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As if last week running out of time was a good thing, we're going to do just a touch of overlap in content. So we're going to look at the last two verses of chapter 12 as they lead into chapter 13. So we're not going to dive deep into the last two verses of 12, but they're related.

Sometimes when your Bible has a chapter or a verse mark that is not got any reflection with division of content or purpose. So when we see those, be ready to throw them out because they're not inspired. Numbering is not inspired. The scriptures, texts are. So I'll go ahead and read and we'll start in verse 20.

Paul writes, 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, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances, I'm 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, immorality, and sensuality which they have practiced. Starting in verse 1 of chapter 13, this is the third time I'm coming to you.

Every fact is to be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses. I have previously said when present the second time and though now absent I say in advance to those who have sinned in the past and to all the rest as well that if I come again I will not spare anyone.

Since you are seeking for proof of the Christ who speaks in me and who is not weak toward you but mighty in you. For indeed He was crucified because of weakness, yet he lives because of the power of God. For we also are weak in him, yet we will live with him because of the power of God directed toward you.

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves, or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail the test? But I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not. failed the test. So this is an easy passage and we'll probably finish it in about 20 minutes or less I'm guessing, right?

So you can tell as we go through this that there's continued intensity and Paul as he winds down this book, so next week will be the last lesson for this series this year, as he's winding this down he's not pulling any punches and that's a tough thing as a teacher to go through what feels like a whole book, as Bob and Roger and I have gone through this, where Paul's tenacity has come out continually.

And here, as he's coming near the top of what I would consider the roller coaster here, and he's going to bring it back down to a very gentle ending, given the intensity of what we've been going on here, he has listed a list of sins that the church has dealt with at the end of chapter 12. And I think it's important to understand that as he's gone through this list, it's not a new list. When we look at 1 Corinthians as a letter, which we did a series ago, Paul covered those topics. And the funny thing is that in First Corinthians, Paul says he wrote a letter before what we call First Corinthians. And we don't know what's in it. But is it possible that he was addressing those issues before? We don't know. So I want to not introduce too much conjecture. That's not exposition.

But it seems like the church in Corinth really did not understand spiritual growth and the impact of spiritual growth on the whole body's well-being. So the question we've got there in that first section, Paul wrote the list of sins in 1220 that he was aware of that the church was facing. Are those sins we face today in the modern church as well? There are times when we look at the church abroad and we think, how is this the bride of Christ?

It wrestles with these things. But it has been this way from the beginning. that human beings, though redeemed, still wrestle with the flesh. And so Paul is continuing to address this, but his solution never wavers. His solution is to be walking in fellowship with the Lord. So as we take a look at this, keep those things in mind.

So verse 1 of 13, As it continues in the context of the lists from 1220 and 1221, he says, this is the third time I'm coming to you. So remember, the first part of this whole letter was Paul saying, I'm sorry, I didn't come yet. There's a lot of apology that was waited in the beginning of this letter. And so earlier in 12, and then here again in 13, he repeats, I'm going to try to come to you a third time.

So hopefully that's a good thing because he's going to continue on on how the third visit he's hoping will be better than what it could be, right? Because he's kind of skeptical that they haven't repented from some of these sins. Just a quick one, and this may be something you may save for a later answer, but I kind of wonder whether later in scripture or before in scripture, something that amounts to a third time around is shown in God's word about people like that. Can you restate that?

I don't have any specific passages I can send you to, but if we look at Paul's missionary journey, it doesn't look like he went back that way, but let me flick through. I might not have my Bible with Paul, but I'm sure there are other writers of the New Testament that come into this sort of repeat drama and are able to actually get them over the hook by God's grace.

The third one is green. It doesn't look like Paul made it back through necessarily. Wait, one, two. I'm not confident that he made it back through a third time. His intent here says that he's going back a third time. Just because it's not revealed. I don't think he got back. I don't think so. Nothing indicates it from what I know.

His writing here says he's intending to do that. And because we know there's a series of letters, I wonder what other letters that might have existed that he wrote and said, hey, I know I said I wanted to come. God said to do something else. But that's a good question. Paul's intent was to come this third time.

