Bible Verse: 2 Corinthians 7:1, 4, 8-13
Full Sermon Transcript
Pastor Chris Paavola:
WARM UP
Pastor Chris Paavola:
That intro makes me want to watch Game of Thrones, the edited version.
WELCOME
Anyway, good morning again. My name is Chris Paavola, senior pastor here at St. Mark. Really good to be with you guys as we are in this kind of middle of the series called Four Healthy Churches. And the reason we’re doing this series is we want to look at what are some of the essentials of a healthy church by looking at four biblical examples. Because health doesn’t just happen. It takes intentionality, it takes a little bit of a hard work and discipline. And you can be, I mean, you can be a church that has all the right theology, has all the right programs, but something is unhealthy in the culture of a church, just like a family. You can be in all the right schools, you can have the right job, live in the right neighborhood, but the family, something in the family is dysfunctional or toxic.
And it’s true of a church as well. And so we’re a healthy church. We want to continue to be a healthy church, but that just means that we got to be vigilant and on guard against certain things. And so that’s what we’re talking about in this series. Week one, we talked about how a healthy church shares the responsibility, right at especially as we grow the same people who got us to where we are, can’t be the ones who get us to where we’re going. We need to continue to organize this church in Jerusalem and share the responsibility. And so many of you guys stepped up and have stepped up to serve in different ways. Thank you for volunteering the way you have. It’s awesome. It’s awesome. And if you haven’t heard from the church yet, you will. We had a lot of people to contact and only so much time in the week to do that.
So be patient with us. But thank you guys for stepping up to serve in the ways that you have. And then in week two, we talked about a generous church that a healthy church is a generous church like this church called Macedonia. And we talked about how generosity is more than giving money, but it certainly is not less. And that generosity is this lifestyle for us, and we will continue to be a generous church so that we can be healthy. And then that leads us to week three here. That’s where we are. Week three. I’ll say this though, quite unintentionally, just in hindsight, looking back at things, all three of these weeks so far are kind of a response to something. So week one was a response to growth and there’s too much going on. So we respond to that by organizing. Week two was responding to a need out there in the community. And so we need to be generous towards that need. Week three here, what we’re responding to is sin.
TODAYS TOPIC
And I know that when those words leave my lips and hit your eardrums, that there is a lot of emotional baggage when it comes to churches talking about sin, right? I get it. And especially because there’s a lot of different ways that a church can respond to sin. And when we say the word sin, I know that especially if you haven’t been to church in a while, you’re like, oh, they do talk about this. This is not going to be fire and brimstone, I promise you that. But the idea and the topic of sin. So for our working definition today, I know that I can’t get everybody to be on board with what is sin and what is not sin, but just for our working definition of sin, for a moment, for today’s discussion, it’s missing the mark. And I like that. Look, when you read the Bible, sin is missing the mark of what God intends.
It’s like there’s a really big target and we’re aiming at it and there’s a really small bullseye and we miss it no matter how good we are. We never quite hid it. And I think the reason I like that definition is everybody can resonate with that. Everybody in this room knows what it’s like to fall short of your standards for you. You don’t even do what you want yourself to do, let alone what mom and dad want you to do or your boss wants you to do. You fall short of and you miss the mark on others’ expectations of you and your own expectations of you. And so it would stand to reason that we do miss the mark on what God expects of us. I mean, he’s God, he’s holy, imperfect. Of course we’re going to miss that. We’re imperfect. Nobody’s perfect. And scripture talks about God.
It says that his ways as the heavens are above the earth soar his ways above our own. And that’s not just like his wisdom is above us, but as far as heaven is from where we are right now, when you look at the stars at night, as far away as that is, that’s how far away perfect is from us. The picture of God, I know we think of father and child and but the distance between us and God is not like a father to a child. It’s like the distance from you to a goldfish. It’s just that big of a chasm between. And so of course we fall short. He’s perfect, he’s holy. And that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing or that we should stop trying. It’s just that’s what sin is. And the question becomes how does a healthy church deal with your sin?
I mean, I’ve seen a lot of unhealthy churches and maybe you could tell me about some of them. And in fact, if you grew up with a church that had an unhealthy reaction to sin, thanks for giving us a chance this morning, but you can be overly permissive and tolerant. That’s okay. You just wink smile. Jesus loves you. Or you could be all the way over on the other extreme and Westboro Baptist with picket signs and bullhorns, railing against sinners, legalism. So the question is, what does a healthy church, how does a healthy church respond to your sin? And fortunately we have a picture of that. That’s this church in this place called Corinth, modern Day Greece, 2000 years ago. And we’ve got two letters to the Corinthians. The Apostle Paul writes two letters. First Corinthians, second Corinthians, first letter, second letter. And what’s kind of neat is what prompted the first letter is their sin.
