This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) This is day three of our look together through 2 Corinthians
chapter two. We're going to be reading verses five to 11 today and talking about
what those verses have to say to us. In fact, let me begin by reading those
verses, five to 11.

If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all
of you to some extent, not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on
him by the majority is sufficient for him. Now instead, you ought to forgive and
comfort him so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

I urge you therefore to reaffirm your love for him. The reason I wrote you was
to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. If you forgive
anyone, I also forgive him.

And what I have forgiven, if there was anything to forgive, I have forgiven in
the sight of Christ for your sake in order that Satan might not outwit us, for
we are not unaware of his schemes. We're talking as we walk through 2
Corinthians about how you and I survive as servants. We've talked about
surviving despair and the truth that God will comfort you so that you can
comfort others.

We've talked about surviving misunderstanding and the truth that we need to
clear our conscience and also clear the air. In these verses, Paul talks about
surviving an offense, surviving it when someone has sinned and that sin has hurt
you, has hurt the church. Now, as I read through these verses, if you're having
a hard time understanding what Paul was talking about here, join the club.

The most asked question by our research team was what situation is Paul talking
about here? In one sense, we're hearing one side of the conversation. But as you
look through these verses, you see that someone had caused the church some grief
because of their sin.

Now, it could have been the one whose sin was being accepted by the church in 1
Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians, you read about someone who was with his father's
wife. There was sexual sin going on in the church.

And Paul says in those verses in that book that they are to put that person out
of the church until they get their life right again. So maybe it's that person.
But there's some things that Paul says in these verses that indicates that maybe
it was another situation.

Whatever it was, this is someone who had sinned against the church. Paul and the
church had talked about it and said some kind of judgment needs to come against
that sin. And Paul needed to encourage this church.

And in fact, what Paul did is he encouraged the church to do what most of us
need encouragement to do. In fact, all of us need encouragement to do. He
encouraged the Corinthians to, number one, judge a wrong when it needed to be
judged.

And number two, to forgive and restore a relationship when it needed to be
restored. Now, if you go back and you study through the book of 1 Corinthians,
you hear a lot about judgment and the fact that it is not our right to be the
final judge. Only God has that right.

But it is our responsibility to judge in one sense between one another whether
what I'm doing is right or wrong and what I'm doing is hurt you or is a sin.
That is our responsibility before one another. And Paul said in 1 Corinthians,
you're not doing that.

You need to do it. And now here in 2 Corinthians, he said, well, you've done it,
but the problem is, now you're not forgiving. In fact, the truth is that I've
seen in my life and most of our lives is we are usually too slow to admit that a
wrong is being done.

We want to think the best of each other. Or we don't want to have the painful
conversation with somebody else, so we ignore something. We're too slow to admit
that a wrong is being done.

And then once we've admitted it and addressed it, we're usually also too slow to
accept someone again when they've turned from their sin. And Paul's
encouragement to the Corinthians, to us, is to be quicker about both. And in
these verses, actually, he talks about the power of forgiveness in the church.

There's a lot to learn about forgiveness, a lot of deep, deep lessons about
forgiveness in these verses. Let me just walk through five of them with you,
just very quickly. Number one, Paul says, when there's a hurt, when there's an
offense in the church, realize that the hurt was not just done to you.

It was done to all. When someone sins, who's a believer, a brother or sister in
Christ, their sin might have affected you most immediately, but it's important
to realize they didn't sin just against you. They sinned against Christ, and
they sinned against the church.

When I realize that, it helps me to see it in a different way. If it's just
against me, then I'm the one who has to make sure it's made right. I'm the one
who has to take care of judgment being taken care of.

But when I realize it was against Jesus and against the church, that all
believers are hurt when a Christian sins, that all believers are hurt when we
walk away from the Lord, then it gives me a greater perspective that I think
actually helps in letting go of the situation into the hands of God, which is
what forgiveness is all about. So you realize that when a hurt is done, it's
done to all, not just to you. Number two, you also need to recognize, in order
for forgiveness to happen in the church, recognize when a punishment is
sufficient.

Now, Paul says the punishment is sufficient. What is he talking about here?
What's the punishment here?

Well, he's not exact about it, but if you look back to 1 Corinthians and read
the rest of the writings of Paul, it's essentially this. If someone is acting
like they're not a believer, the punishment is to treat them like they're not a
believer. You love them, you serve them, that's what you should do towards those
who are believers and unbelievers, so you still love them and serve them, but
you don't fellowship with them anymore.

You can't fellowship with an unbeliever because they'll actually, their
influence will be a bad influence on you. So in 1 Corinthians, Paul talks a lot
about this and says it's time to not fellowship with this person anymore.
They're acting like they're not a believer, so treat them like they're not a
believer.

Now, you're not saying they're no longer a believer. That's God's judgment,
that's in the hands of God, but you're just judging the way that they're acting
and realizing in your own weakness, they could take you down. They could take
you down a wrong path if you stay too close to someone who's caught up in sin as
a believer.

