Join for our live streamed Sunday School (9:30am) and Worship Service (10:30am). You can view them HERE.

Paul’s Bigger Purpose

2Corinthians: Paul's Most Underappreciated Epistle

Nov 17, 2019


by: Jack Lash Series: 2Corinthians: Paul's Most Underappreciated Epistle | Category: NT books | Scripture: 2 Corinthians 7:12–13

I. Introduction
A. I love this epistle of 2Corinthians.
1. Nowhere else in Scripture, at least that I can think of, do we have this hashing out of relational struggles there for all of us to see. These are real people, with real struggles. It’s as if we are privy to part of the conversation where the two parties are working out their differences.
2. And what a privilege to be able to listen in. It’s not just interesting, but it’s inspirational and instructive. The apostle Peter pointed us the example of Jesus (1Pet.2:21), but only Paul was inspired by the HS to tell us to imitate him as He imitated Christ (1Cor.4:16; 11:1).
3. There are so many good lessons here about love.
B. Paul wrote at least four letters to the church at Corinth. We have only two, but in those two Paul mentions the other two. The third of these four letters was a severe letter of rebuke Paul wrote after an aborted visit to Corinth. He waited very anxiously for his friend Titus to return from delivering the letter. And when he finally got the good news from Titus, he was very relieved and encouraged.
1. Paul experienced hardships and sufferings which probably surpass all of our troubles combined.
2. But He whose heart is kind beyond all measure gives unto each day its part of pain and its part of pleasure, lovingly, mingling toil with peace and rest accordingly to what He deems best. -C.Berg
3. And how precious to Paul was the comfort God gave Him. In a world aplenty with sorrows, how sweet it is when God brings comforts and joys like the one Paul experienced when Titus showed up in Macedonia to report about how the Corinthians responded to Paul’s letter.
C. And at that point he penned the letter we call 2Corinthians. And he reflects on this in our passage.
1. 2Cor.7:12–13 So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God. 13 Therefore we are comforted. And besides our own comfort, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.
II. 12 “It was not for the sake of the one...who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God.”
A. Paul is referring to himself here. He is “the one who suffered the wrong.”
B. Paul’s explanation here shows that in writing the severe letter he was not driven by a sense of justice, determined to make sure that punishment was meted out on the man who opposed him, nor was he driven by a desire to protect his own honor. He was driven by a desire for reconciliation.
C. Severe as it was, he didn’t write the letter for his own sake. He wrote it for them.
D. Specifically, Paul wrote the letter to try to help them remember/rekindle their love for him..
1. Even though they were acting distant and disloyal toward Paul, in Christian love he still believed in them, and thought the best of them. He was confident that deep down they still loved him and had an allegiance toward him – even though apparently even they didn’t realize it. And his confidence proved true.
2. You see, their love for Paul was the key to their willingness to listen to and learn from Paul. And the truth Paul taught them was their key to eternal life and their church’s key to its existence as a Christian church. So Paul was eager for them to love him — not for his sake but for their sake.
III. This is so instructive to us!
A. It may seem obvious that when you truly love someone, it is not all about you.
1. But it is amazing how much love takes place which is really all about the lover not the lovee.
2. It is so easy to love selfishly, to have relationships for one’s own sake.
B. You see, it’s easy to convince ourselves that we love someone because we care about them and we do a lot of things for them. But in reality, we are doing things for them in the same way we put coins in a vending machine. No one puts coins in a vending machine for the sake of the vending machine. They put coins in the machine because they want to get something from the machine. And the only reason they care about a vending machine is because they want something from it.
1. This isn’t true love, is it? I may SAY I love my car, but I don’t love my car for my car’s sake, but only because of what it does for me. That’s not true love.
C. This happens in so many spheres of life.
1. Ministry: doing ministry for yourself
a. Being in ministry means being in the people business. And it’s easy for people who are engaged in ministry to feed off of being engaged with people, and end up doing ministry for themselves.
b. “They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, 6 and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues 7 and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.” – Matthew 23:5–7
c. Obviously we don’t want to say that it’s wrong to enjoy ministry. But it’s easy to do ministry for attention or for admiration or in order to be loved, or in order to feel better about yourself.
d. And when you don’t get attention or admiration or love then you feel cheated.
2. Marriage
a. So many people get married in order to be loved, not in order to love.
b. And they spend their married lives trying to get their spouse to love them the way they want to be loved. It’s not about the Lord, it’s not about the marriage, it’s not about the kids, it’s about me.
c. There’s a lot of feeling cheated, and instead of working to help your spouse become what they need to be, there’s a lot of complaining that they aren’t. It’s not only unproductive, it’s damaging.
3. Parenting: loving your children for your own sake.
a. Our children aren’t for us. It is closer to the truth that we are for them, though ultimately we are all for the Lord.
b. Many parents devote themselves to their children, but it’s really all about them. They want someone to love them.
c. Godly parenting isn’t about being loved, it’s about loving. And as they grow up, kids can tell whether you really love them or whether you actually just love yourself.
d. This doesn’t mean it’s wrong to want your children to love you. It doesn’t mean you don’t try to train them to love you. But you want them and train them to love you because loving you is good for them, not because you need it.
