Bible Guys Classics: 2 Corinthians 7

Well, Jeff, today we're talking about Paul's joy at the church's repentance. Yes, this is a big challenge to us, and I think maybe if we can learn to apply it, our lives would be so much better for sure. So he's Chris and I'm Jeff, and we're the Bible guys. All right, Jeff, So we have another segment today and it is dad jokes. So you and I both have not looked at this, and so we just decided that I'm going to just read them to you. Just read them, right, this is brand new to us. Yeah, So we're just gonna read them and hopefully, by the way, people hear these and they use them in some sort of setting and they think of us. Which, by the way, we're kind of dad joke aficionados. Oh yeah, sure, yeah, I text dad jokes to you sometimes. Yes, you do. All right, here we go. There's five of these. Excuse me. Number one, who was considered as the smartest man in the. Bible, Oh Solomon? No, Abraham because he knew a lot. Oh no, okay, there's a Sunday School joke for you. A lot was Abraham's nephew. Yes, yes, he knew a lot. Yeah, that's funny, right, Okay, it was really bad, really bad. It was a churchy one. These are all churchy? Actually, how come they didn't play cards on the arc? Oh? I don't know, because Noah was standing on the deck. Oh great, No, I'm not even gonna laugh. At These are bad. These are terrible. Where's the where is the Bible? Where in the Bible is the first mention of a tennis match? Oh? I don't know when Joseph served in Pharaoh's court? Oh no, these are really bad. These are okay, okay, okay, okay. Noah most likely got milk from the cows on the arc. What did he get from the ducks? I don't know. It's so stupid, So he got dumb I don't know. Quackers? Oh no, these are terrible. Yeah, these are these are whoever chose these? Goodness? Okay, here we go, all right, we're gonna blame. We're gonna blame Kyle or Deserte, Yes for sure. Okay, number five, that was quacker. It's so bad. Okay, how about this one. How do we know Peter was a rich fisherman? A rich fisherman, I don't know by his net income? Oh no, yeah, these are really bad. Yeah. I think all of his income was net income, wasn't it. Yeah? I think so. Yeah. I don't think he did anything besides Casta's nets or mend his nets. There you go. Yeah, well I'm glad. I'm glad that's over those over Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay, So, if you grew up in day school or if you grew up in church, and you know, maybe you liked him. I don't know. Do you remember do you remember the one who's the smallest person in the Bible, No, Peter because he fell asleep on his watch? Oh wow? Do you ever see that one? No? That was pretty bad too. So many bad puns and jokes like that. Okay, anyways, we need to move on from that one. Yes, that was we need to recover. That was rough. Well, we're going to read the rest of chapter seven, and here Paul is just expressing his joy at the fact that the church repented. Yes, but I want to say, do you remember we're reading along in chapter two of this book, tewod Corinthians and he goes, and I really wanted to go come and visit you, but I had to go to Macedonia, remember right? Yeah? Then the last five chapters was him chasing rabbits other things. And now verse five is so anyway, right, and now he's back to talking about Macedonia. Well, it's the Middle Eastern way of talking about things. Yeah. So in other words, we generally when we communicate, we do it linear, right, we go from point A to point b. But in the Middle East, and even today, people sort of talk around the subject. So they'll sort of talk all around it. And so Paul in this letter, keeping in mind that Corinthians wasn't chapters and verses, it was a letter, and so yeah, for him, it was just a few paragraphs ago, right, right, But for. Us it's like four pages, five pages, right, And then he goes, so anyway, verse five. When we arrived in Macedonia, there was no rest for us. We faced conflict from every direction, with battles on the outside and fear on the inside. But God, who encourages those who are discouraged, encouraged us by the arrival of Titus. His presence was a joy, But so was the news he brought of the encouragement he received from you. When he told us how much you longed to see me, and how sorry you are for what happened, and how loyal you are to me. I was filled with joy. I'm not sorry that I sent that of your letter to you, though I was sorry at first, for I know it was painful to you for a little while. Now I'm glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways. It was the kind of sorrow that God wants his people to have. So you're not harmed by us in any way. For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There's no regret for that kind of sorrow, But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death. Just see what this godly sorrow produced in you. Such earnestness, such concern to clear yourselves, such indignation, such alarm, such longing to see me, such zeal, and such readiness to punish wrong. You showed that you have done everything necessary to make things right. My purpose then was to write about who did My purpose then was not to write about who did the wrong or who was wronged. I wrote to you so that in the sight of God you can see for yourselves, how loyal you are to us. We have been greatly encouraged by this. In addition to our own encouragement, we were actually delighted to see how happy Titus was about the way all of you welcomed him and set his mind to ease. I had told him how proud I was of you, and you didn't disappoint me. I've always told you the truth, and now my boasting the Titus has also proved true. Now he cares for you more than ever when he remembers the way all of you obeyed him and welcomed him with such fear and deep respect. I'm very happy now because I have complete confidence in you. So he's saying, you know, hey, I