One faith, one birth, one holy
name she blesses, partakes one holy food, and to one hope she
presses with every grace and duty. Mid toil and tribulation
and tumult of her war, She waits the consummation of peace forevermore. Till with the vision glorious
her longing eyes are blessed, And the great church victorious
shall be the church at rest. Yet she on earth hath union with
God the three in one, And mystic sweet communion with those whose
rest is one. O happy ones and holy, Lord,
give us grace that we, like them, the meek and lowly, on high may
dwell with Thee. Please be seated. We're going to continue our study
in 2 Corinthians this morning, 2 Corinthians chapter 7. Would you bow with me as we ask
the Lord to bless His word to our hearts? Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we're thankful For the ministry of your Holy Spirit puts it into
our hearts to call upon you as our Father. We ask, Lord, that we would experience
this morning the tender care that you have for your children.
We pray that you would minister grace to our hearts and cause
us, Lord, to find all our all our salvation and all of our
satisfaction in the person of thy dear son. We thank you for
his accomplished work. We thank you, Father, for sending
him to die and to put away our sin once and for all by the sacrifice
of himself. We pray, Lord, that you would
enable us to see him high and lifted up, seated at thy right
hand, having succeeded in saving his people. We ask it in his name. Amen. We looked at chapter six Wednesday
night and saw that the last, the first verse of chapter seven
is really a conclusion to everything that's being said in chapter
six of second Corinthians. having, therefore, these promises. That's the grounds on which we
come. The promises of God and His faithfulness
to keep all His promises. Our God cannot lie. Faith trusts
Him to keep His promises. Abraham, who's called the father
of the faithful, believed God and was persuaded that he would
do all that he had said. And that's what faith does. Faith
is persuaded that our God is faithful to his promises. Dearly beloved, dearly beloved,
based on the fact that we have a God who has been faithful to
keep all of his promises and will continue to be faithful
to keep all of his promises. Therefore, we are beloved of
God. John put it like this, Behold,
behold, oh take notice what manner of love the Father hath bestowed
upon us that we should be called the sons of God. It doth not
yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall
appear we should be made like him for we shall see him as he
is. I'm so thankful that the Lord
that the Lord speaks to us as children and gives us his spirit. He said, when the spirit comes,
he will cause you to cry, Abba, Father. Abba, Father. We come before an almighty God,
not a man, not a woman, not with fear or with shame, but we come
to him as a loving, compassionate, caring, providing Heavenly Father. And so that's what he's saying
here, having therefore these promises that your God has given
you, dearly beloved, oh, you're loved of God, If you know Christ,
you're loved of God. And how do I know if I know Him?
Because I've been cleansed. I've been cleansed. Let us cleanse
ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and the spirit,
perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Now, the fear of God
is faith in Christ. That's looking unto Jesus. That's
the fear of God. That's the thing that every believer
does. He looks to Christ and he looks to his shed blood as
the cleansing property for all our filthiness in our bodies
and in our spirits. Verse 2, receive us. Paul's concern for the church
in Corinth is that they would believe the gospel. That's his
concern. He's not promoting himself for
some sort of self-grandizement or self-promotion. He wants them
to believe that the message that he's preaching is true and faithful. For the salvation of their souls,
he wants them to believe that he is a faithful minister of
the gospel. And so he pleads with them, receive
us. receive us." There were the gainsayers
that had come in behind the Apostle Paul and made all sorts of false
accusations against him. It's still the same. It hasn't
changed. And so he's pleading with them.
He says, receive us. We've wronged no man. We didn't
come in to take advantage of you. We didn't merchandise your
souls for our own benefit. We didn't covet any man's silver
or gold. We didn't do that. Men in religion
might do that, but we didn't do that. That's what he's saying.
He's pleading with them based on the fact that he was faithful
when he came to bring the gospel to them. Now remember, this is
second letter. So he's going to make some references in this
chapter back to the first letter that he sent them in 1 Corinthians. Receive us, we have wronged no
man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man. We
didn't twist the scriptures, we came and brought you the simplicity
of the gospel, and we're pleading with you to believe what we told
you. We come as ambassadors of Christ,
beseeching you as if God in Christ's stead would plead with you. So we do. We know that our pleading
is not the effectual cause of a man's salvation, but it is
a means that the Lord uses It is an instrumental cause. You
understand the difference between an instrumental cause and an
effectual cause? The effectual cause is the work
of the Spirit of God. He's the only one that can take
out a heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh. He's the
only one that can open the eyes of our understanding and cause
us to believe. The means by which he does that
is the preaching of the gospel. How will they believe on Him
in whom they've not heard? And how will they hear without
a preacher? God uses the foolishness of preaching. And when we preach, we plead
with men. When we witness, we plead with
men. Oh, listen to what God says.
