Obedient in Everything

Let's pray. Father, help us now. We draw to the clothes of this Lord today that you would once again give us years to hear. This is no less your word because it comes on Sunday evening instead of Sunday morning because there may be fewer in the evening than in the morning. We know less need to hear from you. So speak to us and give us just the word we need. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I invite you to turn to your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verses 5 through 11. A paragraph tucked out of the way in Paul's letter to the Corinthians will come later in chapter 3 and 4 and 5 to some of the more well-known passages and even next week Lord willing to triumph and cry in the triumphal procession and what that means. But here again we have sort of a part 2 from last week trying to understand what this conflict was and what the issue was between Paul and this sinner and through him the Corinthians and not surprisingly though sometimes it can surprise us even in these out of the way places. There are very important lessons for us, fundamental ones in fact. Now if anyone has caused pain he has caused it not to me but in some measure not to put it too severely to all of you. For such a one this punishment by the majority is enough so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow so I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. For this is why I wrote that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive I also forgive indeed what I have forgiven if I have forgiven anything has been for your sake in the presence of Christ so that we would not be outwitted by Satan for we are not ignorant of his designs. Underneath all of the drama which we will try to understand as best we can in just a moment this passage contains two simple fundamental commands for the Church of Jesus Christ. We must discipline and we must forgive. The command to discipline is implicit in this passage and so we'll deal with it more briefly. The explicit command the major theme of the score is forgiveness and if we are to have a healthy biblical God honoring church we must always do these two things. Have standards by which we disciple and if necessary discipline and then also when there is repentance for breaking those standards and undergoing that discipline that we are eager to forgive and to reaffirm our love. It is one thing to excel in one command it takes the work of the Spirit and it is actually quite an unusual church that can be fully committed to both. Now we might speak of balance or tension but that makes it sound like you're on sort of a sea saw teeter totter and we sort of need just a little bit of discipline and standards and we need then well balance that out with a little bit of love and forgiveness when really what we need is to be fully committed all the time to both. In an excellent article now many years old Jay Robertson McQuilkin explains the tension between discipline and forgiveness or between faithfulness and love. Here's what he says there is a great polarization between the professional unifiers on the one hand and the professional purifiers on the other. It seems that a person must work at uniting all churches no matter how delinquent in doctrine or life or that he must give himself holy to separating all the wheat from the tares now. It is impossible to have too much love and it is impossible to have too much faithfulness however it is quite possible to have unfaithfulness masquerading as love. When God's people compromise through sentimentality or self-love or for some other reason are unwilling to exercise church discipline they are unfaithful however much they speak of love. Again it is quite possible to have unlove masquerading as faithfulness. When God's people create schism by disciplining the wrong person or with the wrong motive or in the wrong way they are unloving however much they speak of faithfulness. I do not ask the ecumenist as the person who's always wanting to call for unity to be less loving I urge him to be more faithful. I do not ask the separatist to be less faithful I urge him to be more loving. That's absolutely right there are two things that given enough time will always tear a church apart and maybe it happens quickly or maybe slowly imperceptibly and perhaps you don't even realize that the very soul of a church has been gutted by these two things either having no standards so there's no doctrine that we can't all just agree to there's no ethical standards there's no discipline no standards or impossible standards. If you can get one of those two things going on in a church you are well along your way to ruining that church no doctrinal no moral no ethical standards or we have such high impossible standards and if you dare break them you can never be forgiven but if you can find a church and I dare say and I hope by God's grace that this is such a church if you can find a church that is willing to uphold moral and doctrinal boundaries and to do so with the spirit of graciousness humility and forgiveness and that is on its way to being a mighty church against which the gates of hell will not prevail. Let's try to understand what is happening in this paragraph and what Paul is writing about and we have to use some conjecture we have to do some mirror reading okay we're seeing the reflection of it and what is Paul talking about what happened in the background as best as we can figure and you can read this in the commentaries with the study Bibles as well as I can in between first and second Corinthians Paul wrote another letter to the church at