2 Corinthians 7:5-16

We're gonna spend the next um we're gonna spend the next 30 minutes in 2 Corinthians.

As a church, we've been going through the book of 2 Corinthians, just verse by verse, and we've gotten to chapter 7, and there's a few things that you need to know about this.

We call it a book, but it was actually originally written as a letter by the Apostle Paul in the middle of the first century.

So Paul had planted a church in the Roman city of Corinth in the southern tip of Macedonia.

So, like or really underneath Macedonia, what we call Achai.

You can still look it up on Google Maps.

There's this region between Achai and Macedonia, and there's this what we call an isthmus or like a body of land that connect Achai with the mainland up top, and there was a city there called Corinth.

And it was a crazy city, and there was a lot of wild living there and pagan living, uh paganism that was there, and God allowed a church to be planted in this crazy environment.

And they had all kinds of problems that they went through.

And Paul along with his ministry team has been pastoring them and caring for them.

And a few years ago we read through Paul's letter that is called 1 Corinthians, and um and in that letter he's dealing with the fractions that have occurred in the church, the abuses of the spiritual gifts, some of the pride, some of the sin in the church.

And after Paul wrote that letter, um the church didn't really step up and obey in the way that they were, that Paul had hoped.

They didn't respond.

And so Paul took a trip from southern Turkey in Ephesus.

He went just across the Adriatic Sea over to Corinth.

And it was a really painful time for Paul.

And he tried again to correct them and to say, listen, you've got to get these things right to be a healthy church.

And um then he returned back to Ephesus, and when he got back to Ephesus, there's this riot, and basically Paul got kicked out of Ephesus, and it that wasn't his plan.

So he gets expelled from the city.

He goes north along the coast, the western coast of Turkey.

He's hoping to meet back up with Titus in Troas, but he doesn't find Titus there, and Troas is really important for Paul.

It's really an important place.

What?

Maybe last Titus.

What was going on in Troas was that Paul was hoping to connect with Titus there.

And Titus was important because Titus had been left in Corinth to get everything figured out, the mess figured out for this church.

But Titus wasn't in Troas, and that was upsetting to Paul.

And so he's traveling around, if you're looking at the map this way, he's traveling around, up through Macedonia and Greece, down through the other Macedonian cities to get to Corinth.

And as he's traveling, he's writing this letter.

And we're gonna get here to chapter seven, and we're gonna see kind of an update on where he's at in that journey.

Um the contemporary issue that's going on is that Paul is working with this church now on an issue of this outside group coming into the church who were playing a spiritual game.

They were pretending that they were really like spiritual leaders, and they were trashing Paul, and they were charging for their ministry, and it was just not a good scene.

So after all the other drama that we covered in 1 Corinthians, now that now you've got this new group that's really trying to steal the loyalty of the church's hearts away from Jesus.

Not necessarily from Paul, but Paul was a part of it because he was on Team Jesus, and they this group was like just not a good group.

So, all that to say, last week there were a few things that we saw from chapter 6.

Paul talked to the church and he said, The way that I've done ministry with you so far is that I haven't, there's no obstacles in the way, and there's no occasion, I haven't left you an occasion to blame the ministry.

And then he went through this catalog of here's how the new covenant grace of God has been at work in my life through all these different scenarios.

And it only commends the ministry rather than detract from the ministry.

The good times and the bad times all commend the work of the ministry that I've done.

And then Paul says to the church, he says, I want you to know that my heart is wide open to you.

There's nothing stopping my affection for you.

I want you to have the same affection back for me.

The reason he's saying that again is because this other group is there, and they have just cut to the core of the hearts of the Corinthian church, and they're getting them, they're distracting them off of Jesus.

And then Paul talks about the whole scene of like a like a temple and how you are a temple, and how there is this call to be pure in your life and to be loyal to Jesus, and to not have your life intermixed with a or unequally yoked with non-believers.

So Paul's just, he's he's calling them back to a purity of heart in how they relate to him and how they relate to others.

And he then he again he says, make room for me, make room in your hearts for me.

And he finishes off in verse four by saying, talking about this comfort.

He says, I'm very frank with you.