Believe God. That's what he's saying here.
I speak not this to condemn you, for I have said before that you
are in our hearts to live and to die and live with you. We're in this together. It's
not like, you know, some of us have a closer relationship with
God, and he's putting away this clergy laity sort of thing. It's the doctrine of the Nicolaitans
is what it is, and the Lord makes it clear that he hates it. It's
very popular in religion. He's saying, we're pleading with
you, but we're not pleading with you as if we're your master.
We're in this together. We live and die by the gospel
together. No one man has an advantage with
God that all believers don't enjoy. That's what he's saying.
What's popular in religion for a man to set himself up? as if he's got access to God
that the average Christian can't possibly enjoy. And that's what
he's speaking against here. We don't believe that. As it's
been said, the ground at the foot of the cross is level. There's
no mounds in it. There's no one who stands closer
to Christ than another. We live and we die by the gospel
of God's grace together. Great is my boldness of speech
towards you. Great is my glorying of you. I am filled with comfort. I am
exceedingly joyful in all our tribulations." What he's saying
here is, I'm not complaining. I'm not complaining. I'm not
crying or bellyaching. I'm thankful for you. I'm thankful
for the faith that God has given you. I'm thankful for the...
He's going to go on to tell us he's thankful for the report
that he got from Titus that expressed their zeal for the gospel. And
he's saying, you know, whatever it costs to live and to die in
Christ, whatever it costs to preach the gospel, we rejoice. Rejoice in the tribulation. I'm filled with comfort. Very,
very thankful. Verse five, for when we were
come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled
on every side. Without were fightings and within
were fears. And I was thinking about this.
What would it, what would I feel like if I knew that when I came
out of this pulpit and walked out that door, that there was
a mob of people out there to grab me and beat me. Would I
remain faithful to the gospel? Only by the grace of God. Would
I go out that door with fear and trembling? Yeah. Yeah, I
would. I hope the Lord would enable
us to be faithful to the gospel regardless of the consequences
or circumstances. But that's exactly what Paul
experienced. He'd preach the gospel, a mob would break out,
and they'd beat him for it. Would we be faithful to the gospel
under such circumstances? So that's what he's saying. There's
fightings without and there's fears within. And that's our
experience. And you can take that to another
level beyond what Paul's talking about here in terms of preaching
the gospel and the sufferings that he had to go through for
that. We live in a world that's contrary
to everything that we believe in our hearts. And there's fighting
without. There's trials and temptations
and troubles in this world that cause our flesh consternation,
conflict. And yet, and through it all,
there's fears within, isn't there? What is your number one fear?
What is your number one fear? I hope the Lord's taught us enough
about the gospel and about ourselves to be able to say, I am my number
one fear. My sin, my unbelief, my disobedience,
that's my number one fear of everything in this world. Is
that your fear? That's the only thing that's
going to drive us to Christ. behold I am vile all said within
me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing nevertheless here's our hope
nevertheless God that comforted those that are cast down comforted
us by the coming of Titus. Titus came, we were in Macedonia,
Titus came up from Corinth and gave us a good report based on
your response to the first letter that we sent you. Now Paul had
to deal with the church at Corinth and some pretty pretty ugly things
in the first letter and he was very bold and very clear and
he and he was afraid that you know maybe they would Maybe they
wouldn't respond properly. Titus comes back to Paul and
tells them, they got your letter, and he's going to describe their
response, the response that the church at Corinth had to the
things that the Lord had to say to them in that letter. When we have conflicts, Fightings
without and fears within. Here's the hope that we have,
that we have the comfort. the comfort that that the Lord
gives us by his spirit the Holy Spirit is called the comforter
you understand that he's the he's the paraclete he's the one
that comes along beside us and and comforts our hearts and points
us again to Christ and he does this by the ministry of one another
as well aren't you comforted when you see a child of God brought
to godly sorrow and repentance and faith and and able to share
that experience back with you, that encourages my heart, that
thrills my soul when a believer tells me about what the Lord
is doing for him. And we ought to. This is the
means, again, by which the Lord comforts us. He comforts us with
the comfort with which we've been comforted. And we ought
to share those experiences with one another. Here's what the
Lord's been doing for me. Here's what he's taught me. And
just rejoicing together in the grace of God as he ministers
that grace to our hearts. And that's what Paul said. We
were comforted. We had fightings and fears. Nevertheless,
God, God did the comforting. He comforted us by the report
that came to us through Titus. and not only his coming only,
but by the consolation, verse seven, wherewith he was comforted
in you. When he told us your earnest
desire, your mourning, your fervent mind toward me, that I rejoice
the more. Paul was afraid that they would
receive this letter with anger, that they would be offended.