Corinth the lost letter all we know about the letter is what we can piece together from second Corinthians which mentioned it's sometimes called the severe letter this letter which came in lieu of a personal visit to Corinth which made some of the Corinthians very upset because Paul you said you were going to come visit us but he didn't was Paul's response to the painful visit he had experienced among the Corinthians earlier so in response to that painful visit he writes this painful letter we have several times where Paul gives some hints why he wrote this letter so look up chapter two hope you have your Bibles open turned on look at verse three and I wrote so this is not a reference to first Corinthians this is a reference of the letter that comes between first and second Corinthians which we don't have this so-called severe letter he says I wrote as I did so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice so that's one reason he wrote this severe letter to smooth the way for a better visit to get things in order in preparation for his coming look at verse four I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love I have for you so Paul wrote the letter though he understood that it would be hard for them to read he did so because of his great love for them in look down at verse nine which we just read for this is why I wrote that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything so he wrote also to see if they could follow instructions improve their worth there's one other passage turn the page over to chapter seven verse 12 he uses this language of fourth time so although chapter seven verse 12 I wrote to you it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong this unnamed person nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong which seems to be Paul but in order that your earnestness for us Paul and his associates might be revealed to you in the sight of God so he wrote that they might prove their affection and their loyalty to the apostle Paul their true father in the faith so we wanted to know their character would they do the right thing even without the apostle Paul there in person he didn't want to lord it over them like one of these so-called super apostles he wanted to know will you do the right thing without me just like the old saying goes character is who you are when no one is looking well Paul was not there in person would they still look at the end of verse nine would they still be obedient in everything that last phrase there is the key in everything because Paul was asking them to be obedient in two ways that many of us struggle we can do one or the other churches can do this direction or that direction but he says I want you to be obedient in everything both directions discipline discipline this way we're member discipline this man who has gotten out of line exercise authority discipline that's part of your obedience to Christ and now that he has repented to turn reaffirm your love and forgive could the Corinthians do both would they be obedient not just in their natural inclination probably everyone in this room your personality you're upbringing your experiences for many of us you've maybe been like this ever since you were a little kid just leaning one way or another and you gravitate toward the yeah there's gotta be standards and toughen up buttercup tough luck all right you better pull your act together all right you broke the law you need to suffer the consequence that's just the way it is and you can get it yes discipline and others of you are drawn with a tender heart well but we all make mistakes and look how broken hearted they are and they probably didn't mean it and we all run a foul of the rules sometimes and you're drawn to the tender hearted forgiveness can you however be obedient not in one or the other but in both would they take sin seriously enough to punish would they understand grace enough to open their hearts after he repented Paul calls for both and it gives you some hints why they might have thought that Paul was fickle not only as we saw did he change his travel plans I'm gonna come but then he says oh whoa whoa if I come right now this is gonna be a big blow up I'm gonna delay this coming not only for that reason but because they wondered if Paul himself was rather hot and cold on these issues Paul I thought you were the apostle Paul capital A capital P and you don't mess around and you come in here and you are gonna be the tough guy that we can count on and then but sometimes you seem to be a real softy come on Paul are you the grace guy or the truth guy the fact of the matter was Paul wasn't fickle but different situations and different people call for different approaches any good parent will tell you with with multiple children you have to understand have different children respond to different sorts of correction or exhortation first Corinthians 421 Paul says what do you wish shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of gentleness now he's inviting them to get your act together so that I can come with a spirit of gentleness but Paul is prepared he can come with a rod he can come in a spirit of gentleness we must be wise in how we handle different people and different situations we cannot be one dimensional sort of cartoonish characters who are always the good guys always the bad guys always just have exaggerated strengths and weaknesses this is the mark of personal maturity and the mark of church-wide maturity see it's it's the immature person who says no wait a second every single case we always gotta come down as hard as possible no that's not