I also expect that while he knew that he was going to fail specific trials, because when he saw Christ in Damascus, he was blinded. And God tells Ananias, I will show him what he must suffer for my name's sake. So it's possible that he... In bits and pieces, it could show. Well, it's possible that he didn't know precisely what all of the timeline was that he was going to be facing. So he was anticipating going a third time on what we would call a fourth missionary journey.

But we don't know that. I don't want to put into scripture what isn't there. That would be an eisegesis, and you should take me outside and stone me. Speaking of stoning me, the next section here, Paul quotes Deuteronomy, and he cites it as a reference. We're going to go back and look at the whole thing. Let's see here, I got it in my notes, and I totally jumped ahead here.

Deuteronomy 17, and the specific verses are 2 through 6. So, if you're not sure where Deuteronomy is from 2 Corinthians, it's left. Yeah, just keep flicking until you see it, right? Anymore with computers, I find that I do a lot more flicking, just as I can't remember by muscle memory where some of this stuff is. So Deuteronomy 17 verses 2-6.

And if somebody would read that out loud I'd appreciate it. If there be found among you within any of the gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing his covenant, and hath gone and served other gods and worshipped them, either the sun or moon or any of the hosts of heaven, which I have not commanded, And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquire diligently, and behold it be true, and the thing certain, that each abomination is wrought in Israel. Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman which have committed that wicked thing unto any gates, Even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die, at the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses shall he that is worthy of death be put to death, but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.

Alright, so let Paul go there. Yeah, well, and I think we've got a good answer. So number 7 here is, I should have read verse 7 too. The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all people, so you shall purge the evil from your midst. So verse 7, I think the last part of verse 7 is why Paul referred to that. Now Paul, we want to really reiterate, Paul is not trying to reintroduce the law into the New Testament church. Okay? So, preemptively, let's call that out. As a Jew, and he's already said earlier in this book that he was a Jew's Jew, right?

He's writing to a church that has some Jewish believers, they were historically Jewish, and he's referring to a section of Deuteronomy. He quotes the section to remind them of the principle. And the principle concludes in verse 7 there, and I'm sorry that I had you only read the 6 because I should have definitely included 7. And I'll re-read that last thing there. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. Now he could have quoted, you shall purge the evil from your midst, but one implies the other.

And so what would have happened if you were a Jewish Christian who grew up reading the Old Testament, or having the Old Testament read to you, although I suspect that many Jews were literate. There was lots of reading out loud of the law because not everybody was literate. And so Paul cites this and he says that there needs to be two or three witnesses.

Now that's significant here because has Paul talked about sins in this letter and in his earlier letters that people didn't know about? He's talking about sins that the church seems to have known, and kind of looks the other way. We're going to ignore the sin issues. When we got to chapter 5 of 1 Corinthians, how many of you remember the sinner there? Who was that sinner? What did he do? This is a good one. He was sleeping with his father's wife.

And Paul says, you should have cast him out. I cast him out, remotely, and will let Satan deal with the burning of his flesh. So, this sin issue that Corinth is dealing with, Paul cites this because he says there are multiple witnesses. You guys know. And in the law, if you knew, you deal with it. But just because we're under grace doesn't mean we don't deal with it. If there is somebody who is overtly sinning, who is flaunting it in front of the body, there's a problem. And so I will testify to my own failings. There are times in my walk with the Lord where I've walked in the flesh and I've managed to hide it better than others.

But if we have intimacy with one another in the body, Hopefully we have this accountability with one another and this relationship with one another that we can come alongside like Galatians 6.1 talks about. That there's correction but it's rooted in the testimony of the two or three. So I've got a question here in the middle of page two.

If the believers in Corinth were all witness to carnality willing to deal with the sin, who is really weak in this scenario? Paul keeps saying, I'm going to boast of my weakness. He keeps talking about weakness. And even here in this passage in the few next verses, he's going to talk about weakness as well. But it is a weakness in the body if there is no accountability. These are not sins that are trivial. It's not like, hey, you didn't park your car cleanly in the lines in the parking lot. Can you not do that again? That's not a sin where we're like, you can't come back to Holly Hills.

We're like, maybe park in the street. But that kind of a thing is a reality that we all face, where there are things that might bother us. He's not talking about those. This isn't like in Ephesians, we're going to get into tolerance and love in chapter 4. And I can't wait for that, but I've got to wait. But this is not a tolerance in love. This is a carnality that is not being addressed.

