WWUTT 1723 All These Things Are for Building You Up (2 Corinthians 12:16-21)

The Apostle Paul once again confronts the Corinthians with the truth. Not to defend himself, but so that they would know the truth and live.

And my friends, we too need to turn from our sin to Christ when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in 2 Corinthians, finishing up chapter 12 today.

I'm going to begin where I left off yesterday. So starting in verse 16, and I'll read through verse 21 out of the

Legacy Standard Bible. This is the word of the Lord through the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth.

But be that as it may, I did not burden you myself. Nevertheless, crafty fellow that I am,

I took you in by deceit. Have I taken advantage of you through any of those whom

I have sent to you? I encouraged Titus to go, and I sent the brother with him.

Did Titus take any advantage of you? Did we not walk in the same spirit, in the very same steps?

All this time, you think we are defending ourselves to you. We speak in Christ, in the sight of God.

And all these things, beloved, are for your building up. For I am afraid that perhaps when

I come, I may find you to be not what I wish, and may be found by you to be not what you wish, that perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances.

I am afraid that when I come again, my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality which they have practiced.

And that's really what we're building up to here as we have been reading through these last several chapters, chapters 10, 11, and 12, where Paul is warning about the false teachers, he boasts in himself those things that he has gone through for the sake of the gospel, appealing to them to come back to the truth, and ultimately it comes down to this, that they have turned from their sin to righteousness.

That's what I want to see from you. But if you're following these false teachers, what are they going to tell you to do?

They're going to lead you astray into sensuality. Paul is encouraging them to put away these things, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disturbances.

These were things that we read about in 1 Corinthians, are they not? You know, these couple of verses right here, verses 20 and 21, these verses make a strong case for 1 and 2

Corinthians being in succession. There are those who believe that, yeah, there's a letter that comes before 1

Corinthians, but there's nothing between 1 and 2 Corinthians. The tearful letter that Paul references is not letter

C that comes in between letters B and D, we would be reading letter D here, but rather it is actually 1

Corinthians that is the tearful letter, because Paul was vexed in his spirit over some of the things that he saw going on in Corinth.

There was sexual immorality they were not dealing with, there were factions that were going on, there were people dying because they were misusing the

Lord's table. All of these things troubled Paul's heart to write that previous letter.

And now here, as he's appealing to them to walk in righteousness, what are those sins that he refers back to?

Have you repented of these things? Well, they're the sins that he had confronted back in 1 Corinthians. So that's why there are some that think, yeah, there's not really a letter in between here, that reference to that tearful letter, that is 1

Corinthians. I think you can go either way on that. As I said, when we started this study, I've waffled back and forth on that.

When we were in 1 Corinthians, I told you some of the things that we read about here, we get to see resolved in 2

Corinthians. And of course, then there are other things that have not yet been resolved. Hence why Paul has to make that appeal here.

There are still those of you following false teachers, following those that are letting you walk in this sensuality, sins that will keep you from the kingdom of God if you do not repent.

There are scholars on both sides of this debate, respected scholars. So guys, you know, that you love to hear from will say, no, there's just 1 and 2

Corinthians. And then there are others that will say there's a letter in between there. Yeah, you just kind of have to weigh the arguments and decide yourself.

But when we come back to verse 16 here, as we lead up to that, we'll get to that here in verses 20 and 21.

But Paul says, be that as it may, we're picking up from yesterday, be that as it may,

I did not burden you myself. Did not burden them how? He did not expect of the

Corinthians to take care of him. When he was in Corinth in the year and a half that he was there, he made his own living and provided for himself.

He did not take a wage from the Corinthians. Ah, the apostle is here. So we need to pay him the apostles honorarium.

He took nothing from them. And as he said previously, you know, the false teachers are taking money from you.

I did not take any money from you. Forgive me of this wrong. He says very sarcastically,

I should have made you pay for this because apparently that's what's convincing to you. Like you get what you pay for.