maturity or it's the immature person who says well God is a God of love that means in every single case the right response is just a great big man I love you kind of bear hug it takes maturity to understand when one is called for and when the other is called for Jesus was not one dimensional he could be very much in your face he could even be sarcastic to the proud to the big shots to the unteachable but to the brokenhearted and the weak he was patient gentle compassionate so what exactly happened here in the background that required the discipline of the church so look at this first command implicit command discipline what happened well some man did something wrong that appeared to have caused grief to Paul into the church so look at the language in verses five through eight you notice the singular pronouns if anyone he has caused it to me for such a one verse six so verse seven you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him verse eight I beg you to reaffirm your love for him so we're talking about some man here in the church did something wrong that required the church's discipline the punishment of the majority you see that in verse six so what did this man do well there's there's two options one option is to think that this is the same man that's mentioned in first Corinthians chapter five keep your finger there in second Corinthians turn to first Corinthians five it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you a man has his father's wife so this man has committed severe sexual immorality sleeping with his father's wife not man's mother but his father's wife of a a remarriage of some kind but this was clearly forbidden so it could be that this is the man because in chapter five Paul says you're gonna put that man outside the camp you're gonna treat one and you're gonna hand him over to say you are going to excommunicate him and so it could be that this is the very man who committed this sin the church disciplines him and now he turns this is how Calvin understood the passage and most of the older commentators understood it the same way there's a second option which is what most of the newer commentators argue and I think is a little more persuasive and that is that this is not the same man from first Corinthians five but this is a different man who opposed Paul and questioned his apostolic authority and why do I say that because the offense seems to have been first of all directed towards Paul you can see there in chapter two verse five he's caused it not to me now that may say well no this this wasn't an issue with Paul directly but I think Paul is speaking he's trying to he's trying to set the record straight you may think that this is all about me but listen the issue is not mainly to me but in some measures really to all of you but then there's a clue later where Paul says that he has forgiven if I have forgiven anything he says in verse 10 and I think that means well yes I've already moved on if there really was anything to forgive then surely I have forgiven this man of whatever he did against Paul one other indication that makes me think this is an issue first with Paul is from chapter seven verse 12 go back there we already read it once you see in chapter seven second Corinthians seven look up at verse 10 godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret world grief produces death see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you what eagerness to clear yourselves what indignation at every point you've proved yourselves innocent in the matter so I think this is Paul saying you had this man he opposed my apostolic authority but you have you have come through with flying colors and you have cleared yourself of any wrongdoing in the matter and then verse 12 so although I wrote to you it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong but in order that your earnestness now notice for us so Paul thinking of him and his close associates for us might be revealed to you in the side of god therefore we are comforted so that suggests to me that there was some offense against the apostle Paul and he says you have rallied to our defense you have proved yourselves to be valued in this matter and so we are comforted as you have proven your earnestness toward us so in some way we don't know exactly how this man has done something against Paul and this man was therefore punished you see that up again in verse 11 what we just read in chapter 7 what seal what punishment so they have done the right thing to discipline this man who is deserving of punishment now go back to chapter 2 again we don't know exactly what it was was it a rebuke was he barred from the Lord's supper perhaps both of those things he mentions in chapter 2 verse 6 the punishment by the majority is this a majority vote of the congregation if you believe in congregational policy you would think that is it a majority vote of the leaders of the elders of the church you might think that if you're a Presbyterian or is he simply pointing out that most of the congregation has been faithful in disfellowshipping because excommunication is not simply a formal declaration but it is meant to be lived out not in a kind of shunning that when someone is excommunicated from the church what we can never talk to you but rather you demonstrate that this person whatever they may claim regarding Christ that you can no longer treat them as one who truly belongs to Christ you cannot act as if everything is normal that's very difficult to do in cases of excommunication and usually what happens today we live in a in a big world and there's lots of churches that