"Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. 2 Make room for us in your hearts; we wronged no one, we corrupted no one, we took advantage of no one. 3 I do not speak to condemn you, for I have said before that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together. 4 Great is my confidence in you; great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort; I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction.
5 For even when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within. 6 But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus; 7 and
not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was
comforted in you, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your
zeal for me; so that I rejoiced even more.
8 For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it—for I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while— 9 I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. 10 For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death."
II Corinthians 7:1-10
Good Morning Beloved,
Welcome to worship!
Since the beginning of the church, God has called His people to separate themselves
completely from all forms of false religion.
For the sake of their faithfulness,
for the sake of their purity,
for the sake of their usefulness,
for the sake of their blessing,
for the sake of God’s own glory,
for the sake of His name,
for the sake of His truth. False doctrine, destructively eats away from truth, wreaking havoc on the faith of many. Historically, it had that effect, and we are certainly witnessing the evidence of that occurring in many of today's churches. And so God has always called His people to separation.
It is the responsibility of the church to see that Jesus is lifted up so that the whole world will be drawn to Him. When the Church fulfills its responsibility, by presenting the risen, living Savior in all His glory and majesty it leads to true repentance. However, many churches are lifting Him up, and they are showing record growth. However the Jesus they proclaim is often just a "gift giver," a "blessing giver," a "wealth maker," "peace provider." or
the "great healer." False religion defiles flesh and spirit.
The enemy has done a brilliant job in obscuring some very important
truths about the way to salvation.
The word "salvation" in the Greek means to deliver from the consequences
of sin and protect against evil. The enemy knows that just saying a
simple "Sinners Prayer" does not promise genuine conversion. Jesus had
an inner circle of 12, and one of them was never truly Born-Again.
Therefore, Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, devising his plans to create false religions which attempt to overthrow
the purposes of God and confuse the people of God. He wants the church to focus on bigger buildings, larger congregations and more money. Not
on the broken, battered, bruised, beaten and bloody body of the crucified
Lord of lords and King of kings who shows by His own example that
Christians first must die before they can be revived. As long as he can continue to convince people to attempt to meet their own needs, only occasionally confronted by their sinfulness, they fail to seek the things that are above, the true identity of Christ, and fundamental call to repentance, obedience and holiness.
Therefore, true pastors, those who teach the truth contained in the Word of God, have a difficult job in many ways, contrary to the "He only
works on Sundays" mindset many in the church have. Spiritual stress is unlike stress of any other kind. One of the most difficult parts of our job is making the
hard decisions.
In many cases, the easy thing to do is nothing. We
are tempted not to confront a sinner, not to take a hard stand, and not
to make risky statements. However, the right thing to do is the hard
thing to do, and thank God for His good under shepherds who are willing
to do the hard things, as the apostle Paul did.
As a quick reminder of the background for this chapter, there had been a man in the church in Corinth who had been guilty
of gross immorality. He had had an incestuous, adulterous
relationship with his own father's wife, his stepmother. The church
hadn't dealt with that situation, and Paul had reprimanded them in his
first epistle and had said they must deal with it. Now as Paul is
writing his second letter to them, they had dealt with this man which
resulted in the man's repentance and confession of his sin.
Let's bow our heads in prayer.
Heavenly Father,
We thank You for this glorious day, and the opportunity to humbly offer our worship. We are so grateful for those whose hearts You have prompted to join us today. Thank You for such a clear, elementary Word from the Scripture,
and for the affirmation of its truth. May the hearers of the truth be blessed.
Lord, we pray that You would give us a heart for those who are caught in evil, false religious systems.
May You call us to reach them, while we pursue holy separation. We pray Your Holy Spirit to cause us to apply these truths to the areas in our life where we’re called to respond in repentance and obedience.
We thank You for the precious promises we have in Christ, that we can be cleansed of unrighteousness and sin, all that dishonors You and defiles us. All for Your glory.
In Jesus' name
Amen
Today's Message: Godly Sorrow
Open with me your Bibles to the book of II Corinthians. Today we are so blessed, in our ongoing study of Paul's epistle to the Corinthian church, to come to chapter seven. This passage, by the way, became a behest for the Scottish Reformers. John Knox, a great preacher, was
the driving force in the founding of Scottish Presbyterianism. It was John Knox who once said, "Pull down the nests and the birds will disappear."
Follow along with me as I read to you from this rich text in II Corinthians 7:1-10.
"Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Make room for us in your hearts; we wronged no one, we corrupted no one, we took advantage of no one. I do not speak to condemn you, for I have said before that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together. Great is my confidence in you; great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort; I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction.
For even when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within. But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus; and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced even more. For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it—for I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while— I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death."
Deuteronomy 7:6 says, "For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth."
