"Room for Rent" 2 Corinthians 7:2-4 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Second Corinthians 7 verses 2 through 4 as well.

2 Corinthians 7:2–4

Look at tonight.

The Apostle Paul writes, make room in your hearts for us.

We've wronged no one.

We've corrupted no one.

We've taken advantage of no one.

I don't say this to condemn you, for I said before that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together.

I'm acting with great boldness towards you.

I have great pride in you.

I'm filled with comfort.

In all our afflictions, I am overflowing with joy.

Jonathan Edwards is one of my theological heroes and pastoral heroes, one of my models.

I've read many of his biographies.

I own his collected works.

And uh he's influenced me more than any other theologian for sure.

Not that I share all of his his doctrine.

He was a post-millennialist, he baptized babies, and uh the baby baptizing part caused him no end of problems, which we will talk about in a few minutes tonight.

Nevertheless, his integrity in preaching, his love for missions, translated one of the first uh Bibles to the Indian language, helped invent the smallpox vaccine, uh, which he took even though it wasn't noted as being safe.

And it did, in fact, kill him.

But just file that away in your vaccine file and access it later when you want.

You laugh, but the Christian tradition is long in story of people making sacrifices of their own health for the sake of the public good.

And Jonathan Edwards knows that uh and modeled it in his own life.

Well, he preached his first sermon in Northampton, Massachusetts, when he was, you know, in his early twenties, 1725 or so.

The church was pastored by his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, in New England, was marked by what was called the Halfway Covenant.

Uh, the Halfway Covenant is an agreement where churches would allow people to become members of the church who had not been converted to Christ.

Okay?

So this is strange for us as a Bible church or as a Baptist church.

That doesn't make any sense.

Because I mean that's especially as a Baptistic church, you know, for you to become a member of our church, you have to be baptized as a believer, not as a baby, as a believer.

And for you to be baptized as a believer, you have to give your testimony, and it has to be somewhat coherent and persuasive.

So, not like, you know, I opened a fortune cookie and it said, believe in Jesus.

So I believed in Jesus, and here I am for baptism.

Um, no, an actual testimony about how you were lost in sin and the Lord saved you.

You're raised in a Christian family, and you remember getting old enough that the Lord got a hold of your heart and you put your faith in him, and okay, we'll baptize that person, and that kind of person can be a member.

Well, in a church that practices infant baptism, you have some pretty basic questions.

You know, you have people that have been baptized into the church and yet have grown up and not given professions of faith in Christ, aren't following the Lord, wouldn't even say that they've been converted, and yet they are members of the church because they were baptized in the church.

So, what do you do with such a person?

And, you know, there's really no practical uh issues that causes except for the ordinances.

Do you let such a person take communion?

Do you let a person who doesn't claim to be following Christ take communion?

Or the flip side of that question, do you bar somebody who's a member of your church from taking communion because you're not happy with how they're living their life?

You can see how, depending on how you phrase the question, your own allegiances can go one way or the other, right?

One way of saying, should only Christians take communion?

And you're like, of course, but the other way of saying it is, do you have to subject your life to analysis of the leaders of the church before they would let you take communion, even though you're a member of the church?

That was the problem.

And there's a second element of that problem with baptism.

So you have somebody who's baptized as a baby, they've grown up in Northampton, Massachusetts, they're now married, they now have a baby, and they come to your church and they ask, can they baptize their baby in your church?

And they're a member of your church.

This is the problem Jonathan Edwards is facing.

These are people who are members of the church.

They're not following Christ, but they're members.

Can they baptize their babies in the church?

And so this is a big deal in New England because so much of New England was, you know, second generation Christians.

We're talking 1700s here.

So, you know, it was the pilgrims are long gone by this point.

They're dead and buried in the graveyard outside.

It's their great-grandchildren who are running around and not following the Lord, and yet it's important to them that they're part of a church.

You know, even in this area, how everybody can trace how they're related to, you know, Thomas Jefferson or George Washington or whatever.

Everyone's got a story, you know, um, as fantastical and far-fetched as it might be.

It's kind of important for people that are, you know, from this area to show their connection to our country's founding.

Well, imagine going back to the 1700s, living in New England, descended from the pilgrims.

You know, your grandparents went through extreme risk to cross the ocean to settle in this country.

And you're not necessarily following the Lord, but your church membership is important to you.

That's what Jonathan Edwards was dealing with.

And so they first started something called the Halfway Covenant, which Edward's grandfather, who was one of the uh architects of this covenant.

Edward's grandfather was pastoring the church in Northampton, where Jonathan Edwards eventually himself would pastor.

Solomon Stoddard was his name, and they designed the Halfway Covenant, which said basically this.

I'm simple, um, super simplifying here, but the Halfway Covenant basically said that you can be a member of the church, essentially if your parents are members, or if you were baptized in the church, you could be a member of the church.

But you can't take communion, but you can baptize your own babies.

So it's a halfway covenant.

Communion out, your own babies getting baptized in, and that's the practice.

And that lasted for a while, but eventually Solomon Stoddard and Jonathan's grandfather started also letting those people take communion.

So the halfway part got kind of dropped.

And it became if you are baptized in the church, you can baptize your own kids in the church, and you can take communion.

