No Suits Allowed (Part 2)

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No Compromise Radio Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author,

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Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the

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Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the Scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.

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The gospel is Jesus gives his life. The gospel is for God so loved the world, he gave.

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The gospel is Christ freely gave his own life. The gospel is give, give, give, and now you want to go to court to what?

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Get, get, get. This doesn't make any sense. Calvin studied law at two

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French universities, and he said this about legal matters. Indeed, wherever lawsuits occur frequently, or the parties are obstinate in joining issue with each other with the utmost rigor of the law, it is perfectly obvious that their minds are inflamed far too much by wrongful, greedy desires, and that they are not prepared for calmness of mind and endurance of wrongs according to the commandment of Christ.

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If you've been wronged by a Christian, what do you do? Jesus said in Luke 6, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

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Jesus doesn't say take your dirty laundry and air it before unbelievers. So here's what

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Paul says. He's got all kinds of different ways to talk to the church of Corinth, but here he just says the gall, the audacity, the pompous attitude that you would go to an unbelieving court, how dare you?

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And that dare is in the present tense, a continuing thing. It's happening probably at the moment.

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How dare you do that this very second? You've got righteous leaders.

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By the way, if you don't think your elders are righteous, then what are you doing learning about heaven and hell and having you teach your children on how to go to heaven?

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If you've got righteous elders qualified by 1 Timothy 3 and Titus chapter 1, you can go to them.

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By the way, lest I forget, if you have a case against someone here at the church and there's money involved or property or those kinds of things, a civil case, then we would love to talk to you and we would love to help you.

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And the elders with unbiasedness, let's see, is that a word? Without bias, we will help settle the case and you will move on.

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And what's the worst thing that can happen? We'll answer that in a minute.

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Look at the text. Does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? He could have said outsiders, but he says the unjust.

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That's what he calls them, unrighteous saints, believers, unbelievers. Look at that parallelism.

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They're exact opposite. Those people there, they don't know the wisdom of God. You brag you know the wisdom of God and you should, he says to the church of Corinth.

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Those lawyers are unjust, unrighteous. Doesn't mean that every lawyer is as bad as he could be.

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Cicero said the courts will never convict any man, however guilty, if he has money. Apuleius said that judges are gowned vultures and all judges nowadays sell their judgments for money.

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We've had quite a few lawyer jokes over the years. Some of those probably have truth to them, especially back in this day.

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Summary for Bethlehem Bible Church, love people, don't sue them.

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It's bad for the church's character. It's bad for Christ's character. First Corinthians, question number two.

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The second question designed you to remember that we're a family and we don't want to sue other Christians is found in verses two and three.

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Don't you know that you're competent to judge? Don't you know that you're competent to judge?

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As a church with leaders, Christians are able to judge for themselves. Let me read you verses two and three.

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The point here is superior competence of the church judging. First Corinthians six, two and three.

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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?

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You see the argument from the greater to the lesser. Here's the question again. Do you not know that we are to judge angels?

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How much more than matters pertaining to this life? Now some people want to get bogged down in the fine points.

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Where are we to judge the world? When do we get to judge angels? Where's that in the Old Testament? Where's that in the

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New Testament? You can probably find some answers to those questions, but I don't think that's

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Paul's concern. Paul's concern is just a big picture. You're able to judge. The Bible says you will be coheirs with Christ and you'll have this greater judgment.

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Why can't you do the lesser? And six times right here in this chapter, do you not know?

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Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? They should have known.

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These are rhetorical questions. Remember, 18 months at Corinth, he taught them. Don't sue other people.

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Why? Because you have competency in yourself. Now several look to Daniel chapter seven.

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Don't go there. I'll just read you the two verses. Daniel seven, where the Jewish people got their hope, uh, uh, and how they were tied into judging the world with Christ.

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As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them until the ancient of days came and judgment was given for the saints of the most high.

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And the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom. The saints will judge the world.

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Maybe that's in the millennial kingdom, but again, the details are not fine. Certain eschatological nuances here, the main point is this.

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The real point is this. You have competency within your own church body to deal with these cases.

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They're supposed to know what to do. Other passages that make some allusion to judging the nations.

