Message: At the beginning of 1 Corinthians 6 Paul was talking to the church about why they were having legal disputes with each other. He considered it moral failure to do this, but he considered it even worse that they were not only doing this in front of unbelievers, but some of them were also guilty of cheating unbelievers too. If this wasn’t bad enough Paul was concerned for the kind of ugly testimony this was for unbelievers to experience from people who were supposed to be an example and a witness to the name of Jesus. Paul highly encouraged them to suffer the loss of being cheated and endure the hardship rather than expose this kind of disunity in front of unbelievers, but he gave them an out. If they really needed to get outside intervention for their dispute, they should have this done within the church. In this passage Paul revealed a little bit of our heavenly future to us by telling them that we would be judging angels and other ordinary matters in Heaven. Scriptures like this get me caught up in wondering all kinds of things. There is so much we don’t know about heaven but this passage gives us just a tiny glimpse of realization that we won’t just be floating on clouds playing on harps. We will be part of a society in heaven where there will be order and position. What we do and how we live here on the earth will affect what we are entrusted with in Heaven. It’s easy to get caught up with injustice here on the earth, but I often think about how people who suffered injustice or hardship now will have a greater reward in Heaven. None of us get to choose what we are born with or born into, and we can’t control the decisions of others who hurt us and cheat us. If we seek justice here on the earth we might miss out on a greater reward in Heaven. It causes me to compare the short lived and imperfect justice we all strive for here on earth in comparison to the perfect and greater reward we have waiting for us in Heaven. We struggle to relate to something so far away but Heaven is eternity and pales in comparison to our short lives here. We need to be mindful that not only will we be repaid for what we suffer, but we will also pay for the injustices we cause. After all, God is just and fair.