Get the scene laid out here?

So Jonathan Edwards becomes pastor of the church when his grandfather died.

Jonathan Edwards was young, in his twenties, and he starts pastoring the church and he tries to stay out of trouble.

He's just minding his business, just preaching.

He's not toying with the halfway covenant.

He's baptizing everyone to be baptized, giving communion to everyone to get communion, and then something happens.

An epiphany dawns on him.

He does a little hand count in his mind, you know, and he realizes that there are more unconverted members of his church than converted members.

He realizes that most, 600 members of his church, most of them were not professing Christians.

And so he begins slowly and patiently to try to steer the ship and try to withhold baptizing new babies if their parents are not following the Lord, withhold communion from people that are not, have not given plausible confession of faith.

He makes their elders vote in people before they're able to receive communion.

They have to give their testimony.

It's like a very baptistic kind of thing, which is kind of cool.

Jonathan Edwards had a little bit of a Baptist flair in him.

And you see the problem with the baptizing babies here, the whole reason this problem existed is because they'd baptized people into the church that don't have faith, babies, namely.

And so then what do you do when they grow up?

They have the same amount of faith when they're 20 as they did when they were 20 minutes.

So that became the problem.

So Edwards starts slowly trying to steer the ship.

Things don't go well.

The leaders of the church, the church trustees, tell Edwards, you know, we just don't know enough about this position, the strange new teaching you're bringing us.

Can you, you know, teach more on it before you, but not here.

Teach other places.

So he starts traveling to Boston, preaching on this in Boston.

It doesn't, uh it's received well in Boston.

They, they, it gets published in newspapers and stuff, but those newspapers aren't read in Northampton.

Northampton back then is like, you know, like it is now.

I mean, it's out in the middle of nowhere.

So he goes back and his elders say, Why don't you teach at it on the church at the church, but not Sunday morning.

So Edwards starts this 2 p.m.

Sunday afternoon series on why the Halfway Covenant is a bad idea.

And it becomes lots of people come, hundreds of people come to listen and give a 2 p.m.

lecture on Sundays.

You know who doesn't come?

His own church.

So the church is over, congregation goes home, Edwards walks over to the parsonage, he lives right next to the church, had lunch, walks back across, new people in there, and now he's preaching against the Halfway Covenant.

So this goes on for several years.

And finally, chaos breaks loose.

I'll spare you all the details that led up to it.

And the church votes to fire him.

Congregational meeting.

They vote to fire Jonathan Edwards.

10 to 1 was the percentage.

In other words, you know, 10% of the congregation voted to keep Jonathan Edwards.

That's staggering.

Today, by the way, if you go visit the church, I have no idea what the church is like.

I don't know if they got lady pastors or if they're snake handling.

I have no idea what's happening there.

Um they've renamed the church like the Jonathan Edwards Memorial Church or something like that.

And uh I've been there, not for service, or I could have more information about it, but the building was unlocked.

I go in, and in the foyer, the narthex, whatever the church term is, is this massive life-size picture of Jonathan Edwards.

So we've got this massive painting up there, and I don't know, they fired him.

I don't know if you're allowed to have a painting, a massive painting on the wall of the guy that you fired, but it was, you know, almost 300 years ago.

So I don't know.

Maybe they're allowed to have the painting.

That's not my point, though.

My point is they fire him.

And he goes back to his parsonage and then the next Sunday rolls around.

And there's nobody to preach.

Knock on his door.

I don't know if they actually knocked three times, but that's not imagining it.

And they invited Jonathan Edwards to go fill the pulpit and preach a farewell sermon to the congregation that just voted to fire him.

I will tell you more about what he preached at the end of our evening.

But he did preach a farewell sermon, a sermon that is uh incredible.

It's a sermon that reminds me a little bit of 2 Corinthians chapter 7.

2 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

The problem that Jonathan ran into is not theological.

Do you understand this?

Despite the debate being over baptism and communion, that's not the heart issue.

The heart issue behind the problem with the Halfway Covenant, the heart issue behind Jonath Edwards getting fired is that there was sin in the camp.

What it boils down to is you have a large portion of the church that did not love Jesus.

That's the problem.

Can you agree that if everybody there loved Jesus, then everybody there could take communion?

Everything else is secondary.

Not to get trapped in the details of infant baptism or the baptistic view or of who can take communion.

The heart issue is that the congregation was filled with people that didn't love Jesus.

Now that principle is on full display with the life of Jonathan Edwards, and I want to use 2 Corinthians 7 to persuade you that the same thing is true today.

That the reason for divisions in the church, the reason for conflict in the church, the reason for personal antagonism in the church, the reason for lack of unity, lack of fellowship, the reason for problems in the church is that there are people that are walking in sin.

There are people that are living in sin, that are following sin in their life, and that causes conflict.

And of course, it's never distilled as simply as that, is it?

It's always distilled to, but this person said this when they meant that, and then this person did this, and I thought we were going to do that.

It's always a convoluted and complex story with many sides and many facets, but you've pierced through all of it, and at its core is a lack of love for Christ.

This is exactly what Paul was encountering with the Corinthians.

Paul had helped found this church, he had preached there, these were his people.

