead of taking it before the saints? 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-to say nothing of ordinary matters? (1 Corinthians 6:1-3)

Last week's sermon functioned like a buzz saw. We were dealing with the topic of how to handle sexual immorality in the church.

I believe it would be wise to tidy up some of the wood chips and sawdust that flew in all directions, as the Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit cuts through the hard core of our human endeavor to be the people of God living in an alien culture. Then we will move on, speaking to the matter of lawsuits among believers.

Emphasized in 1 Corinthians 5 are five major teachings about how to deal with sexual immorality in the church.

First, call it what it is. Paul specified fornication as a specific problem complicated by the incestual nature of it.

Second, don't become indifferent because of the cultural bombardment with sexual immorality. When we see it, especially in the life of a believer, weep for that one and the consequences of his or her activities on them, the significant others in their lives and the entire Christian community. It is so easy to become indifferent to the sexually immoral stimuli we face daily in our culture. This week's Time magazine reports a "96 percent increase in TV scenes with sexual content from 1998 to 2005, according to a survey of programming from a broad sampling of shows." When you go back and see the reruns of "Cheers," "Seinfeld" and now "Friends," you can see the steady increase in overt and covert sexual material. Now zero in on "Desperate Housewives," and you wonder how much more gratuitous can it get. And we tend to anesthetize ourselves to it.

Third, dare to discipline. We're not supposed to go out on a witch hunt, snooping into people's bedrooms. On the other hand, we must have the courage to confront sin as sin. Where there is no repentance, we need to lovingly but firmly declare that the action is an abomination to the Lord and remove the disobedient Christian from the position of leadership or high visibility in the church. This passage encourages excommunication, designed not to be punitive but redemptive, turning the person over to Satan for the ultimate salvation of that person's soul and the ultimate health of the Christian community.

Fourth, one bad apple can spoil the barrel. Not only can the individual violators suffer consequences, unconfessed and unrepentant sin functions as yeast, impacting the entire Christian community. It is a malignancy that grows rapidly, infecting healthy cells in the Body of Christ.

Dr. James Dobson's ministry circulated an insightful story of a father who was trying to enforce a family rule that his teenaged children could not attend "R" rated movies. His three teens wanted to see a particular popular movie that was playing at the local theaters. It was rated "R."

The teens interviewed friends and even some members of their family's church to find out what was offensive in the movie. The young people made a list of pros and cons about the movie so as to convince their dad that they should be allowed to see it.

The cons were that it contained only three swear words, the only violence was a building exploding, and you actually could not see the couple in the movie having sex. It was just implied sex off camera.

The pros were that it was a popular movie-a blockbuster. Everyone was seeing it. It was a good story and plot. It had some great adventure and suspense. It would probably be nominated for several awards. Many members of their own church had seen the movie and said it wasn't very bad. Therefore, since there were more pros than cons, the teenagers were asking their father to reconsider on just this one movie and let them have permission to see it.

The father looked at the list and thought for a few minutes. He asked for a day to think about it before making his decision. His teens were thrilled, thinking, "Now we've got him! Our argument is too good! Dad can't turn us down!"

The next evening, the father called his three teenagers, who were smiling smugly, into the living room. On the coffee table he had a plate of brownies. The teens were puzzled. The father told his children he had thought about their request and had decided that if they would eat a brownie then he would let them go to the movie. But before they did it, just like the movie, the brownies had pros and cons.

The pros were that they were made with the finest chocolate and other good ingredients. They had the added special effect of yummy walnuts in them. The brownies were moist and fresh with wonderful chocolate frosting on top. He had made these fantastic brownies using an award-winning recipe. And best of all, the brownies had been made lovingly by the hand of their own father.

The brownies only had one con. He had included a little bit of a special ingredient. The brownies also contained just a little bit of "dog poop." But he had mixed the dough well-they probably would not even be able to taste the dog poop, and he had baked it at 350 degrees so that any bacteria or germs from the dog poop had probably been destroyed. Therefore, if any one of his children could stand to eat the brownies that included just a "little bit of crap" and not be affected by it, then he knew they would also be able to see the movie with "just a little bit of smut" and not be affected. You know the result. None of the teens would eat the brownies, and the smug smiles had left their faces.

Fifth, this teaching of discipline does not apply to nonbelievers. We are to maintain our close relationship with them, functioning as salt and light. We are not called at this point in history to judge the world. God himself does that. We are to carry out discipline within the Christian community, not outside.

I know last Sunday's message was a difficult one for some of us to hear. We live in a culture that wants to emphasize the positive. It wants no mention of the negative. Love of God is a commercially saleable commodity. His judgment is a turn-off. We want affirmation, not discipline. The idea of excommunication is so alien to our contemporary mindset.

