We live in a litigious society. It's a great word. I actually had to look up to make sure I was pronouncing it correctly. Litigious. According to Merriam-Webster, litigious means prone to engage in lawsuits. And when reality court TV a la Judge Judy is a prime means of entertainment in your culture, your culture is litigious. But our society does not hold a candle to ancient Greek society. They were hyper litigious. Let me quote a paragraph from Dr. John MacArthur's commentary on 1 Corinthians. It's a description of the legal landscape in ancient Athens. I quote. One ancient writer claimed that, in a manner of speaking, every Athenian was a lawyer. When a problem arose between two parties that they could not settle between themselves, the first recourse was private arbitration. Each party was assigned a disinterested private citizen as an arbitrator, and the two arbitrators, along with a neutral third person, would attempt to resolve the problem. If they failed, the case was turned over to a court of 40 40 citizens who assigned a public arbitrator to each party. Interestingly, every citizen had to serve as a public arbitrator during the 60th year of his life. If public arbitration failed, the case went to a jury court composed of from several hundred to several thousand jurors. every citizen over 30 years of age was subject to serving as a juror. Either as a party to a lawsuit, as an arbitrator, or as a juror, most citizens regularly were involved in legal proceedings of one sort or another." So the Gentile Christians, in the Corinthian church came from a culture in which lawsuits were literally part of everyday life. And so it shouldn't surprise us then that some of those Christians in the Corinthian church were suing one another in civil law courts. And this issue is the next problem that Paul addresses here in this letter to the Corinthians. This letter is just an enumeration of problems. Paul deals with them one after another. Here's the next one. I call it Saint v. Saint. Saints taking one another to law courses. Let's read what Paul has to say here, beginning in verse 1 of chapter 6 here in 1 Corinthians. Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters, the most trivial matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life? If then you have judgments, or that word could be translated lawsuits, concerning things pertaining to this life. Do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge? I say this to your shame. Is it so that there is not a wise man among you, not even one, who will be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers. Now, therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong or be wronged? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren. Lawsuits in the church, saint be saint. Now, it seems like quite a jump from church discipline to saint suing saint. But if you think about it a bit, it really is a natural transition. Look back with me at the end of chapter 5. In verse 12 in chapter 5, Paul says to the Corinthians, do you not judge those who are inside? In other words, those who are inside the church. In chapter five, if you'll remember, Paul commanded the Corinthian Christians to pass judgment on openly sinning believers who were members of the church. And in chapter six, Paul is actually just commanding them to do something similar. The members of the church were also to pass judgment when believers in the church had disputes with one another. And Paul was assuring them that they were just as capable of passing judgment in one context as they were in the other context. And then we also saw last Sunday that the final paragraph there in chapter 5 concerns the testimony of the church to outsiders. Those who are outside of the church looking in. And this paragraph that we just read here in chapter six addresses the same concern. The Christians in the Corinthian church were willing to take their disputes with one another outside the church to public courtrooms before unbelievers. And as I mentioned a moment ago, the Greeks practically made litigation a form of entertainment. And I'm sure they were entertained when these Christians came before their courts, these Christians who were supposed to love one another. And Paul literally says to them, shame on you that you would do such a thing. So when we see these connections, I actually think that it's easy to see how Paul's mind veered from cases of church discipline to cases of personal dispute among the Corinthians in that church. Now in these eight verses, Paul discusses three broad reasons why saint must not sue saint in the civil court. And you see them there in your outline, although I left some blanks there. First of all, because of our future roles in verses one through three. Second, because of our unique identity in verses four through six. And then finally, because of our value system in verses seven and eight. Now Paul begins this paragraph with a very strong word, the word dare, as in how dare you? How dare you go to law before unbelievers? That's the tenor, that's the tone of the Apostle Paul here. He is appalled that they would even consider such a thing. I mean, if this letter were written in English, Paul's words would be in all capitals and underlined. Paul just cannot believe that a member of the Corinthian Church would sue another member of the Corinthian Church in a civil court. Now, I've been a Christian for 60 years. I've been involved in local churches my whole life. I've been