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This is day four together of our look at 2nd Corinthians chapter one, our first
week of looking through this great book. We're going to look at verses 12 to 20
today. We're in this look at a servant's survival manual.

And yesterday, the last few days, we looked at how do you survive a feeling of
despair? You rely on God. You rely on a God who gives hope and a God who will
deliver you.

And as we talked about in the prayer at the end of the day yesterday, relying on
God is not something you do just once. If you're like me, it's something you
have to come back to again and again and again throughout the day, especially
when you're facing feelings of despair or loneliness or discouragement. Just
keep relying on Him.

Keep setting your hope on Him. Now in beginning in verse 12, Paul begins to turn
to some personal comments about why he's writing to them. And as he begins to
write about why he's writing, you see that he's going to have to survive
something else.

He's having to survive some misunderstandings that have come his way about his
motivations from the Corinthians that he's writing to. Listen to what happened
in verses 12 to 14. Now this is our boast.

Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world and
especially in our relations with you in the holiness and sincerity that are from
God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom, but according to God's
grace. For we do not write to you anything you cannot read or understand.

And I hope that as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand
fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the
Lord Jesus. Beginning in verse 12 and all the way through about the fourth verse
in chapter 2, Paul talks about surviving misunderstandings. Now what's the
principle?

How do you survive misunderstandings? You build in your heart a confidence based
on conduct that's marked by holiness and sincerity. You keep living the right
way.

You see the Corinthians had misunderstood Paul's motives and in fact, as we get
into this story more, we're going to find out more about this tomorrow, they'd
actually trusted those who had selfish motives for a time as their leaders
rather than trusting the word of God from Paul. What do you do when that
happens? What do you do when someone misunderstands why you do what you do,
especially when you've done it out of a good heart and they act like it's
because you were selfish and they reject you rather than accept you?

What do you do? You keep doing what's right. Paul says we continue to conduct
ourselves in holiness and in sincerity that are from God.

You keep doing what's right. Paul says here we continue to conduct ourselves not
according to worldly wisdom, but according to God's grace. What does worldly
wisdom say?

Worldly wisdom says someone misunderstands you, you misunderstand them back.
Somebody rejects you, you reject them back. Somebody doesn't want to scratch
your back, you don't want to scratch their back.

Worldly wisdom is all about being reciprocal and if you're good to me, I'll try
to be good to you, but if you reject me, I'm rejecting you right back. Instead,
Paul says I'm going to conduct myself according to God's grace. What's God's
grace?

It's an undeserved gift. That's what serving Christ is. Every day you're giving
an undeserved gift because God's given an undeserved gift to you.

And Paul says that affects my character. Because of this he says I live in
holiness, I live in sincerity. So Paul says because I'm misunderstood, instead
of reacting against someone becoming bitter, I'm going to keep living in
holiness and sincerity.

Holiness to that word means set apart. That means living out the character of
God in my life as best I can with his strength and power. Sincerity means I'm
not living a lie, I'm not faking it.

I'm living the truth of his love in me. You keep doing what's right. Now in
doing that, Paul says a couple of times in these verses, he talks about
boasting.

You need to understand boasting if you're going to study 2 Corinthians because
the word boasting is all throughout this book. So what does Paul mean when he
talks about boasting? Because he says this is our boast.

He says later we will boast of you as you boast of us in the day of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And you might think, well wait, wait, isn't boasting wrong? Some
kinds of boasting are.

You see there's a selfish pride and there is in essence a godly kind of pride.
Galatians talks about that kind of pride. There is a selfish boasting, a worldly
kind of boasting, and there is a godly kind of boasting.

What's the difference? Selfish boasting, selfish pride is going to be judged by
God. And selfish boasting is based on me, making me look better, making me the
center of attention.

Really the question in boasting is who is the center of attention? In Paul's
boasting the center of attention is God. And what he's boasting about is really
bringing into this center of attention the fact that we're going to stand
together in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ and enjoy what he's done in
each other's lives.

That kind of boasting, here's how you know the difference. That kind of boasting
is not out of pride, it's out of love. It's out of love.

His love for Christ and his love for those in Corinth motivated him to this kind
of boasting. We've conducted ourselves in the world and especially towards you
in holiness and sincerity. Paul says, "I'm talking about myself.

" He's going to tell us later in 2 Corinthians, "I don't really like talking
about myself like this. " But he says, "I'm doing it because I love you. That's
why I'm saying this.

