2 Corinthians 11 | Pastor Jeramiah Shipley

It is always fantastic every time I have the opportunity to be here and speak.

It is one of the great things I love doing. It is always a blessing. Let us pray.

Father God, thank you for your grace and your mercy, God. Thank you for the freedom to sing in your goodness and sing of your grace.

God, may today we be convicted, God. Lord, we pray that as we open your word that either conviction or conversion would be in every heart.

In your name I pray. Amen. October 31st.

For me, this is not Halloween. First, it is something

I love to call Reformation Day. I am very excited to be here and tell you all about this.

As you know, I am kind of a history nerd, so it is very important to me. The year is 1517.

This crazy guy, who some people call insane, his name is

Martin. Martin Luther was so crazy, people thought, because he had an obsession with being holy with God.

He knew his sin. He knew the law of God.

In understanding the law of God, he understood his sin in a great, great way.

Being a part of the Catholic Church, he thought he had to do certain things and live a certain way in order to get the grace of God.

The Catholic Church would not tell you that you are saved by your works. They would not say that.

But they would say that your works are how the grace of God are ministered or given to you.

It is just another way of saying that you are saved by your works. Luther knew this.

He did everything he could, like a madman, to live a holy life.

He would practice extremist asceticism. He would only eat bread and water and then fast, starving himself to death.

And when the German mountain winters came, he would refuse himself any blankets or warm clothing, refuse to go by the fire, thinking that forcing himself to freeze to death would somehow make him rely on Christ and become more holy.

This is the kind of weird stuff that he was taught through the Catholic Church and then actually did.

While all the other monks taught it and knew it and were just like, whatever, I'm not freezing to death. He had an obsession of, no,

God is real. God is a reality to me. I've got to be something else.

And so he had this crazy mindset. And it is the 506th anniversary of when he nailed those 95 theses to the church door and ignited a fire that was still burning today.

He started something that still is going today.

He challenged the Catholic Church, the great empire. I don't want to call it a church.

It was an empire. They brought up and brought down kings. They defied countries.

They were, in their belief, held the keys of heaven and hell.

And they had no challenger, no equal, no competitor, until a nobody, no name, nothing monk from Germany stood up and said,

Hey guys, I've got a problem here. In this same kind of heart, though he did some crazy things, if it was not for the grace of God, he would be right.

That kind of crazy obsession of having to live a holy life is what each of us should be doing.

If it was not for the grace of God. Pastor Jeff has been doing a series on grace.

And grace was the one thing that Martin had no understanding of.

Because he thought he had to do and do and do to earn, earn, earn. But if you earn grace, it's no longer grace.

If I pay you for the gift, it's no longer a gift. So, 2

Corinthians chapter 11. Paul here has a similar heart and a passion.

And I hope that you are convicted and see the kind of heart that we should have here.

2 Corinthians chapter 11, 2 through 4. This will be our passage for today.

For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed.

Or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received. Or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accept.

You put up with it easily enough. That last line does read a little weird in the

English. He's saying that you're already accepting these things. You're already accepting the other gospels and other

Jesus's. So, let us walk through this passage real quick.

It starts out by talking about the betrothal. The betrothal to one husband.

So, you need to understand the analogy he's using here. This analogy is common throughout

Scripture. So, you just need to understand it. The analogy of a marriage. And in the marriage, we have the isle here.

And in the isle, who walks the bride down? The father.

The father walks the bride down. And as they're walking down, what does the pastor say?

Who gives this woman to be wed? Her mother and I.

Right? And so there is a presenting. There is a presenting.

I present her. And I am literally, I think it's so beautiful.

These traditions, they have a meaning. Usually what happens is the father takes his daughter and literally puts her hand into his.

There is a handing over. And what Paul is saying is,

I am your spiritual father. And when I, as the father,

I want to betroth you to one husband. The husband is Christ. I want to give you to one husband.

And in this, I need to even, let me just take a second, give you this bigger cultural understanding.

At this time period, you know, the parents would help choose the spouse.

And we're like, oh, that's horrible. You know, arranged marriages, that's terrible. Well, just saying, best off track record, with our divorce rate, adultery rate,

I don't know that they had it all that wrong. Okay? Our divorce rate's really bad.

And I might note, divorce rate is no different in the church than it is in the world. It's pretty much the same.

So the whole concept of dating is atrocious. I can't stand it. And that's another conversation for another time.

But, a man and woman would be betrothed. And in this time period, a betrothal, an engagement, was legally binding.