involved in parachurch ministry for much of my life, and I have never seen a believer take another believer to court in a civil court. How many of you know of a case where a believer has taken another believer to court? Okay, got one. It's just not real common, is it? You know, most Bible-believing Christians don't seem to have a lot of problem obeying Paul's injunction in this passage. Now, some of that obedience may be due to the fact that a few of us don't really have a desire to sue anybody, whether he's a believer or an unbeliever. I mean, the expense, the risk, is something that many of us have no desire to undertake. So here's what I'm gonna do today. I'm not gonna spend a great deal of time encouraging you to obey this injunction. We're all more or less obeying the injunction here, right? I mean, some of you are even saying, why is he preaching on this passage? Well, I'm preaching on this passage because it's in the next paragraph in 1 Corinthians chapter, in 1 Corinthians, and all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable, okay? But here's what I'm going to emphasize. I'm not going to emphasize that we need to obey this because by and large, we're already obeying it. I'm going to emphasize to you the why. Paul gives us three reasons why, and those reasons apply more broadly than the legal aspect of our lives. And so we need to get a hold of the why here because I think we can actually apply these reasons in other areas of our lives. God tells us things about ourselves here that we need to get a hold of and we need to apply. So let's look at these three reasons. In verses one through three, Paul teaches us that we must not take another believer to civil court because of our future roles. Now, Paul makes a very broad brush statement in verse two that we don't find anywhere else in the Bible. Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? we will judge the world. Now, I've got to be truthful with you. If verse 2 and verse 3 here in 1 Corinthians 6 were not in the New Testament, and you came up to me after the service and asked me, Pastor, will the saints judge the world? My answer to you would be, I don't know. I'm not sure. Because there's no other point blank statement like this in the Bible. But, there are some hints. There are some clues. And we're gonna take a moment to look at them. So first of all, the New Testament indicates that all saints will rule and reign with Christ. How many of you knew that? All saints will rule and reign with Christ. The book of Revelation makes this very clear. In Revelation chapter 5, John sees a vision of the 24 elders, and the 24 elders probably represent Old Testament saints and New Testament saints. And the 24 elders are falling down before the lamb and they are singing a new song with these words. You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation and have made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on the earth. In Revelation chapter 2, Jesus says the following to the church at Thyatira, he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessels. And those last words are actually quoted from Psalm chapter two. Psalm chapter two is a messianic Psalm that speaks of the rule of the Messiah. And here the Messiah is telling us, his people, that we will rule with him. Then in Revelation chapter 20, we find the promise that those who are faithful during the tribulation, who refuse to worship the beast, who will not receive his mark, they will reign with Christ for a thousand years. And we have to wonder if that same idea that if we're faithful to Christ, we refuse to buckle under persecution, if we also will not reign with Christ as well for a thousand years. So, if you've been listening carefully to those verses, to those passages, and your brain is not in neutral, you might still have a question because those passages tell us that we will rule and reign with Christ. But not once did we hear the word judge. But that's because we're listening with American ears. You see, when the United States of America, when our founders constituted this country, they constituted our government, based on a separation of powers. How many of you have ever heard that phrase before? Separation of powers, okay? So our government was constituted with three branches. And those three branches function at the federal level, they function at the state level, they even function at the local level. So what are those three branches? All right, so first of all, we have the executive branch, the president, the governor, the mayor, okay? And when we think of the executive branch, these are those that reign, okay? They govern. So what's the second branch? The legislative branch, so we have Congress, we have the state house on the local level, I think we probably have city council, county council, okay? What does the legislative branch do? They rule, they are the ones who make the rules, they make the laws, okay? But that leaves the third branch, which is the judiciary. In the judiciary, we have the Supreme Court. We have federal courts. We have state courts. We have municipal courts. They're separate. They're all separate, right? I mean, senators don't work at the Supreme Court. Presidents don't work at the Supreme Court. Congressmen don't work at the Supreme Court, although we have had one president who became a Supreme Court justice. Anybody know who that was? I should have brought a candy bar with me. William Howard Taft became the, what do you call it? He became the chief justice of the Supreme Court after he had been president. But while he was president, he didn't serve on the Supreme Court. We have separation of powers, right? But I want you to think about this. That is a modern development. ancient kings, ancient emperors, there wasn't any separation of powers. They ruled, they reigned, and they served as judge. Think about the most opulent king of Israel. His name was Solomon. And Solomon was famous worldwide for his wisdom and particularly his wisdom in judgment. You remember the two ladies that lived together? One rolled over on her baby, killed it during the night, and they brought the living baby to Solomon for his judgment. Now, why did they come to the king for judgment? Because back then, that's who gave judgment. He not only ruled and reigned, he judged. All three of these were invested in the same person. And it wasn't just Solomon, every other emperor. Think of Nebuchadnezzar. When he condemned the three Hebrew children to the fiery furnace, he was judging. Okay, got it? Now, that means that if we are going to rule and reign with Jesus, we are also going to judge. If we're going to be kings, and that first passage that I read from Revelation chapter 5 said we will be kings and priests. If we will be kings, then we will rule and reign and judge the nations with Jesus. So we will judge the world. And then there's a second clue that ought to lead us to understand that we will judge the world with Christ. All New Testament believers are in Christ. We're all united to Christ. I'm not gonna spend a great deal of time on this, but if we are united to Christ, if we are one with Christ, then we as believers will participate in all that Christ is and all that Christ does. Ephesians two says that we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. That's where we are because we're united with Christ and because Jesus Christ is right now at the right hand of God. We are united with him and we are seated with him at the right hand of God, the father in heavenly places. Now someday Jesus is going to be seated on the bench and he is going to judge the world. And if we are one with him, where will we be? We will be seated with him on the judgment seat. We will be seated with him on the bench and we will judge the world with him. And make no mistake, Jesus is going to judge the world. In Acts 17, in his sermon to the philosophers on Mars Hill, Paul said that God has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained. And who's he talking about? The man whom he has ordained. He's talking about Jesus. Jesus in John chapter 5 said repeatedly that all judgment had been given by the father to the son. All authority to judge belongs to him. In Romans 2 and verse 16, Paul says that God will judge the secrets of men through Jesus Christ. I could go on But the truth is clear, Jesus is the judge of the world, and if we are one with him, if we are united with him, then we will judge the world with him. We are going to judge the world. How many of you knew that before this morning? Yeah, kinda, sorta, right? Not something you really focus on. But then verse three makes another assertion that's found nowhere else in the Bible. We will judge the angels. Again, if this verse were not in the New Testament and you were to walk up to me after the service today and say, will believers judge the angels in the end time? I would say, I really don't know. I'm not sure. But Paul's question in here in verse three makes it quite clear. And it seems obvious that the angels that we will judge, they are going to be fallen angels. Jude six says, the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, God has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Second Peter 2.4 makes a similar statement. God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment. So both of those verses say that part of the angels, not all the angels, because some fallen angels are still on the loose, tempting you and me, but some have been confined, chained until that final day of judgment. But who's going to judge them? Well, the only verse that I can find in the entire Bible besides verse three here in 1 Corinthians 6 is found later in this same book in 1 Corinthians 15. So keep your finger here. and flip over with me to first Corinthians chapter 15. First Corinthians 15 verses 24 through 27. Then comes the end. So we're talking about the end times here. when he, Jesus, delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when he puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet. Now those words in verse 24, all rule and authority and power, what's that talking about? I believe Paul there is describing the hierarchy in the demonic realm, just like he does in Ephesians chapter 6, principalities and powers and rulers of darkness and spiritual wickedness in high places. This is the same type of thing. It's a description of the demonic ranks. And he says that Jesus will reign until the end when he finally puts these enemies beneath his feet. And so there's an indication here that at the end, Jesus will judge them. And if we are one with Christ, if we are united with him, then we will be judging them as well. We will be sitting on the judgment seat with Jesus when he judges these angels at the end. Now, Paul here makes a very straightforward, logical argument that I think you and I really need to get a hold of. He argues from the greater to the lesser. He basically says, look, you and I