So the false teachers were paying them. Therefore, their message must be true. And we didn't pay Paul anything.

So Paul says, well, forgive me. Forgive me that I didn't take your money. I did not burden you myself.

Nevertheless, crafty fellow that I am again being sarcastic. I took you in by deceit.

Like, is that really the charge you want to make? Do you want to say that Paul was deceitful because he did not take our money?

Have I taken advantage of you through any of those whom I have sent to you? Now, this is

Paul appealing to accountability. There are other men who have come to you. What sort of character do you see reflected in them?

Do you see character like you remember witnessing in Paul when he was here for a year and a half? Or were those guys, the guys that came from Paul, were they taking advantage of you?

Did they take your money? I encouraged Titus to go and I sent the brother with him.

Remember, previously, Paul had mentioned a couple of men that didn't have names. He didn't cite their names.

This one, the faithful brother that he had talked about earlier, that appears to be the one here in verse 18, he mentions also.

I encouraged Titus to go and I sent the brother with him. Did Titus take any advantage of you?

Did we not walk in the same spirit, in the very same steps?

What did you hear Titus teach you? What sort of character did you witness from him when he was with you?

Was it not the same sort of character that I demonstrated when I was with you? That's really what

Paul is encouraging them to think about. Don't just look at the men whom you follow.

Look at the men who they put around them. Now, I think you need to be discerning there. I think we need to have some grace about that.

So, let's just talk about your own pastor. There is a pastor in your church whom you greatly respect.

Who are the other pastors in the church? What are the other elders like? Are they not just like your senior pastor?

Just like you can trust the pastor, you can trust the other pastors or the elders or the

Sunday school teachers or whatever. Or do you see that pastor? He might have some good character about him.

Like there's a good personality there. He meets all of the qualifications in 1 Timothy 3, 1 -7 or Titus 1, 5 -9.

He meets all those qualifications. But gracious, these people that he elevates and platforms and puts around him.

I just cannot stand those people. Like do you see character among the people around the pastor that's different than what you see in the pastor?

Well, then it might be that there's a reason to question something about the character of the pastor.

Maybe insofar as saying he's not a good judge of character because look at the character of the people that he raises up around him.

Like I said, you got to be discerning there because you don't want to take someone else's sins and attribute that to the person who hired them.

How does he deal with that person when they misbehave? Not that the person has sinned and therefore the pastor is wrong.

But how does the pastor deal with the insubordinate person? In other words, if you kind of consider it that way, does that make sense?

Do you get where I'm going with that? Like I have hired an elder who later committed adultery and believe me,

I was questioning myself in the midst of all of that. I've talked about this as we've been going through first and second

Corinthians, shared that story a little bit somewhere in the lessons on first Corinthians five and six.

I gave more details into that saga and everything we went through as a church, not the current church that I'm at, but my previous church.

But anyway, there were times when I was questioning, should I have seen this earlier?

Could I have done something to prevent this? Did I hire the wrong guy? Was I not being a good judge of character when

I asked that man to become an elder at our church, to be considered for that position and to have the church test that man?

So I've been through that. I understand that. But if you repeatedly see these patterns of the pastor putting these people around him who just have terrible character, then that's going to say something about the character of the pastor as well, even if he's got the kind of a personality that everybody likes.

When we were going through the book of judges in my Sunday school class, when we got to the story of Jephthah, Jephthah, it says he surrounded himself with worthless fellows.

And that is a term that the Old Testament will use to demonstrate the character of a person.

You can tell something about his character by the people he keeps company with. As Paul said previously to the

Corinthians in first Corinthians 15, bad company corrupts good morals or in some translations, corrupts good character.

Do you see the pastor as a kind of guy? He's always nice. He always does what is right.

He always seems to have the right answer to everything, but he has these guys positioned around him who are more like bulldogs.

Have you ever seen that before? So it's almost like a good cop, bad cop thing. Like the pastor doesn't want to be the guy to have to confront things and make him look bad.