And what prompted the second letter is their reaction to that sin. And so we see how a healthy church deals with sin and okay, now some of us might be feeling really pious this morning. So this is just a warning to plug your ears or whatever. Or if you’re sitting with a little kid, just kind of do one of these over their ears because here comes the sin in Corinth.
CORINTH BACKSTORY
Okay, here’s the sin in Corinth. Ready? There is a man in Corinth, probably a leader in the church who is having an open incestuous affair with his father’s new wife.
It’s so shocking and scandalous even to that pagan culture, which shocks Paul even more, is that they are proud of this sexual deviance. And he’s like, are you kidding me right now? And it says they’re proud of it and it’s open and they’re just kind of letting it happen. And he’s like, are you kidding me right now? How could you possibly do you know what this is going to do? And Paul describes this, just allowing this to happen, like yeast working its way through dough. We don’t make a bread by hand in our culture, but they did. It was very common. And a pinch of yeast, you’d work it through the dough and it works its way through the whole dough. And he’s saying that’s what will happen if you continue to allow this in your church. We don’t make bread anymore. Some of us do, but all of us do know what Play-Doh is.
There’s debates you can tell me later. You can Google this when Play-Doh was invented, but I think it’s like in the fifties. Okay? So I think all of you have played with Plato at some point, right? Play-Doh, it’s fun. You make little snakes, guns, helicopters out or rainbows, something less violent, I Don’t know. Anyway, so you got this Play-Doh and you’re playing with it, but the problem with Play-Doh and every parent in the room is like, oh yeah, it’s because it doesn’t just come in one color, it comes in multiple colors. No, no, no. Brian, go back. I was going to give them viewer discretion because there’s OCD people in this room who are about to see Play-Doh colors mixed and they’re going to absolutely cringe. So if you aren’t able to look at this image on the screen, if you’re a parent who’s triggered by this, look away. But here’s what the Play-Doh is not allowed to look like in my house is not No, the Play-Doh, we don’t mix the colors. I can’t handle it because you open the blue jar of Play-Doh and it’s a gray brown blob, right?
Because what happens just a little bit of red works its way through the whole lump of dough, right? That’s what Paul means. He’s like, if you guys continue to allow this sin in your midst, it’s going to affect all of you. And this runs so counter-cultural to our individualistic way of thinking. We are Americans, we celebrate Independence Day. We are in an individualistic culture, but anyone from a collectivist culture, a communal culture who comes to America, they’re like, oh my goodness, you guys are selfish. We are so self-centered. It’s about us. It’s so hard for us to wrap our minds around that allowing this one thing in one of us, that it affects all of us. That a little bit of yeast will work through the whole dough. That a little bit of red Play-Doh will affect the whole blue Play-Doh. We can’t even wrap our heads around it. We think, well, it’s his choice what he does. Sure, it’s his choice, but Paul is saying it’s not just his consequence. What he will do affects all of you.
It’s what he’s saying. Okay, maybe I can’t get you there. Maybe you’re pushing back and going, it doesn’t make any sense. I’m my own person. Okay, but can we at least admit that what you personally do doesn’t un affect us, that we’re affected by you somehow? You aren’t in a silo. And Paul is saying is that the health of us is contingent or the health of this church in Corinth is contingent on how they deal with this guy. To the point that he says these words, take a look. He says these words to this church in Corinth. Nope, go back. That’s second Corinthians. There you go. You have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who’s been doing this and he follows it up and he says these words,
“Expel the immoral brother from among you.”
1 Corinthians 5:13
That doesn’t sound very loving. I thought churches were supposed to be hospitals for sinners.
And Paul is saying here that we got to expel the immoral brother. And here’s my other problem with him saying that if we’re supposed to expel the immoral, sinful person from among us, then this room should be empty. There shouldn’t be anyone here.
TWO WAYS TO RESPOND TO SIN
Well Tammy, you can be here. You are the perfect one. Tammy. You can be here and Shirley, you can be here, but everyone else got to go. You’re a bunch of sitters. You can’t sit down. You getting coffee? Okay, okay, it’s getting coffee, but we shouldn’t be here if we’re going to expel the immoral brother.