And so Paul's calling out this Old Testament reference is to establish a principle that has been long-standing. Ever since the law was given, God said, this is what righteousness looks like. I'm pulling you as Israel out from the pagan cultures around you to set you aside unto myself. And has Paul not reminded the church that you're set aside You're set aside. You're called out. You're pulled together. That shouldn't be normative.

Now, I'm going to call this out since we just said that the body was weak. What is the awesome opportunity for weakness in the body? How many of you have ever broken a limb or been in a cast or been told you can't move some body part for a period of time? Anybody have that? And your muscles atrophy and it's terrible and you hate it. And sometimes you have to go to physical therapy or any number of those things. But what happens, what's the opportunity is for growth and restoration. And that's awesome. Growth and restoration is an awesome opportunity and it is a positive.

It's not that we want to, you know, I'm not going to ignore Romans 6.1. Should we keep sinning so that grace can abound? No, we don't want to just keep sinning blindly. But when we see this, Paul is expecting the awesomeness of biblical Christian restoration inside the body of Corinth. And that's true for us today in the church as well.

Any other thoughts or questions on this citation of the Old Testament? Because it's quite a thing. I had to talk to my daughter last night about capital punishment, so that was fun. I will call this one thing out. Did you notice who starts the stoning in the Old Testament? Who starts it? Roger's nodding his head so now. The accusers. The accusers.

So you don't just, it's not just like, hey, uh, you know, you know, like how, how in, in law enforcement today, there's like a secret 800 number where you can like anonymously be a tipster. And after that, you leave the voicemail message and you're done. This is a, no, you have to go to the leadership of Israel, tell on somebody. And then if it's the appropriate kind of wickedness, you throw the first stone. Okay, so there's no anonymous witness program in the law.

And so I think it's worth calling out that God's law was there to set Israel aside. It was to establish and maintain righteousness and holiness so they could focus on their relationship with him. And it was designed to limit abuse. You're supposed to thoroughly investigate the allegation. And if it's found out that that person is lying, then there's going to be other consequences, right? So the whole idea is for integrity and righteousness that reflects God's character to be preserved in Israel.

And you can't phone it in. It's a legitimate thing that's going on there. So Paul quotes that because he wants to establish the fact that there is a principle that has reigned from some time about God's people being holy. This isn't new to the New Testament church. Israel was supposed to be holy, and Corinth shouldn't be stunned to hear that, hey, maybe godly people should be in the church.

Now, this isn't because no one ever sins. We're not saying that. It's just that we don't sit by and watch egregious sin boldly done in front of us and go, I wouldn't want to be the first person to throw the stone. That's not the point. So let's continue. I hope that's not too much of a negative because I think Paul's focus is on the growth and the up-building. That's what we closed with last week. So we're not just going to stop with a downer here.

So Paul continues on, I previously said when present the second time and though now absent I say in advance to those who have sinned in the past and all the rest as well that if I come again I will not spare anyone. And I will note that he does put if I come again because he keeps putting that contingency in there because he doesn't know if the Holy Spirit is going to direct him somewhere else. I will not spare anyone.

Is he going to stone him? Paul's going to lead the stonings, right? That's what he's saying. No. There's going to be accountability. Based on other places where we see about discipline, we would expect Paul's going to confirm that this is a sin issue, that the person understands that it's a sin issue, and that they're either going to repent of it, like he says in chapter 12, Okay? Or they're not. Now what does repentance mean? Let's make sure we all have that same definition. Change of mind. And what would we tack on to that for it to be a biblical repentance? Change of mind. Our thoughts are aligned with God's thoughts.

Okay? This is not just, you know, because remember that the Greek readers loved to have intellectual things, and they liked to intellectualize things, and then stop there. There were never any tennis shoes put on. And so they'd say, this is morally wrong, and then go do the morally wrong thing. Kind of look the other way. But in this context, Paul's going to come in, he's going to make sure that with accountability there's an understanding. I predict that by the third letter now, there's understanding.

You know, I guess the question comes up is how, you know, these are examples of strife within the body, right? Yeah. These are all outward examples of issues that relate to the body. But, you know, this repentance is really then related to the body and how it operates. Yes.