So he'll hire people who become more aggressive to be able to handle those kinds of problems in the church.

That actually demonstrates that the pastor is kind of a coward. Like he's not willing to do the hard work, which a pastor has to be able to do.

As John Calvin has said, a pastor needs to have two voices.

He needs to have the voice that calls the sheep, and he needs to have the voice that fends off the wolves. So there are times when the pastor is going to have to deal with some really tough stuff, and he's not going to be all that likable when he has to deal with those kinds of situations.

Is the pastor willing to do that, or is he going to position people around him? I'm going to let that person have that job.

They're going to deal with those problems so that I don't ever have to get my hands dirty. I don't ever have to look bad in front of anybody else.

That's a pastor who it sounds like he fears man more than he fears God. And again, I don't want to say that as an absolute.

These are discernment things. You've got to be discerning whenever you weigh those kinds of things. But Paul right here is referencing the people that are around him, and he knows that he can call upon their character, though he's not been with the

Corinthians for a while. They have seen these other guys. Titus has been there. The faithful brother has been there.

What do you see in them? Are they not reflective of the same kind of character that I demonstrated with you?

Have I taken advantage of you through any of those whom I have sent to you? They haven't taken advantage of you.

Neither did I when I was with you. And so Paul is saying this, though he's saying this to them so that the

Corinthians would see how much he loves them, not because he's trying to defend his case.

He's not trying to beat the most eminent apostles. He's trying to win the Corinthians to the truth that they would see

Christ and not going after these false teachers or the way of their flesh.

Verse 19, all this time, you think we are defending ourselves to you.

So once again, why am I saying all this to you? It's not because I'm trying to win points, that I'm trying to get picked for the team, right?

Pick me next. That's not what Paul is doing. He's not defending himself. Next sentence, we speak in Christ, in the sight of God.

And all these things, beloved, they're for your building up. The reason why

Paul is boasted, the reason why he has defended his ministry is not for the sake of defending himself.

It's so that the Corinthians would know the truth and that the truth remains unstained.

Whatever you think about these most eminent apostles, whatever you think about what they have said about Paul or the message that he has preached, you got to look at the character of the people who have come to you.

And you've got to test the message that was proclaimed to you. The truth remains unstained.

It doesn't matter what those guys have said about it. Truth is truth for everybody, whether they believe it or not.

I mean, that's true today. The words that were true for the Corinthians 2000 years ago are true for us now.

Going back to 2 Corinthians 5, 21, for our sake, he became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

Talking about Jesus Christ, that is true for every believer of Christ 2000 years ago and today.

Christ became sin with his atoning death on the cross. He did this for our sake.

He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might know the righteousness of God in him.

And we have been made righteous if we have put faith in Jesus Christ. There is the gospel truth proclaimed back then.

It's the gospel truth that we are to proclaim now. So once again, Paul saying we're doing this for your edification, for your building up.

That's that's a whole reason why Paul is defending his case. Not because he's trying to defend himself, but for the sake of the

Corinthians. So verse 20, he says, for I am afraid. That perhaps when

I come, I may find you to be not what I wish. And may be found by you to be not what you wish.

What does that mean? Well, Paul lays out here what he's afraid that he's going to find when he comes to Corinth, and you know, this is a healthy fear.

It's not fear of man. It's not a worry or anxiety to some sort of unhealthy degree.

But he has this concern that when he comes to Corinth, he's going to find that they're still in the sins that he's been confronting.

He rejoices to hear the testimony that has come from Titus, that they were receptive of the tearful letter, and they've made some changes to turn from that and and walk in the righteousness of Christ.

He rejoices in that. But were they just putting on a front with Titus when Paul gets there?

Is he going to find that they've reverted back to their previous ways? And I'm going to find you to be not what

I wish you to be. You're not in righteousness. But instead, what is there going to be strife?