That’s why we can’t just read this with a broad stroke and a sledgehammer. There’s nuance to what Paul is saying here. Let me invite you into some of the nuance and then give you a little bit of more of the story of what happens. Okay? First of all, we think this guy or there’s a good likelihood this guy was a leader in the church and leaders are held to a higher standard and they were hesitant to confront a leader on his behavior. So if I take a bunch of money from the offering plate, I shouldn’t be your pastor anymore. Leaders are held to a higher standard first of all. Second of all, the goal is not to cast this guy out. The goal is not to purge the sin from our midst and that includes the sinner. The goal is reconciliation and reunification because when Paul starts out, second Corinthians, so remember first Corinthians is prompted by the guy’s sin.
Then they deal with the sin, and then we get second Corinthians. It seems like this guy changes his way. He does because of how second Corinthians starts. And notice the goal isn’t excluding this guy. The goal is welcoming him.
7 Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him.
2 Corinthians 2:7-8
He says in second Corinthians two verse seven, you ought to forgive and comfort him so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you therefore to reaffirm your love for him. Welcome him, include him, bring him back into fellowship. And so the goal is not to purge the center, it’s to somehow care for the health of the body.
And that kind of brings us to how churches respond to sin. We tend to think in kind of a two dimensional way. And really this is like three dimensional if not more. We go from one extreme to another. A few weeks ago I talked about grace and truth, full of grace and truth, not part grace, part truth, just all of it. But there are churches that are just full on grace. It’s okay. Jesus loves the sinner. Come on in and we wink at it. It’s not that big of a deal. It’s over tolerance and it dilutes and pollutes the power of the gospel. It’s kind of like, welcome back. It’s kind of this, we welcome you. It’s okay. This is cheap grace, discount rack, grace, transactional Jesus. We get his forgiveness, but it doesn’t really affect change in our life. It is justifying the sinner and inadvertently justifying the sin enablement.
I don’t have to tell you that’s unhealthy. It is. Maybe you’ve been at a church like that. That’s unhealthy you guys. That’s an unhealthy response to sin because what happens, people eventually just waltz their way to an eternity apart from God. Sin consumes us. It corrupts us. Why tolerate it? Then there’s the other extreme, we’ll call it out. Expel the immoral brother from among you picket signs and bullhorns legalism and we’ll scorecard Christianity. And we see you do wrong. Oh, we’ll forgive you, but we’ll remember you’ll always walk around with the scarlet letter A and that’s an overcorrection into just this disciplinary, confrontational addressing of sin. And you just feel guilty and shame all the time. Some of you have been in churches like that. I’m glad you’re here. I don’t need to tell you that is also unhealthy. Once again, it sends people into an eternity apart from God with guilt and shame. They don’t want to deal with that. But this church responds differently.
8 Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it – I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while – 9 yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance.
2 Corinthians 7:8
Yes, grace, yes, truth, but there’s like this other word and it’s this word that we got to unpack and we find it in our reading two Corinthians chapter seven, verse eight. “Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter.” So, the first time I wrote it, “I don’t regret it”though. I did regret it. So it was like he typed the message, hit send, and I was like, oh, I shouldn’t have said that. I overreacted. Paul wrote this letter, handed it to courier. The courier walks out the door, heads over the horizon, and Paul’s like, oh, I can’t get those words back. Maybe I was too hard on them, but I said what was true? Said what was right was like he says, I did regret it, but ”I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while now I’m happy not because you were made, sorry.
That’s not why I’m happy. I’m happy “because your sorrow led you to” say it:
Response: Repentance
REPENTANCE
Pastor Chris Paavola: for you became sorrowful over the sin and over the way you responded or failed to respond to this sin, you became sorrowful as God intended. And that word repentance, I know we need to unpack this word because it’s a word that we don’t really use anywhere else, but church, it’s the only time and place that we use this word. And once again, there’s some nuance, this word, and I think most of us have a misunderstanding in of it in English, it has this etymology or the language of it, the makeup of it. You see penitence in there, repentance. So it’s like this idea of contrition and penitence, and I’ll get into why that’s kind of a misnomer in the language Paul is writing in as Greek, and I don’t say this to impress you or anything like that, but he uses this word metanoia, which means to change our thinking and our action about this thing, the word repentance. Okay? Let me ask you, how would you define this word?
How would you define the word repentance? You’re sorry, saying you’re sorry, feeling bad, changing your actions. Now we’re getting there. Yep. Right? You feel like that was a group process. All of a sudden we got repentance. Listen is not feeling sorry for our sins. That’s confession. And confession and repentance are different words, sorrow over what you’ve done. You feel that and you can respond to that one of two ways, but once you confess your sin, it is forgiven. Repentance is the grateful response to forgiveness. Repentance is grateful. Repentance is joyful. Repentance in a true definition is a 180 degree turn and heading in a new direction. It is a U-turn. It’s not just stop doing that, it’s stopping doing that and doing this instead. Confession is the words. Repentance is the action. Do you see the difference? And we conflate the two all the time and repentance.
