1 Corinthians 6:1-11 More Than What We Think We Are

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filcik preaches from his sermon series titled First Corinthians, Sinful Church, Powerful Gospel. Let's listen in.

Good morning and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filcik. I am the lead pastor here, and I'm glad you're here this morning. Didn't know who was going to be here, so we are here together. We are embarking, obviously, on a new adventure going to two services, so thank you for being here and being the nine o 'clock service together.

These first few Sundays of two services, we're going to be figuring things out, and so it's going to be trial and error to see how the things balance out and all of that stuff, so please bear with us as we seek to make room for more.

We're going to try our best to be flexible and see how that is, and I do encourage you as much as possible, and this is a great season, a great opportunity, a great time to invite some others. You look around you and you see some space here, and so we have opportunity to even add more chairs in the back if we need to, but I encourage you to invite others and bring others together so that we can grow in faith, grow in community, grow in service together, and that's the reason that we're doing this at this time.

Now, I don't have any crystal ball. I don't know if this is the right timing to do this. I'm just trusting in God, and we just look at it. We just say we were coming right up against the inability to invite our neighbors, coming up against the inability to actually find seats and have places, and I don't know how many of you were here last week, but you would notice that people were actually sitting on benches in the back, and we were adding chairs and things like that, and so we're doing this in trying to honor our mission to worship Him and find more worshipers for His name.

I encourage you to continue to be on that mission. We're going to be continuing on in our series in the book of 1 Corinthians. This morning I've entitled this series Sinful Church, Powerful Gospel. Sinful Church, Powerful Gospel, because this letter, more than maybe any other New Testament letter, particularly 1 Corinthians, highlights the way that the gospel of Jesus Christ overcomes the sinful issues that come up in churches.

Sinful issues. How many of you knew that some sinful issues come up in churches because the church is made of people, right? You knew that, and we've experienced that. We've lived that. If you've been around the block and taken a few trips around the sun, then you already know that that's the case, and so Scripture meets us where we're at.

It meets us in the real day in and day out of our lives. There are threats to church unity that crop up within every single church. You could spend your entire life looking for the perfect church, and you will not find it, and so the best we can hope for is a church that is committed to applying the scriptures and the good news to those areas of brokenness.

In our text this morning, we're going to see a specific issue of sinfulness at work among the Corinthians at the Corinthian church. They're using the secular Roman courts to resolve their internal squabbles.

Of course, the bedrock problem in our text is that they are experiencing squabbles, but that's a real part of everyday life is when you have a group of people, even as much as just like say you got a family of four together, there's going to be conflict because you have sinful people together.

So how much more when you've got a gathering of people who are on mission together seeking unity, there's going to be squabbles, and there's going to be things that come up, but this passage stands here in the text of scripture as a reminder of what we are meant to be as a church.

We think, and I think this is true. You guys, if you disagree with me, you can come up and talk with me about it afterwards, but I think in our American context where we live today, we think less of the church than we ought.

We think less of the church than we ought. In our modern age, we may think of the church as a Sunday morning program that we're just participating in even right now. We may think of it as a weekly dose of medicine that doesn't go down so easy, but it's like, well, we at least did our part.

Some may even think of it as penance for their sins throughout the week. Like, well, I paid my dues. I went and I listened to Don, something like that. And yet others take it on as routine self-improvement.

Well, I just know it's good for me. I just know it'll make me better. And so it's kind of a little bit mercenary, right? You just show up and you just take it in like, okay, then I'll improve, and then I'll be a better person for having gone to church.

Good, got that out of the way. I fear that we as a culture are losing the image of church as God's gathering, Him gathering us together for His Son, Jesus Christ, and for His glory. Do we see the vitality of the community to which He's called us to interact into the interaction between us, each other, and the Almighty?

Me bringing my gifts, others bringing their gifts, and us serving one another in joy and gladness under the banner of Jesus Christ, our Lord. The church in Corinth serves as a great reminder of the call to work through life together as a gathering of God's people, particularly because they're jacked up, particularly because they are messed up.

And it's apparent throughout the waves of this letter, problems and issues, problems and issues. Sinful church, powerful gospel. How bad would things need to get? Think about this. This is the context of the message this morning.

