The Pastor's Love For His People

Is a singular delight for me to be here with you all on this special occasion. I consider Justin Peters to be a dear friend of mine, one from whom distance and responsibilities separate me far more often than I would like.

But when we do get time together, it is always a sweet and edifying time of fellowship, and I will say that you are all very blessed to have him here. And it's an honor for me, therefore, not only to preach the word of God as a charge to him at the time of his installation as an elder, but it is also a privilege for me to meet you all, who are the sheep of his precious flock.

He has come to love you and love serving you. You are precious to him, and because he's precious to me, you all are precious to me. My affection for you abounds in Christ as well, so it's a delight to be here with you this morning.

And my task this morning is to speak especially to Justin with respect to his calling as a minister of the gospel, and I will do that, but I also intend to speak to each of you because, as I'll say more about in a moment, you are all called, all of you, to be ministers of the gospel.

But as I considered the myriad of topics that might be appropriate to preach for an installation service, the call to the ministry, the call to holiness, the pastor's preaching labors, shepherding the flock, counseling, prayer, discipleship, my mind settled on the pastor's love for his people.

Love is at the very heart of the Christian life. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment in the law is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that the second greatest is that we love our neighbors as ourselves.

This was the new commandment that Jesus gave to his disciples, to love one another as he has loved us and so proved to be his disciples. In 1 John 5 .1, the Apostle John says, whoever loves the Father loves the child born of him, and we are his children.

Galatians 5 .6, Paul says, the only thing that means anything is faith working through love. The fruit of the Spirit is love. And in 1 Timothy 1 .5, Paul says, the goal of all of his pastoral instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

All of the tasks and responsibilities and functions of pastoral ministry are summed up in the love that a pastor is to have for Christ and therefore the love that that pastor has for Christ's flock. The Lord Jesus Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, and we who love him must love the bride that he loves.

Simon, son of John, do you love me? Well, then do what? Shepherd my sheep. When you love the chief shepherd, you will love his sheep, and when you love the sheep, you will find in that love all the motivation to care for them faithfully as a minister of the gospel.

And so, my mind finally settled on a passage that showcases the genuine love that a flock that God has entrusted into his care, and that passage is 2 Corinthians chapter 1, starting in verse 23 and running through to chapter 2 and verse 4.

And as you turn to that text, we need to be acquainted with the context of events that occasioned the writing of this letter. And a significant part of that context has to do with Paul changing his travel plans, something significant to me as I missed my connecting flight in Salt Lake City and spent six and a half hours in the airport, changing of travel plans on my radar these days.

But according to 1 Corinthians 16, Paul had originally planned to stay in Ephesus until Pentecost and then visit the Corinthians after coming through Macedonia. But after Timothy delivered the letter of 1 Corinthians, he found out that false teachers from Jerusalem claiming to be apostles were inciting a rebellion against Paul in the church at Corinth.

And so, Paul says, well, I'm going to go straight to Corinth from Ephesus. He figured his best shot at clearing up confusion and quelling this rebellion was to deal with it in person. But that's not how things turned out.

During that first visit, which he calls his painful visit or his sorrowful visit in 2 Corinthians 2 .2, Paul discovered that the conflict was not so easily solved. He found that the Corinthians were so deceived by the errors of these false teachers that they didn't rise to his defense and they didn't rise to the defense of the gospel when he and it came under attack.

And that broke his heart. His spiritual children, he calls them in 1 Corinthians 4 .15, whom he, as it were, birthed in the gospel, were being led astray by false teachers. And so, he traveled straight back to Ephesus from Corinth and he wrote the Corinthians what we call now the severe letter or the tearful letter based on chapter 2 and verse 4.

And in this letter, he sharply reproves them for failing to repudiate the accusations and the teaching of the false apostles. But the false apostles seized upon this. They accused Paul of vacillating chapter 1 and verse 17.

All these changes in travel plans show that Paul is just capricious and unstable. He says yes, yes and no, no at the same time. He purposes according to the flesh. He's guided not by the Holy Spirit of God, but by his own fallen nature.

You can't trust this guy. And so, it fell to Paul to defend himself and the legitimacy of his apostleship because to doubt Paul's apostolic ministry was to doubt Paul's apostolic gospel for the sake of the gospel.

And therefore, for the sake of the souls of the Corinthians, Paul sets out to vindicate his character in response to these false accusations. And part of that vindication includes a defense of his travel plans, of changing plans.