REPENTANCE IN SCRIPTURE
When you buy a new car or you get a pre-owned car or whatever, and then all of a sudden on the road you see that car everywhere. It’s the same with this word repentance, my friends. Once you understand this nuanced understanding of like, oh, it’s turning away and pursuing, instead, all of a sudden you see how often repentance is used throughout the Bible in the Old Testament, the prophets over and over. You can’t find a prophet in the Old Testament that doesn’t talk about repentance.
Take a look, Ezekiel, “repent and live.”
“Repent and live!”
Ezekiel 18:32
Jeremiah “turn now every one of you from his evil ways” and pursue righteousness.
“Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way….”
Jeremiah 25:5
Zacharia return to me says the Lord of hosts again and again.
“Return to me, says the Lord of hosts…”
Zecheriah 1:3
This is the cry of the prophets. Turn away from your wicked ways and pursue God instead. And buckle up buttercup. It’s not just in the Old Testament.
You get to the New Testament and they keep talking about repentance. John the Baptist begins his sermon before Jesus steps on the scene. He prepares the nation of Israel for Jesus. And the first words out of his mouth are “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
“Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near”
Matthew 3:2
And then Matthew says, the first words Jesus speaks in his first sermon are “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
“Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”
Matthew 4:17
Turn away from what you have been doing. Seek justice, seek mercy, seek forgiveness. Seek his righteousness above all things. And Peter, the first sermon of the church, Pentecost, as the church is standing there and everyone’s standing there wowed by what the Holy Spirit is doing, he looks around, he’s like, Hey guys, “Repent that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”
“Repent that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”
Acts 3:19
Turn away from what you have been doing and do this thing instead.
Pursue this instead. That’s the picture of repentance. And Martin Luther looking back, and he looks at the Bible and he sees repentance in the Old Testament, repentance in the New Testament. And he’s like, oh my goodness. And so when he goes up to start the reformation that shaped western civilization, he goes up to the church, the doors of a church in Wittenberg, Germany, and he’s nailing 95 complaints against the Catholic church to the door. He starts, he’s correcting the abuses of the church thinking that we can earn forgiveness. And he’s like, all of this talk that you’re doing about what you can do to earn it is not supposed to be what we’re doing to earn forgiveness. Everything that we do is in response to his forgiveness. And he starts the very beginning of the 95 thesis. “He says, the whole of the Christian life is one of repentance”, repentance.
And I think if we saw that, and I hadn’t given you all of this disclaimers before I read that and I started this morning by telling you the whole of the Christian life is repentance, you’d be like, oh my goodness, that sounds miserable. I don’t want that on your website. The pictures of people are smiling. That sounds miserable. And that’s why we need a nuanced understanding of this word, repentance and how it’s different than confession. Repentance and confession are difference. Yes, we should feel sorrow when we fail to meet God’s standards. When we miss the mark, yes, we should be broken about that. We should have tears running down our cheeks and beating our chest and rendering our hearts, confessing to God our sins, but we shouldn’t stay there.
That sorrow brings about confession, and God forgives us in Christ. God has forgiven you. Jesus has paid the penalty for all the sins you’re confessing and he forgives you. So now in gratitude, in grateful response, repent from those things and pursue the things of God instead. And if you have an image of your mind of repentance, of Mother Superior holding a ruler and scowling at you in love, let me suggest that you stop letting Hollywood define what repentance looks like. If you want a picture of repentance from Hollywood, it’s ebenezer’s scrooge on Christmas morning running through the snowy streets of London in his pajamas, throwing money everywhere. Laughing. Repentance is joyful because look at what you are pursuing.
If you are still in sorrow, as you are repenting, you are thinking about yourself. You’re not thinking about God, you are thinking about what you did wrong, not what God did, right? You are still thinking about the sins that his grace forgot. You’re not thinking about his grace that forgot it. Stop dwelling on what you did and start dwelling on what Christ did for you. That is repentance.
GODLY SORROW
And that’s what Paul says as he wraps up this little section of Corinthians.
10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. 11 See what this Godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.
2 Corinthians 7:10-11
He says, “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret.” Look at that. Godly sorrow brings you somewhere, but it brings you to confession and forgiveness. And then in response, he repents. And that leads you to life. Abundant salvation. “Worldly sorrow brings death.” The world keeps score. The world is conditional. The world cancels you when you slip up and they put it on blast, not God in Christ.