e. It’s OK to be sad when your child doesn’t love you. It’s not OK to be offended, or cheated.
f. You see, parents love children more than children love parents. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be, because parents play the role of God/Father, and children play the role of God’s children.
4. It can easily happen with friends as well. You think you’re a very loving person, but so much of it is just for yourself.
5. But to me the big question here is: How can Paul be like this? How come Paul was so filled with the love of Christ? Paul grasped the love of Christ in a way most of us don’t.
a. And when we think we need the love of others, when we think we need their approval, their affection, their attention, it’s because we don’t grasp the fullness of Christ’s love for us.
b. How did Paul grasp it? Unlike most of us, Paul didn’t have to learn how unworthy he was over a long period of time. He pretty much got it all at once at the beginning of his Christian life.
c. Think about that time when God’s love first dawned on Paul’s life. Do you think he thought that that love was possibly a result of what good person he was – even a little bit?
d. Think about who Paul was. Paul was a mass murderer – of Christ’s precious people, the ones God says are the apple of His eye, the ones Jesus says if you cause them to stumble, it would be better if a millstone were tied around your neck and you be cast into the sea! (Matt.18:6)
e. And then Love came to town. But why? Of all the people who could be the objects of God’s love, why Paul?
f. If ever there was a person who knew he was loved purely and completely by grace, it was Paul.
g. But we are different. We don’t grasp the grace of God as well because we don’t grasp our sin as well, we don’t grasp how undeserving we are as well as Paul did . We still have some confidence in ourselves; we still look down on people at times; we still sometimes get shocked at what people do, as if we could never do that; we still haven’t sinned enough to come to the end of ourselves.
h. And so, our positive self-assessment can get in the way of our appreciation of Christ’s amazing love for us. My view of my own sin and the grace of Christ has expanded enormously over the last almost 49 years. But I am far from where I need to be.
IV. Some of our loved ones are going to break our hearts, just like Paul’s spiritual children in Corinth broke his heart. Many aren’t prepared for it when it happens. But Paul shows us how to respond.
A. And the first thing to do when faced with rejection or betrayal or watching a loved one self-destruct is to remember that God is still God, and that there’s life and joy and hope in Christ no matter what.
1. Our happiness can’t be dependent on nothing heart-breaking happening to us.
2. Think about Job. Think about Joseph. Think about Paul. Think about Jesus. And many others.
3. They experienced calamity — but much good came out of it.
4. Friends, I’m not saying you should be fatalistic and just expect that everything in your life is going to be tragic. God is very kind, and He gives us many pleasant things.
5. But sometimes He allows us to experience heartbreak.
6. Many in this congregation have already experienced it – or are experiencing it.
7. Don’t just hope it doesn’t happen to you. That’s building your house in the sand and hoping that the storms never come (Matt.7:24-27).
a. Build your life on the Rock. Spend time with Him. Listen to Him speak to you in His word. Think of yourself as a soldier getting ready for war.
b. Give your loved ones to the Lord every day, and pray, “Your will be done.”
B. The second thing is don’t give in to the temptation to give up on people. It hurts to keep hoping.
1. When Paul describes love in 1Cor.13:4, the first thing he says about it is that it is patient. He goes on to say that love is not provoked, it does not take into account a wrong suffered, it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
a. Here in 2Corinthians Paul is demonstrating the kind of love he taught about in 1Corinthians.
2. We treat relationships so cheaply, as if they’re disposable.
3. We give up so easily. We don’t believe in the power of God to work to repair – maybe even through us. We don’t believe in the power of God to change a person through our persistent love.
4. I don’t mean that you keep pressing even when it offends the other person.
a. There is a time to be silent. We see that even in Paul. And in 1Pet.3:1-6.
b. Sometimes fighting for someone else involves leaving them, it means giving them space, it involves staying at a distance – not because you’re irritated but because they’re not ready.
c. But keeping distance can also be a cop out, a way to avoid addressing the hard subject.
5. In the world they fight in relationships. But in the body of Christ we are supposed to fight FOR relationships.
6. It would have been easy for Paul to give up on the Corinthians. He had shown them so much love and yet they had treated him so disrespectfully, even tolerating (and probably listening to & being influenced by) a man ("the offender") who opposed and slandered Paul ("the one offended").
7. But Paul did not give up on them. He was willing to fight to the death for their faith.
8. This reminds me of a parent with a teenage child who acts like they have little regard for the parent. The parent who takes this personally and responds in bitterness or offense is only going to make matters worse. The parent who assumes that below the surface there still remains some appreciation and affection for the parents, and who therefore continues to love and reach out and confidently appeal to a deeper reality in the child will often discover that the child’s aloofness is not all there is.
9. It’s so easy to think the worst instead of the best, to transfer people to our black list, to demonize them. It helps us justify our unloving attitude. E.g. my experience on CMR.
C. Our friends, our children, our siblings: the people in your life should know that we of all people will love them no matter what. They should know that we will compromise our convenience, our preferences, even our finances, for them, but that we will never compromise what we believe in order to get them to love us or approve of us.