In chapter 1 verse 23 all the way down to chapter 2 verse 4, Paul explains that it wasn't because he was a coward who refused to face his detractors. It wasn't because he was a tyrannical manipulator who wanted to exert his power over the Corinthians.

Rather, he explains in this passage that it was out of love that he acted the way that he did. So, let's read our text this morning starting in chapter 1 verse 23. But I call God as witness to my soul that to spare you I did not come again to Corinth.

Not that we lorded over your faith, but our workers with you for your joy. For in your faith you are standing firm. But I determined this for my own sake that I would not come to you in sorrow again. For if I cause you sorrow, who then makes me glad but the one whom I made sorrowful?

This is the very thing I wrote you, so that when I came I would not have sorrow from those who ought to make me rejoice. Having confidence in you all that my joy would be the joy of you all. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote to you with many tears.

Not so that you would be made sorrowful, but so that you might know the love which I have especially for you. And it's in that final verse that Paul makes explicit the concept that he's elaborating on the entire passage.

His actions toward the Corinthians were motivated by love. Everything he did with reference to them was an expression of his deep fatherly pastoral love to them. And so what we really have here in this text is a clear example of what it means for ministers of the gospel to love those whom they're ministering to.

What does true pastoral Christ-like love look like between pastor and people? In this passage, we observe four marks of the minister's love for his people. Four attributes of the love that must characterize the ministry of the true servant of the gospel.

And the most immediate application of this text will be to Justin this morning, and I suppose to Rob too, but we're focusing on Justin, because I'm calling him to cultivate and manifest these four marks of the minister's love.

But I am also speaking to all of you, because as Ephesians 4 says, Christ gives the church pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry to the building up of the body of Christ.

The body of Christ is built up to maturity when the saints, the individual members of the church, are equipped to do the work of the ministry. So I'm here to tell you all this morning that if you're in Christ, you are all called to ministry.

You are all called to minister the gospel, both to the unbelieving world that needs to hear the gospel of forgiveness of sins in Christ alone, but also to your brothers and sisters in the body of Christ who need one another's help to put off sin and to put on righteousness and to pursue their joy in the magnification of Jesus Christ.

If you're a Christian, you're called to ministry, and this passage teaches you about the love that you are to have for those you minister to. Well, the first mark of the minister's love is number one, sensitivity.

Sensitivity in Pastoral Timing and Discipline

Sensitivity. Look with me at verse 23, but I call God as witness to my soul that to spare you I did not come again to Corinth. Say, now what does that mean? Well, look also at chapter 2 in verse 1. That verse sheds more light on this.

Paul says, but I determined this for my own sake that I would not come to you in sorrow again. Paul is saying that if he would have had to come to them again so soon after that painful visit, he would have most likely had to come exercising apostolic discipline against the church, which would have only resulted in sorrow for everyone involved.

And so he doesn't visit them again. He does change his plans, but not for the reasons the false apostles accused him of, not because he was fickle, not because he was an unstable, unspiritual man, not because he was indifferent to the Corinthians' needs, and certainly not because he was arrogantly posturing to show the Corinthians who's boss.

In reality, Paul's motivation wasn't self-focused at all. He changed his plans, he says, in order to spare the Corinthians the pain of another sorrowful visit. He says, I was thinking about you. I was thinking about your welfare.

I was thinking about what would serve most your joy and your spiritual health. That is pastoral sensitivity. You see, Paul was a wise shepherd. He wasn't fearful of wielding the rod of discipline, but he wasn't trigger-happy either.

He didn't wield that rod as a result of lashing back in anger. If he ever did it, it was with the intention of instruction and eventual reconciliation. Parents understand this, especially those of you with young children or those who've had young children at some point.

It's necessary to wield the rod of discipline with young children. And in those times when they've disobeyed significantly, in the moment, it's easy to want to discipline them out of anger. But you know that it won't serve them for you to just lash out.

That would only exasperate them. That would only drive them into further disobedience. Well, Paul was a wise spiritual father to the Corinthians. He was willing to wield the rod, but by delaying his visit and writing the letter instead, he mercifully gave them time to examine themselves, to consider what they had done, and by the Lord's grace, repent of what they had done.

Paul knew Proverbs 15 .23, how delightful is a timely word. He knew Proverbs 25 .11, like apples of gold in settings of silver, is a word spoken in right circumstances. And I say this teaches us many lessons, Justin, those of us who desire to be faithful servants of Christ's flock.