And we all know that the old nature never changes. So this repentance kind of, you know, it's kind of putting on the Lord Jesus Christ is what it is. But it's it's it's not an intellectual ascent. And anyway, I'm kind of word soliding here a bit. But sure. Understand what I'm saying. In other words, that Paul's looking for the behavior of the body to be changed here. Yeah, and so there is understanding. So the accountability, and we can look at some other passages, but the accountability comes with understanding.

Did Cain kill Abel and violate God's law about killing other people? God had not set forth a law yet. There was no law against killing. when Cain killed Abel. It was during what we call in the theology circles, the dispensation of conscience. You can discard that term now. But the idea is that when we get to Genesis chapter 9, when Noah gets off the ark, God says, you will not kill another man.

Why? Because they're made in my image. You're disrespecting me, not just that person's life. Sorry, I got quiet there. You're disrespecting me and not just that other person's life. I don't mean to. I get quiet sometimes. Sue Anderson says that when I tell a joke, all my punchlines are quiet. So I have to stop doing that.

So the thing that we run into here is that there is accountability when it is understood. So the law, when it was given, is very precise and technical and specific. Right? And so why Paul sometimes lists off these long lists, and he sounds like an engineer, it's because he's going to be very technical and very specific so that when you come looking for a way to skirt righteousness, you're without excuse.

Ultimately you are because you should be abiding. That should be the normative statement. But he says he's not going to spare anyone, and the reason for that is because there's accountability, and if you reject God's direction, you will be asked to leave the church.

Until you repent. So Paul is not going to just be like, well, that's so-and-so's son, and he donates the most at church. Or that's so-and-so's somebody or else, and everybody likes him. That doesn't matter. There's an accountability there. Paul is not going to spare anyone.

And because I also like lists, and we went through some last week, on page 3 of 5 there you'll see quite a long list. And I actually read all the way through 1 and 2 Corinthians. So we don't have his other letter from before 1 Corinthians. So we don't know what his list from there might be. But we're going to scan through this. We're not going to look at every Bible passage. we have in the past, so I won't belabor it too much, but let's take a look through this.

In 1st Corinthians 3.15, he talks about the scary fire. This is the one where the legalists have a heyday if they misunderstand and misinterpret it. But all the works of the flesh would be burned away. So why would we want to develop more wood and stuff? That's what Paul's argument would be.

Paul says in 1st Corinthians 4.16 and 11.1, be imitators of Paul's life in behavior. Is Paul walking around constantly sinning? You get the impression that in Romans 7 he still wrestled with sin. But he didn't let it be a normal part because he was reckoning. In Romans 6 he was reckoning the flesh dead. Paul would rather not come to discipline.

In 1 Corinthians 4.21 he didn't want to come to discipline. He said the same thing in 12. He's saying the same thing here.

Paul would cast immorality and perversion out of the church. All of 1 Corinthians chapter 5, that's where the young man is sleeping with his dad's mom, or dad's wife, sorry, which would be like his step-mom, I guess. But that whole chapter is basically cast out the perversion. If you need a whole chapter and one verse is not enough for you, there's 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Sinfulness is not appropriate for the sanctified in 1 Corinthians 6.

He said, our bodies are Christ's. Should we join Christ to prostitutes? That's a pretty blunt statement, but that's what he says there in 1 Corinthians 6. Verse 618, he says, flee immorality. It's one of those short Bible verses that's easy to understand, but it's challenging. Flee immorality. Don't cause your brother to stumble. Well, this whole set of letters has been about dealing with stumbling blocks, right? Don't cause your brother to stumble. Run the race of your faith to win.

That looks like righteousness, right? That's a long, full life of abiding, right? The law's consequences were an example to us that God will not be pleased by willful sinning, and we should not sin. 1 Corinthians 10, 1-14. I almost put the whole chapter, but he kind of meanders at the end of the chapter.

But the whole principle of that 1 Corinthians 10 is that the law has already established for us that God's character is righteous. Why would we deviate from righteousness even though we're not underneath the law? We still have the same God. So again, he's not introducing law into the church, but there's a principle of godly righteousness that carries through.

Don't come to the fellowship drunk and glutted. That's always my favorite part. We're going to do communion this morning. And we're going to read, or Roger or Mike or maybe one of the Sunday school students will read, from 1 Corinthians chapter 11. But what's funny is that what's right before and right after the verses we read, and it's funny, like funny weird, not funny haha, is Paul is disciplining the Corinthians in that passage. And he says, this is what we're supposed to be looking at. And that's why we read it, because it's a good description of what we're supposed to be looking at.

