Give Up Your Advantage

Transcript

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[0:00] Well, now we go to the sermon. Let's see. There we go. Great. So our reading today for the sermon, the sermon text is 1 Corinthians chapter 6, 1 through 8. And just in case you're wondering, so far we haven't missed a single verse of 1 Corinthians, but that wasn't necessarily the plan all along. It's just that each chapter that we've done up until now has been so amazing that we had to read the whole thing. But getting at this point, we're going to actually skip a few parts. And so we're not reading the entire book of 1 Corinthians. And so today we're confining ourselves just to the first eight verses of chapter 6. And you can follow along with that on your bulletin or your Bible at home. So this, just to introduce it a little bit, this actually follows up very closely on the end of 1 Corinthians 5, which we preached on two weeks ago, where there is a distinction between people outside the body, and people inside the body. When I say the body, I mean the church. So those words I sometimes will use interchangeably. When I talk about the body, we talk about the church, the faithful believers that gather and have been baptized and believe in Jesus Christ and have received the teaching. And yes, this body that Paul is writing to has all sorts of problems. It's like a sick body,

[1:15] and he needs to give it some pretty strong medicine. So last time, two weeks ago, we said, we realized that we don't judge people outside the body. Because that's actually impossible. There's way too many things to judge, and that we're not called to judge outside the body. But we do discern and judge behavior inside the body, because that affects the ability of the church to do the mission that God calls it to do. We don't judge those outside the body, because we seek to show them the nature of the cross and teach them the gospel. And so we don't lead with judgment outside the body. But inside the body, there is room for correction. And that's what Paul is saying. And so we don't judge people outside the body, we look for correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with

[2:12] correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end up with correction. So we end So how we treat each other internally, how we manage our behaviors inside the body is a witness to those outside the body, but it also matters because if that body is healthy, it's able to do what God calls it to do. So I want, as I'm going to read, I'm going to ask you to pay attention for what I think is a surprising suggestion near the end of the reading, and it goes unnoticed a lot when this particular passage is read. So there's sort of a hidden gem in there. We won't necessarily experience it as a gem potentially, but I want us to, but pay attention for that because there's something hiding there that is in plain sight, which I think is quite surprising. So that kind of gets our interest up. So let's go to our reading. It's 1 Corinthians 6, 1 through 8, and Paul writes this. He writes, If any of you has a dispute with another, does not get to know another, Does he dare take it before the ungodly for judgment, in other words, to the outside courts, instead of before the saints that is inside the church?

[3:30] Do you not know that the saints will judge the world at the end? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more than the things of this life?

[3:50] Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church. I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? But instead, one brother goes to law against another. And this in front of unbelievers.

[4:19] The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means that you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong. And you do this to your brothers. Let's pray.

[4:40] Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. We ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. They should settle it some other way, right? And that was a very, it's a good rule. It's a good rule for all sorts of reasons because of the witness of the church, because the church needs to be healthy within itself. But here's the thing about this passage. We can't just take this away from the passage. In my mind, it was very, this is all I needed to know about the passage. And so I had a list of rules that I could do, keep as a Christian. And one of them was don't sue anyone else in the church. Check. Now, I haven't sued anyone ever. So that was, it's just the easy, this is like the easiest rule to keep. I mean, most of you probably have 100% on your scorecard on this one. Now, here's the thing though. And this is, if you're taking notes at home, especially the young people, is Jesus did not die on the cross to give us new rules. You want to write that down. Jesus did not die on the cross so that we could have new rules. He's not a new Moses. All right. That's an important distinction. And if we take away from this, just a rule,

[6:11] oh, don't sue people who are, in the church, then we've really missed something because the gospel is in this in a really powerful way. There's something more here and it's related to the problems of the community. It's related to what Paul really wants.

[6:27] He wants us to learn that Jesus died on the cross to model a different way of life for us. And again, I'm just trying to help the young people here, especially if you're taking notes, take note of this, that really what Paul wants, is the cross of Jesus to be an example of what life should look like for us. And I'm going to explain more what that means later, but just take note of that now, that Paul wants us to see the cross as an example of what life should look like for us and for the kind of community that will grow out of that. So the community also must look to the cross for the pattern of life together.