How bad would things need to get before we would start filing lawsuits against one another? Before you're starting to sue one another and you can literally look across the room with stink eye at the other person who you know you're going to court with tomorrow.

Like, can you imagine that kind of context? How many of you might say, that might be time to shut the doors. Like, that might be time to like, let's go disband and go to other churches. Like, they couldn't do that in Corinth, right?

But I mean, it's kind of like, wow, if things get that dire and get that bad, we are not a functioning, living, breathing in God and breathing out God to one another kind of church. How bad would it need to get before we would start suing one another?

And yet, we ought not skip this passage with dismissive thoughts. Like, you might just go then, okay, this doesn't apply to me. I would never sue another Christian, you might think. But by the end of this message this morning, we're going to see that the gospel has real world implications for all of us, for all of us, the way we live together in the here and now, this is meant to impact us.

Faith in the goodness of Jesus Christ is not merely fire insurance for an afterlife, but it is about living for Christ now as well. The gospel grants the church wisdom to mediate problems. The gospel brings the power to absorb offense within us.

And it brings life-transforming power to us as individuals that strengthens us corporately. So open your Bibles, your scripture journals, your devices to 1 Corinthians chapter six. We're going to read verses one through 11.

Again, 1 Corinthians chapter six, one through 11. Give you a second to get over there. But just to remind you, this is God's holy word. And I believe that this is exactly what the Almighty wants to speak into our midst this morning.

So 1 Corinthians chapter six, verses one through 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 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 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 idolaters, 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. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship.

Father, I pray that this would be our reflection this morning what you have personally saved us from. Salvation is specific. It is embarrassing. What we have been saved from is specific to each individual.

It is common to man. It is common to women. And at the same time, it would be imminently embarrassing to have on the screen our lives of sin before you. For us to be exposed to everybody in the same way that we're exposed to you would be the most shameful thing we could endure.

And yet we've been washed, sanctified, justified through the blood of your Son. No more condemnation over us. No more threat of judgment over us because we are righteous in your sight. Father, I pray that even in this early hour on this Sunday morning that you would light our hearts on fire with gratitude, with deep thanks, with deep hope because such were some of us.

And now we're washed. Now we're cleansed. Now we're made right through Jesus Christ. I pray that you would receive these songs that we sing now before you as worship, as gladness that we would see you high and exalted and give thanks to you with our voices now together in Jesus' name.

All right, yeah, you can go to be seated. But like I say, every Sunday, get comfortable and keep your Bibles open. 1 Corinthians 6, verses 1 through 11. And if at any time during the message you want to get up and get more coffee or juice or donut holes, you're not going to distract me if you need to do that at any time.

I think we can hardly even imagine the circumstances that our text spells out for us today. And the thing is, many of us would testify, and I know some of your stories. I've talked with you. I know some of your backstories.

And I know many of you have experienced church hurt in the past. But the church in Corinth is full of litigation. Like I think it's probably a very rare occurrence in the church today where there's lawsuits going on in between people in the church.

And while we might be able to relate to being a culture of litigation in America, I hope that nobody here has experienced the types of depth of circumstances that this text was going on in the church context of Corinth here.

Now, some of the reasons we can't imagine this are due to differences in our cultural context. So I'm going to spell out here at the start before I even give you the outline, some of the cultural distinctions or differences between their litigation and our litigation so that you understand.

The place for common court proceedings in the Roman Empire was the marketplace. It was the marketplace. It was the very public location where people were going to get their veggies in the morning and going to get the meat and the fish and a buying place.

And in the corner was the bima and the magistrate would sit there and take and try cases. So it was very public, very common. It was first come, first served. Pending any bribes to grease the wheels of justice and be sure that your case was heard that day, then it was first come, first serve.

Otherwise, we have ample writings from this era that explain without shame. They are direct and without shame that preference is to be given to the wealthy and the higher classes in courts. It's in writing.

It's codified. You gave the wealthy and the higher class better standing because they were more dependable was the idea. We have a sense, of course, in our culture, we know deep down, maybe on the sly, that the wealthy can buy their own justice in our society while at least covering up and pretending that justice is blind.