After all, isn't the church a hospital for sinners? It certainly is! Week in and week out, we welcome all to this local chapter of "Sinners Anonymous." Everybody and anybody is welcome here. We echo and re-echo the call of Jesus for all to come with whatever burdens and sins they carry. We concur with the words of our Savior, who says, "He who is without sin cast the first stone." Our endeavor is not to straight-arm away the person no matter how gross their sin in any area.

One of my covenant groups has caringly and lovingly included a person who has been on and off living in sexual immorality. We loved this man. We prayed for him. We confronted him with the alternative of biblical lifestyle that is empowered by the Holy Spirit of God. And that frank confrontation bore fruit, as today he is once again walking with the Lord. What if we had simply closed our eyes and ignored the reality of his lifestyle, baptizing it with our indifference?

The fact is, the church is a hospital for sinners. A concurrent fact is that you and I will never find a hospital of any kind that turns responsibility for both the academic and existential practice of medicine over to the patients. If a patient is suffering from a dangerously infectious disease, we put that patient in isolation. We do not put that person in charge of the whole ward. We take every precaution to see that that patient does not infect other human beings who are fellow patients, nurses, doctors, orderlies or visitors to that floor.

As a young seminarian at Princeton Theological Seminary in supervised clinical work at Trenton State Hospital, a psychiatric institution in New Jersey, each Monday I was given a list of patients whom I was to visit. An orderly would unlock the door to the ward, let me in and lock the door behind me. An hour or so behind locked doors tended to skew one's own sense of reality. Some patients sat there in catatonic postures, clearly mentally ill. Others seemed as sane and reasonable as the most healthy of persons.

One day while I was walking through the ward, a doctor called me to his side and began to brief me on the kinds of patients in that ward and the particular mental illness diagnoses of several. He walked me to their beds, introduced me to them by name. We talked together about their case histories. After an hour or so of this, it was time for me to leave. I thanked him for his help. He walked me to the door. I signaled for the orderly to let me out, only to discover that he was not a doctor. He was a patient-a man suffering from extreme emotional illness but fully capable of convincing me of many things that were simply not true. Did that ever trouble me! I walked away wondering if I, too, should have remained confined behind that door for being so gullible. My preceptor warned me that this was par for the course. This was one reason we did this weekly internship. Pathology does not always look like pathology. In fact, unhealth, whether it be emotional, spiritual, moral or some combination of all, is in some cases more seductive than wholeness. Or to put it in the most blunt of terms, we simply don't turn the institution over to the inmates.

So what is God saying here? He's telling us that, if we are going to be healthy, we must allow ourselves to undergo the examination of the Holy Spirit of God. We need to live in Christian community, held accountable by each other. Where we see symptoms of spiritual malignancy that could destroy, we must open ourselves to examination. I have had physicals, hospitalizations, medications and medical procedures that were not particularly pleasant to go through, but which ministered to my ultimate health. On occasion, I have let some things go in my life too long and have paid the price of prolonged illness as a result of my irresponsible behavior.

Some time ago, I was bragging about the fact that I had not had a moving violation for some eight years. The next day, I was driving down Irvine Avenue, somewhat unconscious of my speed, only to be pulled over by a Newport Beach police officer. My immediate inclination was to introduce myself as the minister of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church on a pastoral errand, rushing to the side of a friend with cancer. That facts would have been true and perhaps would have saved me a ticket. However, there were additional facts that counterbalanced those. I was going to the side of a friend who was a member and who did have cancer. The reality was that he was in remission. I was meeting him for lunch, and we were going to play golf. So I simply kept my mouth shut, received the ticket and a few days later paid the fine, which was almost triple what it had been the last go-round. Let me assure you of one thing. Ever since that day, I have been driving much more carefully. That policeman's action has protected you from the irresponsible driving of your pastor.

This is what Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is trying to say. Everyone is welcome to the church. Only those who admit they are sinners, confess their sin and put their trust in Jesus Christ are qualified for membership. All of us who are qualified for membership still have a sinful nature. Satan is a great deceiver. We can be seduced to conduct alien to that of a Christian. We must hold each other accountable. A Christian lifestyle is not determined by a majority vote. It is outlined in the Bible. We are not to water down truth so as to make our church more attractive. One reason people are coming is to see if there is a "better way." If a confessing believer in Jesus Christ, including a pastor, shows evidence of conduct that is opposed to God's Word, we are to lovingly confront and discipline in a way that ministers best to that person's restoration to right relationship with the Lord. And by all means, we must at least temporarily remove from leadership in the church of Jesus Christ anyone whose conduct is such as to scandalize the name of Jesus Christ. We do it for that person's good as well as the health of the body. The goal is restoration. Our desire is to, in Christian love, bring healing and greater spiritual vitality. All this we do with humble acknowledgment of our own need of Christ's rebuke of our own sinfulness and our need to keep daily close accounts with Him. Never, in this daring to discipline, are we to function from the posture of arrogance. We minister with a gracious understanding that we, too, are recipients of God's grace.