The word “holy”
means separate, sanctified, set apart. God has called us out, His own, therefore in His redemptive revelation
it becomes abundantly clear that
God's people are to have no alliances, no covenants and no interchange with false religion.
II Timothy 2:15-17 teaches "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene."
So in verse 1, Paul says "Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."
What promises is Paul talking about? He is referring to those at the end
of chapter 6. God has said that if we will obey Him, He will be a real
Father to us, we will be real sons and daughters to Him, and He can deal
with us in that relationship. This does not say that if we do not come
out and be separate, we will lose our salvation. It does mean that if we
do not lead a clean life, God cannot treat us as a Father would want to
treat His child. Many of us do not know by experience what a wonderful
Father we have. I believe, the problem is, that we don't give Him a chance to be a real Father to us.
How do we change that? We cleanse ourselves! However, we cannot cleanse our own conscience from the guilt
of sin. I am unable to wash out the stain of a guilty conscience, God has done that through the death of Christ and the shedding of His
blood. After we have been cleansed from our sins by the blood of Christ,
our hearts still need a daily cleansing from worldly contamination each
day. When I receive the Word in faith and I act upon that Word, I am
cleansed from all the filthiness of the flesh and spirit. The best bar of soap, the best cleanser is the Word of God!
This is what the Lord Jesus meant in John 17:17 when He said, "Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth."
The Word of God convicts us of our sin. The Holy Spirit enables us to deal with the sin in our lives.
Paul
says we are to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and
of the spirit. All sin is filthiness in the sight of God. So, what is
the difference between the sins of the flesh and the sins of the spirit?
The filthiness of the flesh are those sins which we commit in the body.
This has to do with unholy lusts, unbridled appetites, drunkenness,
gluttony, licentiousness, inordinate affection. These are the sins of
the flesh. These are the unclean things, the dirty things. We must be very aware that we are living in a world today that is big on the sins of the
flesh.
Now, I know this is controversial, but I'm not called to be popular, I'm called to uphold the Word.
Allow me to give you an illustration of this, and that is the attitude of the world toward alcohol. The majority of
people today say that alcohol is fine, its all right. And, that includes many Christians.
But, what does the Bible say
about this? Proverbs says not to even look at alcohol, let alone drink
it!
Proverbs 20:1 - "Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, And whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise."
And Proverbs 23:31-32 says, "Do not look on the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup,
When it goes down smoothly; At the last it bites like a serpent And stings like a viper."
And to the person making the argument that Jesus endorsed social drinking by
turning water into wine at Cana has to prove that it was alcoholic
wine. That is difficult because the context indicates just the opposite.
Notice in John 2:10 that after Jesus had turned the water into wine,
the governor of the feast tasted it, and said, "Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and
when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the
good wine until now!"
Now the part of this verse, is interesting phrase "well
drunk." Some translations translate is as "drunk freely." Drunk freely suggests the idea of largely
drinking. We might say today, "They drank until they had
plenty." If this were truly alcoholic wine then these people would have
already violated the passages that everyone would agree prohibit
drunkenness.
If alcoholic wine in a consideration, and they have drunk alcoholic wine until they were "well wined." If they have
drunk alcoholic wine until they "had plenty," and Jesus made
120-160 gallons more of alcoholic wines for people, who had by the way, already
finished off the first round. How could the Lord forbid drunkenness and
then do that? Think about that!
I also find it interesting that the governor of the feast had not had his
senses dulled. He could readily discern the "good" wine from the "poorer" wine,
which is indicative of the fact that he had not been drinking alcoholic
wine.
And in Habakkuk 2:15:
"Woe to you who make your neighbors drink, Who mix in your venom even to make them drunk So as to look on their nakedness!" May God have mercy on you if you serve cocktails in your home, tempting your neighbor to drunkenness, or encourage others to drink. Why? Because the Word of God rebukes it.
And another illustration of the filthiness of the flesh is the vilest, the most graphic pornographic
content imaginable, is now free online, which glorifies the human
body, elicit sex and every conceivable perversion.
Yes, beloved, even in this permissive society, God's Word still condemns the
sins of the flesh. And, if you as a Christian indulge in them,
God cannot act toward you as your Father. Although you
may actually be His son, He cannot treat you as a Father would like to
treat His son.
Paul also mentions the filthiness of the spirit. What is that? how about gossip? How about vicious slander against some Christian
brother? There are many people who would never take a gun and pull the
trigger to shoot a man down, but they will take the dagger of gossip and
put it in his back when he is unaware. As difficult as it may be to believe, there are many saints in the church
engage in that kind of practice.