We at least value that. We value impartial justice. Raise your hand if you value impartial justice. We would ascribe to that. We would say that's good that justice is blind, but we also have a sense in the back of our hearts that knowing sinful biases and sinful people, that it's not always blind.

How many of you knew that was the case? You know what I'm saying. So what I'm saying about the Roman Empire is different than our perspective because justice in favor of the wealthy and well-heeled of society is actually written.

It's codified. It was like, hey, here's how you judge. A judge would consider the source and in considering the source would also consider the flow of income, real bribes. Bribes were at stake in this and the wealthy could purchase justice easily.

So in other words, the wealthy have an advantage over the poor. The people from higher classes have advantage over the poor in the judicial system of this day and age. And in this culture, any trivial matter of dispute could be brought to the magistrate in the marketplace for adjudication.

And that also brings up the availability of the courts in everyday life. Like I said, it was in the marketplace. First come, first serve. It was easy to bring a legal matter. One could go pick up their sweet corn, stop by the fishmonger and sue their neighbor for a property boundary dispute all at the same place.

Super convenient. And so this is kind of like Walmart eventually having a little mini court in it, okay? And that could happen, you guys. That's not that far off. And the people of the church in Corinth were using this against one another, apparently with some regularity.

And that's where Paul is just beside himself. We can take things back a level from the issue of litigation to the issue of dispute. Of course, it's not just merely how they're handling the disputes, but that there's disputes at all is Paul calls into question.

He highlights the very nature of the litigation as a loss for the church that it's going that far. But he also goes, why all the selfish clamoring for personal rights to begin with? Why all the divisions and the disagreements?

Why are they not working harder at resolving conflicts among themselves? That's the gist of this text. And my outline of the text this morning will take the end of the text and reinterpret everything through that lens.

So it's important that we get to the end and then read backwards. So let's just glance at the end of verse 11 to see how squarely this passage lands on the gospel. This is where he lands it, and it's good to keep this in mind all throughout.

But you, church, were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. That's where it's all going. And it's important to understand how he's gonna land the plane to understand the flight path.

Why is he going where he goes? Well, because he's gonna land it on the gospel. You're washed, you're cleansed, you're sanctified. Set apart for God's purposes. You're justified, declared righteous before God.

Should you not therefore be able to manage within disputes, within the body? The but here in verse 11 highlights the difference that Paul sees between the church and the world at large. The difference between the secular Roman judge and a church designated mediator.

Between the behavior of the church and the behavior of the world. So my outline will be three things that Paul sees the gospel bring to the church. Three things that we possess, recast, through the power of Christ's sacrifice for us.

First, he has granted to us the power to mediate, verses one through six. We have the power to mediate. The second is a surprising power. As far as superpowers go, you might rather be able to fly or be indestructible or heal like Wolverine or something.

But this is the power to absorb offense. The power to absorb offense, verses seven through eight. And then the third is the power of transformation, verses nine through 11. The power of a transformed life.

So first we see that the gospel brings with it the power to mediate in the church. And the church was caught up in all kinds of legal shenanigans. You see that in the first six verses. There's all kinds of lawsuits being applied and people are going to the marketplace and trying one another.

And in verse one, Paul is so incredulous that the Greek text of the verse begins with the word dare. And the equivalent of this, starting with this verb dare, is the equivalent of how dare you? It's incredulous.

It's shock. It's how could you? And I don't know who comes to your mind when you hear the phrase, how dare you? There might be a couple of people. I don't know what the next slide is. Is there somebody?

There you go. I don't know who comes to your mind when you think about how dare you. It might be a multitude of different people. It might even be your own mom, right? I don't know who it is in your life that's had the gall to say to you, how dare you?

But that's what Paul is saying to the church. It's harsh. It's intentional. Paul is in shock at the news that the church people in Corinth are dragging one another before the Roman magistrate for trivial matters pertaining to the lesser things of this life.

In verse one, he contrasts the distinction between the unrighteous judges of his era and the saints within the church who have been washed, sanctified, and justified, as we saw at the end of the text.

