Making and responding to decisions within the Church can feel hard at times. How do we know right from wrong? In figuring out how to handle these tough moments in the Church, the advice from 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 extends a welcoming invitation to let the Bible be our guiding light. It encourages us to embrace the wisdom found in scripture, promoting a community where conflicts are resolved through biblical principles, rather than outside influences. By fostering unity and righteousness in our decision-making processes, we create a space where our faith in the Lord thrives, and our actions reflect our commitment to God's word. Join us as we come together as a body of believers to worship God together, grow in unity, and fellowship as a church family.
Making and responding to decisions within the Church can feel hard at times. How do we know right from wrong? In figuring out how to handle these tough moments in the Church, the advice from 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 extends a welcoming invitation to let the Bible be our guiding light. It encourages us to embrace the wisdom found in scripture, promoting a community where conflicts are resolved through biblical principles, rather than outside influences. By fostering unity and righteousness in our decision-making processes, we create a space where our faith in the Lord thrives, and our actions reflect our commitment to God's word. Join us as we come together as a body of believers to worship God together, grow in unity, and fellowship as a church family.
That's good to be here we all this morning. It's good to have some of the guys from the prison ministry be able to be here with us this morning. A couple of thoughts about that. I've been a chaplain in the prison since about 2015 and I've enjoyed. It's been really, really growing for me to be able to minister in there. There's so many guys in there that have really no Christian background at all and then they get into the prison and they find faith and they're trying to figure out how to live now. So they say, well, what am I supposed to do now? And they just get the Bible and start reading it and they say, well, oh, it says this, I'm supposed to do this, and being able to be involved in that has been honestly, so beneficial for me, because I get to read it through it and say, oh yeah, that's what it says to do. Maybe I should do that. And it's been great to see some of the men in there and their growth and they're in prison and they're cut off from so many other distractions. And one of the things that I wish I had a lot more of was time. Anybody wish they had more time Probably all of us in certain ways, those guys have all kinds of time to sit down and focus on the Word of God and it's a very fruitful place to come to Christ.
Speaker 1:Obviously, not everybody in there comes to Christ, but it's a fruitful place to come to Christ and you know a couple things about it. It's a field that is ripe for harvest. You know, you get all these different people from all these different walks of life and they're all kind of thrown together and condensed into this one big tub and so much of them have not had a real expression of the gospel in their life. And the opportunity to go in and labor there and to give light to where there is darkness is really fulfilling. And you know, I'm not a I'm not a woke guy, right, I'm probably the most non-woke person that you meet. The guys in there are not victims, right. But the guys in there are not worse sinners than everybody else either. I think of a lot of my old life and but for the grace of God, I could be in prison easily today. They're not worse than anybody else. They're sinners like everybody else, and everybody in there is a son or a father or a brother of somebody on the outside that's praying for them and dealing with pain because they're in that situation. Anyway, it's been very fruitful. I appreciate all the guys that have joined me out there and if guys, if there's any guys that want to partake in that, please reach out to me or Paul. He may have said that already. He might say it again. If you're interested, come speak to us. If anybody's interested in praying for the ministry or any other ways to support the ministry, feel free to come talk to me. Come talk to Paul, we'll figure something out. Okay, thank you for all that.
Speaker 1:One other man actually two of them that I meant to speak out and I didn't, as we've mentioned some names to pray for. One of them is a man named Ben. He's a Christian, his family's Christian. He's kind of been to the church. He made some stupid mistakes, like most of us do. His mistakes landed him in prison. He's about to get out in the next couple of months. His wife they have three kids together in their early teens. His wife has been with him the whole period of his incarceration and now, when he's about two months from the gate, she wants a divorce. Now there's biblical reasons for divorce. Probably she has a few. I mean, he's in prison. He's not in there for singing too loud in the choir, he's not. There's biblical reasons for divorce, but biblically the preferable thing is repentance and forgiveness and maintaining of a family. So if y'all could pray for him, that would be great, as well as all these other folks that we've mentioned today.
Speaker 1:So we're in 1 Corinthians, chapter six. We've been working through 1 Corinthians. Some of the things we saw that daughter Clark brought out last week. He talked about a decision, about a man who'd done some foolish things and added to move him out of the congregation for both the congregations good and for the man's own good. That's why that was done. You see a few things about him talking about sitting down and speaking to people who were living immorally. He says not about the people in the world, but the people in the church and just different things in which people are having to decide how to go about ministry. So how do we make decisions within the kingdom? We don't make decisions within the kingdom exactly the same as people in the world make decisions, because we are members of a different kingdom. We are members of the kingdom of God. That's what the church is. So how do we make decisions in the kingdom. Well, let's talk a little bit about that today. 1 Corinthians, chapter six. I'm going to start in verse one.