There are the secret sins of the
spirit, such as vanity and pride. Conceit, haughtiness, unbelief, and
covetousness are the filthy sins of the spirit. There are a lot of saints
in the church who live by a series of "don'ts." You may have even heard the phrase, "We don't drink, don't smoke,
don't chew, and we don't kiss the girls that do." Now, not a single one of them would ever have a
cigarette in his mouth, hanging from the end of his tongue, however, the words on the end of his
tongue, burn more deeply, more severely than a cigarette ever could. These are a few of the sins of the spirit.
So the apostle Paul says that we should "cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the
flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." The writer of Hebrews 12:13-14, puts it this way: "and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord"
Christ is my righteousness. Christ is my holiness. The problem is, however, that
my life and His perfection are largely far apart. God says we are not to
have such a huge holiness gap. He calls us to holiness, He wants us to be holy in our lives.
Paul says in verse 2, "Make room for us in your hearts; we wronged no one, we corrupted no one, we took advantage of no one."
Here, Paul is assuring them that he has corrupted no man. He has defrauded no
man. He didn't come to them to take up offerings for all sorts of
projects.
In verse 3, he says "I do not speak to condemn you, for I have said before that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together."
Paul loved these Christians. They were constantly on his Pastor's heart. Remember that in Paul's first epistle to them he did the hard thing and
wrote a very sharp letter. He called them "babes" and "carnal." He called out the gross immorality occurring among them, and he commanded them to
deal with it and put it away. And did deal with it they did, just as Paul had
instructed them to do.
When Titus arrived in Philippi to join Paul, he brought
the news that the church in Corinth had dealt with the situation and
that the guilty man had repented of his gross immorality. So Paul wrote
in the second chapter of this second epistle that now they should
forgive him and comfort him, so that he wouldn't be swallowed up in
sorrow. He is to be taken back into the fellowship.
Verses 4-9, "Great is my confidence in you; great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort; I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction. For even when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within. But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus; and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced even more. For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it—for I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while— I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us."
After he had left Ephesus, he had gone to Troas, and there he waited,
but Titus didn't come. Then he began to rebuke himself. He thought, maybe I shouldn't have written such a sharp letter to them after all. Or
maybe I should have gone to them directly. He went on to Philippi, and
it was there that Titus met him and brought him word from Corinth.
Some of you hearing this message, might be feeling a tug on your heart. If that's you, then you should sit down and write a letter to an individual
whom you hurt, even if it was years ago. If that someone is you, tell him that you are
sorry and want to make things right. Do you know what you would do for that person? You likely would make them exceedingly joyful. I believe, the world needs more of that, we all need to do more of
that.
Then, Paul gets very personal, so personal in fact, I almost feel as though we shouldn't be reading it. In verses 5-6. "For even when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within. But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus"
When was the last time you went to someone in the church, put your hand on his
shoulder and said, "I've been praying for you." Or to your preacher, and say, "I want you to know, I see that you
are working hard, standing for the things of God, and I just want you
to know I am praying for you, I'm standing with you." I know they would really appreciate that.
The Corinthians had said nice things about Paul. I would like to encourage all of you, to not be too hesitant
to say something nice about someone else. I can promise, your tongue won't fall
out if you say something nice. Feel free to try it.
Paul says in verse 10, "For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death."
Here we find God's definition of repentance, true repentance.
Repentance is a change of mind. As far as I can tell, the only
repentance God asks of the lost is in the word believe. Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ! What happens when one believes? There is a change of
mind. There is a turning from something to Someone.
In I Thessalonians 1:9, Paul says, "For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God"
In Closing....
Beloved, that was a change of mind! And how did it come about? They first turned to
Christ. When Paul had come to them, he hadn't preached against idolatry,
he had preached Christ to them. And they turned to Christ. But they
were idolaters. So when they turned to Christ in faith, what happened? They also turned from the idols, and that turning from idols was
repentance. That is the repentance of the unsaved; it is the repentance
to salvation.
God also emphasizes repentance for the believer. If a believer is heading in the
wrong direction, walking in sin. For him there is to be a turning, a
repentance. A lot of people simply shed tears, which do not necessarily indicate
true repentance. That kind of sorrow is the sorrow of the world and
its works are death. True repentance is godly sorrow, which "sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret," that is repentance.
There are a great many Christians today, who shed a lot of tears and make a big public display, however, in the heart, there is no true
repentance. They shed tears, and they keep on going in the same
direction, and begin to drift in their spirituality. However, with the
Corinthian believers their repentance was genuine, it was true repentance.
The apostle Paul did the hard things, and God reaped a fruitful reward for it. Teaching repentance and reverence for God is of great importance, even today. The empty yearning and insatiable hunger that comes with the dissatisfaction
of all that this world has to offer exists, only because God
can truly satisfy. When humanity finally gazes upon the Transcendent
Beauty of Jesus, contentment and rest will be found because they were
created for His Glory.
I encourage each of us to do the
hard things God wants us to do in our lives, and if we do, we'll also reap the reward!
May it be so...
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen