Just Be Wronged!

  

Read 1 Corinthians 6

 

I like Paul’s turn of the phrase, speaking the truth in love. It’s got a ring to it.

It’s not waxing and waning and waxing worse in the King James vernacular, but it sounds like good modern-day Bible talk.

Speaking the truth in love.

Many of you who read their Bibles know that these words are from Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia. They speak of Christian maturity.  We should be able to communicate better with each other than those who do not know God.

Why is this coming up again? 

We just finished a chapter about a believer who didn’t believe but was in the midst of the congregation defying God and even mocking him.  That dog don’t hunt!  But it was hunting in Corinth, and Paul was down to the last option.

Turn him over to Satan so that his sinful nature, which actively wars against God, might be destroyed and his soul saved on the Day of the Lord.

Somebody along the way should have spoken to this guy in a spirit of love and tried to bring him to the Lord in words and deeds. The congregation ignored the problem or even embraced their freedom by practicing terrible things.

That dog don’t hunt! Apparently, there had been no previous effort to talk with this man and see what was going on with him that caused him to desire his old self more than the new creation he was intended to be.

Remember, this was Greece at the beginning of the Church Age. The Greeks were well known for their language, which covered the known world and their thinking.  Those great orators began a long-standing tradition of logic, thinking, perception, and decision-making only a few hundred years earlier.

The Greeks liked to cuss and discuss. Their nature as Greeks was to talk it out. But nobody talked to this guy who was getting booted out of the fellowship.

We should never get there. We need to talk things out.

Paul gives us general counsel for conflicts between or among believers. He said the last resort is to take another believer to a secular court. He said to get it worked out.

Just who is he to say this?

Jesus said it first. His directions might also include disputes with those who don’t follow Jesus, but Paul was focused on the church that belonged to, served, and worshiped Jesus.

Work it out.

I still think fondly of my time as a counselor in prison. After a few months, I smiled every time an inmate client approached the door to my office, paused, and walked away.

Later on, some would tell me that when they turned away it was because they knew before we talked about whatever the burning issue was, I would ask them:

·       How does this get your closer to getting out of here?

·       How does this help you stay out of facilities like this one?

·       What is the most profitable course of action available to you?

Understand that inmates live in very limited geography and have few possessions, and if for some reason they lost their recreation time or had their Ramen confiscated. That could be big time trauma for these supposedly hardened criminals.

It didn’t take much for an inmate to have a crisis. Surely, these wrongs came at the hands of the prison administration, an evil streak in a correctional officer, or perhaps the moon phase.

When you are locked up because you got caught and convicted for doing something wrong, your human nature rears its head looking for any and everything done to you that might have wronged you in some way.

You put out your own personal BOLO: Be on the lookout for anything that wrongs me. I hope you never get to understand that firsthand.

But after a few months, many would walk to my door, pause, and walk away knowing the coming questions. Why do I tell you this?

It took a lot of conversation to get to this point.

It took a lot of talking and listening to get to this point!

To reach this point, it took a conceptual and practical understanding of efficacy, which most of the senior staff didn’t grasp.

It took some work to get to this point.

In my mind, it was worth it. Having inmates ask themselves if what they think they want can get them any closer to their goals.

That took much conversation. It took work. It’s not stacking heavy bales of hay work or carrying a hundred-pound pack and twenty pounds of mortar rounds up the hill work, but it still requires focus, engagement of some sort of effort, and comes with the hope of producing something profitable.

Work!

But sometimes, the offense seemed so egregious that my standing questions didn’t help. What to do? What can you do?

Just be wronged.

Just accept the transgression against you without a hearing, without a chance to present your case, and without what would surely be the most just outcome, at least as you see it.

That was tough for an inmate to swallow. Your justice might be no justice at all, at least in the moment, but you are not taking the wrong exit on the interstate of getting to and keeping freedom.

As I said, that was tough for an inmate to swallow.

That’s tough for us to swallow!

But that is precisely Paul’s counsel. If you can’t work it out with another believer, you are better off just being wronged. You are better off not seeking redress if it must come from outside of the church.