And that's the first thing that Paul confronted in first Corinthians was strife, was the divisions that existed among the

Corinthians in the church because of jealousy. All right. So that's the next one.

The jealousy they had for one another or the strife that was caused because one affixed himself to this teacher and the other that affixed himself to the other teacher.

This was what was causing divisions among them. Outbursts of anger. Apparently, it looked a lot like a

Southern Baptist meeting in Missouri. Sorry, Missouri, don't mean to pick on you.

You know, I was a part of the Kansas -Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists when I was in Kansas, and we heard stories all the time.

I've never been to a state meeting in Missouri. I'm just saying I heard stories all the time from guys that would go from pastoring in Missouri to pastoring in Kansas.

And when they would come to our annual meetings, they would say this is nothing like Missouri. I mean, we were at each other's throats fighting constantly.

That's the impression I have of the Southern Baptist meeting in Missouri. That's all I'm saying. Anyway, there's there were outbursts of anger.

There's strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition. Because when you're pursuing your own selfish desires, you're against everybody else, right?

Slanders, speaking ill of one another, gossip, assuming the worst of each other, arrogance, my way above your way, disturbances.

Still, it's kind of bookended by strife. There will be strife. There will be disturbances. There's this constant turmoil that's going on among you because you desire what you want in your flesh and not

Christ. James put it this way in his letter. What was this James for?

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Is it not that your passions are at work in you?

That's what's causing the fights and the quarrels, even in the church in Corinth. So Paul goes on in verse 21. Oh, well, first of all, when he says you may find me to be not what you wish.

In other words, Paul is going to have to come to rebuke them and exhort them strongly.

Or he's going to mourn and weep over them, and they won't be able to rejoice in one another and enjoy one another's company.

That's what you're going to find when I come to you. If I find you to be not what I expect you to be.

So verse 21, I am afraid that when I come again, my God may humiliate me before you.

Humiliate me. And Paul is going to tear his garments and weep. That's basically going to be his response.

That I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past. Now, notice here that he doesn't say it's the whole church.

But it would apparently be a vast majority of the church that has been behaving in this way.

So he's going to mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, the sexual immorality, and the sensuality which they have practiced.

Those were things that had been going on in their lives before they came to faith.

Then they turned to Jesus Christ and they left all of that behind. But Paul is concerned that when he comes to them, he's going to find they're still in the same sensuality that they were in when they were pagans, demonstrating that there's not really a life of repentance that has happened in their hearts at all.

The grace of God has not been poured into their hearts. They're still slaves to sin instead of slaves to righteousness.

So where is Paul going to go from here? When we get to chapter 13, which we're going to start next week.

So Paul is going to say, examine yourselves to see that you are in the faith.

Test yourselves to see if you passed the test. Consider the words that have been spoken to you.

Go back to the gospel. Has the gospel transformed you? Are you living a life that is different than the person you were before the gospel of Christ came into your life?

So he's calling them to repentance here and saying, once again, all of this, this case that I'm making, it is not to defend myself.

It is so you would know the truth. You would know these guys are liars and you would know who came to you with the truth so that you would turn from your sin to Christ and walk in newness of life.

And so my brothers and sisters in the Lord, let us consider those same things. Do you desire righteousness or are you still trying to find ways that you can have the passions of your flesh too?

And hey, I'll still get to go to heaven. I'll get to indulge in a little bit of sin and still get to go to heaven.

Are you sure about that? Is what your heart, is that what your heart wants is

Christ is to be with God forever in glory or does your flesh want the things that satisfy your desires?

Some of those things in this world I can still dabble in and feel like I can go to heaven. Where is your heart?

What do you really want? Are you going after the truth or has the liar convinced you that these sins are still okay?

Desire Christ, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Let's finish there. Heavenly Father, we thank you for these lessons. We thank you for how convicting this can be.

And we pray that in your spirit, our hearts are convicted so that we would turn from sin to Christ and live.

Forgive us our sins and lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hubes.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an

Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an