It is often necessary for us to bring correction, for an elder to bring correction, to those believers entrusted into his care. But that needs to be governed by a loving pastoral sensitivity, as Paul models for us here in this verse, because it's possible to give the right answer at the wrong time.

And when we do give the right answer at the wrong time, it's often because we are not being sensitive to the reality that our people, just like we ourselves, are still in progress, that they are still battling sin in their lives, that they have not yet been made perfect, and so they don't respond to the truth in the way that they ought to.

Now, that's no excuse for a believer to reject biblical correction, not at all, but it is a plea to those of us doing the correcting to be patient with those we're ministering to. You need to speak the truth in love, absolutely, but then you need to give the saints time to examine themselves in light of what counsel you've given them, time to search the scriptures and see if these things are so, time for the Holy Spirit to work in their lives and bring conviction.

You can't engineer any of that, and you can't write people off if they don't immediately receive your instruction and change course. Augustine, the 5th century church father, said, severity is ready to punish the faults which it may discover.

Charity, and we could say pastoral sensitivity, is reluctant to discover the faults which it must punish. Severity is ready to punish the faults it may discover. Charity is reluctant to discover the faults which it must punish.

Paul didn't make leadership decisions based upon what would be most expedient for him. He made those decisions based upon what would bring the greatest benefit to his people. And so you also, Justin, as you serve the body of Christ faithfully, you must consider others' interests above your own.

And so, the minister's love for his people is marked first by sensitivity. Second mark of the minister's love is, number two, servanthood. Servanthood, look at verse 24. Not that we lord it over your faith, but our workers with you for your joy, for in your faith you are standing firm.

And we see Paul's pastoral sensitivity at work even further here. He's just affirmed to them that he postponed his visit in order to spare them the pain of judgment. But he knows that his opponents will seize on that confession of love and consideration for the Corinthians and would twist it to suit their own ends.

It was to spare you that he didn't come. Well, that's nothing more than a veiled threat. Paul might as well have said, don't make me come and destroy you. Don't you see what a tyrant this man is? So, to make sure that he's not misunderstood, his words aren't twisted, he adds disqualification.

Not that we lord it over your faith. And what you have in that phrase is the repudiation of a domineering spirit. The truly loving minister of the gospel, the loving shepherd of Christ's sheep, renounces all forms of despotism, domineering, dictatorial power.

Paul has absolutely no interest in lording his apostolic authority over the Corinthians. He has no desire to micromanage and domineer and control people's thinking and behavior. Paul didn't have a problem with authority structures in the church, not at all.

He recognized differing roles. He prescribed submission of the people to their elders. But what Paul did have a problem with was lords in the church. Lords, plural. See, there's only one Lord in the church, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we see it in 2 Corinthians 4, 5, where Paul puts it plainly, we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. We're not your lords. Christ is Lord.

We are just your slaves. That's a spirit of servanthood. In Luke chapter 22, verse 24, the disciples begin to fight about which one of them will be greatest in the kingdom. Then in verse 25, Jesus puts it to rest.

He says, the kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who have authority over them are called benefactors. But it is not this way with you. But the one who is greatest among you must become like the youngest and the leader, the servant.

So you see that heavy-handed, domineering spirit, that's what marks the rulers of the world system. But in the kingdom of God, true greatness displays itself in the humility of servanthood. One more, 1 Peter chapter 5, beginning in verse 1, the apostle Peter writes, therefore, I exhort the elders among you as your pope.

No, that's not what he said. Therefore, I exhort the elders among you as the head of the church. No, that's not it either. No, therefore, I exhort the elders among you as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed.

Shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily according to the will of God, and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness, nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.

Now, if there were ever two men other than Jesus himself who might have a claim to the lordship over the church, it would have been the apostle Paul and the apostle Peter, and both of them unequivocally disclaim any lordly authority over the faith of individual believers.

There is one apostle and high priest of our confession. There is one shepherd and guardian of the souls of the saints, and that is Christ alone. And so, we who would claim to be ministers of the gospel in the service of Christ's people, we need to be on guard against that domineering spirit in our own hearts.

It's so easy for those who are gifted as leaders to fall prey to this temptation, and I've seen it more than once. You give a prideful and insecure man a title, a little publicity, and a bit of a following, and immediately he starts kingdom building.