I have great pride in you.

I am filled with encouragement.

I'm overflowing with joy in all our afflictions.

And so, again, what we're gonna see is just Paul is narrating his own position, his own experience.

So imagine if you were to share with somebody how you're doing, right?

We ask that, we ask that question of one another when we come to church, right?

We're like, how are you doing?

Some of us are like, you know, I'm doing okay.

And then others of us are like, well, here's what went on in my life this week, right?

So Paul is doing that with this church.

He's saying, but with with um, he's not just putting up a he's not just putting up a facade.

He's saying, here's the reality of what's going on in my life.

I'm frank with you, I have great pride in you, I'm filled with encouragement, I'm overflowing with joy in all our reflections.

Paul's very intentional in the language about his relationship with his church, which to me, and I don't know if I've said this enough times, but I'll say it again.

I am amazed as we read through 2 Corinthians how Paul did not take for granted this relationship with the church.

He's not geographically there, right?

He's far away.

They have wronged him, they've not listened to him.

There are other people that are wanting to do ministry to him with this church.

There's some good actors, bad actors, and good actors in the scenario.

I am struck as I read through 2 Corinthians how he looks at this church and he says, This is the Lord that authored this relationship.

It's not an accident.

No, this is from the Lord.

And what it causes me to do is it causes me to think about the relationships I have in my life.

And I know my the way I do relationships, it's easy just to think like, okay, well, they're in my life right now.

It's almost kind of like, oh, it's just a coincidence.

They're here and they're gonna be gone.

That's not what you see in 2 Corinthians.

The way that Paul understands his life and the people around him is like some people, some people, excuse me, some people are like, that's that's you're from the the Lord has put me in your life, and there's this thing there that's from the Lord.

So that's where we left off last week.

Let's look at um let's look at verses uh five.

We're gonna look at verses five through sixteen this morning.

Before I read to you, verse five, let's let's just commit our time to the Lord.

Father, we we pray and ask right now together.

We we we ask for the work of your Holy Spirit.

There's there's a lot that goes on in our lives and in our heads.

And Lord, would you quiet our our minds?

Is there gonna be things that are gonna be distracting this morning?

It's gonna be easy to just kind of our our our minds to go off in one direction.

And we we ask that your spirit would just be the one governing over the thoughts that we think, and that that that would affect our hearts.

Lord, that you'd have your way with with our hearts.

Lord, we would you make this not just uh an academic experience of engaging 2 Corinthians, but it would be a spirit-led, spirit-authored time.

You know each of our lives.

We we pray that you'd speak into our lives at this very moment.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's look at um verse five.

Okay.

Uh he says this in fact, when we came into Macedonia, we had no rest.

So remember, we we he talked about getting to Troas.

This would be worth the like, if you have a Bible or like Google Maps, it'd be worth like looking at this.

Because you got Troaz on uh the western coast of Turkey, and now he's talking about getting into Macedonia.

Um, in a little while, he's gonna talk about his experience going through the churches in Macedonia when we get to chapter 8.

So we're we're we're it's almost as if this letter is being written as he travels towards Corinth.

So his statement, his biographical statement is that as they came into Macedonia, they had no rest.

Instead, we were troubled in every way.

Conflicts on the outside, fears within.

Does that sound like familiar language?

Does that does that verse sound like it fits in in this letter?

It does, doesn't it?

It is very much a statement that that Paul, the the kind of thing that Paul has been saying as we've been going along.

He's not trying to play games with them.

He's not trying to act as if, like, oh, nothing's wrong with me.

Instead, what he's saying is, this is my very real experience.

We have no rest.

Have you ever gone through a season where you're you're just restless because of the the stuff going on?

And then you tell, maybe you tell the other people around you and Christians, and if you ever get a sense that somebody's like, you know, oh, well, if you're a real Christian, you know, they don't go through that.

Well, Paul went through it.

Paul went through it, right?

Paul's gonna walk us through the process of going through difficult things, sometimes being even disciplined by God.

He's gonna walk us through this process.

And there are seasons in your life where there's you're just restless.

He says we were troubled in every way, conflicts on the outside and fears within.