Around the same time, he had founded the church in Thessaloniki, he had preached there and founded them, spent similar amount of times in both places, and yet he leaves, and the Thessalonian church grows to love him and support him and write him letters with theological questions that Paul writes back, and they have a rich and strong relationship.

The Corinthian church grows and they grow crazy, they grow distant.

Reading, I mean, first and second Thessalonians are such short letters.

First and 2 Corinthians are such long letters.

That should tell you something right away.

But then you start reading the tone of the letters.

And the Thessalonians were trying to obey.

They wanted to be obedient, and so Paul's like, they're asking Paul basic questions, like, hey, we've got guys that aren't working, what should we do with them?

And Paul's like, don't feed them, put them out of the church.

And you get the impression they're eager to do whatever Paul wants them to do.

Those are the questions they're they're being too generous and kind towards each other.

That was the Thessalonian problem.

They were giving too much of their money to each other and they're being too generous.

And what a contrast with 1 Corinthians, where their sexual immorality at communion.

People are sleeping with their stepmothers.

They're suing each other in court.

Gibberish breaks out in the worship services.

People are prophesying against one another and speaking in tongues, and they've got women preaching, and the wheels have come off the train.

That's what's happening in Corinth.

Worlds apart.

And so Paul writes 1 Corinthians to them to rebuke them and win them back.

It's unclear exactly how they responded.

It's not exactly how Paul expected them to respond, though.

He begins, we read earlier tonight, that Paul wanted to go visit the Corinthians again.

He wanted to receive them and them, allow them to receive him and to have rich fellowship again like they used to, to hear of their repentance and be overcome with joy.

But he broke off his plans when he wasn't confident of their repentance.

He didn't want to pay them a painful visit.

He didn't want to lay eyes on them if they were walking in sin.

And again, it would be so easy to get distracted on the nuances of, you know, what is speaking in tongues and can women actually be pastors and the questions they were working through.

But Paul in 2 Corinthians, he deals with that in 1 Corinthians.

In 2 Corinthians, he cuts through all that.

There's no more arguments about women in the ministry in 2 Corinthians like there are in 1 Corinthians.

No more arguments about speaking in tongues in 2 Corinthians like there were in 1 Corinthians.

That's all set aside.

2 Corinthians is just a direct appeal to them.

He's asking them, why don't you love me?

That's the bottom line behind 2 Corinthians.

Paul is asking the Corinthians, why don't you love me?

I was your pastor.

I founded your church.

Why are you distant?

No, it's not about Paul.

When you read 2 Corinthians, you realize it's not really about Paul.

Paul's not actually concerned for his personal relationship with them as a primary concern.

Certainly it's there.

But as you read this, you start to understand, no, the reason they didn't love Paul is why Paul was so concerned about it.

The reason they didn't love Paul is because they weren't loving the Lord.

They weren't being obedient to the Lord.

And that, of course, is going to cause a distance with the Apostle Paul.

The Apostle Paul is not just going to hang out with you and play cornhole.

He wants a spiritual relationship with you.

And they weren't going to have one with him.

Because they wanted to go in a different direction.

And so he begins this letter with this incredible appeal.

We looked at chapter 7, verse 1 a few months ago.

During COVID lockdown, it was one of the lockdown sermons I preached to an empty congregation, an empty worship center.

But I pictured you all watching online when I did it.

Verse 2 Make room in your hearts for us.

That's his appeal.

Make room in your hearts for us.

He's telling the Corinthians, you don't have room.

Paul says, I want into your hearts, and you're not letting me into your hearts.

There's not room in your heart for me.

That's what he's saying.

I want you to, this is part of an argument that he's building up.

If you go back to chapter 6, verse 12, on my Bible, the ESV, how it's laid out, it's on the same page.

Yours might not be, but just up a few verses.

Chapter 6, verse 12.

Or sorry, verse 11.

He says to the Corinthians, We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians.

Our heart is wide open.

You're not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections.

Now, I want to kind of walk you through those two verses before we get back to chapter 7, verse 2, because you really need to understand chapter 6, 11, and 2 before you get back to chapter 7, verse 2.

He tells them in chapter 6, verse 11, We've spoken freely to you.

Literally, the Greek translated there is, My mouth stands open.

My mouth is dropped open, my mouth remains open at this very moment.

That would be the literal way he says it.

My mouth is at this moment standing open.

It's a past thing that happened that was present, carrying on in the present.

In other words, I opened my mouth to you and it remains open right now.

My heart is standing, my mouth is standing open.

Standing open, the Greek word, by the way, for this is an easy Greek word to remember.

Anoigo.

Annoy, go.

If somebody's standing there with their mouth open, annoy, go.

It's this image of someone who is just talking too much.

You can have an annoying sense to it.

Well, the Greek word is anoigo.

And Paul says, My mouth?

You can't accuse Paul of being quiet towards the Corinthians.

He says his mouth was opened and it has remained open for he's writing this letter, you know, a year or two later.

His mouth has been open for years to them.

That's what he's saying.

He wrote the first letter of the letter of 1 Corinthians.

My mouth is open to you.

I'm speaking to you.

His heart is open.