So they started hanging out, and if they decided, you know what, I don't want to do this, we're done, they actually had to get divorce papers.

They weren't married, but it was legally binding. And then at some point, he would say, alright, good to see ya,

I'm out, I'm gonna go build our house. And he would literally, like Christ said, go and prepare a place for her.

And by the way, that's the place we are. We are betrothed, engaged, legally bounded to Christ, and he is preparing the place until he returns.

That's step one of the wedding. Step two is the return of the groom. And they wouldn't know when the groom's returning.

Generally speaking, they knew when he was coming, but there wasn't exactly texting and wifi around. Alright? And so, the bride had to make sure everything was ready, because he could pull up at any second.

He could be here any minute. I don't have Life 360 on my man. So he could be here any second.

And so she always had to make sure her makeup was ready, and the dress was ready, the lamp stands would stay lit in case he came at night, and she just had to always make sure she was ready.

You need to make sure you're always ready. You need to make sure that you are always ready, because you do not know when

Christ is coming. And you say, oh, well Christ isn't coming back right now because of this, that. Okay. You don't know when your death is coming.

Christ is coming, maybe not in his second holy righteous return, but he's coming to call your butt home.

Stay ready. And then the third step. So when the groom returned, he would return with this whole wedding party, right, all the groomsmen, and they would show up to the bride's house, and it was this huge celebration, and then they would like the bar mitzvah people, whatever, they would carry them in this great celebratory procession and parade all the way to the groom's house, and then they would have the ceremony there.

I was going to try and sing that like Hebrew song when they're carrying them, but I don't know it. That one, yeah.

And so this was the understanding. Now this is very important, because all through Scripture you see this analogy of marriage.

You see this analogy of us as the church being called the bride of Christ, and the groom is coming.

The groom will come back for his bride. He has not left you. He has not forsaken you.

He didn't forget about you. He is faithful and true.

You stay patient. You stay ready. And Christ will come. But Paul says here that he has a divine jealousy.

And when I was preparing this, I just had the thought, do you have a divine jealousy for anybody?

Are you a spiritual father to anybody? Do you have any disciples? Is there anybody that you have actually brought to the feet of Christ?

They've accepted Christ, and now you are walking them in discipleship through the sanctification of how to be a man or woman of Christ.

Because this is not for pastors. This is not just for the apostles. This is a thing for you to do.

Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ. So now I'm looking at his example. I'm reading scripture, and my question for me is, who do

I have this jealousy for? And if you don't know, let me just help you.

This jealousy is not bad. There is a bad kind of jealousy and a good kind of jealousy. If I find my wife with another man,

I am jealous for her. She is mine. I want her. That is perfectly fine and healthy.

There's nothing wrong with that. Me wanting something that doesn't belong to me, that's a bad kind of jealousy.

Pretty simple. But I found it interesting. I was studying this.

The word zealot, like zealous. And it actually has a physical connotation of water boiling.

So is your love and passion for a younger brother and sister in Christ boiling over within you?

Is it boiling? There's a movement. It's not static, still water. Your love and passion, desire for their growth is boiling and moving within you.

To put it crudely, you give a crap. You care about what happens to them.

If they fall away, do you just, oh, well, whatever. Or do you grab them and snatch them from the fire, as Jude says?

Snatch them from the fire. And it is a pure virgin to Christ.

That's what it says. I want to present you as a pure virgin. Unstained, untainted by the world.

Not corrupted. And you say, well, Pastor Jeremiah, you don't know my life.

You don't know what I've done. I'm way past tainted, man. Okay, I hear you.

But this is talking about your spiritual life. Anyone who's in Christ is a new creature.

New life. There is newness within you. Celebrate in the newness.

You don't have to be defined by your taintedness. You don't have to be defined by your addiction.

You don't have to be defined by your abuse or your victimhood. There is a newness in Christ.

A new birth. Celebrate that. Let that be what defines you.

Not the pain. Why would you let the pain define you? That's just sad for everybody.

Now, I found it interesting that Paul says, I am afraid. So he says,

I desire to present you to Christ, pure virgin, but I'm afraid that you have been deceived.

Now, after all of Scripture that we have read. Of Scripture saying, don't be afraid, don't be afraid, don't be afraid, for I am with you, don't be afraid.

Now, our great apostle is saying he's afraid. What is he afraid of?

He's afraid of that little one who he has the divine jealousy for.

The little brother or sister in Christ that you're working with and helping with. That they're going to be lost.