Nobody is like wakes up in the morning and like, God, would you just give me the 2 Corinthians 7, 5 experience today?

Like, I want that.

I want that.

No.

No, I think we're running away from that.

But Paul's like, no, this is this is what was real.

But God.

Can you say that?

But God.

You may have a verse, you may be able to relate to verse five, but please make sure you get to verse six.

But God, who comforts who?

Who does he who who does God comfort?

The downcast.

The downcast.

Literally, it's referencing the um posture, the human posture, where you do not lift your eyes up.

You're not your your eyes are not up, but your head is down because of the human experience you're going through.

You're hanging your head, we may say.

It is God who comforts that person.

Okay.

And did we read that already in chapter one?

That he's the God of all comfort, who comforts us in every trouble?

Do you remember that?

That's that is the God of 2 Corinthians.

That's who Paul is trying to help this church see that God is the God who comforts you.

So maybe the Holy Spirit just needs to, it just is highlighting that verse for you because maybe you're downcast this morning.

And the Holy Spirit is just reminding you that there's a but God in your experience.

That yeah, you may feel the fight without and the fear within.

But God comforts the downcast.

So Paul states that God comforts the downcast, but how, what is the um means of God's comfort from this verse?

How does God bring comfort into the life of Paul?

He comfort us, comforted us by the arrival of Titus.

Remember, we are missing Titus from Troaz, but now Titus arrives.

They had no rest, now Titus shows up.

Do you see that when we we talk about the comfort of God?

God knows how to comfort you.

He knows your address.

He knows your number.

He knows how to how you receive comfort.

We are all wired in different ways.

I don't know, you ever read the Five Love Languages book?

Some people are wired where they're they're like, they're loved through physical touch.

Other people are loved through acts of service, others are loved through quality time, others are feel loved by gifts, right?

There's these different ways that people feel loved.

And you need to know that when when Paul tells this church, he tells you and I, that God comforts the downcast, he knows how you are to be comforted.

He knows what's comforting to you.

And here, God's way of comforting Paul was to allow him to be reunited with Titus.

Imagine this just for a second from the position of Titus.

Titus is just this character that has been raised up as like a spiritual leader by Paul and goes on these errands to help lead the churches that Paul has started.

And what Titus has been doing is working with Corinth on the follow-through.

Do you ever play a sport where you need to make sure you have a follow-through either on your throw or your your um swing with your baseball bat, or even like with ping pong, you're supposed to have like a follow-through sometimes.

It's that after effect, right?

That you keep moving.

I guess even with basketball, right?

You gotta like follow through, right?

That was Titus's job, was to help the church follow through on their obedience.

So, so Titus, you know, it's one thing when like the apostle Paul shows up and you're like working with him and you're like, okay, Paul, we've got it.

But then there's this other guy, Titus, who's been sitting there in Corinth helping them like obey the things that Paul taught them.

And then he finishes that work and he goes and he meets Paul up in Macedonia.

God's just working through Titus, and it just ends up being a comfort to Paul.

And the the thing that is comforting that we're gonna see is that it's just the report that Titus brings back to Paul in this setting.

Look what he says in verse 7.

And not only by his arrival, but also by the comfort he received from you.

Do you see the chain here?

So the church in Corinth is comforting Titus, and then Titus is bringing that to Paul.

He, being Titus, told us about your deep longing, your sorrow, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced even more.

So here's Titus.

He's learned, he's he's hearing, he's working with this church on repentance.

Repentance is the you-turn from the direction they were going.

They were fighting with each other, they were there were factions, they were abusing the Lord's Supper, they were messing up, practicing spiritual gifts.

There was all kinds of issues that they were there.

And so now Titus hears, or um, Titus tells Paul about the church's deep longing and sorrow and their zeal for Paul.

And this means so much.

Like, so it's this report back on like the relationship isn't dead yet, right?

There's still hope that Titus reveals to Paul.

Like, the church still is zealous for you, they're longing for you.

Do you feel the um do you see how that that would be comforting to Paul?

God's comfort often arrives through a person showing up or through the comfort that person received among the saints.