To this point, we've seen Paul deal with divisions in the church and how to deal with sexual immorality. Now we come to a third topic-that of lawsuits among believers.

We live in a litigious day. Most of us grew up in simpler times in which, if you slipped, fell and injured yourself, you assumed personal responsibility for your awkwardness or at least your failure to look where you were stepping.

The first I was aware of liability lawsuits was when I, on a summer break, went to visit my girlfriend and her family who lived on Long Island, New York. She described how early on a snowy day her father, an American Airlines pilot, would get up and shovel the walk and sand it to protect against liability lawsuits in case someone slipped and fell. In that neighborhood, neighbors were looking for excuses to sue each other for huge settlements for somewhat vague injuries such as back strain or whiplash. Little did I dream that that was only a foretaste of what within twenty years most of our society would become. People are suing right and left. As a result, our premium costs have accelerated exponentially.

It's been with great pain that I've watched a number of our very best medical doctors retire early from their practices, as the cost of malpractice insurance and the threat of legal suits have made a once beloved profession much less attractive. One of our anesthesiologists retired in his late fifties after he was sued by a family member of his office staff to whom he had given free treatment.

Granted, there should be protection for people who have been seriously injured by professional incompetence.

But all this can be taken too far! Once again we find that the circumstances in first-century Corinth are quite similar to ours today. That was a litigious society, even more so than ours. The Greeks loved to sue. The law courts were one of their chief amusements. First-century records from Athens show us that the first attempt to settle was carried out by private arbitration. Each party chose its own arbitrator, and a third was chosen by agreement between both parties to be an impartial judge. If that failed, there was a court known as The Forty. The Forty referred the matter to a public arbitrator, all who were male Athenian citizens in their sixtieth year. To refuse to be an arbitrator was to face the penalty of disenfranchisement. If the matter still was not settled, it was referred to a jury court, which consisted of 201 citizens that handled minor cases and 401 citizens for cases involving larger amounts of money. There were juries that could be as large as from 1,000 to 6,000 citizens, each of whom was paid for acting as a jury member. You can see that practically every Athenian male was in his own way a lawyer who spent a great deal of his time either deciding or listening to law cases.

Greeks who would come to faith in Jesus Christ had a tendency to bring their litigious tendencies into the Christian church. Paul was shocked. Jews, on the other hand, did not ordinarily go to law in the public law courts. They tended to settle things before the elders of the village or the elders of the synagogue. Justice was far more a thing to be settled in a family spirit than in the public arena. So we see here a clash in cultures.

Paul is not talking against lawyers or lawsuits. He is not speaking against civil courts or Roman law. He himself had been the beneficiary several years before when the Jews of Corinth brought him before Gallio. Gallio had defended Paul's right to preach. You can read about this in Acts 18. In Romans 13, he gives an eloquent statement of how the civil authorities are appointed by God. He writes this at a time when many of these same rulers were amoral and even immoral pagans. Thank God for lawyers. Thank God for law courts. Thank God for a judicial system that deals with injustice. And God help us on those times when justice ends up aborted. The legal system is highly complex. Christian lawyers are needed in this secular arena. It is important that the Christian lawyer thinks and acts Christianly in his or her practice, not leaving faith in the sanctuary on Sunday, shifting to a cold, hard, pragmatic thinking in the office on Monday.

The presenting issue with which Paul wrestles in 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 is not the matter of civil law or lawyers. The issue is that the Christians in the Corinthian church are suing each other as brothers and sisters in the pagan Greek law courts.

Paul is astonished that people who are part of the family of God are taking their grievances to be settled by nonbelievers instead of fellow Christians. He writes, "When any of you has a grievance against another, do you dare to take it to court before the unrighteous, instead of taking it before the saints?" (1 Corinthians 6:1). He goes on to ask what motivates them to bring matters demanding justice to people less qualified to deal with justice than the members of the church. "If you have ordinary cases, then do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the church?" (1 Corinthians 6:4).