“See what this godly sorrow has produced in you, what earnestness, what eagerness,” what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what zeal, “what readiness to see justice done.” Repentance is so full of joy when you look at the words that produce that sorrow. It’s not fun. Confession isn’t fun. I get it. Take a look at some of these words. Okay? These are just a few sins that I chose. We should confess our pride. The way you make yourself the center of everything and you think so highly of yourself, you should confess your doubt that God is who he says he is and can do what he says he can do. You should confess your idolatry. Anything that you put on the throne ahead of God, anything that you make your time and your energy, the thing that your wallet and your calendar says is the most important thing to you, you should confess that that’s your God.
You should confess lying, and you are a liar. Not just little white lies. You lie all the time. You should confess your theft and not the way you steal. You should confess your adultery, your lust. You can’t watch TV or get on social media without images being shown to you. You’re an adulterer. You should confess your envy. You look at what other people have and you want. It’s so bad. You are so tight-fisted and greedy with what you do. Have you gossip about others, you slander them. You are hateful. You are. And you allow overindulgence not just in alcohol. You overindulge in things all the time, and you are so unwilling to forgive others. You are a sinner and you should confess these things.
You should be expelled from our midst for doing those things. But God in Christ has forgiven you. He’s paid the penalty for all of your sins. And now look at the antonym of those words, the opposite, the things that you pursue, the 180 degree you turn pursuit in another direction, joyful repentance. Instead of doing those things, stop them and pursue instead. Humility, not pride, trust not doubt. Worship, not idolatry, honesty, charity, faithfulness. Pursue these good things, these things that you want for you. Contentment, gratitude, encouragement, kindness, self-control and forgiveness. Look at that list. Those are the things you want for you. Those are the words you want to be used to describe you. But the reason those words are so elusive to so many people is the words you have to go through to get there. The only way that you can become more charitable is to recognize that you are uncharitable. It’s so hard to become what we want to be. And it’s so rare because we have to be willing to admit what we are sinners.
And you want those words. Those are the words God calls us to. And today, I want to be a healthy church. I don’t want to just give grace to our sin or confession to our sin. I want to bear fruits of repentance pursuing the good and the godly together. And so I want to give us a chance to confess our sins. And I get it. This is hard. Brings up images of going to the confessional and letting a priest scold you. But look at what’s on the other side. God’s grace in Christ is forgiveness. And these great words that you want for you, I just wrote this. I love confessing our sins after I preach. And you all feel bad because it goes from a confession in general to confession in specific. There’s teeth to it all of a sudden. And so my friends, let’s confess these words together.
PRAYER
God, I am a sinner. I confess to you all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended you and justly deserve your temporal and eternal punishment. I confess the sins I’ve done and the sins I’ve failed to do. I confess the sins I know are sins. And the sins I don’t know are sins. I confess my pride, my doubt, my idolatry. I confess my lying, my cheating, my stealing. I confess my adultery, my envy, my greed. I confess my gossiping, my hatred, and my overindulgence. I confess my refusal to forgive. Take a moment and to silently confess the sins that God is bringing to your heart and that are producing a godly sorrow within you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
But we’re not done now that you confess your sins, we don’t stay there, right? We don’t stay there. I love this part. As a representative of Jesus to this congregation as your pastor, it is my joy and honor to announce the grace of God to you. All of your sins have been laid on Jesus, on the cross. All of your sins are forgiven. I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but we don’t stay there. Now we repent. Now we put action to our thoughts and our words. Now we do the 180 turn from what we have done, the U-turn, and we pursue the God pleasing and God honoring things that His righteousness and his justice and his mercy, we pursue the things that He wants for us and that we want for ourselves. And so I invite you to pray with me and declare in prayer what it is we pursue instead, as we say together in grateful response to your forgiveness, I repent of these sins. Help me pursue humility, trust and worship. Help me pursue honesty, charity and faithfulness help me pursue contentment, gratitude, and encouragement. Help me pursue kindness, self-control, and forgiveness. In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen.
I love the picture of repentance that we see in the New Testament. There’s a man named Zakia. He’s convicted of his sins. He confesses his sins and then God forgives him. And in grateful response to God’s forgiveness, he repents. And he says, if I’ve cheated anyone, show me. And he runs around the town, paying back people 10 times. What he took for them shows up in his actions. And in just a moment, you have an opportunity to give Zacchaeus and grateful response to what God has done. It don’t be motivated by guilt, but in grateful response. We collect our offering. Volunteers, you may come forward as.