[7:10] So what is this then? You're going to say, if it's not just a rule, what is it then? Well, it's an indictment. It's to shame. And that's as Paul says, I say this to shame you. And those are very difficult words for me to hear because Paul, we shouldn't shame anyone, but he's shaming their behavior. Perhaps it's probably the best way of putting it is that Paul is using this example that there's a lawsuit inside this church that he's writing. If you make a list of all the things that we know that are wrong with this church already, we know there's spiritual law, there's spiritual enthusiasm, there's sexual immorality, there's all sorts of problems. And the list is just going to get longer as we go through 1 Corinthians. But now Paul says, I guess I, aside from these other problems, now I hear that there's a lawsuit in your church between at least two people. And I'm writing you to correct this. But this is all part of the same real problem that's going on. And this would be an example of Christians who are what I would say, would call, pressing their advantage. They're pressing their advantage within the body. And they do this to be on a higher level than everybody else in the church. And so we've seen already that some thought they knew more or had better teachers than others.

[8:27] Remember, some said, well, my teacher is Paul or Apollos. And somebody said, well, my teacher is Jesus. Well, that's that's the top. Some could demonstrate more spiritual gifts than others. And some had more wealth or social status. And some had more wealth or social standing than others. And it's the last one that is in view here is this idea of wealth and social standing actually manifests itself when there's a lawsuit among believers. And what I mean by this is that the Roman courts. So there were Roman courts. They were in the Empire of Rome. In general, in theory, the Roman courts were good. They were impartial courts. You could present witnesses. It could be heard out. The judge was theoretically impartial. But they were still corrupt. And there was corruption, of course. And so that meant that a person could use their wealth to get a more favorable outcome. They could bribe somebody.

[9:23] If they had higher social standing. And remember that this was an honor and shame culture. And so part of it wasn't just monetary currency that you had that made you wealthy. There was also social currency. These people are honorable people. These people are less honorable. These people are way at the top. These people are way at the bottom. Well, guess what? If a person way at the bottom is in a court case with somebody way at the top, even if all the facts are in the favor of this person, it's not that likely that they're going to prevail in that court because the honor and shame system was so ingrained in there. And so it's possible that a Christian in the church who had high standing was suing somebody with lower standing. Or he had more wealth. And even if he was wrong on the facts or really wasn't going to go his way in a completely impartial system, it was likely that he could prevail. And so we could have something like a landowner, which is very high, could sue a merchant who is a little bit lower. Or a person in the skilled trades could sue a servant or a slave. And both of those people who initiate the suits would likely get a favorable outcome even if the facts didn't support their case.

[10:41] And so Paul says, Paul is saying that when you go to court against believers, not only are you exposing sort of the church's dirty laundry for everybody to see, you're also highlighting the differences within the community and pressing your advantage against somebody who has less advantage than you. So that's bad for the church and it's bad for the church's witness in the world. He says it's better for the church to help decide the matter between believers. The outcome will be more fair and the relationships will be preserved. And he says even a marginally wise person, even the least wise person among them, will do a better job judging the case than an outsider will, even a Roman judge. And the advantages hopefully are taken away and the church pushes back on the tendency for some to make themselves more important than other people. And so Paul is saying for all sorts of reasons you need to decide these things. For the health of the church and the witness of the church. Now I've used a phrase here called pressing the advantage. And I want to give you maybe an example of it. And I have two examples. One is from ping pong, which I haven't played in a long time. But say I'm playing ping pong with somebody.

[11:58] And this actually happened once. So I guess I remember it pretty well. I had a serve that my opponent couldn't return. It was great. So every five points, you know, I got like a free five points. And then I had to kind of fight to make sure I got the other five points, right?

[12:16] And to press my advantage, I would just keep using that serve. I would try to dominate using the best gifts and abilities and everything that I had to win. Now there's other ways that you could press an advantage or you could be given an advantage in ping pong. What if for some strange rule, say because I have blue eyes and my opponent doesn't, or some other kind of external thing, that I got one half point for every serve I make regardless of whether I win that point, right? Just I get an extra half point. I don't have to be as good as the other player to win. I don't have to work as hard. I don't have to be as talented. All I need to do is show up and use the advantages that I have and press the other advantages that I have and I'll win. That's great. It's a great deal for me if I have these advantages.

[13:11] And sometimes you can be born with an advantage. Like the believers in Corinth, they could have been born into a high class, high standing family. And so they were going to win a lot more lawsuits. And people were going to give them stuff. And it was just the way it was. And people born into a low station had to work for everything they got. And a lot of the systems in place at that time were stacked against them and unfair. And it was very unfair. And it was very rare that they could get a fair hearing in a court case, right?

