Inheriting the Kingdom: The Character of God’s Children

This powerful exploration of 1 Corinthians 6 challenges us to reconsider what it truly means to inherit the kingdom of God. We often focus on the list of sins—fornication, idolatry, adultery—and think, ‘Well, I don’t do those things, so I’m good.’ But we’re missing the fundamental point: inheritance isn’t about a checklist of behaviors we avoid. It’s about being children of God. Just as a child inherits from their parent not because of what they do but because of who they are, we inherit God’s kingdom through our relationship with Him, not our rule-keeping. The passage reveals something profound about behaviors like covetousness and being a ‘reviler’—one who engages in mean-spirited verbal assaults. These sins might seem less obvious than sexual immorality, yet they’re equally disqualifying. We live in a culture that celebrates reviling, from political discourse to social media wars, even among professed Christians. The attention economy rewards those who rail against others most loudly. But Scripture is clear: such behavior reveals we haven’t truly been transformed. The beautiful truth comes in verse 11: ‘And such were some of you.’ There’s hope for transformation. We can be washed, sanctified, and justified—adopted as God’s children and set on a journey of maturity that mirrors Christ Himself.

Key Points:

• Inheritance requires being a child of the king; we must be born again to become children of God and inherit His kingdom
• The sins listed in 1 Corinthians 6 reveal the character of those who are not God’s children, not just a behavioral checklist
• Covetousness permeates society through advertising and materialism, even among seemingly non-worldly groups
• Theft includes both taking by force and by deception/stealth; Judas exemplified a thief within the church
• Many enter the church without true conversion, climbing in “another way” rather than through the door of Christ
• Reviling (mean-spirited verbal assault) characterizes much of modern discourse, including among professed Christians on social media and in politics
• The attention economy incentivizes reviling behavior for economic gain
• Justification is God’s declaration making sinners His adopted sons and daughters
• Sanctification is the maturing process of growing from spiritual infancy into the fullness of Christ’s character
• Both newborn and mature Christians are equally sons and daughters, though at different stages of spiritual development