didn't come down to you. I did wind up having to go on to Macedonia. But Titus came, and he came and encouraged me while we were discouraged. And I think that that's interesting. He said, you know, we had battles on the outside and fear on the inside. So we've talked a lot about his courage, and we've talked a lot about his struggles and his physical confrontations. He was, you know, stoned with stones and he was you know, shipwrecked, and he was beaten for his faith and arrested and imprisoned and all those things, and it seems like he's a superhero when we talk about it from that perspective, and he says, you know, we had battles on the out side and we were terrified on the inside. Yeah. Well, people, you know that we need never to forget that courage is not the lack of fear. Courage is being fearful and going. Through with it anyway, doing the right thing anyways in spite of the fear. Right. Yeah, So he isn't superman. He just has the courage to take the next step, to do the next thing that he's supposed to do, just do the next right thing. And I think that a huge part of courage, a huge part of bravery, is just simply that one foot in front of the other, do the next necessary thing, regardless of what the outcome might be. And if you do that next thing, you know, fifteen steps down the road, you look back and go, wow, we came through a really tough one there. You know, it's funny that you just said one foot in front of the other, because I just watched the claymation of Santa Claus is coming to town. Oh, there you go, and you know that's all. Yes, put one foot in front of the other, that's right. And yeah, we just we just watched it last night. That was not what I was thinking, but yes, yes, but hey, it's a great principle. Yeah. Hey, when I was going through cancer, I knew that I didn't have any control over the circumstance, and so I just kept telling Bonnie and my friends, you know, I don't know what's going to happen next. I just have to go to the next doctor's appointment, right, I just have to go to the next test. I have to go do the next thing, and then next thing, you know, I'm having this dangerous surgery. And that was scary, but you just do the next thing, and then when you get through it, you look back and go, I can't believe I've come all this way. And that really is I think what real courage is as opposed to you know, we tend to think of courage as that one instantaneous decision to jump on the grenade. And while that's incredibly courageous, normal everyday courage is not that it's just doing the next necessary thing in the right way. Yeah, hey, that's really good. Yeah yeah. And by the way, you know, you know, you always imagine yourself to be courageous, you know what I mean, And you always think, man, if I was that person, I would I would I would have jumped in front of the you know whatever. So I remember one time I was working at a car dealership and I was doing a test drive with some guy and he was driving and I was, you know, the salesman in the seat, and he got in a car wreck, the massive car wreck. Massive, Oh yeah, for sure. And and the air bags go off. They burned my arm, by the way, chemicals and all this, right, and and so just boom, every air bag goes off. Well immediately the chemicals look like smoke. I don't know if you've ever seen that scene, but it's really chemicals in the airbag, and it sort of like puffs up and it comes out. Anyway, the point is the car filled with this white chemical that looked like the car was on fire. Right, So anyway, we're getting this big wreck. I unbuckle my seatbelt and I run across the street thinking the car is going to blow up. And then and then I look over across the street. It's only him and me, right, there's nobody else around, and he is there and his seat belt is stuck, so I said, I said, hurry up, I said, the car is gonna blow. And he goes, he goes, my seatbelt stuck. And you would think that I would run over and I would just help him, right and risk my life because I thought the car was on fire. But instead I started yelling, hit the thing, hit the button. I was. I was like, good luck, you know, good luck with that. And in that moment, I remember, you know, it was all over, and I realized it wasn't on fire, and I thought to myself, I can't believe I was that person, and I like to go split second, yeah, but I did not run toward the flaming car. Well, note to self, right, I'm gonna I'm just gonna file that one away. If you get in trouble with Chris, you're on your own. Well, you know, save yourself. Hopefully it was a lesson and I have changed that a new man, hopefully, because it's stuck with me all these years later. I'm like, well, what, I'm like, what was that? Yep? It was hilarious. So we'll keep going here. Titus is one of Paul's associates, and one of the things we learned about leadership from Paul is Paul did not just only depend on him and his own influence. Paul was willing to develop and train and send out other people to represent the message that they were spreading, right, and so he learned to delegate, and he learned to trust other leaders that he had helped develop, and Titus being one of them. Not only that, but you can read through this passage he's kind of expecting the Corinthian Church to respect Titus in the same way that they would show respect to Paul. So Paul's not saying, oh, you know, you should give me extra respect. He's saying, man, it just brings me great joy that you respected and listened to and followed and obeyed Titus like you would me. And I think that's incredibly important that he's not elevating himself above all of his other workers or partners, but he's saying, hey, you know, whether it was me or whether it was Titus, you're honoring, you know, the teachings that are coming there, and that's really important. It's just an interesting side because The main point is