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Jesus said to them, truly, I say to you in the new world, when the son of man will sit on his glorious throne, you have followed me, will sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel, or maybe it's from Luke 22.

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You are those who have stayed with me in my trials and I assigned to you as my father assigned to me a kingdom that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

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Here, you're going to be involved either directly or indirectly as Christ co -heir in judgment of the nations and judgment of the angels and these huge national world -like events, but you can't judge that property line in the back.

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That's his point. And he continues, verse three, do you not know that we are able to judge angels?

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He ups the ante, highest created thing. We're able to judge angels.

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How much more than things pertaining to this life, to the here and now? Just sit and think about it.

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That's his question. Again, reasoning from the greatest to the smallest. By the way, the text is to judge angels, no article.

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What does angels with no article mean? It means not specific group of angels like bad angels or good angels.

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It means this category of being that's at the top of the created ladder. Angels, you get to judge angels, the highest created class of beings.

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Question three, question three, why would you ever settle for second best?

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Why would you ever settle for second best? So question number one, how dare you go to take a

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Christian into a civil court? Aren't you competent to judge? Question two, question three, why would you ever settle for second best?

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Why would you ever settle for second best? If you have a doctor, do you want the worst doctor or the best doctor?

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Whenever I hear of somebody having surgery, they'll say I had the best cardiovascular surgeon in all of New England.

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I'll meet somebody else and they'll say, I had heart surgery, I had the very best one. And I'd say, well, is it the same one?

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No, but everybody has to think I got the best specialist in Boston. You go for the best.

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So when it comes to a lawsuit, you think, hm, I think, let's see.

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Let's use medical again. I've got a headache. I'll either go down the street to that Wiccan who's gonna put chicken blood on my chest, or I'll go over here to this

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ENT specialist, flip a coin. Man, that chicken blood is cold,

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I'm telling you. So let's go to the unbelievers who don't have the mind of God, who don't know right and wrong, who have no propositional truth, who are bribed by other people, who render judgments that aren't for the glory of God.

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Let's go to them. It's chicken blood. Paul says, don't you want to go for the best?

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Who knows the mind of God? Who knows truth? Who knows systematic theology? Who's been taught the scriptures? The church does with her leaders.

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William Shakespeare said, the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Clarence Darrow said, the trouble with law is lawyers.

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Benjamin Franklin, God works wonders now and then. Behold, a lawyer and an honest man.

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And John Keats said, I think we may class the lawyer in the natural history of monsters.

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That might not be true today, and there are certainly Christians who are good lawyers. And we want Christians to be good lawyers, right?

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And if elders are smart and they were trying to figure out some potential lawsuit in the church where brothers and sisters couldn't get along, might it be a good idea for them to even say, we've got a lawyer in our midst, let's bring him along, let's bring her along, of course.

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But as these lawyer jokes today have some truth in them, what was certainly true back in those days is you couldn't trust these people.

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So Paul says, go for the best, look at verse four. So if you have such cases, it's a general principle, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church?

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Now, it could be translated lots of ways. You're appointing those, indicative. You're appointing those, exclamation.

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Or it could be questioned. I think in the middle of all the questions, that's exactly what it is. You're appointing these people? You're doing this, you're going outside?

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Don't do that. You don't need to. If you could pick, if you've got a problem with another

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Christian in this church, and you could pick either the elder board of the Bethlehem Bible Church. To my knowledge, none of us have any law practice, law education.

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You could either pick the elders of Bethlehem Bible Church, or you could hire, who are your favorite lawyers?

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I don't know, let's think of somebody from Harvard, Harvard trained. Alan Dershowitz. Who should you pick?

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Well, if you think you can win better with Dershowitz, that's probably the problem at hand.

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That's what Paul is after. We're after the glory of Christ. And Dershowitz is not going to say, for the sake of the kingdom of the glory of Jesus Christ and his name, this is the decision.

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Neither of you are going to like it, but here's what we have to do. The elders are going to say, we're concerned about the glory of Christ.

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We're concerned about the unity of the body. We're concerned about the testimony to the world. And he keeps asking questions.

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I keep asking questions, question number four. Question number four, isn't it shameful to air dirty laundry?