very often people can scoot on and they go to other churches and if churches are acting as they should they communicate with other churches and that's why we ask for transfer letters of membership I know you don't always have those and churches don't do always do those but it's to say is this person coming to us in good standing are there any unresolved issues because we want to treat seriously the discipline of members in the church Paul says you have done your work and the punishment by the majority is enough it is always hard work if you get into whatever kind of ministry and you think you know what I'm getting into church ministry I love disciplining people and that's probably not Andrew if you say that's why you're at seminary don't do it so it's difficult here's the reason why churches why movements why institutions always drift to be more liberal why because it is much easier to say yes than to be the person or the institution who says no oh I could ask my wife and my kids and they would tell you I'm not nearly as nice and kind as my wife now my wife is kind so she won't tell you that but my kids would and even me it doesn't lose a whole lot of sleep if people are upset about something especially if they're out there not people close to me I don't like I don't enjoy disappointing people how many of us do you enjoy being the person who has to say no you enjoy having to have a hard conversation you enjoy having to tell people no we're not going to go there doctrinally we're not going to go there ethically you can't keep treating your wife like that you can't keep responding to your husband that way very few of us enjoy those hard conversations and so it's always easier to say yes the slide is always towards more permissiveness because it takes great effort to maintain moral doctrinal standards in the church or in an eight organization of course some people can run hard in the other direction and do it in a loveless way we'll come to forgiveness in just a moment they discipline this man for his sin and it's so doing they did the right thing our book of church order defines discipline like this the exercise of discipline is highly important and necessary in its proper usage discipline maintains listen to these three things the glory of God the purity of his church and the keeping and reclaiming of disobedience sinners all three of those things the purpose is not to cause pain the purpose is not retribution you've made our lives difficult now you suffer it is always the glory of God the purity of the church and in an effort to reclaim lost and disobedient sinners and so churches must discipline that's the implicit command and we read it in the rest of second Corinthians that that's what the church was faithful to do here more specifically Paul is calling them to forgive notice how gentle Paul is in his response in if if I'm right and the newer commentators are right and thinking that this was an offense against Paul in large parts how admirable he doesn't even mention the man's name in other times in other contacts he does mention names Paul's not above naming names hymenas and felitas Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm people have left me but here he's not looking to settle scores they know they've disciplined him Paul doesn't need to bring up every detail he doesn't need to put his name in print again you've punished enough he's sorry now turn comfort him he's learned his lesson there is no sense now that Paul says you know what the rest of your life man who's been disciplined whatever you do in the you're always going to have a mark you're always going to have sort of an asterisk oh that oh that guy and we'll say the nice things and we'll we'll give him the hope but there's always sort of a mark on his permanent record well yeah we kind of know what he was really about Paul doesn't do any of that and he tells them just as you did the right thing to discipline now I want to see you be obedient in everything not just a discipline but also the forgiveness comfort him or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow listen to the pleading in Paul's voice I beg you reaffirm your love for him see this is not about going soft on sin this person has seen his sin he he's wept over his sin he showed walking in a path of repentance this wasn't just a one time I got caught and I feel bad Paul talks about that in 2nd Corinthians 7 worldly grief godly grief now this is a godly grief he says I don't want this man to have excessive sorrow for the rest of his life reaffirm your love for him our world knows nothing of this you've heard me say this before it was not too long ago we thought that our culture was heading towards a moral relativism and it turns out we were heading toward an extreme secular legalism if you look at the world around you and you follow stuff on it of course there's some relativism in some quarters but by and large it's not that though the issue is if you said the wrong thing you tweeted the wrong thing when you were 14 years old well we have that on your permanent record and that's going to stay with you forever you know what the internet can do law the internet can do judgment the internet can do mob justice so called the internet has not found a way to do forgiveness not how to do grace and in some ways we're living in the residue of a Christian conception of guilt without any longer the Christian conception of repentance or redemption so we understand sinners you have moral taint if you do something wrong you have this impurity and it sticks with you in some weird way at least with a select group of offenses