Refusing the person can be a way of refusing the comfort.

Remember last week there was that phrase, open your heart to us.

The work of God that Paul is describing, that all has as a foundation, the new covenant, is really contingent upon a sense of the open heart.

And so the the question is, okay, Lord, what do you want to do in my life and in the relationships around me?

Like, how is God want to work in the midst of your marriage or the relationship you have with your kids or your coworkers?

One of the things that Paul is talking about is all of this arena is in the heart.

The comfort, the repentance, the zeal, the longing, even the fight.

It's all going on inside of the heart.

And the comfort of God is brought through this person, Titus.

Let's go to the next section.

For even if I grieved you with my letter.

Now, we started off this sermon talking about the letter writing.

And so Paul says, Even if I grieved you with my letter, I don't regret it.

And if I did regret it, since I saw that the letter grieved, You yet only for a while.

Do you see?

Do you hear the wrestling that Paul's gone through?

He wrote them a letter that was kind of rough.

He was dealing with some stuff that's like, imagine writing a letter.

Yo, guys, I've heard that there's a guy in the middle of your church who's sleeping with his stepmom.

It takes some guts to write that part of the letter, right?

Right?

There's another part of 1 Corinthians chapter 11 where he says, you know, there's some of you that are taking communion in the wrong way, and some of you are dying prematurely in the church because you're abusing the Lord's Supper.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

That's a hard thing to write, right?

There are things that Paul wrote in his letter that at one point he's just like, this is really gonna grieve them.

They're gonna read this and they're gonna be upset.

And Paul's feeling a little bit regretful of like, man, maybe I shouldn't.

Have you ever sent an email where you're like, ah man, I don't know if I should have sent that or not?

Right?

You ever walked away from a conversation and you're like, I don't know if I should have said that.

Paul's gone through that experience and he says, even if I grieved you with my letter, I don't regret it.

So he's gonna walk the church through the process.

I now rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance.

Remember that word process.

Paul's describing the process that they've gone through to get to the point where they're at now.

And there was a need, in order for God to work for them, there was a need for some difficult conversations to occur.

Letter writing and a painful visit.

We've already talked about that.

And it did grieve them.

Like they had that conversation with Paul and it hurt.

You ever had those conversations?

Gone through stuff where it's just like, yeah, that hurts.

Or you're the one that you're like, man, I gotta have this conversation with this person, and it isn't gonna be fun.

You've been there too.

But Paul says, listen, I'm now at the point where I'm rejoicing, not because you are grieved, but because the grief led to what?

Repentance or change.

There's change that's occurred.

Now remember, Paul is the vessel that God is using to work in the lives of the Corinthians.

And so the map, Paul is drawing a map that maps onto your life and my life.

There are things that happen in our lives that grieve us, that hurt.

And there's almost this sense because we love people and God loves you, is just like, oh, do I regret this happening?

I don't think God regrets it, but I know as we kind of watch it, it's like, oh man, this it hurts to watch somebody else suffer.

But it's a process because the grief led to repentance.

He says 4, he's going to use a substantiation here.

He's going to explain this sentence here with this sentence.

For you were grieved as God willed, so that you didn't experience any loss from us.

You see, if there had been no repentance, then there would have been loss.

But what he's saying is, nope, you were grieved.

God allowed this grief to occur in your life.

There are sometimes, some experiences that are painful in your life, in my life, where God is disciplining you.

In the book of Hebrews, it calls it chastening.

We do this with our kids.

Sometimes they have to go through a grievous experience.

They have to feel upset, bummed out, maybe angry, in order to get to the point where they are willing to change and repent and not experience any loss.

It's the process.

And so here's the thing: as Paul's describing the process that they went through, what process are you going through?

Because in John chapter 15, he says that you are the vine, or you are the branches, and he's the vine.

John 15 · chapter mention

And he picked you to be a branch connected to the vine because he wants you to bear fruit.

But every tree that he loves, it says that he prunes it.

It goes through a pruning process.

There are times where things are painful and you get cut back a bit.

And the question is, as you feel grieved, as you are grieving as God willed, are you submitted to the process?

Are you letting God work?

