1 Corinthians 6:1-11 - Lawsuits in the Church

[Music] foreign [Music] today's reading is first corinthians 6 1-11 when one of you has a grievance against another does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints or 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 how much more then matters pertaining to this life so if you have such cases why do you lay them before 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 settle a dispute between the brothers but brother goes to law against brother and that before unbelievers to have lawsuits at all with another is already a defeat for you why not rather suffer wrong why not rather be defrauded but you yourselves wrong and defraud even your own brothers or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of god do not be deceived neither the sexually immoral nor adulterers nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of god and such were some of you 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 this is the word of the lord you may be seated good morning great uh great to be here my name is josh i'm on staff here at west side and get the pleasure of getting to opening the word with you this morning i welcome all you regular west siders and those who are tuning in from near or far we're really glad that you're with us we've been working through a series in the book of first corinthians for this this last couple months now i guess and um really if you've been with us all of this letter is written on by a guy named paul to address some issues that are going on in the church and paul's found out about these issues from a few different ways early on in chapter one paul mentions getting a letter from the house of of uh chloe she's apparently um written a letter to let him know about some things going on and and and we also know pastor matt mentioned this earlier in the series that the corinthians had written a letter to paul as well with some questions and really the whole letter is just paul responding to things that are going on a variety of different things have come up already in the text in in our work through the book of corinthians whether that's factions or or kind of strange teaching or sexual immorality it's been covering all sorts of things we're going to go to lots of places yet but in our text this morning we're going to be taking a look at another issue that's going on in the church and if you open are already open to first corinthians 6 you might see that the the paratex sort of that that chapter heading reads lawsuits against believers but this is a chapter i'm not just pertaining to court or legal or or lawsuit issues this is much deeper than that it's it's pertaining to relationships within the church both inside and outside and and these interpersonal conflicts are things that still go on today so this chapter is very much for us uh it's gonna be great i encourage you um fasten your seat belts grab your bible open to first first corinthians 6 and uh while you do that let me open us in a word of prayer well god we just i'm my heart's so full from worship just thinking of how much you love us how deep and wide and long the love of christ is thank you that you've demonstrated your love for us and that you're a god who who self reveals who pursues us even when we're not pursuing you you you you came after us when we could not climb to you to get a glimpse you self-revealed you let us know about yourself and you're a god who speaks and has given us the word so we pray this morning as i open it as we as we read through this holy spirit you'd come and ignite it help it make sense in our head but fan it into flame in our hearts bring transformation bring more delight to your church bring more satisfaction in my heart as a as i preach it bring satisfaction to all of us though we pray we're dependent on you for this i can't do this so holy spirit just invite you to come and do what only you can do which is ignite the words of christ and i pray that in the name of jesus to the father amen well if you've got it open first corinthians 6 open saying when one of you has a grievance against another and i love this paul doesn't say if you have a grievance he says when you do because you're going to you're going to have a grievance as soon as we move out of our parents house what we discover is that this was not something that was just confined to our family unit it goes on everywhere every human being conflicts with every other human being and if you've ever lived with a roommate or even just had a friend you know this i moved out 16 years old went to college lived with a dorm mate i've lived with people i didn't really know i've lived with my best friends for the last 13 years i've lived with my wife who's my favorite person i love more than anyone else in the world and and we've lived in close quarter missionary bases in south america we've lived in communal um kind of community style housing here in vancouver with close friends christians people i love and what i've discovered what i've learned through all of this is that everyone's annoying the sometimes even the people that i thought were the coolest that i liked the most they turned out to be the most annoying people and i just want to say directly to the women right now because this is important that we catch women there's no one who's not going to annoy you there's no mr right coming who at one point or another isn't gonna irk you it doesn't it doesn't matter if it's ryan gosling as dreamy as he is at some point or another he's gonna talk over you or sleep in too much and i guarantee he's gonna hog the mirror more than you and you're gonna look over at him and you're gonna go you're annoying men let me speak to you directly for a second there's no woman on earth regardless of how well she speaks your love language affirms you gives you back massages pads your ego cooks like gordon ramsay but doesn't talk like him one point or another you're gonna look over at her and just go you're annoying it's it's gonna happen and god's actually made it this way god's actually designed it this way god has a purpose in that uh to quote uh one author he said marriage is not god's answer to our happiness problem but our holiness problem and as couples it can be easy to forget this when we're not feeling that happiness when we're not overflowing when we're feeling irked we can look over and maybe we even start to plan