1 Corinthians 6:1-11
Where Do You Fit In?

I. Do You Fit In Here?
1. Key to getting people to return is making them feel like they fit in, that they are accepted.
2. Foreigners don’t feel like they fit in. Living overseas, everything is different.
3. People crave to feel that they fit in. Universities have fraternities and sororities and we have clubs.
4. Psalm 68:6, “God sets the lonely in families.” Racism takes from certain people a sense of fitting in.
5. Martin Luther King called gradualism a “tranquilizing drug” numbing us to the fierce urgency of now.
6. A cultural expectation: everyone fights and claws for their rights in the courts. That’s the Greek way.
7. We must be distinct from the world. If we are not distinct, we will be extinct.
8. Where you fit in depends on who you are. If you’re an American, you fit in America.
II. We Are Saints (6:1-2)
1. Being a Christian changes where you fit in. It means you are a saint in a world of the unjust.
2. When they had a grievance, they fought for what was theirs by right, just like everyone else.
3. It makes no sense to expect justice from the unjust. After all you are “saints.”
4. The world is not our home but this planet will be. Don’t try to escape from this world.
5. Escapism blinds its eyes to all that is wrong here while singing about how we’ll fly away.
6. Romans 13 shows that the courts and rulers are instituted by God to bring His justice to bear on earth.
7. The Lord Jesus commanded us to be light and salt in our society. So vote if you can.
III. We Are Future Judges (6:3-6)
1. We will get to have a vote on the eternal destinies of people and angels.
2. How much sense does it make for future judges to take their grievances before the unjust?
IV. We Are Sufferers (6:7-8)
1. People are willing to suffer to fit in. They’ll suffer paying dues to be part of a club.
2. If a so-called Christian is not in our church, we appeal to them, then their church but we can go to court.
3. Our members should not be suing one another. We should be able to trust the arbitration of the church.
4. If we think that we’ve still not gotten justice, then we should say, “It is better to suffer wrong.”
5. This proves the importance of church membership, where you are in a Body that you fit into.
6. We are brothers and sisters, a Body. One day God will use us to be agents of His judgment of the earth.
V. We Are Heirs (6:9-11)
1. Eventually, the unjust will not fit in with us. We are heirs, inheritors of everything.
2. There is a radical divide between the world and the church.
3. Abel received God’s grace and so was saved but Cain did not. So they were divided.
4. At the judgment, the righteous will be divorced from the unrighteous, with no more reconciliation.
5. Then, this world will be our home. That is what we are passing through this world toward.
6. Those who will not submit to the coming King are listed in verses 9 and 10: the sexual immoral, lovers of self-exalting religion, those who break their marriage covenant, homosexuals, thieves, those who live for the dollar, those who crave intoxication, those who scorn authorities, swindlers.
7. Such people who fit in so nicely here will have no place in the Kingdom of God.
8. Now, it is true, the world is not our home. But then, the world will not be their home.
9. They thought they could rule and be wealthy now. It’s not yet. Now, remember Christ crucified.
10. “Such were some of you.” You used to be immoral or greedy or selfish but now, something happened.
11. But: a magnificent adversative; a sharp, bold contrast; a radical distinction.
12. The power of the Kingdom of God can take the dregs of humanity and make them into children of God.
13. You were washed, sanctified, justified. We were the objects of the action. God was the active one.
14. That is how we changed citizenships, how we immigrated to fit into the Kingdom of God.
VI. Invitation:
If you fit in so naturally here, “Do not be deceived,” about whether you can fit into God’s Kingdom. Whether you’ll inherit the Kingdom of God or will be on the other side of the Great Divorce, that is what you need to search your heart to find out now: the fierce urgency of now. The question is not whether you’ve sunk into the worst of these ugly sins. The question is whether you’ve experienced that great contrast – washed, sanctified, justified. Whether you’ve had that radical change and been converted. If not, now is the time.