Because here's the thing.

In verse 10, for godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret.

So if you go along with God's process of change, then there's no regrets.

God, I'm going with you.

But worldly grief produces death.

Worldly grief produces death.

So, in other words, there is the grief that you engage from a spiritual perspective, and it's fruitful in your life.

It produces something that you're not going to regret.

But there is a way to just have worldly grief, be disengaged spiritually.

You can feel upset, it's still grief, but you're disconnected from the work of God in your life.

Now, that sucks.

Right?

Isn't there anybody here who's like, yeah, I really want to be grieved?

No.

No.

But but do you see what he's saying?

You have two directions you can go.

You can engage it with the Lord, or you can engage it spiritually.

You can engage it spiritually, or you can engage it as the world does.

And be and basically abort the spiritual process that God wants to carry out.

Verse 11.

For consider how much diligence this very thing, this grieving, as God wills, has produced in you.

So the question here is I want you to reflect.

You ever have a teacher that says, I want you to reflect on something?

Okay.

So Paul's saying, I want you to reflect.

I want you to consider how much diligence has been produced in you by going through the process.

Okay?

So you went through all this junk of being upset, being grieved, and um it's how it's what God willed, but look what it's produced in you.

Okay, here's the little mini catalog of what has changed in your life.

Look now at the what desire to clear yourselves.

Now, this could be referring to the church letting the guy into the church that was sleeping with his stepmom, and they were accommodating it.

And and Paul said, kick him out of the church.

They did, they repented, and the guy repented, and now he's back.

So look at what he says.

Look at what desire to clear yourselves is there.

Now look at look at look in your life.

You have now have an indignation towards sin.

You have a fear in your life of sin.

You have a deep longing to never experience that again, to change.

What zeal, what justice.

Here's the final statement.

In every way you showed yourself to be pure in this matter.

You're completely clear.

That's what God willed for them, right?

Isn't that what God wanted?

God, for the sin in our life, if there is sin that's holding on to us or sin in the church, God wants it cleared out.

And so they had to go through a process.

And some of you, listen, some of you are in the middle of God's process, and there are things that hurt, are sad, are grievous.

And this is the thing you need to know.

You may go through that.

You have the option to go through that and completely reject God's purposes, or you can submit to what God's doing and end up in this beautiful place like this.

Do you see that?

God loves you.

He has this wonderful plan of how he wants to work in your life and what he wants to do.

But you've got to engage him.

You've got to be engaged in the process.

Some of you need, some of you need to run through this list and just pray a prayer like this.

God, I receive the grief of doing the wrong thing and the chastening that you're causing.

I want you to produce in me a clearing of myself.

I want you to produce in me an indignation towards that thing so I never do it again.

God, I want you to produce in me a fear.

I want you to give me a deep longing that I would just run after you, run far away from that thing.

Make me a zealous person to follow you.

God, give me just a longing for justice in my life.

Right?

That that may be the spirit guiding your engagement with this text.

Let's let's look at the last verse here of this section, verse 12.

So even though I wrote to you, it was not because of the one who did the wrong or because of the one who was wronged, but in order that your devotion to us might be made plain to you in the sight of God.

So he's saying, this is another time, just so you see it, another time in the book of 2 Corinthians, where we have a narration of how Paul works.

And what he's saying is, I wrote to you, and here's why I wrote to you.

Doesn't it remind you of 1 John?

Paul says, I wrote to you for this reason, I wrote to you for this reason.

Here Paul is saying, I wrote to you, it's in order that your devotion to us might be made plain in the sight of God.

Yeah, yeah, we covered, we did that, we covered the person that did the wrong thing, but that wasn't the motive.

It wasn't just to you know take care of the person who was wronged.

That wasn't the motive.

No, the motive was I want to see your devotion.

Let's keep going.

Verse 13.

For this reason, we have been comforted.

In addition to our own comfort, we rejoiced even more over the joy Titus had because his spirit was refreshed by you.

It's kind of like a bookend, beautiful bookend to what he was saying earlier.

It's for this reason because they because all he's saying basically, I know now about your repentance because of Titus.