If you have to go to a state or federal court to get justice with another believer, you are better off just to be wronged.

But should it come to this? No.

Believers should be the best communicators on the planet. We should speak in a spirit of love and listen in the same way.

The world doesn’t want you to be good at communication. Satan rejoices when we don’t communicate. We don’t grow much at all without communication. But what have we been taught in our life experiences?

There is the Seagull Model where you swoop in, say what you have to say, and that’s the end. ‘Nuff said.

Why call it the Seagull Model? You swoop in, poop on as many people as you can, and fly away. This is actually a leadership model (not a good one) that had application here.

That’s a wimpy, cowardly approach to communication. We must speak the truth in a spirit of love and receive what other believers are telling us in a spirit of love.

Of course, there is gossip. You never talk to the person or people directly, but you talk about them profusely.

 Remember, we are talking about believers.

Then there is the dialogue of the deaf. These are Stephen Covey's words, but they are on target. Both people, or perhaps many people, are talking at the same time. Nobody is listening.

There are surely others, but these cover upwards of eighty percent of the failed attempts to communicate that we see repeatedly.

But for the believer, none should have standing in their lives.

What is Paul saying?  Work it out.

But, but, but….

Work it out.

You’re mean.

Work it out.

WE CAN’T!

OK, then just be wronged.

Just be wronged!

Communication is a matter of will. I can’t force you to understand me, but I can force myself to keep listening to you until I do. That doesn’t mean tht we will agree, but we will understand each other.

I can do that. Paul’s counsel applies to all believers. We should never have to drag another believer to court.

But it happens. Our selfish human nature does not want to be wrong. We get that, right?  Christians in large numbers take others who are Christians to court all the time.

But our counsel is to work it out.  Work it out!

Let’s say, I take you to court and get what I want, but in the process, we become stumbling blocks for other believers and for non-believers looking for a reason to believe.

Consider the segue statement as Paul is about to change topics.

In our liberation from sin and death, we can do whatever we desire, but not everything is profitable.

Not everything is profitable!

As far as heaven and hell go, the pressure is off for the believer. We know that God has claimed us—yes, with all of our shortcomings—and won’t let us go. He loves us with an everlasting love.

We, as Christians, should be able to communicate with each other better than anyone else on the planet. The pressure is off. We are not headed to a lake of fire. Jesus has a room ready for us.

But when we hit gridlock or are ready to give up on communicating and take this guy or gal to court, don’t. Just be wronged.

This is more profitable in the Kingdom of God than being proven right in a carnal court. Being wronged is not the best possible outcome, but it is more profitable than believers taking each other to court.

But understand this. The best outcomes reside in good communication, with listening to understand being our best tool

Understand that this takes work.

Understand that it takes more work than you think it does.

Understand actual profitability resides in our will as believers to seek accord in Christ.

Understand that being wronged is better than dragging each other’s business into the street or court.

Why spend so much time on this?

Because this is tougher now. We live in the Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, or X world. Things that families would never share before are posted online for a few billion people to see.

Disputes seek an audience online. Parties to the dispute are looking for likes and shares, not real solutions.

This seeking to understand business is a foreign language to our world.

We, as believers, have something of a communication hierarchy that we can derive from the full biblical witness. Here goes:

1.    Work it out.

2.    Try again to work it out.

3.    Ask other believers to help work it out.

4.    Work it out.

5.    Don’t drag each other to court. Work it out.

6.    When you can’t work it out, just be wronged.

The freedom that we enjoy in Christ Jesus is incredible. We don’t fear eternal punishment. We are free to make all sorts of choices as we live out our salvation, but not all options are profitable.

Sometimes, you take it on the chin and press on towards the goal. We don’t typically put that in the church brochure, but if we want to grow in God’s grace, we might not get every transgression against us resolved on our schedule.

But trust God over your own understanding. If divine justice is required, I will trust the only qualified Judge to administer it.

We still use our sound minds, but we should not surrender them to the world because we want justice for us now. Sometimes, be wronged. Move on. Bring glory to God.

As I said, we don’t put that one in the brochure, but we must understand it in our hearts.

Amen.