That they're going to be lost. You know that serpents are known for swallowing eggs whole.

They'll go find the eggs of another animal or even of another snake and swallow them whole.

In the same way, Satan desires to swallow the children whole.

Scripture says that Satan is like a roaring lion. Well, I'm going to change it for today. God forgive me.

He's like a roaring tiger. I thought of this and I said, you know what Satan's like? Satan's like Shere Khan from Jungle Book.

He's not going to wait for them to grow up and become a man. He's going to get them while they're a man -cub. While they're a little man -cub,

Shere Khan comes into the jungle to get them. This is why, if you know the parable of Jesus Christ, this is why the bird comes and gets its seed along the path.

This is why the sun comes and scorches the plant before its roots can get deep.

Satan does not want those roots to get deep. He does not want you to grow and become a man or woman of Christ to pick up that shield of faith and grab that sword of the

Spirit and go to battle. He'll get you when you're a man -cub. Fathers, protect your children.

If you're not teaching them Scripture, no one else will. You have to have that mindset. If I don't do it, it doesn't get done.

You have to have that mindset. If I don't do it, it doesn't get done.

I must be the leader of my household. I must teach my wife. I must teach my children.

Because if I don't do it, it doesn't get done. I teach at a private

Christian school. And it is commonplace for people to say,

When we don't go to church, school is our church. Oh my gosh. That is the lazy, weak, cowardice answer.

You're going to put the raising of your children's spiritual life into the hands of somebody else?

Every year, I'm afraid. When Paul says here, I'm afraid that Satan may have deceived you.

I have this fear all the time. Every year around graduation. When my youth leave.

And I always have to ask the question, Which one of them don't come back? Because every year, some don't.

And they're lost to the world. The pride and the lust of the life eats them away.

The deception of the world. And that's the next part. He actually says, by his cunning, by Satan's cunning, like Eve, He has led their thoughts away.

So I have two things for you. There are two ways Satan attacks you. He attacks your mind.

And he attacks your heart. He attacks your mind.

And he attacks your heart. Chapter right before this, 2 Corinthians chapter 10.

Am I doing something wrong here, Jeff? Okay. 2 Corinthians chapter 10.

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

Now I want you all to check this out. Verse 5. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion, raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey

Christ. Argument, opinion, knowledge, thought. These are all things of the mind.

All four of those are the battle and the war ground of the mind.

You have to guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4, 7.

That the peace of God will protect your heart and mind. Protect your mind.

What you think matters. What you believe matters.

The music you listen to matters. The shows you watch matter.

Because you will start emulating, yes.

You'll start emulating, but you'll start compromising. I took me a second to remember that word. I couldn't remember the word compromise. You'll start compromising.

You'll start bargaining of what is acceptable. Based off of the things you watch, the things you listen to, the things you read.

I have gotten off almost all social media, and people talk about when I'm going to give my kids phones.

I said, look, bro, if it's not good for me, it's definitely not good for them. Like, come on now. If it ain't healthy for me, it definitely is not healthy for my children.

Do not compromise. The things you put in your mind affect you.

What you believe about Scripture matters. But the second one is the heart.

There's a great quote from a Puritan pastor that says, temptations do not put anything into a man that is not already there.

Temptation. There could be a thousand temptations in front of you, but the one that catches your eye is the one that's already in your heart.

I've said this from up here before, guys. When we sin, we act like we're surprised. I didn't know.

Yes, you did. You know what makes your brain tick. You know.

You didn't have that thought for the first time, and then you acted on it.

Put all the church stuff away, man. Like, let's be real for a second. You have been struggling with that thought or that idea for days, months, weeks, years.

That's the reality of it. And then one day you're weak. One day, you know, you ain't read

Scripture in three weeks. You ain't prayed a lick. You haven't been to church because you slept in. You had an argument with your wife, and now you're like,

I just had no idea. Stop. Stop it. See, this is why accountability is so important.

This is why, not just going to an accountability meeting, but that true, genuine honesty of, hey, yo.

Don't just confess your sins. Confess your temptations. Confess your temptations, because that's how you prevent the sin.

Temptations do not put anything into a man that is not already there. 1

John 5 .19 says this, We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

You know what that means? If you're not a Christian, if you are not saved, this world has no weapons to fight against Satan.

None. There is not a single weapon, a single argument, a single fight that the world can put up against Satan.

They are in his power. They lie in his hands. But, two chapters before that, 1

John chapter 2, I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

The same evil, the same Satan, that holds the whole world in his hand, and they, right here it says in chapter 5, are powerless to, here we overcome.