I know that you responded to the grief of the letter, the pointy parts of the letter, and you've repented, you've shown your devotion, and I've comforted, and we rejoiced even more over the joy of Titus had because his spirit was refreshed by you all.

Verse 14.

For if I have made any boast to him about you, I have not been disappointed.

But as I have spoken everything to you in truth, so our boasting to Titus has also turned out to be the truth.

He was boasting about them.

And here he's able to say, look, I'm not disappointed.

I've spoken everything in truth.

It's turned out to be true.

People disappoint you, don't they?

Yeah.

People are disappointing.

Here's Paul working with a church that's a mess.

And he's not there.

And he's trusting, he's doing the relationship according to the new covenant.

One of the promises of the new covenant is that God would be each individual's teacher.

That God's the one teaching you.

And that no longer do you need your neighbor to tell you know the Lord, but you'll each know me, and the Spirit has written his law on our hearts.

Paul is taking that reality and he's walking in it.

He's like banking his life on that truth.

And in the face of disappointing people, he is even boasting to his friend Titus that, like, no, no, you know, this is what I believe about these people.

He's able to do that because of the reality of the new covenant, not because of how great of a people they are.

They're not great people.

They're a mess.

We're a mess.

Do you see though that when God looks at you, God knows that if you have a relationship with Christ, there is great hope.

In Philippians, Paul wrote that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to bring it to completion.

God is at work in your life and in my life.

And even though we know the ways that we're a disappointment to the people around us and to God, the other reality that where we we the beautiful reality is that the Holy Spirit is in you.

And God is able to work in you just like He is able to work in the Corinthian church.

He's able to take a messy people and bring them towards obedience in a beautiful way.

Where the things that literally Paul boasted about this church, they're found to be true.

This is convicting to me because I work a lot with people, especially on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Probably about 350 people come to get food.

And people are messy.

And it's easy to become cynical about the people around us.

And yet, Paul here, he's seeing the other humans around him through the lens of the new covenant.

And he's like, nope.

God, the powerful God of the Bible who raised Jesus from the dead is able to work in that person right there.

And Joshua, when you see that person, they're not just an object to receive an act of compassion and getting food.

But there is great hope.

Great hope.

Verse 15.

And his affection toward you, this is Titus's affection toward you, is even greater as he remembers the obedience of all of you and how you received him with fear and trembling.

Just a biographical statement about how they worked with Titus and his affection.

Remember, he's been talking about affection because he talked about like, you know, I've got affection towards you, don't hold back your affection.

So he's kind of on an affection thing right now in this part of the book.

Last verse I rejoice that I have complete confidence in you.

Saints, it is not an accident that you have the people in your life that are there.

And those people can hurt you, they can disappoint you.

And you and I have a choice on how we're going to look at those people.

We can either engage them through the flesh and in a worldly way, where our hearts are shut down, we write people off, or you can look at them as Paul did, understanding the dynamic work of the new covenant.

The second thing that we've seen here in the text is that God takes us through experiences that are grievous as a process to bring about repentance.

And so if you are in a season where there is pain and suffering, you need to ask, is this one of those seasons where you're chastening me, God?

Sometimes it's just Satan is attacking you, but you need to be willing to ask the question of God, God, are you chastening me?

Are you trying to bring about repentance in my life?

And he'll show you.

He'll show you.

Sometimes it's a self-inflicted wound, sometimes it's like Satan attacking us.

Sometimes it's what he talked about in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, where we have the dying of the Lord Jesus in our body so that the resurrection power of God can be put on display, kind of like a Job experience.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

And then other times there's painful stuff that happens in our life because he's trying to bring you through a process of repentance.

And all you and I can do is say, okay, God, what are you trying to show me?

What do you want me to turn and change from?

What your spirit leading me towards.

Lord, we um receive these things by your spirit in our lives.

And we ask that you would write these things on our hearts, like it says in Jeremiah.

That you would bring these things to the core of who we are and what where we need um just the the insight of your spirit.

Would you please give it to us, direct us towards how this applies?

And pray for each person here.

We wanna we wanna love the people around us and we wanna be responsive to the the process you take us through.

And I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.