[13:44] The other example of advantage is from football. And just a quick story because this was like the best moment I've had in football for a long time was my team, which is the Arizona Wildcats, University of Arizona, had the worst season ever last year. They came in last in the conference. They lost to the second last team in the conference, which is Stanford. Hello, Stanford friends. And so we inhabited the basement together last year, which is quite a turnaround from previous years. But there was one particular game against Texas Tech where things were kind of close. But then the coach of the Arizona team figured out if we just run the ball, if we just run the ball, let's stop passing the ball because that's not working. If we just run the ball, they figured out that the defense of the other team really couldn't stop it. And so in the last quarter of the game, it was still fairly close. But Arizona decided just keep running the ball and you're not likely to fumble it. You're not likely to have an interception. And they made about six, seven yards every carry and they let the clock run out. And they ate up a whole quarter of the game and finally scored a touchdown. And then the game was over. So they and that's what the coach said afterwards.

[14:53] He said, we figured out that they couldn't stop our run. And so we pressed our advantage on the run and we kept on doing the same thing that they couldn't defend against. And we won the game. And they even interviewed the opposing coach. And he said it was. It was. It was unsettling. Get this idea that the person who's on the receiving end of somebody pressing the advantage was watching and there was nothing he could do to stop this game slipping away from his grasp. So, I mean, I say that's a great thing because my team won and it was like one of the few bright spots in a very bleak season. By the way, that looks like they're going to play this year a shortened schedule. We'll see if they actually play at all.

[15:32] Arizona is going to get to play Stanford, I think, on December 5th at 6 p.m. And I think they're going to be at Stanford. And so hopefully I'll get to go to that game with a mask on. We'll see what happens. It'll be interesting. It might be the battle of the basement again. It could be exciting. The race to the bottom. Anyway. So thinking about pressing our advantage. And often, think about it this way, in terms of sports, we think of this as a good thing, right? And this is what the coach said. It only makes sense to make the most of the opportunities before us. To do what we're good at. To win at all costs so we can protect ourselves. And our future. And so that's what we think is good to press our advantage. And so it's a very individualistic thing to do. And it's a very American thing to do is to leverage the advantages we have to succeed. And we see that all the time. Businesses do it. And actually, we expect them to do it. And so you have businesses that have advantages. They have patents that they own, that only they own. They have certain expertise. Or they have market share. And they're going to protect that. They're going to push that because that's how they survive. And so we're wired as people, and especially as Americans, to admire people who do this.

[16:46] Sports teams and businesses and athletes who know what their advantage is and can exploit it and use it to succeed. But, and I'm going to pause here so you can kind of sink in on this. All that is the American way for sure.

[17:05] But that's not the way of Jesus. It's not the way of Jesus at all. The actual life that Jesus models for us is that he goes to the cross. And remember how important the cross is for Paul. And him going to the cross is also the model for the new community Jesus wants to create among his followers. And I want you to remember a passage. And we're going to have to add this to our memorization list. It's from Philippians 2, verses 5 through 7. When you think about Jesus himself, he very famously, very distinctly does not press his advantage. This is something we should memorize. This is Philippians 2, 5 through 7. And this is what it says. It says, Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped, some translations have exploited there, something to be exploited, but made himself nothing, pay attention there, made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Think about Jesus. He has all the power in the universe at his fingertips. He has all that. He's there at the creation. He has all this incredible power. And he takes that and he sets it, I'm going to talk into the mic here, he sets it aside.

[18:41] The Greek word here for made himself nothing is keno'o. It literally means to empty something out. So if you were to empty a jug or a pitcher, you would say you keno'o this jug or pitcher. Jesus pours himself out. He pours out his power. He pours out his advantage. He pours out his authority. He pours out his power. He empties himself of power by the incarnation, by becoming human. And that's not the end of it. He further empties himself by going to the cross in obedience.

[19:17] He does this of his own free will. He sets aside his advantage. He refuses to press his advantage. He does not call for angels to come down and rescue him from the cross. He does not call down from fire to destroy the people who are tormenting him. He doesn't do that. He has fully set aside power and emptied himself.