He says in the last part of verse 11, spoken freely to you, Corinthians, my heart is open.

In Greek it's parallel.

My mouth stands open, my heart stands open.

So in the same way he opened his mouth, he's also opened his heart.

But the word for heart is the heart being stretched out is different.

It's platoono.

Plato is like having a platoon of soldiers in there.

You have to stretch it out.

That's how I remember the word.

You have to stretch out the tent.

It's a word that has an image behind it of somebody grabbing two sides of a tent and pulling it around, pulling it apart, maybe even holding it on one side and putting a board there to hold it open, pushing it the other way.

You're stretching something open.

That's this word.

You're clothes on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Plato.

Gotta stretch those things open.

That's this word.

And he's like, my mouth is standing open.

Anoigo, and now my heart has been stretched open.

It's an image of him grabbing his heart and pulling it open to make room for the Corinthians to get inside.

Only they're not moving towards him.

His mouth is open, his heart is pulled back, and the Corinthians aren't moving a muscle towards him.

In fact, as you read about their response to him, they're hurling insults at him.

They're making excuses, they're angry at him.

Why are they angry at him?

It's not because of anything.

Lack of communication, it's not because of lack of affection.

His heart is stretched open towards them.

Why aren't they coming?

Well, they're not coming, verse 12 says, because they're restricted.

And that word restricted is just a word for tied up.

They're bound up.

They can't move it.

Are you kidding the catching the word picture here?

Paul's mouth is open, his heart is stretched open, but they can't come because they're tied in knots.

They're bound up by ropes.

Well, how did they get tied up?

Not by Paul, verse 12 says, I didn't tie you up.

You're not tied up by me.

And the ESV says restricted because restricted is just like a nicer, more biblical sounding word, but I mean he's saying, My mouth is open, my heart is stretched open, but you are tied up, and I'm not the one who tied you up.

It wasn't me.

You are tied up in your own affections.

And again, the the word affections here is not the typical word for affections, it's the word spalancta, it's the word for guts, it's the word for intestines and your insides, your bowels.

And so Paul is definitely using a pretty graphic image here.

My mouth is open, my heart is ripped open, you aren't moving towards me because you are tied up by your own bowels, your own affections.

And that word for bowels often gets rendered affections.

It's different than the word for heart, which we're gonna see in a second.

It's not the cardia, the word for heart.

It's the word for your guts and your insides.

And so Paul's saying, you can't come to my heart because you're wrapped up in your own desires, you're wrapped up in your own love.

You're wrapped up in your own feelings.

That's why you're not moving in because you're tied up by your feelings.

That's your problem.

Now he says, verse 13, let me talk to you like you're a child.

Open up your own heart.

And he tells them how to.

That's verses 14th to the end of chapter 6.

Stop sinning.

Verses 14th to the end of chapter 6, stop sinning.

Stop uniting yourself in sexual immorality.

I mean, that's the problem.

Again, the Corinthians would say the problem is about can women preach, or the Corinthians would say the problem is can you speak in tongues in the worship service?

Which believers can you sue and which can't you sue?

The Corinthians would have all these other problems.

And Paul says, those aren't the problems.

The problems that you're leading a sexually immoral life.

That's why you feel distant from me.

So what's the solution?

Chapter 7, verse 2 kind of closes this little theological sandwich off here.

Open up your hearts, he says in chapter 6, verse 13.

Now chapter 7, verse 2, he picks it back up again.

Make room in your hearts.

For us.

Correo is the Greek word, correo from make room, another really interesting Greek word, correo.

It's uh I can't remember it because the correo, it's a Spanish word for running, this image of water that's running through, and water fits in any rocks.

That's a derivative of this Greek word here, correo, and it's the way you see it used in the New Testament is very similar to that.

It's the word that uh Jesus, when he pours the wine into all the water jugs, the wine fills up to the tippy top.

That's this word the fine the water finds or the wine finds every nook and cranny.

It moves things around.

It's the word that Mark uses for a room filled with so many people you can't fit another person in.

And so it's this image of movement coming through a room to rearrange and fit to full capacity.

And so perhaps you've been in a room like this, it's totally crowded, and yet one more person walks in.

So what happens?

Everybody shifts over and slides this away, and one person stands, another person sits, somebody else stands, and you finally get all sorted out, and then one more person comes in.

And then a kid runs in and jumps in somebody's lap, and you can always fit one more person in the room.

The Greek language has a word for that, and that's this word where everything gets shifted around and rearranged.

In the Greek mind, it's a word that can happen intellectually in the mind, too.

It's the word that Jesus uses in Matthew 19, where it says not everybody can understand this.

That's that word.

This teaching is too deep for many people to deal with.

In other words, some people's minds don't allow things to shift around and fill up with new knowledge.

It's kind of a condescending way of saying it.

It was Jesus who said it, so okay.

Matthew 19, he's it's a command to like shift around things into your mind to allow new truth to come into your mind.

Like water would find every crevice and get there, or people would shift around in a room.

That's this word right here.

Make room in your mind to accommodate new things.

That's the word that Paul uses here.

No longer the pull open word.

He's not telling the Corinthians, pull open your heart.

He's saying, shift around things in your heart to fit me in.