He likes being the guy in charge. He likes being the one to make decisions. He likes being the one that everybody looks up to and reveres and respects. And before long, he becomes enamored with the glory of himself, and his ministry becomes less and less about the magnification of Christ and more and more about the preservation of his ego.

And so now, if anyone dares to contradict him, he makes sure everybody toes the line. He takes it as a personal assault to his personal kingdom, and he micromanages and he controls and he puts all his energy into increasing his power and broadening his influence so that people keep in line.

It's that sort of authoritarianism that marks just about every cult you'll ever hear of. But that kind of thing could not be further from Paul's mind when he speaks about sparing the Corinthians. Not that we lord it over your faith.

Not that we are your lords. We are your slaves. Martin Luther discovered that the Protestants were beginning to call themselves Lutherans, and he said this in typical Luther fashion. He said, what is Luther?

I have been crucified for no one. How did it happen to me that I, a poor stinking sack of maggots, should have someone call the children of Christ after my unworthy name? Not so, beloved friends. I am and wish to be master of no man.

I have, along with the community, the one universal teaching of Christ, who alone is our master. Luther understood this principle of servanthood, that we are not in this to make a name for ourselves, but to make Christ's name famous.

George Whitfield wrote in a letter, it's a little bit ironic to cite him for this quote, but he wrote, let my name be forgotten. Let me be trodden under the feet of all men, if Jesus may thereby be glorified.

And oh, how you should pray, Justin, for an extra measure of this spirit of servanthood, the repudiation of all ministerial lordliness, which is an oxymoron, minister, someone who serves, someone who gets under, not who lords over.

The true minister of the gospel delights to make the confession of John the Baptist in John 3 30, he must increase and I must decrease. John MacArthur has called that the first law of ministry. He must increase and I must decrease.

And so we must never forget that we are ministers and not masters. In fact, that's what Paul says in the next phrase. Look again at verse 24, not that we lord it over your faith, but our workers with you for your joy.

He says, I have no desire to control your every thought, word, and action. I'm just a fellow worker laboring right alongside you. And my goal is your joy in Christ, not my position in the church. He says the same thing in Philippians 1 25, convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith.

These verses teach us that the essence of all gospel ministry is laboring to increase one another's joy in Jesus. The essence of all gospel ministry is laboring to increase one another's joy in Jesus.

You say, wait a minute. I thought the goal of gospel ministry was to present every complete in Christ. Colossians 1 28. Well, yes, absolutely it is. But the nature of that completeness, that maturity, what it means to be a mature believer is to see Christ as he actually is in all the beauty of his glory.

To be so satisfied by him that every sinful pleasure in this universe is lost on you. No place in your heart because your joy is full, because your heart is satisfied with the glory of Jesus. When your joy is in Christ, you have no taste for the passing pleasures of sin.

You pursue holiness as your greatest treasure because holiness, friends, is where Christ is. That is spiritual maturity. The essence of gospel ministry is laboring to increase one another's joy in Jesus.

Say, wait a minute. I thought the goal of gospel ministry was the glory of God. Yes, absolutely. But there is nothing that makes God look greater. There's nothing that glorifies him more than for sinful people to forsake the pursuit of their happiness in sin and to seek all their happiness, all their joy, all their satisfaction in the person of his son.

Nothing magnifies the worth of God more than when his people can have him and be totally satisfied such that they desire nothing else. Joy in Christ is the essence of spiritual maturity and joy in Christ is the essence of glorifying God, and so joy in Christ is the essential goal of all gospel ministry.

One commentator captures this when he writes of this passage, so far from wishing like some despot to oppress and subjugate the Corinthians by the relentless imposition of authority, Paul desires to be a helper of their joy, that is, that he may assist them to arrive at that state of unclouded communion with God and fellowship with each other in which their overflowing and constant experience will be, 1 Peter 1 .8, one of joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Another commentator defines that joy as a deep, durable delight in the splendor of God that utterly ruins you for anything else. It is a whole-souled savoring, he says, of the spiritual sweetness of Jesus that drives out all competing pleasures and leaves the soul to rest content with the knowledge of God and the blessings of intimacy with him.

Justin, this is why Christ has given you to this church. This is what you are to do for these precious sheep allotted to your charge. You are to order every aspect of your life to do whatever it is that you have to do so that your people can see and know and enjoy more of the Lord Jesus.

And that's not just true for pastors, that's true for every last one of us who name the name of Christ. We must order our lives to put the loveliness of Christ on display. It means we need to ask ourselves, okay, what is it that I'm doing?