He moves the argument on, suggesting an additional question. Isn't this a moral loss to you in your witness to these nonbelievers that you have to drag your personal concerns before the very people you are praying you'll be able to lead to faith in Jesus Christ? Wouldn't it be better to be defrauded than to be seen fighting as brothers and sisters in Christ? Why not keep it all in the family? Better still, why not live above these petty concerns, giving greater attention to one's responsibilities than to one's rights? He writes, "In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud-and believers at that" (1 Corinthians 6:7-8).

The issue is this: Can't we the redeemed of the Lord deal with our own problems within the family of God? It scandalizes a church not to be able to handle its own affairs. We are called to try to settle these issues as brothers and sisters.

Paul did not come up with this teaching on his own. It is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and it is in direct concurrence with the teachings of Jesus, who in Matthew 18 gives a pattern as to how we should deal with grievances between brothers and sisters. Jesus gives this very clear scenario in Matthew 18:15-17. He suggests that, if you have a grievance against a brother or sister in Christ, go to that person, share your thoughts. If the person listens, you've made a friend for life. If not, take one or two other witnesses along with you, so that your word will be confirmed. If that person still refuses to listen, then take it to the leadership of the church. If this person even then refuses to listen, if the leadership of the church concurs with your concern, treat that person as if he was a Gentile.

What I extrapolate from the teaching of Jesus is that, if the matter is not that significant to you, move on. Don't get uptight over it. But if it is a significant matter of justice, you are welcome to pursue the issue in the civil courts. For God's sake, your sake and the witness of the church, don't be dragging every petty concern, every squabble before the civil courts. It damages the church both internally and externally.

Then Paul introduces a most significant fact. He reminds us that we are actually better qualified to judge with equity than are nonbelievers. With a note of sarcasm, he writes, "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-to say nothing of ordinary matters?" (1 Corinthians 6:2-3).

Are you aware that, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, when He returns to judge the quick and the dead, you will be put in the position of responsible leadership, serving in a role of judicial leadership? I'm not going to develop this concept at length. I myself find it somewhat confusing. Jude 1:14-16 gives some insight into this, describing the Lord's return with His people to execute judgment. Revelation 2:26-29 describes the responsibility for governance that Jesus will entrust to the faithful in the end times.

Building on these eschatological references, Paul is saying bluntly that, if you can judge the world in the end times, why in the world can't you judge yourselves? You are competent to counsel. Why go rushing off to the civil courts?

If you have a difference with a fellow believer, if you love Jesus and you know that person loves Jesus, do everything in the world you possibly can to resolve it. Follow the pattern Jesus outlined. Don't allow the church to be scandalized.

I love the way Charles Swindoll states it. He says to not deal with it within the Body of Christ is to be like a certified public accountant who goes to a second-grader to check out the accuracy of his math. It's like a couple with a marriage problem going to a therapist who has been married four or five times. It's like a professional consulting an illiterate for a literary criticism.

Aren't these believers in Corinth the same ones who were so proud of their wisdom? If they're going to boast about how wise they are, isn't this the perfect chance to show it? Paul writes, "If you have ordinary cases, then, do you appoint as judges 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 decide between one believer and another, but a believer goes to court against a believer-and before unbelievers at that?" (1 Corinthians 6:4-6).

By now you may be saying, "John, get practical. How can we apply this teaching in the twenty-first century?"

Let me get practical by giving two illustrations.

First is the illustration of Christian mediation.

It's always dangerous to get too specific and use names, but I'm going to do just that. We have a member of our church, Fred Hearn, who retired as a lawyer after thirty years of private practice. During those years, he was regularly called upon to informally mediate disputes and differences between persons, such as beneficiaries of an estate or trust and business associates. Fred loves the secular mediation work with the L.A. Superior Court. But his real passion is to help establish mediation services within the Christian community. He offers a two-phase Conciliator Training Program that endeavors to train persons with the ". . .skills essential for biblical conflict counseling and mediation. These skills will serve you well as you talk casually over a cup of coffee with two conflicted friends or formally mediate a complicated church, ministry, or business dispute."

Phase 1 is a Christian Conciliation Course, which covers six foundational aspects of Christian conciliation presented through 23 hours of audio tapes with detailed study guides. Themes are: The Peacemaker Seminar; Christian Conciliation Procedures; Methods of Biblical Change; Ethics of Biblical Conflict Resolution; Applying Biblical Law; and An Introduction to Civil Law.

Phase 2 is a Christian Conciliation Practicum. This involves two and a half days of live training with a team of experienced conciliators from a national conciliator network, in which practical hands-on experience is given in the areas of: exploring the distinctives of Christian conciliation; learning fundamental conciliation principles; walking through the conciliation process; participating in three mock mediations based on real-life neighborhood, church and business mediations.