Paul's heart is open because Paul's heart is pure.

The Corinthians are loving sin.

So they can't fit Paul in their heart because they got too much junk in their heart.

So they've got to move the junk out of their heart.

This word is used, Akrayo is used one other way in the New Testament, by the way.

By Jesus also, where he says, food enters the mouth and it passes through the body.

That word cray, that's the word for passes through right there.

In other words, the food comes in and it moves out and it makes room for more food.

The digestive system, you gotta move it out to move new stuff in.

Again, that's this word right here where Paul said on the Corinthians, shift things around in your heart.

Move the stuff out like waste.

You got stuff in your heart, move it out.

All your idol worship, move it out.

Your sexual immorality, move it out.

So that I can fit in.

It's Paul that there's no room in this heart, in their heart.

They have room for their idols, they have room for their sexual immorality, they have room for the unclean things, they just don't have room for their old pastor.

So Paul shakes his head.

They're all bound up in their own guts.

They're bound up in their own intestines.

Where Paul has his heart and his mouth open to them, and they're saying, I'm sorry, we don't have room in our heart for you.

So open up, he tells them.

Now, why would they open up to Paul?

What does Paul offer them?

You know, where they're living by their guts and their affections and their lusts.

What would Paul offer them?

He's telling them to repent of all that.

Meanwhile, they've got these other so-called spiritual leaders that are telling them you don't need to repent of that sin.

Don't listen to Paul, by the way.

Paul's weak sauce, man.

That guy, he writes you an angry letter speaking of 1 Corinthians.

He writes angry letters, but that doesn't mean you have to listen to him.

And where is he?

If he loved you, he'd be here.

He said he was coming, didn't he?

Well, I didn't see him.

So you don't need to listen to Paul.

So Paul reminds them, listen.

Verse 2 We've wronged no one.

He's using the first person plural, but he's speaking singularly of himself.

Perhaps plural because he and Titus, or maybe it's like the royal we.

He's trying to create a little distance between himself and them and his appeal.

We've wronged no one, he says.

We've corrupted no one.

We've taken advantage of no one.

Paul's telling them, I didn't do anything to you.

I didn't take anything from you.

He won't even take missionary support from them.

He's going to sarcastically reference that later, by the way.

He's going to say, I'm so sorry I didn't take your money.

He didn't take a dime from them.

He didn't make them pay for his ministry.

Although he he tells them in 1 Corinthians 9, he could have.

Back in 1 Corinthians 9, he says, you know, I could have.

It's not right to muzzle the ox while it's treading out the grain.

I could have made you pay.

Even Peter takes a wife with him, Paul says, implying that Paul was single.

He didn't make the Corinthians pay for his own food.

He didn't make the Corinthians pay for his wife's food.

And yet, they're accusing him of being in it for the money.

He says, I didn't wrong any of you.

I didn't corrupt any of you.

I didn't take any money from you.

I didn't the word corrupt there, it's a word that's used also for causing somebody to sin.

He's saying, I never made any of you sin.

I didn't cause a single one of you to sin.

I'm guiltless, he says.

And of course he doesn't mean guiltless as if he's never sinned before.

Of course he sinned.

He he's the one who declares that he was the chief of sinners.

He knows this.

But his point is towards the Corinthians, he's acting in a pure way.

Not taking advantage of them.

This is often comes up in church discipline situations where somebody is being disciplined out of the church for unrepentant sin will often make accusations against the church then.

You know, the church is throwing me out because I wouldn't do this or I wouldn't do that, or they have a problem with, you know, strong women, or they have a problem with rich men, or they have a problem with this or that or the other thing, and you know how the church is.

They'll make accusations against the church, which aren't even true.

If you're part of the church, you recognize those accusations aren't true.

Nobody believes them.

But they make them because it's a way of defending their hearts and justifying their entrenchment in sin.

And so Paul just says, I s I didn't even sin against you.

I think of Steve Hawley, who's been I don't see him here tonight, but he's been Oh, there he is here.

Hello.

He's been a Demaniel forever.

He's been a youth pastor, family ministries pastor, discipleship pastor, executive pastor.

He's done everything in this church.

He's given his life to the church.

This would be less awkward if he wasn't here.

I was hoping he wasn't here.

And he's he's poured out his life in this church.

Then he calls somebody and tells him, hey, you're you're living in sin, you should repent.

And they close up to him.

And like, who are you?

Why would you tell me this?

What do you care?

Why don't you mind your own business?

What do you think he's been doing the last 50 years of his life?

Caring for the people of the church?

Do you think he's confronting you on sin because he wants your money?

Do you think he's confronting you on sin because he wants your car or your house?

Or wh what do you think he's after?

Does he want you to buy him lunch?

I mean what do you think he's after?

Do you think that pastors become pastors because they like the money?

I'm glad some of you laughed.

Because they like the hours, that's what it is.

They like the hours.

They like the meetings.

Why do people become pastors?

Because they love the church.

They love the people of the church.

That's it.

That's that's that's the only reason.

There's no other reason.

And then you know Steve calls you and confronts you on sin, and you come up with some excuse about how it's him that's in the wrong.

I'm just choosing him as an example.

It's so weird.