So, I kind of fear asking you all a question, and I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands, but I want you to just wrestle with it for a second. The answer just might betray how low we think of the church, or further, how little we think of the power of Christ to transform lives, or maybe you're all in with this, but would you rather have a judge and jury try your case, a jury of your peers, or would you rather have the church try your case, whatever it might be?

Think about that. Honest question that I wonder how all of us would answer. Would you rather have the church convene a committee to resolve your issue, or would you rather have the judicial system manage that?

And I think we might have a smattering of answers, but I think many of us might just say, I just trust myself to the legal system. I don't trust the church. Paul argues from the greater to the lesser in verse two and three.

The greater being a shock to us. Some things I kind of chuckled when I was reading it because I didn't know we were gonna judge angels. How many of you knew that? Like, I mean, I did, I've read the passage before, but it's like, I don't really know what that looks like.

But he's arguing from that position going, you're gonna judge angels. You're gonna be part of judging the world and so ought you not to be able to handle just like trivial things within the church. You see, greater to the lesser.

And the greater is like, what? Are you kidding me? He lets us in on a view of the end times that comes as a shock to us. The saved will participate in the final judgment of the world. And further, we're gonna participate in the final judgment of fallen angels.

There's a minor note I need to clarify for those who were here last week. Paul said in verses 12 and 13 of chapter five that he doesn't judge the world or those outside the church and leaves that up to God.

Speaking of the here and now. But here, just a couple of short verses later, he's saying that he and we will indeed judge the world. So what gives? In one passage he says, it's not our business to judge the world.

Now he's saying it's our business to judge the world. We one day will. But timing is everything. In the present, Paul says our business is not to judge the world in the here and now. But in the future, in some unclear way that I can't, I don't really have a full blown understanding of, we will participate in the final judgment.

This passage about judging the world and angels reminds me that there's a lot of things about the end times that I just don't have sewn up. I don't know when in my timeline of the end that happens and I'm sure that many of us don't have that well sewn up and that's okay.

But there's things, there's these nuggets of the end that are revealed to us from time to time that can sometimes be mystifying to us. But what is clear is that God entrusts us with more than we assume.

God entrusts us with more than we assume. We ought to be competent to handle the trivial cases among us during this time. We should be able to manage disagreements within the church because he will employ us in that final judgment.

Still incredulous in verse four, Paul wonders why in the world they're bringing their conflicts to those who have no interest in the church. The pagan courts, by the way, I don't know, I hope I don't have to say this to you, but I'm going to, the pagan courts do not share the values of the church.

How many of you knew that? The pagan courts do not share the values of the church. We have a benefit of a high court right now that is kind of leans in the direction of many of the values of the church, but it's, already you know, it just doesn't always go that way.

It doesn't always go there. Even with the current court, it doesn't always go that way. The values of the world are different than the values of the church. And in no uncertain terms, Paul declares how shameful this is that they're going to court.

They're going to idolaters. They're going to pagans to try their simple cases. And he chides them here with a rhetorical question. I think it's kind of snarky and a bit sarcastic what he asks. Is it possible, guys, that you just don't have anyone among you wise enough to settle a dispute between brothers and sisters in Christ?

Well, context matters here. And remember that the first few chapters of 1 Corinthians was tackling their arrogance about their own wisdom. And when you understand the context, and if you were to read all the way through chapter six to where we're at today, you would see this as a really deep dig, not just a dig at them, but a really deep dig.

You who think yourself so wise, don't you even have someone wise enough to settle simple disputes among you? Even one who could rise up and kind of just like mediate and solve problems? But instead, they're filing lawsuits against each other to be tried by unbelievers.

They're airing their petty, dirty laundry before the magistrates in the public marketplace for all to see. Now, I think it's wise to declare a caution about misapplying this passage to terrible legal issues.

We know that there are terrible legal issues, right? As a church, we have a legal obligation to follow laws regarding reporting abuse. There are trivial cases, and then there are cases that affect the society at large.

And I hope it's clarity that Paul is not recommending a mere internal handling of severe society-wide matters, such as rape, murder, or child abuse. The phrase trivial cases in the text and matters pertaining to this life indicate that these are not even clearly what he's referring to here are not clearly adjudicating sin, but primarily areas of disagreement, quite likely regarding, there's a Greek word I'll throw out here, adiaphora.