Titus came back with a message saying, hey, remember that really harsh letter you wrote to the Corinthians, Well it changed their lives, right, And Paul's like right. And you know, it's interesting because Paul wrote, believe to have written four letters, and the letter that he's referring to actually is not First or Second Corinthians. It's it's a third letter. It may not be, it may not be. Yeah, So it depends. And if you believe that First and Second Corinthians are two books, three books or four books, right, right, So it may be when he he had you know, four or five chapters rate in a row where he's kind of smacking them about the fact that they're allowing sin in the church and the way that they're mistreating their bodies and you know, all these things. So that could be the one where he's kind of smacking them on that or not. But so some theologians think it it's the lost letter. But yeah, we just don't know. Yeah, I would say I would say probably most that I've heard through the years believe that there are lost letters. Well, if First Corinthians wasn't the harsh letter, then how harsh was this lost letter, oh for sure, because I mean First Crinthians. He just smacks them up the whole time, right right, Yeah, So remember. That Babylon v thing read it was so good. So anyway, so when he's referring to he was referring to that and he says, hey, you know, I know it caused you pain, and I'm glad I send it now, not because it hurt you, but because it caused you to repent. So he said, that's the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow, because worldly sorrow leads you to death because it has no hope in it, it has no repentance, it has nothing of God in worldly sorrow. But godly sorrow is something that contains with it something you know good. And then and he just says, you know, it actually carries with it all the different things, and he unpacks that idea and he says, you know, godly sorrow has led you to repentance, it's led you to you know, commitment, all these different things. And I think that that's a that's a good that's a good point because sometimes when we read scriptures we can see that. Obviously, when he's talking about Macedonia and and letters. All of this is pretty much like circumstantial. In other words, it's meant. It's meant to be between Paul and them. There's not really too much application you can really grab from that other than the things we've sort of pointed out. But when he says, hey, let me tell you about the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Now, this is something that connects directly to something that's true today. It's true of God, and it's true of his followers experiencing God. And so therefore we're like, oh, here's a piece of information that has to do directly with us, and so godly sorrow is a good thing. Well, we live in a society today where everybody's so easily triggered that it's shocking that it's an acceptable thing here. That Paul confronted them about their sin and expected them. Knew that it would cause pain, he said, didn't want to cause you pain. Matter of fact, I kind of regretted writing a letter for a minute. But what I knew is that pain would cause sorrow, and that sorrow then would hopefully cause you to repent, so worldly sorrow being Oh, I feel bad that I got caught or I don't like the consequences of what happened. That's worldly sorrow as opposed to godly sorrow, which leads to repentance. Repentance means I changed my mind, I change my behavior, I move away from myself and back to God. Right, that be godly sorrow. And so you know there is something about this that as parents, the consequences to our children's bad behavior has to exceed the benefits of the bad behavior, right, which means it's going to cause sorrow. There's going to be weeping and wailing. They're going to be crying about the fact that you said no, or that there's a consequence that you know, they didn't do what they're supposed to do and now there's a consequence to it. They're going to act like you're killing them, right, that it's a single worst thing ever, or teenagers slamming doors and yelling, you know, at you and stuff. But the goal is not to punish for the sake of making them shamed or whatever. The goal is that godly correction, good correction always leads to changed behavior, change mind, change behavior. And it's not just when somebody comes back and says I'm sorry I'm sorry needs to be measured against what are you sorry for? Are you sorry because you got caught, Well, then that's not real repentance. Are you sorry because you don't like the consequences, Well then that's not real repentance. You have to come to a place where you've changed your mind, You're changing your will. Your will is changing. And that's the responsibility of parents with their children. That's the responsibility of leaders with their followers. That's the responsibility with pastors with their church members. That's the responsibility. That's what God does with us is His goal is to change our heart and our will to align with his. Yeah, so we love the Life Application Study Bible. And one of the notes down here talks about how Paul affirmed the Corinthians for the right response for the correction that he had given them, and he said, it's difficult to accept criticism, correcttion, and a rebuke with poison grace. It's much more natural to be defensive and then counterattack. We hear criticism, we respond with self pity and self justification, thinking we really don't deserve it. And then he says we can be angry and resentful, and he says, but a mature Christian should graciously accept constructive criticism, seriously evaluate it and by the way, that's really important, and then grow from it. And by the way, I also want to read. Another note that's pretty cool is in verse nuver ten. He says, sorrow God wants us to experience can result