" So it's out of love, not out of pride. It's with God as the center of
attention, not me as the center of attention. And this kind of boasting, if it's
done right, God gets the applause, I don't get the applause.

That's the difference. Now Paul is talking here about surviving
misunderstandings. You keep doing what's right even when you're misunderstood.

He continues to talk about that in verses 15 to 20. Because I was confident of
this, I planned, because I'm confident of the fact that we're going to stand
together in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, I plan to visit you first so
that you might benefit twice. I plan to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to
come back to you from Macedonia and then to have you send me on my way to Judea.

When I planned this, did I do it lightly? Or do I make my plans in a worldly
manner so that in the same breath I say yes, yes and no, no? But as surely as
God is faithful, our message to you is not yes and no.

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and
Timothy, was not yes and no, but in him it's always been yes. For no matter how
many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ. And so through him the amen
is spoken to us by the glory of God.

There's fascinating truth in these verses about the words yes and no. Now Paul's
talking about the fact that he planned to come visit them and somehow he'd been
misunderstood. Oh, he lied to us or oh, you know, he was just trying to build
himself up.

He never really intended to come to us. Paul describes that the reason really
was the struggles they were having. And he begins to talk about the world's way
and God's way.

And he says the world's way is to say yes, yes and no, no out of the same
breath. The yes that you're saying or the no that you're saying to what you're
going to do and why you're going to do it and who you're going to be with and
who you're not going to be with, it's all based on you. So you can easily change
your opinion.

It's either yes or no because it's just based on me and what makes me look the
best. What gets the best for me? So I'll say yes to that opportunity until a
better opportunity comes along.

And then it's no to that opportunity and yes to this one. That's the world's
way. Yes and no in the same breath, whatever's best for me.

God's way? Yes in Christ. Yes in Jesus.

In Jesus, the answer is yes. Paul says here that the yes of God in our lives is
in Jesus Christ. The yes to all of God's promises in your life is not in some
secret prayer.

It's not in some religious ritual. The yes to all of God's promises in your life
is not in you being a better Christian than everybody else around you or
memorizing certain Bible verses. Now you should memorize verses.

You should spend time with God because it helps you to grow closer to him. And
who wouldn't want to be closer to him? But that's not where the yes comes from.

The yes to all of God's promises in our lives is in a relationship. In our
relationship with Jesus Christ. You don't try to build your life on God's
promises without a relationship with Jesus.

Some people do. They see God's promises just as principles. Oh I should be
honest in my business.

I should have integrity in my dealings. I shouldn't ever gossip because that can
hurt people. They believe in God's principles and they want to build their lives
on those kinds of promises but it's empty in the end.

Oh it might get you some measure of success because God's principles work but it
gets you no measure of joy. No measure of love. No measure of the things that we
most want in our lives.

It'll just frustrate you in the end because it all starts, it all ends with a
relationship. Jesus came to clearly tell us yes. Jesus said come to me all of
you who are weary and heavy laden and I'll give you rest.

In Jesus the answer is will Jesus really do that? The answer is yes. Jesus said
I'm the way the truth and the life.

In Jesus the answer to that promise is yes. If I come to him I will have eternal
life. Will Jesus really give me hope?

Yes. Will Jesus really give me peace? Yes.

Will Jesus really free me from worry? Yes. The answer to all those is yes.

And so Paul says the answer is yes and because of that we say amen. The word
amen literally means so be it. So be it.

Jesus says the yes in Jesus Christ and so be it I say. I say the amen. Jesus
says the yes.

I say the amen. Don't get that backwards. The so be it isn't based on you, your
energy, your strength, your power.

It's based on Jesus. He's the one who said the yes. So you're saying I'm
trusting in your yes.

It's not about you. It's about him. And so in the end he gets the praise and
glory.

Jesus as we talk to you right now we thank you for the yes that's in you. The
yes to all of God's promises. God's promise of life and hope and peace and joy.

God's promise of eternity and God's promise of abundance. The answer is yes in
you and we thank you for that. So today as we say the amen to this prayer we
want to say it in a different way.

Not just as a word tacked onto the end of a prayer but as our so be it. We
desire that yes to be made real in our lives but we know it's not going to
become real in our lives as we trust in ourselves. As we look to ourselves it's
only real in our lives as we trust in you.

And so we say in Jesus name amen.