All this is offered at a very nominal fee.

I'm not trying to sell a program but simply trying to let you know in practical terms that such training opportunities are available to those who feel a call to offer such services and to those of us who are in need of such services.

Second is the practical illustration of being willing to be defrauded as an alternative to prolonged litigation that may go nowhere. Are we willing to be defrauded, realizing that all in life is not fair and sometimes as followers of Jesus Christ we need to simply suck it up and willingly let go of something, even at the cost of personal loss?

One of our members, who wishes to remain anonymous, this week shared with me a life experience that has nurtured and matured him. He worked for a Christian ministry organization that had a very frugal salary plan. In 1954, he borrowed $5,000 from his GI insurance policy and made a down payment on five apartment units in a Southern California beach community. By managing the place himself and moving gradually to larger places, by the time that he retired in 1976, he had a lovely 24-unit apartment building. He sold the units and took a second trust deed for $1 million with interest-only payments of $9,000 a month for eight years that the Christian paid regularly. This man was much involved in real estate operations. At the end of that eight-year period, he negotiated a new second trust deed and then carefully forgot to record it. When my friend found out about it, he took it to a Christian lawyer and found out that this man was involved in a different illegal apartment mess that was going to send him to jail for 14 months. The lawyer noted that, if he was to press on with his claim, it would double his jail time.

Taking this biblical text into consideration, he decided not to take legal action against a Christian brother. Since this would delay his time to make any money to repay, he decided to hold off on any legal action. During his 14 months in jail, his wife paid $500 a month. Since he got out of jail about four years ago, he has worked on the staff of a local church and paid $150 per month, still verbally saying that he owes a million dollars but cannot pay any more. About the time of the refinance when this man "forgot" to record the agreement, my friend found out from the bank that he had taken out $600,000, took a trip to Europe, married a woman from Switzerland, meaning that these funds could have been safely put away in a foreign bank. My friend writes, "But the Lord is good and knows what is best for me, and I am amply receiving funds that supply every need 'above what we can ask or think.'"

You see, my friend could be bitter, angry, cynical, but he isn't. He could have demanded legally what is his, living the rest of his life angry against God and against a Christian brother who had defrauded him. Instead, he's chosen a direction that produces a far greater peace of mind for him, allowing God to be the One who does the final sorting out.

This is a good reminder for me whenever I tend to be too reactive to the injustices that come my way. How about you?

Paul then concludes this section with a big reminder. The reminder is, Don't forget who you were. It's so easy to forget who we were before we were redeemed by Jesus Christ. Paul reminds the believers at Corinth of the lifestyle from which they were converted. Some of us here are beneficiaries of having been raised in Christian families, living within the community of Christian churches and even living in a society of people, many of whom are nonbelievers but have been influenced morally by Judaic-Christian teaching. Many of the believers at Corinth hadn't had that opportunity. Some of them were Jews in background. Many of them were Gentiles, raised in a pagan environment. Paul gets blunt with them as he writes, "Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers-none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

You and I could treat this as a list of sins. It is that. This is the level to which humanity dips when it's unredeemed by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and/or void of the endemic impact of godly biblical influences. How easy it is to forget what Jesus Christ has done for us and yearns to do through us for others.

Far from castigating the other citizens at Corinth for their wickedness, Paul is reminding the believers that many of them used to be like that themselves. This shows the power of Jesus Christ to change lives!

I've been told of a minister who, preaching on this text, came to the conclusion of his sermon. Having just read these verses, he paused, declaring that the congregation had become a pretty proud group of people, quite arrogant in self-righteousness, when everyone was actually fortunate to be saved by God's grace. He declared that none was perfect. Then he paused and said, "I am going to read this list again. I'm going to ask you if you used to practice immorality, idolatry, adultery, sexual perversion, thievery, greed, drunkenness, wild partying before you came to faith in Jesus Christ. If you did, please stand." Throughout the congregation, one then another then another and many more rose until a fairly substantial percentage of the congregation was standing.

I won't ask you to go through that process this morning. But we all know that ". . .this is what some of us used to be."

And I also remind you and me of this marvelous reality. You and I are washed, cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, forgiven of our sins. You and I are sanctified, set free to grow towards wholeness in Jesus Christ in an ongoing process of Christian maturation. Having been made saints, we've been made members of God's own family. You and I are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, acquitted of the penalties of our sin, because Jesus Christ took the penalty on Himself and has clothed us in His righteousness.

You and I still have a long way to go. Let's remember where we've come from and where we'll end up. Let's live with a deep desire for purity and that resolution of our differences that God would have us experience!