Paul says the punishment is if someone's acting like they're not a believer,
treat them like they're not a believer, but Paul says make sure you realize when
it's sufficient. Once they start acting like a believer again, then you treat
them as a brother or a sister in Christ. That's one of the lessons about
forgiveness in these verses.

A third lesson is take care that someone is not overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
Once we get to the point where we're willing to say what's right and what's
wrong in each other's lives, which is a wonderful thing, too often we talk
around the wrongs in each other's lives. We're not willing to say to someone
else, what I see here, just something doesn't seem right, and we're not willing
to listen to someone say that to us.

It's a very healthy thing when we get to that point. However, I think one of the
things that keeps some of us from getting to that point is, I've noticed this
many times, once people get to that point where they're willing to express
what's wrong, it's easy to go overboard. It's easy to create excessive sorrow,
to be overly judgmental.

You have to realize that when you're talking to somebody about a sin in their
life, if they listen, if they hear, it's going to create great sorrow in their
life. When you cut someone off from a fellowship, it creates great sorrow. So
Paul says, be careful not to let anyone be overwhelmed by sorrow.

Realize our weaknesses, that we're all just human beings, and don't get so
caught up in this decision to judge other people that you realize they're, that
you stop realizing they're just a human being like you who has the same
struggles that you do. You keep a tender heart towards someone, even as you're
walking through a difficult situation with them, that's what Paul is talking
about here. Then he shares with us a fourth truth about judgment and forgiveness
within the church.

He recognized that both judging the wrong and offering forgiveness are
expressions of obedience to God. They're both expressions of obedience to God.
You see, when I'm in a point of struggle with a fellow believer, and if they're
sinning in their life, and it's obvious, and they're unwilling to admit that
sin, and I have to say to them, I'm going to have to walk away from this
relationship 'cause it's heading me in the wrong direction, and I can't be a
part of this.

That's being obedient to God. God said, if a brother or sister in Christ is
following the wrong path, be careful, be careful. Don't associate with those who
are evil 'cause you'll be brought into that evil.

That's obedience. But once they've said to Jesus, I want to follow you again,
offering forgiveness is also obedience. So what this is saying is, it's all
about our relationship to Jesus together.

Sometimes in our relationships as believers, we struggle with forgiveness
because we think it's just about me and the other person. But once I realize
that is never the way any relationship works in this world, it's about me, the
other person, and Jesus. He's right there in the middle of that.

Then all of a sudden, I have a new freedom, both to admit when what they're
doing is wrong, it's hurtful to me in the church, but also to forgive once
they've said I need forgiveness. It's an expression of obedience to Jesus when
you do that. And then Paul talks about a fifth truth here.

And it's the one, I think, that shines the clearest to us in these verses and
that you hear repeated again and again and again. The fifth truth he talks about
in terms of forgiveness in the church is make sure that Satan doesn't outwit us.
Be aware of his schemes.

Now, there's a part of me that doesn't like to talk about Satan. I'd always
rather talk about Jesus. And yet the Bible tells us don't be ignorant of his
schemes.

There's part of me that doesn't like to talk about Satan because sometimes when
I talk about Satan, I know it scares people. I've seen that happen. There's a
fear that comes in.

Satan has schemes? That means Satan's going to win. Well, Paul says you need to be
aware of his schemes because when you're aware of his schemes, you can defeat
his schemes.

Actually, it's not you who defeats the schemes, it's Christ in you who defeats
that. Satan is real, but God is real, and God is greater. Now, what are these
schemes of Satan?

We could take a long time talking about that, but beginning in the Garden of
Eden, the schemes of Satan are things like this. He wants to turn Christians
against each other, just like he wanted to turn Adam and Eve against each other
and both of them against God. He wants to turn Christians against each other.

That's one of the schemes of Satan. He wants you to feel like God is keeping
something good from you. That's one of the schemes of Satan.

You might see it working in your life right now. He wants to keep you focused on
your own best interests rather than on love for God and others. He wants to keep
you selfish, 'cause he's selfish.

That's one of the schemes of Satan. And Paul says we're not unaware of those
schemes. We know that Satan wants to take a situation like this and use it to
take us down those roads, turn us against each other, turn us to selfishness,
but we know what he's doing.

So instead, we're going to turn to God. We're going to turn to Christ, and we're going to
trust him. And because of that, Paul says it's time now to forgive this person.

Only in Christ can you find the power to forgive. Let's take a minute to pray
together. And as we pray, this has been a study about how the church should
forgive, but forgiveness always starts personally.

So maybe there's a forgiveness that needs to begin in your heart right now. You
saying to Jesus Christ, Jesus, you've forgiven me. And so, because of what
you've done for me, I forgive them.

I forgive them this word, this hurt, this offense. God, I put judgment into your
hands. I trust that into your hands.

I no longer keep it in my hands. I forgive them. Father, in forgiving others, I
know that sometimes I'll have to come back to this again and again and again.

So I pray that you keep my heart forgiving. This wouldn't be a one-time prayer,
but this would be the start of a journey of letting this go. I ask this in
Jesus' name, amen.

Tomorrow, we're going to see together what Paul has to say about how you survive
feelings of inadequacy.