It means the gray area issues, the things that are not clearly sin and are not clearly not sin. It's kind of like that middle ground area. How many of you know we live a lot of lives in the adiaphora?

There's a lot of things in our lives that God doesn't tell you where to shop and buy your clothes. He doesn't tell you where to go get your groceries. He doesn't tell you how much internet is enough internet, right?

There's gray areas that we have to decide on. And how many of you know that issues arise in the church in the gray areas? Did you know that? There's plenty of disagreements, plenty of room for us to stand our ground on gray area issues and begin to have conflict with one another over those things.

Remember that the church has been given a protocol for dealing with that which is clear sin. Matthew 18, for example, and further chapter five, what we just went over the last couple of weeks was very clear and formally removing an unrepentant man from the gathering.

They have already been called to manage tough cases regarding entrenched sinful patterns where a person is unrepentant of those sins. But this passage is not a warrant for the church to avoid accountability in criminal matters, not at all.

It's not a call to manage every single issue internally. And I fear that many churches have applied that to the shame of the church at large, misapplying this passage. There's absolutely a time and a place to report abuse and crime to authorities.

The error comes in by not distinguishing between trivial cases in this passage and the reality that we know that we may encounter issues within a church that cannot be defined as trivial. You know what I'm talking about.

There are issues that arise in a church that are not trivial, that must be passed along. But what is meant here in this passage is the less clear issues that are still requiring arbitration. There are things that become entrenched in our lives that we have a hard time getting past that we begin to draw a conflict with one another.

And it can be really detrimental to a church when those gray area issues begin to conflict within the church. And all of a sudden, well, you don't do this, but I do. And we begin to divide. Well, most all of us might be tempted to skip application on this point because we're not suing one another in court.

So let me speak to the opposite side of this to correct and kind of think about what Paul is driving for here. I want you to just take on as an application, like this is legitimately like a possibility of what you would need to like take on to your mindset and take on to your life.

And that is simply that you consider the church as a place of arbitration. That you take this on as a, I haven't ever thought about enlisting the church in the help of arbitrating between me and the conflict of another, but that would be healthy.

That would be good. If you're not getting along or you feel defrauded or cheated by a brother or a sister here, I would encourage you to bring it to light and come together. We are to be a people who are committed to working through our crud together.

I would even recommend, just for the sake of propriety and not spreading rumors, just maybe start with an elder. Go there first and say, we're having some conflict here, we need resolved and see if you can get it resolved with the help of an elder.

But it's shameful when there is no arbitration within the church and ought we not equally to be ashamed when we refuse to settle our disagreements and squabbles within the body, but instead jump ship to another church while carrying our grievances with us.

That's often what happens in America today. Moving churches is not always sinful, but moving for the mere purpose of avoiding unresolved conflict should give us pause to consider why in the world Paul is here speaking about settling disputes in the first place.

Why doesn't he just say, hey, you know, when there's conflicts in the church, isn't there anybody wise enough to tell them to go to another church? Is that what it says in the text? When there's conflict, pick a side and tell the other to go.

No, he doesn't say that. He says, settle the disputes among you, like get it resolved with the people. Now, some of you have moved here after settling disputes and I appreciate that. Some of you are here and you've realized that your previous church wasn't going to settle your dispute or your concern on the Bible as the primary authority in those disputes, and I think that's a pretty good reason to leave a church if they're not going to stand on the word.

But there are others here who maybe you're here and you've never even given it a shot. You gave up before any attempts to try to settle conflicts. I will leave the point with this encouragement. Some of you may walk away from this message with a conviction to get back to some unfinished business, and that's okay.

I'm not looking to make more space in the seats, but I also recognize that that might be the healthiest thing for the body of Christ, for you to go and make right any kind of conflict that you have unresolved.

Here's a way to diagnose that. If you would actually, in private conversation about your previous church, feel comfortable saying some bad things about them, then maybe there's something that's unresolved there that you haven't resolved.

Now, maybe some of those things are legitimate, and maybe some of those things center on the word, and they center on the biblical aspect of things. I would encourage you to not badmouth another church, but it's okay to hold convictions.