And this is Paul's lecture to the Corinthians.

What do you think I took from you?

He tells the Corinthians.

What do you think?

How do you think I wronged you?

Why do you think I'm doing what I'm doing?

He began 2 Corinthians 1.

We read it earlier tonight with the same way.

My conscience towards you is clear.

I didn't wrong a single one of you, he says.

So why not repent?

Now we know the answer to that question.

The reason people don't repent has nothing to do with the pastor being in it for the money.

It has nothing to do with any of that stuff.

The reason people don't repent is because they love sin in that moment more than Jesus.

That's the reason.

This reminds me of Samuel's farewell speech.

One of the most profound pastoral lessons in the Bible is even before the church, 1 Samuel.

You remember Samuel?

He was a prophet for Israel.

He didn't, you know, really volunteer to be a prophet.

The Lord called him, and then, you know, Eli made him sign up for this.

And there he is, and he's doing what the Lord.

And the Lord told him to go make Saul king.

And Samuel wasn't even stoked about that.

But he went and journeyed all around looking for the donkeys.

You remember the story of made Saul king.

Saul was a horrible king.

And Saul remember rips Samuel's coat off of him, rips it into pieces.

Do you remember this?

Because Saul's upset when God says, you know, when Samuel tells Saul the kingdom's going away from you because you're a wicked villain.

You won't be obedient to God.

That was the point, remember?

You were supposed to wait on God.

And Saul wants to argue about, well, you said wait until 9 in the morning, and I at 8 58, it was time to get going, kind of thing.

He wants to have that kind of argument.

And Samuel's like, you are supposed to listen to the Lord.

And Saul rips his jacket off of him.

And Samuel tells him, Great, the kingdom's going to be ripped from you.

Like you just ripped my jacket.

I picture Samuel walking away.

My jacket, really?

I like that jacket.

Saul.

And Samuel quits, remember?

He goes into hiding.

Well, Samuel's upset that the Lord made Saul king because Samuel felt like it was him that was being fired.

He was the prophet.

Really, it was God that was being fired, and Samuel knew that.

And the Lord had to remind Samuel of that.

The Lord told Samuel, Don't be upset that I'm making Saul king.

It is not about you, Samuel.

They're not rejecting you.

It looks like they're rejecting you, but they're not really rejecting you.

You know what I'm saying?

They say we don't want God, and so we don't want his prophet, but it's not about the prophet Samuel.

It's only about God.

They're angry at me.

That's why I gave them Saul.

Imagine being Saul's parents in reading 1 Samuel.

Wait, he was a punishment?

And so Samuel, when he gives his speech, his own farewell speech, he tells the Israelites, 1 Samuel 12, verse 3, here I am.

1 Samuel 12:3

He calls all Israel together.

Here I am, he tells them.

Testify against me before Yahweh.

And before his anointed.

Probably meaning Saul.

And he has some questions for them.

Whose ox have I taken?

Whose donkey have I stolen?

Samuel asks.

Whom have I defrauded?

Whom have I oppressed?

Whose hand have I taken a bribe to blind my eyes with it?

Testify against me right now, and I'll give it all back to you.

And of course, nobody can say anything.

Everybody's quiet.

What did you think?

Samuel is in it for the money.

No, but they wouldn't listen to him.

They wouldn't listen to him.

They wanted to be like the other nations more than they wanted to be obedient to God.

That's what's happening in 2 Corinthians 7.

The Corinthians want to be obedient to the lust of the flesh more than they want to be in a right relationship with God.

And so they reject Paul.

And they make it like it's Paul's fault.

It's not Paul's fault.

You can picture the Lord telling Paul exactly what the Lord told Samuel in the Old Testament.

Listen, it's not about you.

The hard thing is that it is about him.

And he says this in verse 3.

I'm not trying to condemn you, verse 3.

In other words, I recognize this language is very hard and graphic, right?

He tells them they're tied up by their own guts with his mouth open, his heart ripped open.

It's a very graphic language.

He says, I'm not trying to condemn you in verse 3.

Earlier, I had already told you that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together.

So he's telling them, you are in our hearts.

This is a refrain all through 2 Corinthians.

Let me rattle off a few of the verses.

Chapter 1, 2 Corinthians, verse 22.

Paul says that God has given the Spirit to our hearts as the guarantee of our salvation.

If you're familiar with 2 Corinthians, you'll recognize his verses.

Chapter 2, verse 4, he says, This letter is being written out of my heart.

So notice the language here.

The Holy Spirit comes into Paul's heart, fills him with love for the Corinthians.

He writes 2 Corinthians out of his heart.

Then he says, chapter 3, verse 2, that the Corinthians are a letter written on Paul's heart.

They're engraved on his heart.

Chapter 3, verse 15, when the Israelites read the law, there's a veil over their own hearts, they can't even read it.

But when the light of the gospel shines, chapter 4, verse 6, it shines in our hearts.

Chapter 5, verse 12, I don't care about your appearances, Paul says, because the Lord doesn't care about your appearances.

He cares about what's in your heart.

Now chapter 6, verse 11.

Paul says, I've opened my heart to you.

It's wide open.

In chapter 6, verse 3.

The Corinthians are in my heart, Paul says.