our culture understands sin and it sticks with you forever and you can never get rid of it but our culture has no mechanism to forgive Calvin says nothing is more dangerous than to give Satan a handle to tempt an offender to despair we furnish Satan with arms in every instance in which we leave without consolation those who are in good earnest affected with the view of their sin brothers and sisters we must not be slower to show mercy than God is Calvin says later for it frequently happens that under the color of zeal for discipline a fairisaical rigor creeps in which hurries on the miserable offender to ruin instead of curing him in other words the goal is not punishment per se it's certainly not misery it's repentance and restoration to rejoice and embrace the offender and put this behind you we of all people if we are gospel people we must believe that people can change we must believe that people can change and and we all know that sometimes repentance takes a while to see probably all been in cases where somebody gets caught and they're in the flood of tears and and then they just go back doing the same sinful foolish things they were doing no there needs to be fruits of repentance but let us be careful sometimes that fruit of repentance is well I need to how many years do you need to see how many more fruit trees do you need to pluck down from no is there ever a time you can say you know what you're sorry for your sin and I affirm my love for you it might almost 20 years have passed from ministry I would think that I've been personally involved in seven eight ten different cases of suspension or excommunication in the three different churches I've been a part of and I would say if that's eight or ten would say there's been four not quite half three or four occasions where those have years later some of them were months later some were years and years later had the opportunity to hear that person who had been suspended who had been excommunicated come back before the session and say I didn't see it at the time and I was so angry at you I hated what you were doing I thought you were you were all a bunch of mean spirited Pharisees and I can see now that what you did you did in love and I'm sorry and we had the wonderful opportunity to reinstate them into fellowship in the church I'll never forget one Sunday and we had stations where people would go to get communion and there were elders there but there were tables and so people would would come to the tables around the room and there's a woman who had been suspended don't remember how long those many months or longer than that suspended from the table and she had recently met with the elders and had confessed and we were assured that she had moved in a spirit of real repentance and we lifted that suspension and welcomed her to the table and I will never forget I was standing there front to see her go to her knees trembling with tears that it meant that much to her that she was now welcome back at the table to feast upon the bread and the cup that's how it should be when we sin we repent and we're restored to fellowship the command is simple forgive see as Lewis says we all agree that forgiveness is a beautiful idea until we have to practice it isn't that true now let me say just quickly what forgiveness is not I've taught on this before but just to underscore forgiveness is not the absence of consequences so doesn't mean you know the thief on the cross was forgiven in that moment and he went to be with the Lord and paradise but he still suffered the consequences for his sin David was forgiven and yet because of his sin with Bessie but there were all sorts of messy consequences in his family for the rest of his life so forgiveness does not always mean the elimination of consequences forgiveness is not the absence of pain for good is not saying what you did was no big deal and it doesn't hurt anymore forgiveness does not always mean the full restoration of the relationship that there may be such pain that to have trust renewed to have friendship renewed may take a long time or may not happen at all even though forgiveness is present so what is forgiveness Thomas Watson says we forgive others quote when we strive against all thoughts of revenge when we will not do our enemies mischief but wish well to them when we grieve at their calamities pray for them and seek reconciliation with them and show ourselves ready on all occasions to relieve them John Piper takes that definition and shows how every part of that definition from Thomas Watson is rooted in scripture whether you call it forgiveness or some people argue that forgiveness really is when the other side repents and if they don't repent you can't forgive so whether this is forgiveness or you say the spirit of forgiveness it's imminently biblical Watson says we forgive when we strive against all thoughts of revenge Romans 12 19 do not seek revenge but leave room for God's wrath we forgive when we do them no mischief first us alone is 515 see that no one repays another evil for evil we forgive when we wish well to them who hurt us Luke 628 bless those who curse you we forgive when we grieve at their calamities even for our enemies Proverbs 24 17 do not rejoice when your enemy falls do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles we forgive when we are willing to pray for those who have offended us Matthew 5 44 love your enemies pray for those who persecute you we forgive when we have a posture that seeks and is willing to engage in reconciliation Romans 12 18 if possible so far as it depends on you be at peace with all men and we