Speaker 1:Are any of you having a matter against another? Go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints. 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? Do you not know that we shall judge angels, how much more things that pertain to this life? If, then, you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge? 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? But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers. Now, therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another.
Speaker 1:Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor violers, nor extortioners, will inherit the kingdom of God, and such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. This is the word of God, written 2000 years ago and intended for us this morning. So, decisions within the kingdom.
Speaker 1:How do we make and respond to decisions within the kingdom? Well, for one thing, we've been given guidelines for biblical judgments, right, biblical decision making. You see a few things in here. The first well, from verse two through verse five, paul mentions judge, or judged, seven times the Greek term. There is krino. It's where we get our word criteria. You know, to distinguish, to separate an idea is what it means, right? So think about the criteria for somebody applying to college. How do you get in? Do you make the criteria for getting accepted or do you not?
Speaker 1:To distinguish or to separate ideas is what it's talking about. We have been given the ability to do that, right? He says don't you know that the saints will judge the world? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? We have been given the capability, through God's spirit to make determinations, to make good, godly, wise determinations within the church, within ministry, within our own personal lives. We've been given that capability. He says don't you know you're gonna judge the world and judge angels. I don't know really what that looks like, but it's probably a whole lot more weighty than some of the decisions that we make day to day.
Speaker 1:You know, revelation says several times, says we will reign as kings and priests with the Lord in eternity. Right, kings and priests. You know I don't know what he's talking about and judging angels. It might be that we stand in judgment over Satan and his fallen kingdom and give the thumbs up when he's tossed into the leg of fire. I don't know. It might be that we're given governance over the holy angels in eternity. That's possible. Hebrews says that angels are ministering spirits sent to assist those who will be the heirs of salvation.
Speaker 1:You know the concept of the elder will serve the younger. Well, humanity will be glorified with Christ in eternity. The angels are not. The elder will serve the younger, possibly in some sense. We don't know all these questions, but we know that we have been granted the capacity to make kingdom judgments in much bigger things than we make in a day to day. Right, we should certainly be able to make different decisions based upon what's going on in the church. Not only have we been given the capability to make judgments in the church, we've been given a framework from which to make decisions from right.
Speaker 1:If you read a book of Acts, you see Paul going around and planting churches and preaching the gospel and before he leaves he always appoints elders plural, right, he appoints elders, a handful of men, to help guide and make decisions for that local congregation. Right, well, that's one of the things the PCA takes to heart. Right, we have a session of elders right, session of elders to help determine what best needs to be guided into the church. We're gonna have an installation service later today. Morgan's gonna be made associate pastor. One of the things that implies is he'll be On the session right on the session of of precedent of elders to help guide the church. Right, we're giving a framework for that. We're gonna a framework for how we get other people in ministry who also make decisions.
Speaker 1:There's many other decisions to be made in ministry. They're not just the elders. Right, we just hired a new women's ministry leader, praise God. Right, she's probably not a brand-new Christian. Right, probably not right.
Speaker 1:We've been reading through 1st Timothy in the men's Bible study on Tuesdays, and 1st Timothy and Titus both give out qualifications for elders and deacons. What it says for both of them is they can't be a new convert, right? Not a new believer, right? Somebody who's been walking the walk for a while and learns how to apply the principles that we see to their daily walk. And because they've learned to apply those principles in their daily walk, they're able to apply those principles in a congregational setting, right. So we've been given the capability to govern. We've been given a framework for much to govern. We're given a standpoint from which to make decisions, like a bottom line from which every decision is made. Those decisions, every decision we make within the church, has to be based on the Great Commission, right, matthew 28,. Go and make disciples and baptize the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:Everything we make, every decision we make within the church, whether it's what bills we get paid or how we figure out the Bridge or what we do about a certain ministry all of it has to be based upon evangelism and discipleship. You've probably heard this before. The church is not a business. It's not. It's the living, breathing bride of Christ. That's what we are Now. Obviously there's some business elements to what we do. We got a board of directors and you know we pay bills and have to send stuff to the IRS probably, and all sorts of weird stuff like that. Thank God you do that, ma'am, not me. I don't want to do that stuff. There's obviously some business elements to what we do, but the driving force behind what we do is evangelism and discipleship. Right, and that looks different no matter what congregation you're in. It looks different in Polk's EI Evangelism looks different talking to a bunch of inmates, then it looks in Westchase, but that's still what we base it off of.
Speaker 1:So every decision we make within the church has to be based upon that principle, right? So we've been given the capacity to make good and golly decisions. We're given a framework from which to do it and we're given a mission to make those decisions adhered to, right, all those things. So what happens when somebody makes a decision and somebody else disagrees with it? Does that ever happen? That never happens, right? Nah, man, you know, I had a friend who told me one time. He said I think I've been given the gift of good judgment. I'm always right, said. My wife hates it, said yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure you're always right. I'm sure your wife doesn't appreciate it either. In fact, she might have a little bit different opinion on the fact if you're always right or not, I don't know. Just guessing. What do we do when one person makes a decision and another person disagrees with it? Right?
Speaker 1:You guys are probably all familiar with the show Judge Judy, right? Everybody's probably familiar with that. You know it's a civil court that's been put on TV and people come and have their cases tried there. I can proudly say I've never sat down and watched the whole show of Judge Judy. But people come to her and they have different issues, right? They want to. Maybe somebody got divorced and somebody thinks they should have gotten more money out of the whole section, out of the whole agreement, right? Or maybe somebody built a fence that was two feet too far onto somebody else's property and so they're coming and trying to get the judge to adjudicate their claim, right, and all that kind of stuff Seems to which people need to come and and get it figured out, and that's an opportunity for them to do it. Of course it's on TV because all of us so many of us anyway have this enjoyment of watching drama that pertains to us not at all, for some reason.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, ancient Rome was not a whole lot difference. There were these courts in ancient Rome called the Sentum Viri, which literally means a hundred men, right, and you could go to this civil court that had at least a hundred and five jurors and take your case there and similar things would be adjudicated. You know, maybe I've got an inheritance that my brother's not sharing enough, or maybe if somebody built their fence on my property or a tree fell on my shed or something, you go and you get that kind of thing adjudicated in this small claims kind of court and it would be held in a public square, like out in the open, and people would come and watch it. And they have TV back then, but people would still come watch. People have always wanted to pay attention to this, no, their business, for some reason. That was no different in ancient Rome as it is today, and people would come and watch it, right, and people would come and kind of be entertained by people having drama amongst themselves.
Speaker 1:Paul says you guys are taking your courts, you guys within the church are going to some civil court out in the market and letting the church be made a mockery out of because you're squabbling about a fence or an inheritance or something. Now, I don't know, I've never met two people from the same church that went to civil court over a fence or inheritance. Some shirts happened. Obviously I don't personally know anybody's done that, but I do know Quite a few people within Christian circles that disagree with people Within ministry or within church stuff. Right, what do we do with that? Right? Do we Stand up and make a stink and we have an issue with somebody else? Maybe, maybe you don't like what's going on in the youth ministry and you say you know what, I think I'm gonna do. I'm gonna, I'm gonna start my own Bible study At the same day of the week in the same time that the West town youth Bible study is going on, you know what? And then I think I'm gonna invite all the West town youth to come to it.
Speaker 1:Doesn't sound like a very good idea, doesn't? That kind of stuff happens, right? When can we Stand up and make a stink? When can we Make an issue out of a disagreement? Well, there's reasons to make a disagreement, right. There's reasons to stand up and kind of wave the flag, right. Maybe you have a church leader that's living in immorality. Stand up and wave a flag, right. Maybe I have a preacher to gets up here and says well, you know, the Muslims have Issa and Hindus have Krishna and we have Jesus, and you know it's all kind of we're all just love each other. Man Just sing kumbaya and old hands Stand up and make a stink about it. If I'm in a congregation and somebody says that I'm gonna stand up and throw my Bible at them. There's reasons to stand up and cause an issue or wave the flag within church, but a lot of the times the issues that we deal with are not worth waving the flag over.