Now, what's the difference? What changed in chapter 5 and chapter 2 from the world has no power to we overcome?

The word of God abiding in you. The word of God abiding in you.

Now, we can try and change things, and we can call it old fashioned, and we can call it, you know, whatever, but the same truth for 4 ,000 years is the same truth today.

You need the word of God. Being in groups and being in all these things are fantastic, amazing,

I support them. But without the word of God, you are still powerless. Without the word of God, your strategies of overcoming are nothing but temporary.

Or, it just trades one sin for another. You just trade one addiction for another.

You just trade one selfish desire for another selfish desire. One area of apathy to another area of apathy.

One area of laziness to another area of laziness. You're still lazy. You're still lazy.

You just, somebody kept complaining about this area, so you fixed that one, but you still slacked off over here.

You're still lazy. You just traded it for another one to try and get by, to get the wife nagging off of you.

And now the second to last line of this. When he says, let me read this again.

Make sure we're still on point. For I feel divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure version to Christ, but I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived

Eve by his cunning, we've already talked about all that, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

So we've talked about all that first part, and now that beautiful part, the sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

Listen, y 'all. Do not trade the simplicity of the truth of God's Word for some sophisticated pseudo -salvation.

The Word of God is not necessarily easy, but it is simple. It is simple.

It is straightforward. You obey Christ. Love Christ.

Love His Word. And you'll be good. I didn't say it was easy.

You're never going to hear me say it was easy. But it is simple. The simple, pure devotion to Christ.

He has shown you, oh man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?

Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with God. It's not complicated.

It's hard, but it's simple. Love the Lord your God with all your heart. And love your neighbor as yourself.

In doing this, you have fulfilled the law of God. All of the law is summed up in love.

Because love doesn't steal. Love does not lie. Love does not gossip.

Love does not murder. Love does not commit adultery. Love does not have an idol before God.

Love does not do these things. So in loving God and loving your neighbor, you fulfill the whole law.

When it says love is patient and kind, does not envy or boast, is not arrogant or rude, and so on.

This definition and this deep understanding of love, you have that kind of love for God.

You have that kind of love for your neighbor. I had two kids on my football team getting a fight.

And I'm the disciplinarian coach. That's my job, and I'm great at it. Oh, man.

A couple weeks ago, I had a kid on Monday, a kid on Tuesday, a kid on Wednesday, a kid on Thursday. I said, anybody else?

So these two kids are getting in a fight. And whatever. But they're getting in a fight.

So I'm like, all right, come on. And they're sitting there running. They're sitting there doing bear crawls. And my favorite one, it makes them cry every time.

I love it. They sit there, and they get a plank. And I say, all right, plank. Push -up position. Plank position.

Push -up position. But tears roll within 30 seconds. And the whole time, they had to say, we do not have to be friends.

We do not have to like each other. But we will love and respect one another. We do not have to be friends.

We do not have to like each other. Hey, you know, it's one of those things, guys.

It is not really an option. Scripture says to love your enemies. Some of you treat the person you sit next to as an enemy.

Guess what? You've got to love them. It don't matter. You don't got to like everybody.

You don't got to be friends with everybody. You don't got to hang out on the weekends. That's cool. But you will love one another.

I was talking to someone one time, and they said, well, I'm just not sure that I can forgive them. I said, well, I'm not sure that's an option. OK? Like, I'm sorry.

Scripture says if you do not forgive others, I will not forgive you. Tough. Like, I mean, you want me to read that a different way?

Or I can get an eraser out and try to erase it, but it ain't going to work. It's written in ink. If you do not forgive others,

God will not forgive you. You can sit and hold in your bitter and anger and resentment and let that eat away at your soul for however many years you wish, and you keep on trying it your way.

You keep on trying to be bitter, angry, resentful. Keep testing that one out. See how it works. Or you try it

God's way. Or you can say, I'm done trying it my way.

Let's try it another. If you do not forgive others,

God above will not forgive you. Last point.

This one is the Gospel. He says if you receive another Jesus, another

Gospel, a different spirit than the one you received. The same thing happened in the book of Galatians.

When people were trying to put more than the grace of God on someone.

No, no, no. You aren't good enough. You've got to dress better, man. You've got to look better. You've got to clean yourself up.

You've got to do this and that. I'm sorry. Can you find that verse for me? I tell people all the time, either scripture or I don't care about it.

If you haven't got scripture, your opinion means nothing to me. So you show me that verse which says that, and we can be cool.