[19:43] Now finally, we're going to get to that surprising thing. There's actually a small audience here. Who saw the surprise? Really? The surprise? You already know. I told you yesterday. Anyone want to speak up? Okay. You know, Victoria. No? Okay, fine. All right, I'll read it. This is a timid crowd, all right? Look at verse 7. At the end of our reading in chapter 6, verse 7, it goes like this. The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means that you have been completely defeated already. Okay, set that aside. Now here's the surprise. What does Paul say? Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Did you hear that right? Did you hear that right? Did you hear that? Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

[20:34] And, you know, just as Hans-Erik, I can think of like a thousand reasons why I would not want to be wronged and why I would not want to be cheated. And the first one is one that I just, I think I hear it almost every day from my children, which is this famous three-letter sentence that you know your children say all the time to you, which is not I love you, although that's a nice one. The other one is it's not fair.

[20:56] You know this one. Adults are very good at saying it. I'm saying it too, but children really say it really well. Is Paul actually suggesting that it would be better for a believer to allow themselves to be cheated than to go to a civil court to decide the issue?

[21:13] Think about it. This is a surprise, isn't it? It seems that way. Paul is saying, look, what I'm talking about is so important, and your dispute between the two of you is so small, and there's so many other things at stake in this.

[21:32] So if you want to end up having some great ! end end end end end end end end end afternoon, he would be gone. You know, it's not the American way, but Paul says, lose one, take the hit, allow yourself to be taken advantage, allow yourself to be cheated. Now, I want to give a caveat here. A caveat for the young people listening is sort of an exception or an explanation that this isn't always the case. It is not good, generally, to allow ourselves to be cheated over and over again or to be taken advantage of over and over again. And if there are people in your life who this is what they always do to you, then you're not supposed to just sit there and take it all the time. You actually have to put up some boundaries around their behavior and say, look, I'm not going to do deals with you anymore. I'm not going to do business with you anymore. It's just not good for me. It's not good for you. You get one chance and then you give them a second chance. And if that fails, then there's no third chance. I've heard people say this for people. This is for people. people who are problematic in the way that they might take advantage of you. But if it's a one time thing and it's not that important, you can take a loss. It's not the end of the world, unless it really is the end of the world.

[23:10] Somebody's about to take your house or something like that. But I don't think we get into those deals where we bet our house on something. I hope not. If you do come talk to me, we have to talk about your priorities.

[23:22] It's not good for us. It's not good for the person doing it to us. But a healthy body, the church, has a way of keeping that from happening. Because the normal in the church is not that people can take advantage of each other. It's not the normal regular thing to happen in a healthy church. And if it does happen, a healthy church has a way of addressing that behavior that does restitution for the wrong, and it also seeks to reconcile parties, and it restores sinners with grace and warning. You're forgiven, but also don't. You don't do this anymore. That's the church in action. That's what Paul is telling them. Now, one note, and this is very important. This is not the solution if someone is in an abusive relationship of any kind. And I kind of alluded to that earlier, if there's a person who's constantly doing this, then there's a whole other set of rules that apply. As the church, we would always move to protect the vulnerable person first. We do not ask them to endure abuse. Because that's a violation of their personhood. It's a violation of all of our person. It's a violation of God's law. They need good boundaries to protect them. And if they can't even have enough strength to put up their own boundaries for

[24:36] what could happen, then the church needs to step in and protect them. So that's not about abusive relationships. This is about conflicts between believers that are less frequent in nature. What we're talking about here is someone in the church has rights and and advantages, but they set them aside to live the life that Jesus modeled and live as the cross models it. Now, we're getting near the end here, just so you know. Does this suggestion from Paul, this surprising suggestion, remind us of something? And the hint is we read it earlier, is the reading from chapter 5 of Matthew. It should, because we actually spent part of the spring studying the Sermon on the Mount, and it should be something that we live by. It's this cross-shaped way of life that Jesus has for us. And I'll just read verses 40 and 41 from Matthew 5 again. It says this, and if someone wants to sue you, oh, interesting. If someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. And that's hard, right? We know this isn't the American way. This is the American way. This is the American way. This is the American way. This is the American way. This is the American way. This is the American way. This is the American way. This is the