But Titus now comes back to Macedonia and tells Paul, oh no, they read
the letter and the Spirit of God convicted their hearts and
they have a fervency now that they didn't have before. You
know, the gospel of God's free grace in the accomplished work
and glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ never allows for
anything other than everything or nothing. Everything. The gospel will either
be everything to you or nothing to you. The gospel is not a patchwork. God didn't come to fix what mess
we've made. There's no place for mediocrity. There's no place for lukewarmness. You remember the church at Laodicea?
Well, you know, it's not comfortable to be hot or cold, is it? When
you're hot, you're not comfortable. When you're cold, you're not
comfortable. What's a comfortable place to be? Just lukewarm. Just
lukewarm. And that's the flesh. And the
Lord, the flesh is always looking for a place of comfort. But by
the ministry of the Spirit of God, He won't allow us to be
there. He told the church in Laodicea. Turn with me there
to Revelation chapter 3. Verse 14, And unto the angel
of the church at Laodicea write, These things saith the Amen,
the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation
of God. See, how many times the Lord
is reminding us that His words are faithful, His words are true,
and His words are to bring about an Amen from all men. Amen. That's it. I know thy works that
thou art neither cold nor hot. I would that thou wert cold or
hot. So then because thou art lukewarm
and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Why
were they lukewarm? Because thou sayest, I am rich,
and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. And knowest
not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind,
and naked. I'm OK. I'm good. All my circumstances are good.
I might need $3 worth of God to kind of fix up some of the
mess that I've made. But as far as a total abandonment
to Christ, I don't need that. What'd the Lord say? Unless you
die to yourself, take up your cross and follow after me, you're
not fit to be my disciple. This gospel requires total abandonment
to Christ. He will either be everything
to us or nothing. There's no place for mediocrity,
there's no place for any middle ground. And that's what Paul's
saying when I wrote to you, Titus came back and told us of your
fervency, of your spirit, the love that you had for Christ.
Look what he says in Revelation chapter three, I counsel thee
to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich
and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed. In chapter 6 he says,
he says, poor yet having everything. We have nothing and yet we have
everything. And the man who's got everything in this world
and doesn't have Christ has got nothing. Buy of me that the gold
that doesn't perish. by a me, without money and without
price, come in faith to Christ, and the robe of righteousness,
the white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, to cover the shame
of thy nakedness, and to anoint thine eyes with eyesalve that
you might see. That's what we need. Come with
nothing. Lord, go back with me to our
text. Paul is expressing his encouragement. For those to whom the Lord Jesus
Christ is their life, they are so encouraged to hear other believers
talk about Christ being their life. He's my life. He's my everything. And conversely,
isn't it so discouraging to see people who say they believe the
gospel, but they've got a take-it-or-leave-it attitude about it? Christ is not everything to them.
It's a burden to our souls to see. And not by his coming only, but
by the consolation wherewith he was comforted in you when
he told us of your earnest desire, your mourning, your fervent mind
toward me so that I rejoice the more. Fervency, earnest desire,
mourning. These are the things that bring
about rejoicing, don't they? Oh Lord, make me to be so. Protect me from being lukewarm. I don't want to be lukewarm. The Lord said, I would that you
would be hot or cold. In other words, a person who
has no interest at all in the gospel is better off than a person
who has a mediocre interest in the gospel. That's what God's
saying. Oh Lord, don't let me be there. Verse 8, For though I made you sorry with
a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent, for I perceive
that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but
for a season." When I sent that letter out, you ever send out
a letter and you thought, oh boy, I hope they receive this
well. I hope it doesn't offend them. I hope it doesn't, you
know, That's what Paul's saying. When I sent it out, I was so
fearful. I was sorry. I had second thoughts about the
things that I said. But now that I've gotten report
back from Titus, and the Lord has shown you that what I said
was true, and he's brought you to agree to it, now I rejoice. I'm not sorry that you were made
sorry. Now I rejoice, not that you were
made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance, for you were made
sorry after a godly manner that you might receive damage by us
in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance
to salvation, not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world
worketh death. Now, what is worldly sorrow? versus godly sorrow. What's the
difference? How do I know if the sorrow that
I'm experiencing from my sin is worldly sorrow or godly sorrow? The same way you know that anything
else that God does in your life is genuinely from God. Everything that God does has
one design. It has one design, and that's
to bring you back to the source of what he's doing. So whether
you have trials or blessings or grace or salvation, everything
that God does brings you back to God. If your sorrow for your sin takes
you back to the law, Well, I just feel bad that I did that. I'm
going to do better. I'm going to pull myself up. I'm going to work on it a little
bit harder. I'm going to make new dedications and new devotions,
and I'm going to be a better person. And your sorrow, your
conviction in your conscience causes you to go back to the
law. That's worldly sorrow. if the sorrow that you experience
causes you to try to clean things up for the sake of impressing
other men. People do that all the time.