In every aspect of my life, what can I do to put the loveliness and glory of Jesus on display? How can I think? How can I speak? How can I act? How can I live so that people see that the greatest joy imaginable is to be found in Jesus?

That, dear brother, is what it means to love people as a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. To truly love someone is to labor, to do whatever it takes that has to be done to bring the beloved the greatest good and benefit that they can have.

And everybody's greatest good and benefit is to find eternal joy and satisfaction in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who can say from the depths of their souls, may his name endure forever. May his kingdom increase as long as the sun shines.

So we don't lord it over the faith of the people of Christ. We don't seek to domineer and rule and subjugate. We lay down our lives as their slaves so they might find their joy in Jesus. A faithful minister loves his people and that love is marked first of all by sensitivity, marked secondly by servanthood.

Mutual Joy and Satisfaction in Gospel Ministry

The third mark of the minister's love is, number three, satisfaction. And by using the term satisfaction, I mean this. True biblical love consists in the sharing of mutual joy, of seeking one another's joy as one's own.

True biblical love consists in the sharing of mutual joy, of seeking one another's as one's own. Where do I get that? Look with me at the first verses, first three verses of chapter two. But I determined this for my own sake that I would not come to you in sorrow again.

For if I cause you sorrow, who then makes me glad but the one whom I made sorrowful? This is the very thing I wrote to you so that when I came, I would not have sorrow from those who ought to make me rejoice, having confidence in you all that my joy would be the joy of you all.

Paul's elaborating on what he said in verse 23, that it was to spare them that he postponed his second visit to Corinth because he didn't want a repeat of the painful visit. He didn't want to come before they had time to repent and then have to come with a rod and punish unrepentant sin.

That, he says, would not have tended to their joy. But here we learn that though Paul's change in travel plans was out of a consideration for the Corinthians first of all, they weren't the only ones he was trying to spare from sorrow.

Listen to it again. But I determined this for my own sake that I would not come to you again in sorrow. For if I cause you sorrow, who then makes me glad but the one whom I made sorrowful? This is the very thing I wrote to you so that when I came, I would not have sorrow from those who ought to make me rejoice.

Paul's just repeating over and over again that his concern is that he would not be made sorrowful and that he wouldn't lose his means of gladness. You say, isn't that selfish? Well, if that's selfish, then Paul has gone absolutely crazy.

He has entirely forgotten what he's trying to accomplish as he's writing, namely to convince the Corinthians of his love for them. He's now finally letting down his guard and showing his true colors. He's just a self-seeking manipulator.

No, that's obviously not what's happening here. And that means that we learn from this passage that there is a way to pursue your own joy and at the same time in that very pursuit, love people. And that is when you pursue your joy in their joy, when you seek the happiness of others as your happiness.

Listen to the way Paul reasons. If I came to you with a rod of discipline, I know that that was going to cause you sorrow. And how can I be happy if you're afflicted? Unless my visit causes you joy, it can bring no joy to me.

You see, their sorrow is his sorrow. Their joy is his joy. And the great commentator Charles Hodge wrote, such was the apostles' love for the Corinthians that unless they were happy, he could not be happy.

You hear that? Such was the apostles' love. And so you see, friends, love is not disinterested benevolence. Love is not stone-faced self-sacrifice, no matter the cost, without respect to anything internally.

The point of love is not that we should go without some good things ourselves. Look at how much I loved you. I gave all this stuff up. No, the point of love is that we are willing to do whatever needs to be done in order to secure those good things for our beloved.

The point isn't our abstinence, our not getting those good things. The point is our beloved's happiness, them getting those good things. Maybe I have to lay them aside to get them to them, but maybe I can enjoy them with them.

It's a well-used illustration, but I can't resist. So imagine, men, that you come home to your wife one night with a beautiful bouquet of a dozen red roses. She sees you with the roses. Her eyes light up.

She smiles. She hugs you. She says, oh, they're beautiful. Thank you so much. What's your response, men? Don't mention it. Just disinterested. Yep, just doing my duty as a husband. Is that loving? No, why not?

Why not, really? Love is an action, isn't it? Right? I've dutifully performed the action of buying my wife roses to show my appreciation for her. Love is self-sacrifice, isn't it? I left work early. I drove 30 miles to the best florist I know.

Got the most beautiful roses I could find. How is that not love? It's sacrifice. Well, because love is more than an action. It's not less than an action, but it's more than that. Love is more than self-sacrifice.