[25:53] a new way of living that the Spirit can enable us to do, that Jesus commands us to do. Paul is telling the people in Corinth that they have to do. We can set aside our advantage. We can even set aside our rights because something bigger is at stake. And that's the claim that Jesus has on our lives. That's bigger than these disputes. And it's also the example that the church has to the world outside. Now, I want to tie this in with something that you've heard a lot about lately, perhaps, and it has to do with the racial and civil unrest in our country. And there's that, you've maybe heard this word privilege. You've heard the word privilege. Sometimes you've heard it as a phrase as white privilege. Okay, there is privilege out there. And it relates to race relationship. The idea is that some people are born with more privilege because of their race. They don't have to work as hard to get ahead. It's almost enough for them to just show up. They get a half point per serve just for showing up to play ping pong, right? And the social system is set up to keep giving them that privilege. And they rarely give it up because why would they? Think about it. What motivation is there to give up the system that's giving somebody an advantage? They don't want to

[27:12] give it up. It's very difficult. So when I talk about pressing an advantage, you know, when I'm talking about setting aside an advantage, it is to give up my privileges. So there's a way, and this is a challenge, we'll have to study this more. There is a way for people with privilege to give up some of their privilege or to set aside some of their privilege or to share their privilege. And we're going to have to work on that. That's partly going to be part of the work, I think, of our racial justice team is to explore how as a church we can do this.

[27:49] Here's what Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his letter. From a Birmingham jail. He says this, he's talking about privilege. He says, lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Like we said, privileged people rarely give up privilege. Why should they?

[28:11] Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture, but groups in general are more unjust than individuals. And that's the way it is. And so I think Martin Luther King Jr. is talking about this is that the moral light that these individuals see that leads them to give up their privilege and set aside their advantages is actually the gospel. The gospel of Jesus that says, I'm going to empty myself. I'm not going to sue a fellow believer. I'm going to give somebody my cloak if they ask me for my tunic. I'm going to turn the other cheek when somebody strikes me. I'm going to set aside my power, my privilege, my rights, my desires, my privileges, and I'm going to give them my privilege. And so I think that's the way it is. And I'm going to trust that God will have something good for me despite not being able to have these advantages and privileges. So we rarely give up our privilege, but we tend to press the advantage. But Jesus himself gave up his privilege. Remember that. And I think that's the thing to take note of too if you're taking notes. Jesus gave up his privilege. He became human. He emptied himself. He went to the cross. He went to the cross. And he went to the cross. And he went to the cross. And he went to the cross. And

[29:22] Paul is telling the church to give up their privileges and their advantages. Don't create classes amongst yourself. Don't press the advantage. Give up your right. It's better to be cheated and wronged than to press the advantage. Paul tells them, Live the life as a person that Jesus modeled on the cross. Empty yourself. God will fill you up again with his things. And you have to live that life as a community too. It's not just an individual giving up privilege. It's the community that's given up their privileges and their advantages. And I think that's the thing to the church that Jesus models the way for on the cross. God will bless us. God will bless this church with harmony. God will use us to do what He intends in the world if we can give up our privilege. Isn't it amazing? Now, I want to stop here and just think because I'm about to end.

[30:10] I just want to take us back because growing up, I thought this was just about a rule. Don't on my list. I got 100% on that one, by the way, and I love getting 100% because that's good. It's just like a binary thing. You can either get 100% or 0%, but I got 100% because I never sued another Christian. I don't sue people anyway, so it's just very easy. I love the easy laws to follow. They make you feel great about yourself, but this isn't about that. Jesus didn't come into the world to give us new laws. He came to give us a new way of life that's shaped after the cross, that's shaped after emptying ourself. Isn't it amazing that somebody who's been in the church for a long time, who's been in the church for a long time, we might have thought was just a rule is actually so much more. Scripture is so great like that. Thank God that Scripture has in it these hidden surprises, like Paul telling them, isn't it better to be cheated? Isn't it better to be wronged than to go to court?

[31:09] Isn't it great that this is about our life together? It's about giving up the self for the other. It's about living in the pattern of the cross of Jesus. So I'm going to tell you this, and this is how we'll end. There is so much more about the cross that we have yet to learn. So much more. We've barely scratched the surface, and that's going to come in the weeks ahead. This is the center of it all for Paul. So I just encourage you to keep watching. Come back next week, hear more about how the cross shapes our life. A lot more is coming. I'm looking forward to it. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word. Thank you for the model of Jesus. Thank you for the model of Jesus. The cross as the pattern of our life. Father, help us to be like him. Help us to empty ourselves, set aside our advantage, put away our privilege, and follow you. And we ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen.