Why Not Be Wronged?

The Apostle Paul heard that people in one of his churches were dragging one another to court.  Instead of resolving their differences in a manner fitting for a church family, they were filing lawsuits against one another.  Paul was not happy.  His word to them: “Why not be wronged?”  From their situation and his reply, we see three things to think about when we are contemplating how hard to pursue justice.

First, we learn to keep a sense of proportion.  This is not a perfect world.  There will be irritations and inconveniences.  Some of what we consider to be injustices are no more than first world problems that the majority of people would be happy to accept.  We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be misused or abused by others, but not all our complaints are justified.  We need to keep a sense of proportion.

Second, we need to think about our influence.  When you become a Christian, you become a spokesman for Jesus.  When you have been wronged, the way you respond will communicate to others what it means to follow Jesus.  When Christians fight among themselves, it sends a bad message to the unbelieving public.  We want our rights but we also want to be aware of the consequence of our actions to our family and to our church.  It’s not only about us.  We need to think about our influence.

Lastly, we need to remember who it is we follow.  We follow the man who stood on trial without defending himself, the man who was like a sheep that was silent when led to the slaughter, who for our sake allowed himself to be hurt and cheated and killed.  Jesus allowed himself to be wronged, for our sake.

In our sermon this Sunday we will talk about when we should pursue justice and when we should give up and allow ourselves to be wronged.