are going to sit on the most supreme court that's ever going to be convened. And if we're gonna sit on that Supreme Court, if we're going to render judgment at the judgment of the world, don't you think we can judge everyday cases between brother and brother in the church? Doesn't that make sense? If we're going to judge fallen angels, Don't you think we can judge everyday disputes between brother and sister, sister and sister, brother and brother in the local church? And you kind of have to say, well, it sure seems like it, Paul. You see, Paul is trying to get us to see ourselves through the lens with which God sees us and to act in accordance with the way that God sees us. So often we don't see ourselves that way. In verse four through six, Paul gives us a second major reason why saint must never go to law against saint before civil authorities. And that's because of our unique identity. In verse four, Paul addresses who we are. He addresses our identity as Christians by reminding us of our standing, of our status. Now to understand this issue, you've got to go back to verse one, because in verse one, Paul kind of, he kind of lays out two different categories of people. And he talks about these two categories of people through this entire paragraph. Okay. So first category of person is who? According to verse one. What? Still didn't hear you. Oh, you're right. But I want to talk about the Saints first. So we will talk about the unrighteous in a minute. So who are the Saints? So these are believers. You have to remember from the very opening of this book, from the greeting, the heading of this letter, Paul has called the Corinthians Saints, okay? Now, what is a saint? The word saint means holy one, sanctified one, but literally it means a set apart one. And in this case, this is talking about our standing with God. Again, this is how God sees you and me. We have been set apart from sin and the consequences of sin once and for all. Hebrews 10 and verse 10 says, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Now, in that verse, is the author of Hebrews talking about progressive sanctification? Is he talking about something that happens to us day by day? We become more and more like Jesus Christ and we depart from sin more and more. Is that what that author is talking about in Hebrews 10? No, we're not talking about progressive sanctification when we're called saints. We're talking about something that took place once and for all the moment we were saved. In God's eyes, we were set apart completely from sin and from its effects the moment we were saved. That's our standing before God, completely set apart from sin. and all of the consequences of sin. You know, we sang a song there at the end, and I think sometimes it confuses us. Yea, justified, O blessed thought, and sanctified, salvation wrought. by blood hath pardon bought from me and glorified." Justified, sanctified, glorified. What kind of sanctification is the author talking about? Well, I think the author is talking about this kind of sanctification, our standing because of what Jesus Christ has done. So we have a standing that no one else in the world has because of our relationship to Jesus Christ. So that's the first category of person that Paul talks about here in verse one. Who's the other category? Now I'm ready for you. The unrighteous, okay? But I think in this particular case, we would be better to translate this word a bit differently. And that's to translate the word as unjustified. Unjustified. In other words, Paul is talking here about people who don't have any standing with God. So you've got two types of people. You have people who have a standing with God because of their relationship with Jesus Christ. They have been justified. They've been sanctified, set apart from sin and its effects. And then you have people that have not been justified. They don't have any standing with God. They are still in their sins. They are on their way to hell. Now Paul says here, how can, how can you who are saints who have a standing with God, how can you go to a law court and stand before a judge who has no standing with God? He says, that doesn't make sense. He says, based on your standing with God, why would you ever turn to someone who has no standing with God? And Paul was coming from a Jewish background, right? Did the Jews ever go to a secular court to get judgment? Did the Jews ever go to a secular court to get judgment? No. They had their own courts. They settled their own matters. Why? Because they were saints. because they recognize themselves as God's people. And therefore they would not take a case to be tried in a secular court. And you know this, even if you don't really know it. I mean, think about the trial of Jesus. Where did the trial of Jesus take place? Where did the actual trial take place? The actual trial took place before the Sanhedrin, before the Jewish council. Now, even the Romans recognized those Jewish courts. They let the Jews have their own legal system. And the Jews could pass any sentence right up to the point of death. and they could not pass the death sentence. And because the Sanhedrin passed the death sentence, where did they have to take Jesus? They had to take Jesus to the Romans. They had to take Jesus to Pilate. But the Jews settled their own disputes within the Jewish community. And Paul is basically saying, look, why in the world would a Christian who has the standing before God ever take a dispute before non-believers, before those who are not God's people, who have no standing with God? And then in verse five, Paul speaks of who we are as Christians by pointing to what God has given us. He points specifically to wisdom. Paul says, is it so that there is not a wise man among you, not even one who will be able to judge between his brethren? The irony in this verse is so thick that you need a chainsaw to cut it. Now, remember, from 1 Corinthians 1 through 1 Corinthians 3, what topic was Paul coming back to again and again? He was coming back to the idea of wisdom. Why? Because one of the boasts of the Corinthian Christians was that they had the gift of wisdom from God. And Paul basically comes to him and says, look, you claim to have wisdom. Well, if you claim to have wisdom from God, can't you take that wisdom and use it in a place where it's really needed? And that's in a dispute between true brothers and settle this thing. See, the problem was that the Corinthians didn't have godly wisdom. They had worldly wisdom. And worldly wisdom says, yeah, go to the court. Take advantage of your brother. Get all you can get. And so Paul here, in a very backhanded way, points out to them that they did not truly have godly, biblical wisdom. I want to park here for a minute because this is one of those places where I think we need to see that there is an application beyond just the legal situation. Paul is assuring us that there are spiritually mature individuals in this local church who can decide disputes between brethren. Now, that's one of those teachings that I think a lot of us don't really believe. You see, we've been taught that if you don't have a law degree, you can't possibly settle a dispute. And God says, look, I've given you my wisdom. We have the wisdom book of the Old Testament, the book of Proverbs. We have the wisdom book of the New Testament, the book of James. We have all kinds of other stuff in between. So we not only have wisdom between the pages of this book, we have a promise from God. If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who will give to him liberally. God says, look, you have what it takes. to decide a dispute. At least there are some in the church that have the qualifications to be able to decide a dispute like this within the local church. And I bet many of us don't really believe that. We don't believe what Paul is telling us here. Because we have bought into the expert mentality of our culture. You have to be an expert. Paul says, no, you don't have to be an expert. You have to be one of God's children. You have to walk in the spirit. You have to know the word. And then in verse six, Paul reminds us as Christians of our identity in one last way, and that is that we are family. We are family. but brother goes to law against brother and that before unbelievers. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one family. For brother to sue brother, for sister to sue sister is a categorical denial of all that we believe. and it is a categorical denial before the people that are outside the church if we do it in a civil court. In John 13, 35, many of you have memorized the verse. Jesus said, by this all will know you are my disciples if you have lawsuits with one another, right? Now, if you love one another, When we sue one another instead of love one another as brothers and sisters, we deny that we are Christ's disciples. Our actions speak so much louder than our words, than our professions. So to take another brother to a secular court before unbelievers is first of all unthinkable because we as believers will someday sit as judges in the most supreme court of all time. And then in the second place, to take a brother to a secular court is a denial of who we are and what God has given us. But I believe that Paul has saved the strongest appeal here for last. In verses seven and eight, Paul reminds believers that we must not take one another to civil court because of our value system. At the beginning of verse seven, Paul makes a statement I think that's intended to cause us to just stop in our tracks. What? Say what? He says, now, therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Now, the word in the original language translated utter failure here in our New King James is translated differently in nearly every other version, and I wish the New King James had followed suit. Listen to the ESV. To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. That's the word. A defeat. So get what Paul is saying. He says the moment that a brother decides to sue another brother in a civil court, he's already lost the case. Or let me put it another way. When brother sues brother, there are no winners. When sister sues sister, there are no winners. I spent 12 years on the dark side working in I. T. For those of you that don't know what IT is, it's not it. It's not the big it. IT is information technology. And one of the things that I learned while I was in IT is that many of the rollouts of major software packages fail. In fact, the figure is somewhere north of 50%. which is huge when you consider that many of these rollouts are hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars. And so you can imagine if that's the failure rate, many of these situations where software is not properly implemented end up in court. And my boss taught me something that I believe is true. He said, when an organization has to take a vendor, a software vendor, to court, nobody wins. Everybody loses. Now, he doesn't mean that nobody wins the court case. Of course, one side or the other is going to win a court case. But what he meant was this. Look, you needed this software. You were willing to pay millions of dollars to get this software. And the fact that the vendor, along with your organization, could not get the software rolled out means that you are a failure. And who chose the vendor to begin with? You chose the vendor. You have what's called an RFP process, a request for proposal. It's a very structured process by which you choose a vendor. and you're the one that chose the vendor. And so if you have to sue that vendor, who failed? Well, the vendor may have failed, but you failed as well. This is what Paul is saying here. He's saying, look, when brother takes brother to court, you failed. Nobody wins, you failed. You have failed to obey so many scriptures. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. pursue peace with all people in holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. I could go on and on and on. To take a brother or a sister to civil court is to admit defeat. It is an utter failure from a spiritual perspective. You may recover a million dollars, but you will be a loser in God's eyes. And then Paul brings this point home with even more power in the second half of verse seven. There Paul says, why do you not rather be wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? It's better to be wronged. It's better to be cheated. Now that sounds just so un-American. I mean, I'm an American. I've got my rights. I'm an American. I stand up for my rights. I mean, after all, you know, we had a flag back their way at the beginning with the words on it, don't tread on me. That's the American way. But here's the problem. I'm not just an American. I'm, first of all, a Christian. You see, I'm not just a citizen of the United States of America, I'm a citizen of the kingdom of God. And where do you find the constitution of the kingdom of God? Well, many people call the Sermon on the Mount the constitution of the kingdom of God. So let's turn back to Matthew chapter five, okay? Here in Matthew 5, the constitution of the kingdom of God, Jesus lays out the value system for the citizens of his kingdom. He makes clear that the righteousness of his citizens has to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. And I direct your attention to verses 39 through 41 here in Matthew chapter five. But I tell you not to resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too. Now, verse 40 speaks directly to lawsuits, but all three of these verses teach us a different value system than is what is communicated by our American culture. Rather than demanding our rights, we win by losing, by being willing to be cheated, by being willing to be defrauded, We let another take away our cloak as well as our tunic, and then we put the matter in the Lord's hands. Let me ask you, do you think the Lord is gonna write the balances someday in eternity? He's the ultimate judge. I don't have to win right now. if I truly have eternal values, if I truly believe that first of all, I'm a citizen of the kingdom of God. Here's the problem. So often when we have an opportunity to display the fact that we belong to the kingdom of God and that we have eternal values, that's exactly when we act just like our unsaved neighbor. And we display values that are no different than his. That's what was going on in Corinth. Notice verse eight. No, Paul says, you yourselves do wrong and cheat and you do these things to your brethren. Rather than turning the other cheek, rather than being wronged or cheated, they had actually done the cheating and the defrauding. Now, Paul probably meant here that there were individuals in the Corinthian church who had used the secular courts to cheat and defraud their brothers. If you look at history, The law courts in those days weren't any different than the legal system today. And the legal system today, if you've got money, if you've got influence, if you've got power, you can pretty much get what you want. And apparently it was the same in that day. And there were people in the Corinthian church who had that kind of influence and power and money. And apparently they were getting their way. And they were defrauding their brothers. They had turned the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 5 on their head, and they proved that they were not like Christ, the Christ who let men take everything from Him, including His life. So let God be true and every man a liar. Do you believe what God tells you about yourself in this passage? I mean, there are just some astounding facts about us here. We will judge the world. We will judge angels. We have a standing with God. that people outside of Christ know nothing about. And God deals with us based on that standing, who we are in Christ. And then we, because we belong to Christ, because we are members of Christ's kingdom, of God's kingdom, we have to demonstrate a different value system. When we don't demonstrate that value system, we cut the legs out from under the gospel that we proclaim. And so I don't know that I can give an invitation at the end of this message other than this. That is to invite you to make certain that you believe what God says about you in this passage. That you look at yourself through God's eyes and you say, yes, that is who I am. And so as we close, I invite you to pray that prayer. I invite you to say, yes, God, that's who I am.