You know, I'm gonna Men love the praise of God. You impress
men with seeing how pious you are and how religious you are
and how dedicated you are. What did the Pharisees do? They lengthened their phylacteries. They stood in the street corners
and offered up long flowerly prayers. What for? They loved
the praise of men more than the praise of God. They gave the
appearance of being sorrowful, just like that Pharisee that
went into the temple and prayed to himself, God, I thank Thee
that I'm not like other men. If our sorrow leads us anywhere
other than to God, it's not godly sorrow. It's not godly sorrow. If it leads us to wallow in the
shame and guilt of our sin in some attempt to do penance, it's
not godly sorrow. Now godly sorrow doesn't mean
that, well, you know, God brought me to a sorrow for my sin and
I know that I've repented of it because I'm never going to
do it again. I've heard people say that. You know, you can be
sorry for your sin, but if you're not sorry enough to where you
quit it altogether, then you haven't been given godly sorrow.
I would challenge you to define one sin that you have quit altogether
in your heart. In your heart. We know that God has given us
a repentant spirit when he's turned our minds and hearts back
to himself. Whatever God does has one purpose
and that's to lead us back to him. How do I know if a trial
or trouble in my life is from the Lord? Now we know He's the
first cause of all things, but how do I know that He's got His
hand on it? If you resent that trial, God doesn't have His hand
on it. If you just resign yourself to
that trial, You say, well, you know what? We'll be, we'll be.
I'm just gonna have to suffer through it and this soon will
pass. That hasn't led you to God. If
you are able to rejoice in the Lord in the midst of that trial,
then that's a work of grace. That's a work of grace. God sent
that trial to cause you to come back to him. Say, what about
a material blessing? How about a material blessing?
You hear people say, well, you know, they've gotten, you know,
the Lord's really blessed them and they've given them all this
material wealth. If that material blessing that
you are enjoying has inspired pride and self-righteousness
and stinginess in your heart, it's not from God. It's not a
blessing. If God gives you a blessing and
it causes you to be grateful and humble and generous with
what God's given you, then that's from God. See, you can discern
whether or not repentance is from God, whether or not a trial
is from God, whether or not a blessing is from God, whether or not your
grace is from God. If the grace of God causes you
to come to the conclusion, well I, you know, where sin abounds,
grace does much more bounds, so I'll just send all the more
in order that I might get more grace. Then you've misunderstood
grace. That grace is not from God. Grace leads us to Christ. It leads us to Christ. You see,
everything that God does in your life and in my life is for one
purpose, and that's to bring us back to Himself. And if it
accomplishes that end, then it's of the Lord. If your repentance
spirit has caused you to bow before Him, then that's godly
sorrow. It's godly sorrow. If grace gives
you a license to sin, it's not God's grace. If grace causes
you to use your liberty as a cloak of
maliciousness rather than a servant of God, then it's not God's grace.