our escape plan but it's important we remember god has a purpose in this and it's not just within marriage all of our relationships god's place the people that are around us there intentionally and i would say especially the annoying ones that annoying neighbor that chattery co-worker that sassy sibling that pesky parent just because i love alliteration all of them he's placed there and he has a purpose in them being there and if you're thinking i don't have annoying people in my life it's because you're that person for someone else it doesn't matter how well you curate your social network at one point or another you're going to have a grievance against someone now we're we're well into this what we're calling social isolation and for many i mean you've been living in close quarter contact with with people and maybe it feels a little bit more like forced fellowship and it's become the setting for many a grievance many a moments where you're feeling annoyed it's important we see god has a purpose purpose in that in fact it's a vehicle that god's designed to stir things up lodged deeply in our heart and he's allowed these annoyances because he wants to bring change in us he doesn't want to leave us where we are in our text this morning paul speaks into a situation where one of these grievances has grown it's escalated to the point where they're going to court against one another and as we unpacked this text what we're going to see is a few dangers that present themselves in the middle of any grievance when one of you has a grievance against one another he says in verse one does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints so what seems to be happening here something some interpersonal conflicts happen we don't know whether that is an issue regarding um some unpaid debt or some offense or some property claim or a marital thing going on we don't know what it is but what's clear is that there was a communication breakdown that happened and both parties doubled down planted their heels and refused to budge they wanted to be right they needed to be right they needed to prove they were right and the other person was wrong they wanted justice they wanted vindication they wanted to prove they were right and that that's the first danger that we can fall into in the middle of conflict is this needing to prove that we're right we're not as quick to threaten lawsuits in canada as some other countries that all have unnamed but we can find this attitude lurking behind a lot of other actions storming the court when you disagree with the foul call always needing to know the most and when someone else knows more than you having to argue i spend some time thinking about how this has played out and come out of myself and remember this this interaction i had on 33rd in maine i was turning left off main on to 33rd and there's a double lane so i pulled into my near lane and another car pulled in not to the near lane for them but the far lane and and i knew what he was doing was wrong but i just kind of stopped and he actually rolled his window down and started to yell at me don't you even know how to drive and i said well actually i don't think you know how to drive because you're supposed to close to the near and he said well hey why don't you give me driver's lessons and i said i'd happily do when do you want us and we ended up both laughing about it but i just noticed in my own heart this proclivity to prove people wrong and if i'm honest it comes out a lot while i'm driving you can probably think of somebody who embodies this needing to be right but is this something gold that happens in you if you want a fun little exercise this evening you could you could ask your spouse or maybe a close friend just just say hey you get a veto card here do you see this in me my study this week i read an article from a secular therapist on this topic and she said people who always need to be right tend to have fragile egos when they feel as if their self-image has been threatened they want to make themselves look bigger or smarter so they blame others it's actually a coping mechanism to deal with insecurity she explains in other words when the place that the individual finds their identity is shaken they feel uncomfortable when your identity is in your performance and you don't win you'll yell at the ref when your identities and how much you know and somebody else comes across as knowing more you'll you'll make a snide comment identifying where we feel the need to be right it's important but a better question might be why do we need to feel we're right as christians i think we need to ask an even deeper question is what's going on in my heart when i need to be right i feel the need to defend because the places that we find our identity it's being shaken and if they're shaking then it's not christ the therapist i quoted said that when people who need to be right how or pardon me that people who need to feel right have fragile identities but from a christian perspective we would say they have a misplaced identity when our identity is in what we are what we have what we know what we earn where we live that can be shaken but when our identity is in whose we are that will never be shaken if there's anyone here that would have gotten amen this is the invitation of christ someone is here you're in the dark good to see you uh this is the invitation of christ it's to pull up the anchors of our identity from lesser things and to put them back in him and conflict these social interactions they can serve as a tool to help reveal that we're not our hoop skills our biceps our net worth our iq our eq the interior design of our home our fashionable threads or our hairstyles we're christ's and our conflict our clamoring are needing to be right it's a window into our heart that shows us the places where we've put down roots the things that we've been looking for identity in purpose in hope in joy in paul wants a corinthians to see this and we need to see it as well because when we don't what we actually do is we begin to tell the world a message about christianity that isn't true we actually begin to deface christianity when our needing to be right begins to manifest interpersonally or it progresses into needing outside forces to come in and mediate it it tells a message to the world about the quality of the hope within us both as individuals but as a church corporately and when our needing to be right manifests to this point paul then goes on to say he lays out three things that get communicated the first of which is that the gospel is powerless he says how dare you go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints don't you know the saints will judge the world and if the world is to be judged by you are you incompetent to try trivial cases don't you know that we're to judge the angels well no no i didn't know i'm going to judge angels actually you might be saying but this is actually what the bible says the unique message of christianity is this is that god created the world created mankind for relationship with him sin came in and then sued and distorted and broke that relationship it separated us from him from him and we could do nothing to repair that breach to climb up to him but god in his great mercy sent jesus down jesus came took the consequence of this sin and repaired the breach restored contact with god he defeated satan's sin and death that's the message of easter and he reconciled us to right relationship with god and so now when god looks down on us he doesn't see sinners that are separated from him he sees christ because jesus died in our place he took our guilty title and he gifted to us his right standing and now what's super perplexing to think about is that the bible actually says that we're gonna rule and reign with jesus for all eternity paul here he's saying do you know you're going to judge the angels he's pointing back to many many scriptures but i think in particular he's pointing back to daniel 7 7 222 and what we read there is as daniel saying judgment is going to be given to the saints of the most high god and that's you and i we've been made saints by christ and so the message is we are going to have that judgment this is the hope of christianity and when the watching world now sees us squabbling over these petty temporal matters what they hear is us communicating the message of our hope is in the same things as them when we relegate our right to judge matters to those outside of the church we communicate them to the message to the watching world that there's not really much of worth here but it also communicates the message that the church is incompetent you take a look verse 4 paul unpacks this if you have such cases why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church i say this to your shame can it be there's no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute but brother i will stop there is there's no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute they've they've in essence said you know we can't handle this we better bring in a real authority can't deal with this here let's bring in someone who can help and i mean we've been seeing the corinthians bowing to cultural norms all throughout the letter but here what they're doing is they're bowing to the legal system outside of the church for guidance inside and this is outrageous it's outrageous and it should not be so i would actually say it cannot be so it cannot be so because the foundation for law is god you cannot have law apart from god this is where it comes from you if you if you do the work and you follow um the legal system of canada back you take a look at what our law is formed on it's the mosaic law followed the basis for law anywhere is god's revealed will it's the true in their culture as well there is no moral law without a moral law giver and the corinthians are claiming to have a relationship with this moral law giver while going to people outside of the church who do not even acknowledge the moral law giver to enforce the moral law you see this breakdown this is why paul's saying how dare you one commentator i read he put it this way prep and vang says their actions demonstrated that they considered the norms and methods of the culture more significant and powerful than the teachings and power of christ worth considering is it's the way we've been handling our conflicts communicating the same thing when our interpersonal conflicts erupt outside of the church we tell them that the gospel is powerless we tell them the church is incompetent but we also say that god isn't glorious brother goes to law against brother not before unbelievers to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you why not rather suffer wrong why not rather be defrauded but you yourselves wrong and defraud even your own brother paul he hits this point all the time i mean the church is a picture of christ to the watching world and when we when our conflicts erupt outside of the church this looks to the watching world like a family whose dispute has come out from inside of the house and is now happening on the front lawn the watching world sees this it looks like an episode of jerry springer or judge judy it doesn't matter if you win you're still a loser you don't get to take your family to court on national tv win and then go back home and sit on the couch and pound hot pockets together and boast about your victory it looks ridiculous we need to be on guard because our need to be right it communicates a message a message about the power of the gospel the competence of the gospel but also the gloriousness of god it makes him look unglorious we look like that dysfunctional family a question i can hear it already though is well then is there any place for courts and the answer is i think yes maybe it's important to know paul is primarily here condemning lawsuits between believers so it's not necessarily in yeah saying any court case is wrong but it would likely be beneficial or at least prudent prior to engaging in a lawsuit prior to going to court to ask ourselves a few questions before going to court maybe maybe taking some time to read the sermon on the mount and what jesus had to say what what the what the teaching with the yoke of christ is matthew five six and seven we read there jesus said blessed are the peacemakers he said blessed are those who were persecuted so to let our yes be yes he speaks there on divorce not resisting the one who is evil giving to the one who begs loving our enemies laying up treasures in heaven forgiving each other the way we expect god to forgive us we should consider probably these things before we find ourselves in court but then we also know that paul himself went to court he actually appealed to the court in one time um in his in his defense he appealed to rome