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Isn't it shameful to air dirty laundry, verses five and six? Paul thinks so.

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One of my pet peeves in all of my life is when I hear spouses say bad things about their spouses in front of other people.

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Now everybody's, if you're married, you're married to a sinful person. And you would know the most about that spouse to reveal all kinds of things.

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But it's shameful. Kim has probably encyclopedias of things she could say about me, but I don't think you have ever heard her say one negative thing about me.

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Why? Because I'm not sinful? No, because it's shameful to talk like that.

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It's shameful. You don't air dirty laundry. So Paul says, same thing in a church.

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We're gonna say, we can't figure this out. We've got everything else figured out because God has told us how to live righteous lives, how to get to heaven, what about justification, what about redemption, what about reconciliation, what about propitiation, what about conflict resolution, but we can't figure it out.

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So please, unbelievers, help us. And again, he's not saying something about a criminal case.

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If there's a criminal case, then Romans 13 applies, right? If there's child abuse, then we go to the courts,

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Romans 13, and it is exacted. But here, for these civil things over money, over property, by the way, what's gonna happen to all that when we die anyway?

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Look at the language. This is pretty tough stuff here by Paul, because he's concerned about the testimony.

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I say this to your shame. Can it be that there's no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between your brothers, between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers?

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Look back in chapter four, verse 14. When it comes to thinking about leadership properly, he says in chapter four, verse 14,

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I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. But when it comes to suing other blood -brought

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Christians, shame on you, Paul says. The factiousness that it's going to involve, can you imagine if our church was involved in a big lawsuit?

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You know, people do. I'll tell you what people do. We like to take sides. People say, well, you know what?

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I'm rooting for the Packers. I always root for the winner. I'm gonna be on this person's side.

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Then the gossip, then the discussion, then the sides and all that. And he's just already labored for four chapters.

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Stay together. Paul says it's shameful. You pride yourself in wisdom, church?

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Then be wise. There's got to be some wise person in your community who can render a decision.

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The word brother in 1 Corinthians. Used 10 times or less, 11 to 20 times, or 21 to 30, or 31 and over.

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A, B, C, or D. What's your guess? 39 times. See, I always go with the greater.

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So for us as Christians, we want to love other Christians. And if you've got a problem with another Christian, either let it go.

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Remember Matthew 18, that you've sinned a billion sins against Jesus. He's forgiven you. You forgive them. And if you can't let it go, then you go with that Christian.

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Come to the altar board and say, we need help. Could you settle the case for us? If it was me and I was rewriting the constitution right now,

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I would put in the constitution. As a member of this local church or a faithful attender,

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I agree to never sue another Christian at this church. I give up all my rights of suing another

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Christian civilly. I will never prosecute a

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Christian in this church because it defames Jesus and his royal law. Remember the royal law of Jesus?

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Found in James 2, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And finally, question number five.

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What would a wise Christian do? What would a wise Christian do? Found in verses seven and eight.

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A wise Christian would do this. If you're sued or you're about to be sued, you say,

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I don't want it to go before the unbelieving court. You can have it. I'll suffer. I'll give it up.

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I'll settle. You can have it. I'd rather be wronged than have the testimony of Jesus defamed.

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Because the second you walk into that court, you've both lost. That's why when you win in that case, it's really a loss.

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Look at verses seven and eight. To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you.

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When you walk in there before Judge Judy, you've already lost. Why not rather suffer wrong?

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What's the answer? You should. I might as well just suffer wrong. But when it's all about yourself and all about what you have and all about what you want and all about protecting, then you don't have the

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Christian thought anyway. Here's the Christian thought. God, everything I own, my houses, my cars, my money, my stocks, my 401k, every one of those, you've given to me by your direct good hand.

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It's all your money. And if there's a situation that's come up and we can't figure it out and we don't even really need to go to the elders because you know what?

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It's not mine anyway. It's all of God's. And so I'm after God's glory. I was a sinner and a rebel and a defier long enough.

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And now I've been born again. I've been washed, sanctified, justified. So you know what? You can have it because it's

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God's anyway. Here, why not rather be defrauded?

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Verse eight, but you yourselves wrong and defraud even your own brothers. Let it go.