There was, I'll tell you a brief story. I won't use any names, but there was a man who started attending Recast. He only came here for about a month or two, but I started to get to know him over that month or two.

This is 10 years ago. We were probably about 60 people at that time, and so it was very easy to get to know visitors, and I started to talk with this guy, and we went out for breakfast one morning, and he began to tell me about the story, wound around about the difficulties he had had with his previous pastor, and this, that, and the other, and how glad he was to be at Recast, and I said to him, I said, did you talk with that pastor?

No. Have you tried to just share with him your thoughts? No. Have you tried to reconcile together? No. I said, maybe that would be a good step, or maybe that would be where you'd want to start. So we went to his pastor.

He talked with him. They reconciled. There was some misunderstanding, and that man is now today, he's an elder at that church. He's very connected and very involved in that church. That's a success. Recast Church isn't for everyone, and I mean, I'm not gonna be the kind of pastor who's gonna go, this is the only place for you.

No, go resolve those conflicts and see where God lands you. Where does he desire? But I know he does not want you to have unresolved conflict with others in the body of Christ, in the kingdom of God. The gospel gives us power to mediate, and second of all, it also gives us the power to absorb the blow.

No, absorb the offense, verses seven through eight. Absorb the offense. The conflict itself within the church is a problem here. And the bringing forth of public lawsuits is an unqualified loss for the church, Paul says.

It's a defeat. You're already losing. You're already losing on the basis that people are going to court with one another. Just merely by going of the public judgment seat of the magistrate, the church is suffering defeat.

Every petty lawsuit is shameful, Paul says, and he uses the word shame. And I would say much like it's shameful when Christians in our day and age take their church squabbles to the court of public opinion.

That's probably where this gets applied the most in the church, right? Somebody just launches their podcast with animosity toward a church. Or when church members take their church issues to the socials.

I think this is a very similar situation to what was happening in Corinth. Just post about it. See if you get likes. See if other people are experiencing the same thing that you're experiencing. And like I said, there's some big name podcasts that their success is precipitated on the, not resolving the conflict within the church, but just airing it.

There's plenty of podcasts like that. To be sure, we're not called to be a secret society. This is not an attempt to sugarcoat and whitewash the church and pretend that there's never any conflict and to present a face out there that, nope, nothing wrong here.

Nothing ever goes bad here. Everything's fine here. No, we're not a secret society like that. But we are a place that has been well-equipped to resolve minor grievances and petty trivial squabbles internally.

We should be able to demonstrate to the world that we can handle those kinds of things. Corinth was not living up to the high and powerful calling that they have in the role of mediation. And I fear we also, in our modern era, have not leaned into the powerful gospel community to help resolve our squabbles as well.

But that power of the gospel comes with something that is often overlooked in our American society of rights and individualistic dignity, right? Like, don't tread on me. Don't step on me. Nobody's going to push me around.

Nobody's going to, you know. We of all people, church, we of all people have a warrant to suffer wrong. We have a warrant to suffer wrong. We have the power to be defrauded without fear, without concern for loss.

So I lose a couple hundred dollars from a Christian neighbor who ran his tractor through my fence. So I suffer some indignity through gossip or slander by a brother or sister. So I'm called back seven times to redo a petty request from a church customer of my business who just can't ever, I can never seem to please them and I can't seem to get it right.

They're the one who picked the color, but now they don't like it. Whatever. As strange as it sounds, the gospel, the only gospel, the one with the crucified Messiah, can you picture him dying on the cross for you?

The gospel with the sinless one accused for us. The one where he was beaten for sins he didn't commit. The one where he suffered the eternal wrath of God for the evil that you and I committed on the cross.

That gospel shows us a better way of life together. Amen? A life where it takes a lot to get us upset. Does that define us, church? Are we a church that it is hard to knock us off our joy? Hard to knock us off our game?

Hard to knock us off of the message of Jesus Christ and him crucified? Or are we a people who is quick to demand our rights? I fear that the church in America has gone one of those two directions. You have a guess which way I think?

Are we a people who demand our rights first? Or do we have a warrant to suffer a bit? I hear people say, I don't suffer at all. I don't suffer at all. I bet there's opportunities. Maybe we're guarding ourselves a bit too much.