and spent a number of years there in trial some actually think that luke who wrote the gospel of luke was an investigative lawyer of sorts who who went out and investigated all the claims of paul in order to be um to help paul out in his legal defense in rome we don't know whether that's true or not but what we do know is that it's not always wrong to to utilize exterior courts in law it's not wrong but and and we should also note that we should never cover up criminality or something that breaks the law of the land or even the law of god we should seek justice for those who are marginalized and oppressed yes but before engaging in legal proceedings whether inside or outside of the church it might be valuable to ask a few questions like like what am i trying to defend what is it that i actually stand to lose maybe a better question what do i stand to gain am i after victory or peace unity what does my grievance communicate that i value most and in doing this could we perhaps be missing out on an opportunity to model christ so one of the dangers we could fall into amidst conflicts is needing to be right but it could be refusing to be wrong and now it might sound like the reasons behind needing to be right and needing to be wrong are pretty much the same thing i i think that there's some differences though as we peel back the layers of the onion i'm needing to be right by when packed already it flows from a misplaced identity misplaced valuing refusing to be wrong often at least flows from a misunderstanding of human nature we've presently bought into this this lie hook line sinker this idea this cultural tale that inside deep down we are really good people we're really good people and if something dark and nasty comes out of us it's not us it's the situation and and i don't think it's just something that the culture's taught us i think it's something we're like almost born with innately i can't tell you the number of times that i've come running because i've heard kids fighting and i show up and one of them saying and i go what happened they hit me why did you hit your sister she made me like really your sister animated your body took your arm made you squeal like a banshee and hit her ah no it's easy to see this in kids but can be a bit harder in ourselves what's funny is that we use exactly the same excuses but they had something i want they hurt my feelings i wanted that the question is why do we do this and i do this but why in james 4 1 it says this it says what causes quarrels what causes fights among you is it not this your passions at war within you your passions your heart's desires they're the thing causing it that's what the bible says but culturally the highest authority is the heart but i want that if i want it who else who who's to tell me what i want is wrong the bible disagrees with this notion to paraphrase another author the heart of the human problem is the human heart our hearts are jacked up they're broken companies compasses leading us in the wrong direction our problem's not an external problem it's an internal one when we lash out it's because of our hearts it's because of what's going on in our hearts the glass it can only spill what it contains the glass can only spill what's inside of it something might have shaken it but it can only spill what's already inside of there that junk that came out that's in us when we refuse to to be wronged when we refuse to be wrong we may think the situation is the causal factor but it's merely the thing god is using to show us what's actually going on in our hearts i want to ask what comes out of you when you're shaken you want to know another fun question uh ask your spouse ask a good friend hey what comes out of me when i'm pressed what's been coming out of you in the middle of isolation what's the situation been rattling loose in you if you're like me there's all sorts of buried treasure that's been coming out when we're wrong or we're wronged our actions they betray our hearts they betray what's going on inside of us when we jump to defend ourselves rather than admitting we're wrong we can fall into believing the lie that everything in us is good we can fail to see the sin in our hearts we just see the action of the other person but we need to call a spade a spade we defend it instead of calling it what it is we miss an opportunity to both repent to the individual but also to tell them that we believe there's no good thing in us and we're purely sinners saved by grace we refuse to be wronged we sometimes buy into this lie that inside of us is good i miss an opportunity to proclaim christ this cross it's the center point of christianity the idea that jesus came to earth and willingly was wronged wrongfully sentenced wrongfully condemned wrongfully crucified jesus knew god's plan and purpose could be accomplished and was going to be accomplished despite that we live out a low view of god when we fight and clamor and try to prevent ever being wronged we live on a low view of god when we doubt his ability to work in the middle of a real stinky situation when we demand right treatment now and justice now glory now refuse to be wronged we express a doubt in god's promises to vindicate to be just we doubt the actual attribute of god which is that he's a just god prep and vang quoted him earlier he says this he says it's more christ-like to accept being wronged than to pursue retaliation through the means that contradict christ's teaching in the community of christ no interpersonal differences should be irreconcilable it goes on to say it's better and more christ-like to be wronged and i'd add even to lose an argument than to sacrifice one's testimony and that's what's on the chopping block is our testimony romans 12 19 paul says elsewhere beloved never avenge yourselves leave it to the wrath of god for he's written vengeance is mine i will repay we can we can be wronged we can be wrong and and be okay with it because we have a promise that there's a god who will one day deal with it will vindicate who will repay the evil doers and reward those who suffered wrongly we need to be on guard against needing to prove we're right and resisting the possibility of wrong because there's more online than our pride and our ego our actions communicate to the watching world that what we practically believe about the character of god so we can fall into needing to be right or refusing to be wrong and in those we can also do a third thing which is lose sight of what's important we can lose sight of our inheritance if you read with me verse seven on to have lawsuits with one another is already a defeat why not suffer wrong why not rather be defrauded but you yourselves wrong and fraud even your own brothers do you not know the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of god don't be deceived neither this neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor revilers no swindlers will inherit the kingdom of god now that's a meaty section of text but it's important that we see it for what it is it's part of a bigger section of thaw if you were hoping i was going to crack open some of these big theological eggs and cook them um these are big topics and we can do that but i want to i want to keep them within the context of what paul is actually saying here if you if you want more info on some of this we've done a series uh in particular on on sexuality and homosexuality with sam albury a few years ago that's on our website you can look on for it there um we're going to be doubling back as well and dealing with sexuality in the coming weeks because paul's talking about it a whole lot but right now i just want to keep it what it is this is part of an argument that paul's making in these 11 verses i would say he's bringing up this list of things in order to help present and prove a point another commentator i read this week david pryor he said this paul's not talking about isolated acts of unrighteousness but about a whole way of life pursued persistently by those who by doing so indicate they would be aliens in the kingdom of light and truth their actions indicate that they're not actually citizens of the kingdom of light and truth to put it differently every item on this list it's it's an action that has an incites the near term it's lost to care and consideration for what is right it's traded what is proper for what can be had now for what's pleasurable it's traded what's coming for what can be ha in hand today so why why work wait for it when i can steal it that's the theft why wait for marriage when i can have it right now that's that's the fornication why honor marriage when my heart's telling me this is the right thing to do right now well that's the adultery it's the losing side of the bigger picture and only seeing the near term why regulate when i can indulge that's the the drunkenness who's got to tell me how to do this i'll decide i'll decide how i express my sexuality it's losing sight of the eternal and only singing the temporal another commentator said this all the sins enumerated in these verses share the common traits of being self-indulgent and self-serving paul lists these sins in the middle of this thought because the same threat exists the same snare is set the same exact error can befall us in the middle of our grievances losing track of what's important taking our sights off eternity cashing in our internal inheritance for an immediate payoff just so that we can appear smart be right get a little glory now get a little vindication now not have to be wronged not have to suffer he's linking together something that many of us have brushed off as a minor issue with things that many of us have put on the top shelf as the most grievous things you could do he's equivocating unresolved grievances and are needing to be right with idolatry adultery and theft in verse nine he says don't be deceived don't downplay it this is not a minor thing it wants us to see the danger in it that person that you can't stand that quarrel you've been in that rift that has just been going on for so long that grievance that's never been solved it's sin according to paul it falls short it fails to glorify god and in verse 10 paul says that those who are walking into these patterns rather than out of them are not going to inherit the kingdom of god those who are practicing these things rather than putting them to death they're not going to inherit the kingdom of god those who are getting better every day at arguing at doing any of these things in this list rather than slowly running or even fastly running away from them they're not going to inherit the kingdom of god those who are relentlessly arguing until they're blue in the face they're not going to inherit the kingdom of god they're asking for their portion now as the commentator said that they're evidencing that they're not the children of light question for us and this is have we lost sight of eternity in our quarreling in our arguing have we lost sight of eternity is the way we've been handling our our conflicts evidencing that we're looking for everything right now what outstanding grievances are going on in your life have has the way we've been handling our disputes been telling the watching world the gospel's powerless the church is incompetent and god isn't glorious because he is he is in verse 11 paul concludes this section this thought with this with this glorious truth he says after listing these things such were some of you 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 he refers to all of these things in the past tense such were some of you you are not that way anymore that's not where your identity is found you are not those people anymore you don't need your vindication now you do not need your gratification now your identities our identities have been lifted up from these lower things and placed much much higher we don't need a court's justice because jesus has justified us we don't need he goes he goes on to use the past tense here not just because they're not wrestling with these things it's not to say they're not still wrestling with some of these things their sexuality their desires their ambition he doesn't use this past tense because at some point they stopped per se he uses his past tense because of what jesus did in the past jesus died he justified us that's been done and it's because of what jesus did in the past instead it gives him hope that as they move forward they'll be able to actually walk away and put these things behind us that sin that is plaguing you that pattern that you're prone to those that thought life that you'd never think is gonna go away that quarreling that you just feel stuck in the gospel promises you that because of what's happened in the past tense your future tense is not going to include that your sin is every day going to die more and more and more as you walk forward in christ does that mean you'll never that you'll be completely free from sin no not until jesus comes and either takes us home or we die and we get to be with him in glory but we do have that promise that because of what's been done our future is going to look different romans 8 it says this if god is for us who can be against us first john which really talks about this topic in particular really well it says he who is in you is greater than he who's in the world when we think we'll never overcome our sin it's saying hey that satan's actually more mighty than the spirit of god within me it's just not true first john 5 4 goes on to say everyone who's born of god overcomes the world why why do they overcome the world we'll double back to romans 8 romans 8 11 says because if the spirit of god who raised jesus from the dead dwells in you he who raised jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the spirit who dwells in you our heavenly bodies no our mortal bodies he's going to come and put life in that begins and just overtakes paul paul begins this text calling people to a higher way and he concludes it by pointing to a higher power the power of christ at work in us the holy spirit in us empowering us to walk away from these things paul wrote to the christian church because of an interpersonal issue that it evolved to the point where people were suing one another and i don't know if there's anything like this going on in our church in the church here in your life but i do know there's grievances maybe you're in the middle of a conflict maybe you've been cheated maybe somebody wronged you i want to challenge us with this such were some of you but you were washed you were sanctified you were justified despite our sins despite the way we were despite how we had wronged christ he came and willfully submitted to that he died on our behalf he's forgiven us in matthew 18 i won't flip there for sake of time but you can go there matthew 18 talks about an unforgiving servant someone who's had a massive gargantuan debt forgiven and then goes out and tries to collect on a lesser debt that somebody owed him it's it's grievous we don't want to become that guy the band is going to come up and and we're going to respond in a few different ways as we think back on this as we just think of this this really a glorious truth held in front of us this promise of what christ has accomplished in us and just encourage you to examine your heart if you want to start getting communion ready at home we're going to respond by taking communion really as a way of centering around our minds back on what was accomplished on the cross for us in this death of christ the way he willingly was wronged and and i'd encourage you to take some time and examine your heart think about where you've been holding on to grievances think about where we've been stuck clamoring and fighting and feuding and invite the holy spirit to just search matthew 5 jesus said in a sermon on the mount you've heard it said to those of old you shall not murder whoever murders will be liable to judgment but i say to you that everyone who's angry with his brother will be liable to judgment everyone who insults his brother will be libeled at the council and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire jesus said if you're offering your gift the altar and their remember your brother has something against you leave your gift go first be reconciled to your brother for some [Music] it would not be right to come and take communion this morning and remembering and celebrating all that jesus has done for you without also going and forgiving those who have wronged you and so before we don't rush to do this take a minute and examine [Music] see if there's something we've been holding on to that in light of what christ has done for us we need to let go some some hear you that are listening this morning you've you've haven't decided to follow christ you might might not identify yet as a christian but you know that you're some of those things on that list you've been feeling crushed by it maybe you're experiencing guilt i'll just let you know that that same invitation that paul reminded the people of in verse 11 is available to you to become somebody who is not that anymore who has the spirit of god working in them and changing them giving a new quality of life a new hope that's available to everyone that's what christ died on the cross to give you and if you're feeling the spirit working in your heart this morning if you've been feeling conviction if you've maybe just the situation of your life these last few weeks has been stirring something in you a longing for more a questioning of what is this all about i want to point you to christ the one the god who loved you so much that he came down in pursuit of you and who offers you new life today the back end will have cliff is gonna talk about how you can respond we'd love to walk through what does it look like to step out and follow jesus but i would encourage you today make the day the day that you say yes to christ all of us let's make today the day that we look on the sacrifice of cross on the cross that christ made and live our lives in light of it let me close this in prayer [Music] jesus we just stand in awe of all that you've done for us reflect on all the things that we were that you no longer define us as thank you father that when you look down you no longer see us as that list of things we were that but christ is a tone for us and so jesus we pray you'd be glorified and magnified you'd help us spirit would you come search our hearts now show us where we've been clinging on to something and in doing this and in our confrontations and then are not letting it go we've we've told a lie about who you are we want to be more satisfied in you we want you to be more glorified through us so we need you holy spirit to come and do your work and jesus we just praise you for what you've done and we pray all this to the father in the name of the son amen [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Westside Church

Views: 1,303

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: westside church, jesus, vancouver, church, gospel, mission, truth, grace, bible, teaching, preaching, sermon

Id: YC6WjTp5oKk

Length: 48min 43sec (2923 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 27 2020