Whatever God does has one purpose, and that's to bring us back to
God. If our repentance takes us anywhere other than to Christ,
it's not godly sorrow, it's worldly sorrow. People read the scriptures. The
Lord said to the Pharisees, you study the Word of God because
you think in them you have eternal life. People read the Bible because
they like to have more knowledge. Knowledge puffs up. They like
to compete with their peers. They like to think that they've
got some theological understanding that other men don't have. If
that's the benefit that the Bible has been to you, then it's not
been used of God. These are they which testify
of me. In the volume of the book it is written of me. If you read
the word of God or hear the word of God and it leads you to Christ,
then that's of God. Everything God does in your life
and in my life, trials, blessings, repentance, faith, if your faith
leads you to have faith in your faith, If your faith leads you
to anywhere else other than looking unto Jesus, who is the faithful
one, then it's not of God. Everything God does is for one
purpose, and that's to bring us back to Himself. And if it
doesn't bring us to Him, it's not of God. Look at We'll close with this
verse. Look at verse 10. For godly sorrow
worketh repentance to salvation. Repentance is a changed mind. They were, according to the things
that Paul said in the first letter, they were puffed up. They were
not sorrowful. They were not repentant. They
were proud and self-righteous. And that's the things that he
dealt with them about. And so he was afraid that they wouldn't
receive this letter very well. And now Timotitus comes and says,
oh no, God has broken their hearts. He's given them a changed mind.
That's what repentance is. To salvation. Christ is our salvation. So if the Lord changes our minds
to point us to Christ, then it's godly sorrow. It's godly sorrow. But the sorrow of the world,
the sorrow of shame and piety and self-righteousness and lawmongering,
all those things lead to death. The sorrow of thinking that,
you know, I'm going to do better, that leads to death. The sorrow
of thinking that, well, I can quit that. I can stop that altogether.
I'm not going to have that sin in my life anymore. It leads
to death. Godly sorrow leads us to Christ. For behold, verse 11, this selfsame
thing that you sorrowed after a godly sort. Here's the evidence
that your sorrow was of God. You had great carefulness. Now
that word means to make haste. That means to have an urgency
about needing to get to Christ. In other words, you didn't hear
the message of the gospel and think, well, you know, I'll take
care of that tomorrow. I'll put that off to another day. The
evidence that it was godly sorrow was the carefulness that God
put in your heart, making it an urgent matter that you could
not put off. You had to deal with it right
now. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the accepted time. I've
got to come. That's how I know it's godly
sorrow. He has caused me to not be able to make any excuses or
put it off to another day. Clearing of yourselves. You see
that? Here's another evidence that
God's done a godly sorrow in my heart. Now the word there
is apologetics. It has to do with what one says. How are you going to clear yourself? You're going to take sides with
God against yourself. You're going to speak the truth.
You're going to say the right things. You're not going to make
excuses for your sin anymore. You're not going to blame anyone
else for it. You're going to speak the right
words. That's what clearing yourself
does. If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
you of your sins and cleanse you of all of your unrighteousness.
And that word confess doesn't mean that you make a laundry
list of your sins and you try to identify each one of them.
No, it means that you speak the same thing about your sin that
God speaks about it. What does God say? Here's what
He says, your righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Everything
about you is sinful. Amen, Lord, that's the truth.
And I've got an urgency to come to Christ because I can't produce
any righteousness. Indignation. Indignation. That means that my spirit has
been vexed over the ministry that the Spirit of God has done
in my heart. He's caused me to mourn over
my sin. He's caused me to hate my sin.
He's caused me to say, Lord, I am vile. I do loathe myself. I'm not going to lie there in
my loathing and try to do some sort of penance in some sort
of self-righteous way, but my spirit's been vexed over my sin.
That's how I know that I have godly sorrow. Fear. The fear of God is the beginning
of wisdom. This isn't a slavish fear. It
isn't a cringing. Adam feared God, didn't he? How
do we know that Adam's sorrow was not godly sorrow? He ran from God. He hid from
God. Godly sorrow always brings us
to God. This is the fear of God that
causes you to make haste in getting to Him, in faith in Christ. That's how I know that God's
done a work of godly sorrow. He's vexed my spirit over my
sin. He's caused me to say the right
thing. He's given me a spirit of urgency and haste and earnest. And He's given me a vehement
desire an earnest longing. Lord, I don't want to be mediocre. I need Christ. I've got to have
Christ. This is not an option for me. Now that's the ministry of the
Holy Spirit. We'll do everything in our guilty
conscience to try to manufacture godly sorrow and it will be worldly
sorrow. Lord, I need you to bring me
to a godly sorrow that will manifest itself in carefulness, clearing
of myself, indignation, fear, vehement desire, zeal, zeal,
and revenge. Now that word revenge means to
make a proper judgment, to make a proper judgment. They were
puffed up over their sin in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and now they are making
a proper judgment about their sin, they're mourning over their
sin. Though they've been brought by the grace of God through the
preaching of the gospel to godly sorrow which leadeth to salvation. Alright, let's take a break.