and change behavior. But to many people sorrow. To many people, they're only sorry for the effects of their sins, for being caught, which is world to sorrow. And then he goes on he says this compare Peter's remorse and repentance with judases, bitterness, and active suicide. Both disowned Christ, but one repented and was restored to faith and service. The other did not. Great example, isn't it. Yeah. I can remember a few weeks ago we were in a meeting and I don't know why. I was just been out of shape the whole day, feeling just mildly grumpy about everything. Marry this probably, and I popped off about somebody who wasn't in the room. Remember, So I'm just frustrated and I said some things that were not untrue. Sure, It's just it was something I should have directly addressed the person with instead of saying it in front of another team, right, And so you're like, dude, you're kind of being a jerk about this person that's not in the room. You know, well, I texted. You texted it to me. Yeah, And I'm like, well, now you're being a jerk right in my head, and why do I pay these people to tell me that I'm doing a bad thing? And then as I'm sitting there in that meeting, more and more where I'm like, oh, he's right, man, and I didn't want you to be right. And then finally, as I'm evaluating what you said, everything you said in that text was true, it was right, and you did it in a in a great way. You know, it wouldn't have been inappropriate for you to confront me in that moment in front of everybody, because I was misbehaving in front of everybody, but you did confront me privately, which was perfectly acceptable as well. And then as I sat through that meeting, more and more and more I went from being kind of mad that you confronted me, to well, he's mostly right, to dude, I shouldn't have done that, to oh, man, I'm sorry. Right in that course of that conversation, and I think that that's the benefit of having people that you can trust because I know you mean no damage to me. Ever, sure, and I don't mean any damage to you. I don't want to hurt you. I want everything that we do to be better. I want both of us to be more effective, all that kind of stuff, And so I trust you completely. You're not trying to hurt me. You're trying to make me better. And even though you gave me news I didn't like and kind of ticked me off, it was the right approach and it was the right thing to say and do. And any reasonable person, I'm not putting myself up there as being a godly person, but any maturing Christian person should be able to come to conclusion if they contemplated like it said, right, you have to accept constructive criticism, sincerely evaluate it, and then grow from it. And I think that that you know, that's where the Bible talks about iron sharpens iron. The only way that iron sharpens iron is through friction. Right, It requires a little bit of friction. Our goal, the goal in Christian life, the top core value of Christianity is not politeness, right right, right, And we're just afraid all the time of offending somebody, so we don't throw out those challenges. We we often don't do those things that are so necessary. But I need friends that will make me better. And I think that's what you did that day. I appreciate that. And look and look how amazing I am now. Right, finally, finally I'm complete. You are leap years and better. You know. I was actually talking with a pastor friend of mine who was a little frustrated with some of the leadership at his church, you know, And I'll definitely not mention any names, but basically here's what he said. He said that they believe their mission is to reach those who are far from God. And he made a comment and said, the goal is not to offend anybody. And he said, he said, so therefore, they're not going to release any statements of truth. They're not going to do these different kind of things, and they're just not going to take a stand on things that they believe are true because they're hot topics and things like this. And you could just hear the disappointment and the sorrow in his voice as he was sort of relaying this idea, and he says, yeah, some of those people in leadership and he quoted them and said, he says, our job is not to offend anybody of this generation. And you know, I mean, listen, I don't want to I don't want this to be a soapbox moment, but like, you know, thinking about people who are offended, you know, like you know, just you know, if the goal is to cater to people who are a part of cancel culture and you know, who are offended every in our trade in every way, like if we believe that that's the way to win somebody, like holy. Cow, No, it builds weaker and weaker people. Yeah, you know, a fence. The only way I can get better is for stress and strain, whether it's muscle or or learning to love people that are are less lovable, all those things. That's the only way I can get better. And it's I think of it this way. I was sitting in darkness and you turn the lights on. I needed the lights on because I wasn't seeing clearly. But you know, when you're sitting in the darkness and your eyes have gotten accustomed to darkness, suddenly light comes on. It's offensive. It's like oh for a second, until finally you can handle the light. And now you see clearly. Before you were seeing, you know, within a foot of yourself, and then the bright light comes on. You can see every nook and cranny. You can see everything in there. Life is better when you can see clearly. But when the light comes on and you've been sitting in darkness, it's a surprise. So I think we need to be compassionate and as gentle as we can, but we're speaking true truth with grace both. Yeah, that's right, that's right. Well, that's uh, it looks like we're out of time. So uh, that's a great place to end in some great thoughts. So we'll see you next time on the Bible, guys. H m hm hm