Speaker 1:Paul says why Do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? Why do you not rather just take it on the chin for the good of the congregation? You know we're we're prideful people. All of us are prideful in some way and it comes out in different ways. God has kind of sown the concepts of submission and humility Into life, into the church. He's sown both of those things into the, into creation, really, because it's good for us to be submissive and humble. It is sanctifying for us to be submissive and humble, because we're much of jerks, you know. We all think that our way is the right way and that's the way it should be done, right? Paul says you know what? Why don't you just wear it? That's what they say in a prison. Somebody does something in a prison and you get in trouble for it, but that ain't your issue. That man. Just wear it. What's wrong with you? Just wear it, right. Why don't we just wear it? There's times in which we're supposed to stand up a wave of flag. There's times when we're not supposed to stand up a wave of flag.
Speaker 1:Let's say that something happens, there's a disagreement in the congregation and you think something is really supposed to take place. Right, and I get it. Man, ministry can be emotional. The church can be emotional, being in the congregation. There's emotions there. There should be emotions there. We're the bride of Christ man. We're a family. Hopefully there is emotions when we come together. Hopefully we do have joy and hope and desire coming out of us when we're coming together as a family. Hopefully we do right.
Speaker 1:But here's probably a good rule of thumb If we bring something to the table and there's disagreement, it's rejected. Right If it's rejected, if what I think needs to happen doesn't happen, who's gonna suffer? Is the congregation gonna have some major fallout If what I'm bringing to the table doesn't happen, or am I just gonna have to eat a little bit of humble pie? Because if I just gotta eat a little bit of humble pie, that's probably what we should do, right? Why don't you rather it sucked wrong? Why don't you rather let yourselves be cheated and you think about this?
Speaker 1:Sometimes we get this burning thing in our heart, man, that something's gotta be preached or something's gotta be implemented in the ministry. There's gotta be this certain song, this certain song, man. If this was just played, man, everybody would just break open and the Holy Spirit will be flowing. We get this desire and it's a godly desire right To bring into the congregation. I would just say this If what you think needs to be brought to the table is also what God thinks needs to be brought to the table, then it's gonna be brought to the table. It might not come to the table when you think it needs to, but it will come to the table when God knows it should.
Speaker 1:Praise God. Praise God, he's always on time. Praise God, he always implements stuff at the perfect time. You know, paul says in Galatians says when the fullness of time has come. He talked that about Jesus. He also said that about himself. Right, jesus was brought in the fullness of time, the perfect time for him to come. Paul says, man, I was separated in the womb, but when the time came, when the right time came, god called me personally into the ministry. And he does all of that with all of us. Right, it's not always when we want it to happen, but it's when he knows it needs to be happened, praise the Lord.
Speaker 1:So we make kingdom judgments because we had the capability to. We disagree with other people in the kingdom with humility and submission, and we do it with a righteous standard, right? So you get to verse nine and Paul lists a whole bunch of different sins. We're going to kind of go through them just a little bit. You know it's funny, we always don't know. Sometimes we just don't know what's a sin and what's not right. I see that a lot of the prison guys would be like you mean, it's a sin, it's a sin for me to be selling drugs. I didn't know that. It seems self-explanatory, but sometimes it's not. So we're going to just kind of touch on some of these things here. Right, it says do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't be deceived.
Speaker 1:Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, all these things and it's a representative list, right? So fornicators a sexual morality can't be having sex outside of marriage, right? Students, singles can't be doing it. And I would say this everything you deviate from with the word of God, there's always forgiveness. But one day you'll look back and say, man, I wish I hadn't done that. That's true of everything.
Speaker 1:Right, it talks about idolatry. There's different kinds of idolatry. Maybe you have a little statue of Krishna in your yard. Hopefully nobody here has that, if you do come talk to me, like right now. But there's other ways to be idolatrous, right, we can put I mean, anything can be put in the improper place, whether it's a job, or whether it's money, or whether it's the gym, or whether it's a car or a hobby, whether it's your kids. I mean there's a million different things we can take and put in a place that really it shouldn't be. And anything that we take, even if it's a good thing, and we put it in the place above where we have God, it has become an idol, right? We can't be walking in that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Right? Talks about adultery. Obviously can't be sleeping outside your marriage. Right? Talks about the homosexuality. Homosexuality is not a worse sin than anything else on this list. I mean, I think the church kind of beats the drum against it considerably. It's not worse than anything else, right?
Speaker 1:The dangerous thing about homosexuality is you'll never hear a preacher get up here and say it's okay to be a fornicator or it's okay to be a thief, but you'll hear a preacher get up and say it's okay to be gay. It's not right. Thieves are covetous covetousness, right. Or greedy, looking at stuff that's not ours and thinking we should have it, or literally going out and taking it. I mean, talk about being in the prison.