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So it's a loss. It's a good test of your Christian character. You really believe what you say.

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Money does that to people. It'll really bring out what they really love. The wisdom of the world, take, grab, hoard, hold onto.

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The wisdom of the cross, it's all free. Willing to suffer wrong. We have a lot of rights in this world.

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I read a booklet the other day, know your rights. Well, it's a very short booklet for the Christian because if another

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Christian is suing you, you have no rights. You ought to not sue another Christian. Tell me if this is a true statement or not.

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If someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. I hope you say yes because that is

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Jesus Christ. Matthew 5, 40. God's sovereign, he knows he'll reward you in heaven.

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You can't take things to heaven anyway. So pursue love, that lasts.

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Why would you sue your brother, I asked earlier? Why would you sue your wife, I asked earlier?

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And now this is the real question. Would you ever sue yourself? It sounds stupid.

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I'm gonna sue myself. That's exactly what this is. I'm going to sue myself.

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Wow, you're smart. Somebody walked into my study and said, you know, Pastor Mike, I'd like to have some of your time.

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Could you please tell me ahead of time what it is that I can gauge where to put you? See, Pastor Early, now we have enough people that if somebody says, can

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I meet with you? I usually say, could you please tell me why, just so I know if it's an emergency? Fine, but I just need to figure out how it all fits.

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If it's not an emergency, maybe we can wait a little bit. And so do you think you could please tell me what we're talking about? I'd rather not.

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Oh, please, it would be very helpful for my schedule and it would be loving me if you would. No, I'd rather not. Why? Because I'd like to get together with you and I'm gonna talk about suing myself.

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And you might win, but it would be a loss. And I'm not chastening you for this, but if this letter was read out loud to the

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Church of Corinth, I don't think anybody was laughing right there because they knew what was going on.

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They knew how stupid it sounded. Sometimes I say to myself, if I do something wrong,

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I just preach to myself and I say, Mike, you're an idiot. You're sinful, you're selfish, what are you doing?

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The kids are laughing. You should see the kids now smiling, wow. All right, I'll magnify it.

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Mike, you're stupid. So the good news is when we acknowledge and confess and agree and repent,

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God gives us mercy. And you can be in the middle of a lawsuit suing yourself and you go, I'm so sinful,

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I'm so wrong. I'm not thinking about the glory of Jesus Christ, I'm thinking about myself. God, please forgive me, I stop it right now.

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And what do you think God's attitude is? Better late than never. God's attitude is as a child is getting the smile from his father, so too

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God the Father says, wonderful. It's never too late to repent.

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Commentator Pryor said, once a group of Christian becomes obsessed with its rights instead of its responsibilities, there will be untold trouble until they find the way to true repentance.

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We don't render evil for evil. We forgive as Christ has forgiven us.

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We forbear, we keep no record of wrongs, all verses from the

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Bible. And we're going to learn next time that if you lose it all, verses nine through 11 say, there's a better inheritance waiting for you.

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So, as a Christian, you ever want to sue someone? Say, that was an easy one,

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I don't ever want to sue myself. That was easy, I'm in it for the glory of Christ Jesus. That was easy, if I've got troubles with other

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Christians, I'll follow the Bible. First go privately, then take one or two, then go to the elders and we'll just work through this in a biblical fashion.

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Because I will do what God has said because he has given me the mind to follow Christ Jesus and his spirit.

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And I'll walk by faith. Our heavenly father, when

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I think of Jesus, when we think of Jesus, I never think of someone who is greedy, never think of someone lustful, never think of an idolater, never think of someone who is wanting his own best.

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But Lord, the exact opposite. We think of someone who demonstrates his love and kindness towards us, that he would so lay down his life selflessly.

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And father, he is our master and our captain and our king. And we would like to be good subjects in that kingdom.

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So father, help us to reflect and imitate Christ Jesus. I pray Lord for the history of Bethlehem Bible Church, for whatever how many years it's been, 25 or 30, no lawsuits yet.

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And I pray until we close our doors for the last day, there'd never be a church lawsuit here against other

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Christians. And father, then in general, would you help us to love each other more here? Wanting what's best for other people and being glad to serve others like Jesus was glad.

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In his name we pray, amen. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.