I love you guys, he says.

That's why this is hurting him so much.

Listen, if this was just a job, and there's even today, there's pastors that approach their ministry like a job.

They'll be in one church for three years and go to another church with a, you know, bigger steeple or whatever next year.

And we got that one covered here, by the way.

You got, but there's this idea, especially in some denominations, the pastor just shops around, you know, spends a few years here, a few years there.

And certainly that was Paul was transient.

I'm not saying that by necessity means somebody's not faithful.

Paul was transient, of course.

But there is a sadness in me when I encounter pastors that definitely view the ministry as a job to be exchanged this way or that way.

And the reality is it's not about the job, it's not about the paycheck.

Corinthians didn't even pay Paul, of course.

It was about the love in the heart.

And Paul says to Corinthians, even though all the anger and hostility the Corinthians showed towards Paul, Paul says, listen, you're in my heart.

You almost get the impression how he writes this.

Like, I'd rather you weren't in my heart, but there you are.

Okay, I'd rather I love different people, but lo and behold, apparently I love you.

And that's just where we are.

This is why it's such a sad little verse here to read.

You know, Paul doesn't want to win an argument.

He already told the Corinthians, listen, I'll count myself cheated.

I'll count myself cheated.

I don't want to win an argument with you.

Okay, I'm wrong.

You're right.

And he says, I would do that to you if it wasn't about the glory of the Lord.

If you weren't walking in sin, I would do that to you.

If you wanted to argue about, you know, which sports team was better or whatever, okay, you're right.

I don't care.

That's not what this is about.

It's about issues of sin.

And so I can't do that.

But Paul has no problem losing.

He has no problem counting himself wrong for the sake of his friends.

He has no problem if a Corinthian steals money from him, he'd let the Corinthian have it.

He just wants to love them and to be loved by them in the Lord.

By the way, one more use of heart in this book, chapter 8, verse 16.

Thanks be to God who put in the heart of Titus the same love I have for you.

I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse, chapter 8, verse 16.

Praise be to God that you moved into Titus's heart also.

And God did it, by the way.

Verse 4, I'm acting with great boldness towards you.

And of course he's acting with great boldness.

He's confronting them on sin.

He's telling them, You're on your way to hell.

You don't repent, you're gonna be cast out for the destruction of the flesh, and maybe the salvation of your soul.

Who knows?

But you guys are being judged by God.

So you've got to repent from the things that you're walking in.

Your life is all a mess, your church is all a mess.

You've got to repent and get right with the Lord.

I mean, that's about as bold of a message as you're gonna find.

And so he notices that in verse 4.

I am acting with great boldness toward you.

I'm all moved up in your kitchen here.

I am calling you out.

Why?

Because I have pride in you, he says.

He said the same thing in chapter one.

I have great pride in you, he tells them.

I love you guys.

He's boasting about them.

Later on in 2 Corinthians, he's gonna say he was bragging about the Corinthians and other churches.

Knowing all their hatred towards him, he still speaks only good of them in other churches.

He's proud of them.

And he says, I'm filled with comfort.

In all our affliction, I'm overflowing with joy.

I mean, if you're honest, you'd read that and you're like, okay?

What?

In all our affliction, I'm overflowing with joy.

Sentences you would never say for 100, please, Alex.

In all of our afflictions, I'm overflowing with joy.

I love it.

Afflict me more, Lord.

I find joy in the afflictions, bring it on.

This is Psalm 129 this morning.

The furrows are deep in my back, but that's okay because seeds of life are planted there.

I mean, nobody really says that.

And Paul catalogues all of his hardships throughout this whole book.

Chapter 4, verse 17, verse 7 through 15.

How many times was he shipwrecked?

How many times was he whipped?

How many times was he left naked to die?

How many times was he stoned almost to death?

How many times was he abused and beaten?

He almost starved to death.

And he says, it's okay.

It's for my joy.

I like it.

Well, he doesn't like the afflictions.

But if the afflictions are used to convict the Corinthians of sin, then that's good.

The Paul says, I'll be shipwrecked.

I'll swim with the sharks.

I'll get bit by the viper.

I'll shake it off into the fire.

I'll get beaten 39 times if it brings one of you to repent.

And if that happens, I'm overflowing with joy.

I mean, that is an insane love for a congregation.

Underneath all this is the reality.

That there is truth.

You can't have peace with Paul.

You know this if you read 2 Corinthians.

You can't have peace with Paul if you don't have peace with the Lord.

You just can't.

So make your way right with the Lord, you'll be right with Paul.

I skipped over a phrase.

I want to kind of end here, verse 3.

You are inner hearts.

Did you notice the phrase I skipped?

To die together and to live together.

Does something strike you about that?

The order's wrong.

Did you catch it?

Your inner hearts to die together and to live together.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

It's so wrong.

By the way, the NIV, if you have one of the old NIVs, switches them because they assume it's a textual error.

Nobody could have actually written that.

So obviously it's a textual error.

So if you have one of the old NIVs, it just swaps it.

Your inner hearts to live together and to die together.

I mean, that's the expression, right?

No, not for Paul.

Death comes before life.

You want to find your life?

Lose it.