forgive just taking the last phrase in Watson's definition when we are ready to come to the relief of those who have offended us Exodus 23 4 if you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey wandering away you shall surely return it to him I want you to think if you're not already that person maybe very recent this may be decades and decades ago I think that person who hurt you a jerky boss who never gave you your due and impossibly difficult husband don't nudge him right now a wife who cheated on you an overbearing parents an ungrateful child a rude church member a controlling leader a defiant complainer a cheat who stole from you a gossip who betrayed you a slanderer who ruined your reputation a friend who you counted on stabbed you in the back you think of that person if we have enough time we we all have one or more persons like that maybe dozens some of the people in your mind may in fact be in this church some of the people in your mind maybe in your own family maybe you work with them but you think of that person and you don't have to pretend that what they did to you was not a big deal or that it didn't hurt or that they still don't have wrongs to be righted you only can do what depends upon you but you think of that person and how difficult how the pain that they have caused and are you willing to say and embrace all that Thomas Watson gave in his definition all that we just read from scripture that person in your mind right now do you desire blessing for them or do you hope that they get curses do you grieve when you find that they have troubles or do you feel some sense of satisfaction that at least they're finally getting what they deserve do you ever pray for them do you wish well to them are you prepared to help them

you see there's a reason why Paul ends the paragraph the way that he does we would not be outwitted by Satan we are not ignorant of his designs of his schemes because do you see what the devil's design is well one he could get this man who has repented to despair to be filled with excessive sorrow to feel as if his his life is in the trash heap there's nothing he missed God's plan for his life he sinned in this way he embarrassed himself filled with shame to the apostle Paul of all people and now just sort of cower in a corner until you get to heaven that would be the devil winning or if if he could so seeds of discord between Paul and the Corinthian so that they come to blows isn't this the case when one man sin or one woman sin explodes and makes a mess over so many people in so many places and all of a sudden it's them against them and there is a sea of division that would be the devil's design even bigger think of what a spirit of unforgiveness can do to a church it poisons our witness it poisons the air and it will poison your own soul when you join a church most of you who I imagine are members here of this church if you stick around long enough in that church you will have opportunity to forgive because someone will hurt you someone will ignore you they will disregard you they'll say something unintentionally foolish or they may say something they meant to be me they may even happen that the person who hurt you is an elder a deacon a pastor your preacher for their all sinners too including this preacher people will disappoint you people can be proud they can be petty when you join a church you must be prepared to forgive because Satan would love nothing more than a great pall of unforgiveness to be over the church and in your heart's festering with thoughts like I won't forgive him I do not care how sorry he is if I forgive him then he's just gonna get away with it again and why should I be the one to forgive it's 5% my fault 95% their fault why should I forgive no no no that will be with them forever that my friends that spirit is from the pit of hell that's not an exaggeration verse 11 tells us that is Satan's design and so we must fight for peace the way of discipline and the way of forgiveness is the way of the cross do you see how both justice and mercy meet in the cross because the cross tells us there are standards and that sin is a big deal and sin must be punished and the cross also tells us that Jesus is more than enough to pay for our sins to be the sort of person and to be the sort of church that can both discipline and forgive means dying to ourselves it means having the courage to discipline in such a way that you die to the desire we all feel to have everyone think well of us don't want to discipline I want people to like me that's the way of the cross and it also means having the grace to forgive when you die to your desire that says no no no I will take matters into my own hands I will get vindication at all costs I must be satisfied the offender who hurt me must hurt as much as I have been hurt brothers and sisters Jesus shows us a better way let us now be outwitted by Satan's designs for this is why I wrote you Paul says that I might test you and know whether you are obedient not in one or the other but obedient in everything to discipline and when they repent with arms wide open to say sinner come home I love you I forgive you you're welcome let's pray father surely we see this in you and we are like those prodigal sons daughters ran away squandered our inheritance and sensual living and while we were still a long way off father you came you cinched up the hem of your robe and you ran to us to embrace us to forgive us and so may we have the same spirit evident among us not a cheap grace not a mere sentimentality for sin is serious but the cross can conquer all we pray in Jesus name amen