Love is seeking your joy in the joy of another. So what's the right response? The loving response at the doorstep when your wife thanks you for the flowers. It's taking her in your arms. It's smiling back at her and saying, it is my pleasure.

Nothing makes me happier than to see you happy. Now, which one of you ladies hears that and says, makes you happy? This is all about you, isn't it? You're just so selfish. Everything's just all about your happiness.

No, none of you thinks that way. Why? Because even if we're not always perfectly conscious of it, we understand that love is having someone else's joy so inextricably bound up with your own joy that your heart, as it were, envelops their heart.

That their happiness is what sustains your happiness. This is the love that Paul had for the Corinthians. Their joy is his joy. And then at the end of verse three, he says, having confidence in you all that my joy would be the joy of you all.

In other words, dear Corinthians, your joy is my joy. I'm happy when you're happy. And everything in me is hoping that despite what these false apostles are trying to tell you, that my joy would be your joy as well.

That what would bring you the greatest delight is not my grief and my sorrow, but my joy. It's a two-way street. Paul says, I take your joy as mine and I want you to take my joy as yours. And what a beautiful picture that is of true Christian love.

And may God do a work in our hearts. May the Spirit of God so work love in the hearts of his people that you would pursue one another's good as your good, that you would seek your joy in their joy, that you would seek your happiness in their happiness.

You know what would happen then? Sacrificial life laid down ministry to the body of Christ would go from being merely your duty, merely that which you know you ought to do but feel guilty about not doing, and it would go to be your delight.

Difficult, inconvenient service to your people wouldn't be just something you know you ought to do and feel guilty about not doing. It would be your joy. It would be your meat and your drink. And then needs would get met.

And then the body of Christ would truly minister to one another. And then the love of Jesus would be on display to a watching world. Well, we've seen that the faithful minister's love for his people is marked by sensitivity, by servanthood, by the mutual satisfaction of one another's welfare that's brought by the Spirit of God.

Well, we come now finally to the fourth mark of the minister's love, number four, sharpening. Sharpening. Look at me at verse four. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not so that you would be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I have especially for you.

Sharpening Love and Confronting Sin

He's basically saying, friends, don't think that it was easy for me to write that severe letter to you. Despite what the false apostles are telling you, don't think that I took some perverse delight in confronting you like that and speaking severely to you that way.

My Corinthians, I tell you, it was out of much affliction and anguish of heart that I wrote to you and with many tears. I had no desire to make you sorrowful for sorrow's sake. I don't love conflict. Frankly, it would be much easier for me to avoid the situation entirely.

But, he says, dear brothers and sisters, I love you all too much to abandon you to the damning doctrines of false apostles for the sake of avoiding a difficult conversation. I love you all too much not to confront you about your sin.

Paul's love was a sharpening love. And I want to draw just two brief lines of application from this verse. First, the love that a faithful minister has for his people requires him to confront sin in their lives.

Love requires confrontation of sin. You see, the watered-down, wishy-washy, sentimentalized notion of love that's propagated by our self-indulgent and perennially adolescent culture, and sadly which has been imbibed even in the professing church, that notion of love is little more than the psychologist Carl Rogers' notion of unconditional positive regard.

To love someone, according to our corrupt society, is to affirm every decision that they make and applaud them just for being them. In fact, there's nothing more hateful, according to our corrupt culture, than to tell somebody that they're wrong and that they need to change in some considerable way in order to be pleasing to God.

Why would you say that about me? But this is precisely what love demands. You know, I'm sure oncologists would love to tell every patient they see that they don't have cancer, that there is no tumor, that their bodies are healthy and sound, that all is well, that no radiation or surgery is needed, and they can expect to live long lives with their families.

That would certainly make for more pleasant days in the office for those oncologists. But it would not be loving. Why? Because if the patient really does have cancer, then you do that and the disease will go untreated, and eventually it'll kill them.

But the same is true in ministry, Justin, right? Discernment properly identifies sin for the cancer that it is, and love constrains us to have the difficult conversations with our brothers and sisters in which we lovingly explain that though they may not be aware of it, they are spiritually infirm, and they need to do something about it before that sickness ravages their soul.

Now, sure, it's easier to ignore sin in our people. It's easier not to have people call you judgmental or arrogant or holier-than-thou because you've brought sin to their attention. It's easier to avoid resolving that conflict that might not get resolved and might even end with people leaving the church or with broken relationships.