This is, again, Christian ethics, Psalm 129 ethics.

You want eternal life, you die to yourself, you deny yourself.

And so Paul says, that's what I hope isn't true for you.

This whole life, this whole charade we've got now with Titus going to Macedonia and this guy going this way and this letter going that way, and all the shenanigans about what's going on in your church, that's all just window dressing.

The truth is what happens in the next life.

That's where the real life begins.

Is the next life.

Jonathan Edwards understood that.

They knocked on his door and said, come preach.

And so he did.

It's worth you Googling on your own time.

You can just Google Jonathan Edwards' farewell sermon.

It's for free.

You can find it in all over the internet.

It's got some outrageous lines in it, though.

He did not take his farewell sermon as An opportunity to let everybody know that bygones will be bygones, and you know we're all gonna go to heaven when we die and we'll sing kumbaya together.

That is not what he preached.

He began his sermon by telling him that there is such a thing as eternal life.

And if you love Christ, you're gonna go there.

You're gonna go to heaven.

And he's gonna go to heaven, he tells his congregation.

He's pretty sure of it.

And then in heaven, a couple things are gonna happen.

He has like four points.

The first of those points is that in heaven we're gonna gather around, and the first thing that's gonna happen is that our consciences are gonna be cleansed.

Okay, so our motives will be pure, our sin will be put away, and our consciences will be cleansed.

Second thing that's gonna happen is we're gonna worship Jesus.

That's gonna be fun, right?

That's a short point in this sermon.

Third thing that's gonna happen is we're gonna remember this moment right now.

And with our cleansed consciences, we're gonna know who is right.

And we're gonna stand before the judgment seat.

The resurrected Lord Jesus Christ is gonna look at us, and we're gonna know who is right and who is wrong.

He says, it often comes to pass in this evil world that great differences and controversies arise between pastors and their people.

Though they're under the greatest obligations to live in peace and to be in kind relationships and whatever else, there are dissensions between persons that are related in unhappy and terrible consequences.

And those are so frequent in the church, he says.

Sometimes people want to argue with their ministers and pastors about their doctrine, sometimes about the way the church is run, sometimes about how the church is maintained.

Sometimes these arguments continue for a long time.

Sometimes they're decided in this world, he says.

But they will all be decided in the next.

When any one person puts his interest above the Word of God, you cannot reason with that person in this world.

But at the day of judgment, there will be a full, perfect, and everlasting decision on them.

The infallible judge, the infinite fountain of light, truth, and justice will judge between the contending parties, and he will declare what the truth is, who is in the right, and what is agreeable to his own mind and will.

And in order for that to happen, the parties will stand before him on that day of judgment.

It will be the great day of finishing and determining all controversies, rectifying all mistakes, abolishing all unrighteous judgments, errors, and confusions which have subsisted in this world of mankind.

Pastors and their people who have been under their care will meet together at that time, and they will receive an eternal sentence, and they will receive retribution from the judge in the presence of each other, according to their behavior, in the relation they stood to one another in this present state.

Jesus will not only see them, and he will not only see justice to them, but he will bring justice to them.

Do you catch what Jonathan says in his farewell sermon?

I will see you in heaven, and this is not the last time we'll talk about this.

Paul understood that.

And if we are in Christ, we will be reunited in heaven.

You know, the Bible says somewhere that we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account to the deeds done in the flesh.

Remember where it says that?

Paul's letter to the Corinthians.

God, we're thankful that you have saved us and brought us to this church.

I know we have visitors tonight, we're thankful for them.

But right now I'm just particularly thankful in my own heart for members of this congregation.

What a joy it is to serve as a pastor.

What a joy it is to serve them.

What a powerful image through the Apostle Paul's pen of having a heart pulled wide open.

Having a mouth standing wide open.

And longing for Christian fellowship.

This is the cry of a believer's heart.

We long to be in fellowship with one another, but we know sin separates.

Paul tells the Corinthians how to be reconciled, to turn from their sin, repent of their wicked ways, come out from the darkness and into the light.

So, Lord, I pray that would be true in this congregation.

That people would cut the ties to their sinful ways and pass, they would no longer live in unrighteousness, but live fully in the light.

And receive one another as you are in the light.

They will be there also.

We know that we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

We will be rewarded for the deeds done in the flesh, both good and empty, meaningless.

Certainly, some disputes in this world too trivial to be mentioned will pass away into the night.

Love will cover many differences.

But we also know certainly for eternal issues and eternal matters that our memory of this world is real.

If we're rewarded for the deeds done in the flesh, certainly we know we'll remember them.

And you will bring everything hidden into the light.

You will bring secret words to account, you will bring what is done as secret into the public view, and you will render a judgment because you are the just judge.

Lord, we do long for that day.

Knowing full well the judge is at the door, knowing full well that you come with a sword, tattoos, faithful and true, you come on your horse, bring vengeance to the earth.

Nevertheless, Lord, we long for that day.

We long to be caught up into the air with you, to be changed, transforming, and the sound of the trumpet blast.

We long for that day.

Until the Lord, we pray that you would sanctify us, cause us to grow more into the image of Christ.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thank you for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and church information are on our website at ibc.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily.

Serve others around you and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.