Speaker 1:I knew a guy who his job was a home burglar that's what he used to do and he and a handful of his buddies took these black shirts and printed FBI on the back of them and then they would get like knee pads and helmets and you know the whole little, whole little get up, right, like there were some kind of SWAT team and they would go kick doors in and rob the house and he's like man if we got these FBI shirts on, nobody will think we're just. They'll just think we're law enforcement. Nobody will call the cops on us. Obviously it didn't work because I was talking to him in prison.
Speaker 1:But for some reason you think it's okay to kick somebody's door and take all their stuff. It's not okay to do that, okay, but do we take stuff that doesn't belong to us? Do we desire stuff that's not ours rightfully to desire? That may be the most common center of the church. All of us look at stuff that we don't really do or don't that is not rightfully ours, and say, man, that should be mine. What is that guy? How come he's got all that stuff Right? It's not okay, right? Drunkers, let's not be doing kickstands, although all your college students, man, tell them, tell them I can't be doing it right.
Speaker 1:Revilers, extortioners, speaking negatively about somebody or being dishonest in your dealings with somebody else, treating somebody as if they're less important than you, and so you can get away with doing that kind of stuff. None of that stuff, none of that stuff we need to be doing. Now I would say this about all these sins right? So let's say that you're a career home burglar and you go home every night and go to the bar. Or you leave work every day from Robin Howells and go to the bar and get drunk, and then you pick up a new girl every night and then you go home and speak badly about everybody and there's no conviction in your heart period. Right, you're doing all these things on this list and you have no conviction.
Speaker 1:I would say, well, you know what you probably need to reevaluate. If you know Jesus because if you have the spirit within you, right, if God has regenerated you and the spirit dwells within you, what does the Holy Spirit do? He restrains sin and he convicts of sin. If he's in our hearts, he's gonna say, hey, you shouldn't be doing that, right. And if you're doing all this stuff and you don't hear nobody saying you shouldn't be doing that, well, maybe you need to reevaluate where you're at right. But if you're a Christian, right, If you stumble into this stuff or some other kind of sin because there's a hundred different kinds of sin and you stumble into it and you say, oh man, I can't believe I did it again Lord help me and there's conviction and a desire to not walk in this stuff and a desire to turn away from this stuff, then you know what.
Speaker 1:Your righteousness is not based upon your actions. Right, he says the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Your righteousness is not based upon that, right. What's he say here? He says in such were some of you past tense. Right, if we've come to faith and repentance in Jesus and we were something like that in our old life, that's not what we are anymore. We're a new creation. Right, he became sin that knew no sin that we might be made his righteousness, our righteousness, is the Lord's righteousness. Some of us were those things, but we have been what Washed, you were what Sanctified, you were what Justified In the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. All those things that we were has been taken away from us. All that is past tense. You realize that it's all accomplished already.
Speaker 1:Justification that might be one of my favorite doctrines. You know what it is Saying. God's saying God looking down and saying no, you're a sinner, you're righteous Because of the blood of our Lord Jesus. Right, the old revelation man, you sell this concept of kings and priests and reigning with the Lord for eternity and all that stuff. It says, as people are what they're, a raid in fine linen, which is the righteousness and the righteous acts of the saints. How do we get the righteous acts of the saints? Because Jesus put it on us. Praise God for that right. We're not what we were before I get to.
Speaker 1:You know one of the good things about being in the prison there's a lot of guys that have lived doing this kind of stuff, you know, and the opportunity to speak that into somebody who's never heard before is incredible. You know, corinth was kind of like a little bit like Las Vegas or, you know, new Orleans. Corinth was a kind of crazy town. Think about if you planted a church in Las Vegas the sorts of folks that you would have coming to Christ, you know, and coming to join the congregation. You know drug dealers and prostitutes and gamblers and drunkers and all sorts of really, really extravagant, sinful looking people, right, but they come in and they come to faith and repentance in Christ.
Speaker 1:No, that stuff matters anymore. None of it matters. None of it matters what you were in your past life and you know what, the more broken that you might've been, the greater glory the Lord can use. Right, the Lord can use anything in us that we don't think. Measures up and take it and glorify himself through it, because we do measure up through Jesus. Praise the Lord. So we make kingdom decisions based upon the guidelines, the biblical guidelines that he's given us. We disagree with people biblically, with submission and humility, and we recognize that the righteousness that goes out of the church is not our own, but it's the Lord Jesus. Let's go to the Lord and prayer.