But it ain't in there. The same thing was happening in Galatians. And Paul uses the most strong language he ever uses.

Strongest language in the New Testament. He says if you hear of a different Gospel than the one

I preached, even if it was from an angel above, even if an angel comes down, if it's a different Gospel, may they be anathema, meaning cursed of God.

May they be damned. Now, that's some strong language here, y 'all.

He's actually repeating. He says, I say again, in case you didn't hear it the first time, let me say it louder for the people in the back.

If you hear of another Gospel than the one you have received, even if it's from an angel, may they be damned and cursed by God.

I ain't writing the book. I'm just reading it. That's as strong a language as we can come.

Now, there are two kinds of people in here that I want to address. One, about 90 -something percent of the time, through the example of Christ and the testimony of Scripture, we are to be loving and kind, meek and humble, submissive, turning the other cheek, and live at peace with all men.

But there is, for the other side of that coin, for the other people in here, there's that small percentage of time when it's time for you to stand up.

When it's time for you to stand up and you fight that fight, and you fight that battle, and you go to war over that issue, the hill to die on.

When it comes time to die on that hill, you better be ready to lay the life down.

You can't back down from that fight. You can't back down from that one, y 'all.

Stand up for what's right. Speak up. And if you don't already have the devotion in your life beforehand, you won't be ready then.

You can't show up on fight day with no training and expect to win. You can't go to war and have never touched a gun.

Get familiar with your weapon. The weapon of our warfare is not flesh and blood.

You must be ready. When Christ went to the temple and He turned them tables over, they were upcharging.

How many of you, if I had a deacon at the door and said, ah, you've got ten dollars to walk in here, how many of you would just turn around and walk away and not even get out of bed this morning?

Can I get an amen? That's what they were doing. They were robbing and stealing from the people of God, and it was turning people away from coming to the house of the

Lord. People were refusing to go worship God and accept God because these selfish, arrogant people were being greedy.

When it came to that kind of gospel issue, Christ turned the tables over. He grabbed a whip and went to business.

Now that's a very small percentage of the time, friends. You don't reach for that every day.

That better be a rare, rare thing in the life of a Christian. But when it comes time, you cannot back down.

Do not be a coward. Stand up for what's right. Music people, please come up.

This was the attitude of our

Reformation father, Martin Luther. He did not back down from the fight.

He understood the penalty that was before him. Listen up, there's just people walking up here.

It's all good. Not but a hundred years before him, a man named

John Huss had said the same thing. Questioned the church in the same way.

And they burned him at the stake. They burned him alive. Now Martin walks up saying even more aggressive things, even challenging the church in greater ways.

And he stands before the great hall of the cardinals and bishops and princes of the

Holy Roman Empire. And not in some great bravado voice, but in the shaking strength, he says, unless convinced by sacred

Scripture or clear reason, then I am bound by the Word of God.

I cannot and will not or can't, for it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.

Here I stand. So help me God. But he stood.

As quakey and shaking that his voice was, with every fear in him, he feared the

One who can kill both body and soul. So, here's where I challenge you.

Do you fear God? Do you have the devotion in your life to stand up to have a backbone for the

Word of God? Or are you too aggressive and you need to learn humility and submission and what it means to turn the other cheek?

Are you too quick to draw the sword? Or maybe, you have zero divine jealousy.

When I said that, you had no idea what I was talking about, because you've never poured your life to anybody. You're like a spiritual miser.

You just read the Word of God and never share it, never teach it, never evangelize. You're a spiritual miser.

You're like a swab. You have all the stuff, but there's no movement, so it's just defiled and stinky and smelly.

Maybe you need to repent of that today. I don't know. Maybe today you just heard the

Word of God for the first time and it's time to repent and get right. Maybe what I said about you letting pain and resentment and bitterness and anger define you, maybe it's time to let that go.

There's not a thing in here that somebody else can't say, Amen, I've been there.

Let me help you out. Not a single thing. You ain't got nothing that we can't understand or relate to.

I don't care. I don't care. Now is not the time to be a coward.

Now is not the time to let fear define you. Now is not the time to let the emotions of the moment overwhelm you.

Now is the time to let your heart and mind, what you know is right, go do it.

If you don't have business down here, then you've got business with someone next to you. If you don't need to be down here repenting, then you need to have a jealous devotion for somebody else in here and pour your life out for them.

Whatever it is, may today be the day we get it done. I'm going to ask that you stand and join with us in the working of the