But people were coming drunk. They were coming glutted. Some people were coming starving and hungry. And it was causing division instead of focusing on the Lord Jesus Christ. So that drunken gluttedness there could be expanded. Examine yourself to make sure you're abiding when you take communion, he says there after the communion passage.

And then God judges us for our correction in discipline in 1 Corinthians 11.32. Now discipline should not be scary. I'm going to say that as a side note. Discipline is for correction to restore us to fellowship. If you ignore it long enough, that could get scary. But the point of discipline there in that passage in 1 Corinthians is not that everybody should panic because here comes Jesus. Have you seen that bumper sticker? Quick, look busy, Jesus is coming.

But the discipline is for restoration of fellowship. So when I hear discipline and I read Hebrews chapter 12, for example, where the author of Hebrews, not Paul, goes through the discipline thing, on the surface it's a little scary because you think, oh, I got spankings as a kid and I didn't like it. But the focus of the author is to restore fellowship. In the body, he's restoring fellowship.

I love you. I love you so much. I'm going to correct you. You're my child. Continuing on this engineering list, we are being transformed into Christ's image. As you all will recall, Roger got to teach 2 Corinthians 3.18. And Bob and I were as godly a jealousy as there can be, jealous of Roger getting to teach that passage. But we're being transformed into the image of Christ. Does that look like sin?

No. No, it doesn't. And so that transformation is expected. We renounce craftiness and adultery. Well, that's not only saying you shouldn't do it, that's saying it's wrong explicitly and we don't want it. We should be pleasing to God. So we're almost done with this list here. We also need to fear the Lord, because he will discipline us.

And we live for Christ, 2 Corinthians 5, 14 and 15. Our life is not to be towards the flesh, the life is from Christ and in us. Corinthians' carnal affections, Paul calls out their affections, are restraining them from the full life of Christ. They want the physical blessings. When we looked at 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and 13 and 14, they wanted the spiritual gifts and they wanted the physical blessings. They wanted the miracles, they wanted the tongues, they wanted to look cool in front of each other. Literally, they wanted to have an appearance of being better than one another. And that's not part of what the body life looks like. And their carnal affections, their desire for clout and status, cause them to be hindered.

And then Paul says, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement. Now that doesn't mean that we cleanse ourselves of our own sins, right? Jesus paid for all of our sins. That's not what he's talking about. But he is saying that when we look at our lives, when we evaluate what we're doing, if we're spending a lot of time surrounding ourselves with carnality and thinking carnal thoughts, that may be a red flag. I'm going to mention something very specific. And again, I don't mean this to sound legalistic. So that is not the context of it.

But I know a ton of Christians who are watching various very graphically gross television shows that are very sexual that are popular. They're popular around the water cooler. And when I ask them about it, they and I do, I don't ask them in a way to be legalistic or have my eye on better than you. But I ask, so why do you watch that show? And they're like, well, it's really good. Well, okay, do you know what the word good means? Like when God created things and he said it was good in the six days of creation, he wasn't just like, well, that was entertaining, right? So I'm not saying that so that you should never watch anything that ever has anything bad in it ever, ever, ever. Only watch documentaries that talk about Jesus or something. That's not what I'm saying. Hallmark Christmas movies.

But the point is that if we surround ourselves with those kinds of things, Those kinds of defilements and those kinds of things that surround and fill our minds. And trust me, I have lots of things I have had fill my mind over the years. I'll try to go to sleep and suddenly this image will flash in my mind. Man, that was 20 years ago. Young, idiotic Randy hadn't seen that thing. Because it's back. and it's in the forefront of my mind.

Well, you know, you can have this list and these are all exemplary of what you tried to teach here. But, you know, as I look at the verses to follow now, this is what I'm alluding to. OK. I mean, you know, I'm going to try harder not to have bad thoughts. I'm going to try harder not to rock the wrong time. I mean, you know, it's not a there's another life here that we're called unto. And I think four through six, I didn't look at it carefully ahead of time, but So I was looking at this when I looked at your list.

Four through six is the answer to all this. Right. I know. I'm not there yet. I'm going there. I know. I am. I'm beating the dead horse. I'm beating the dead horse so that we can go to the new life. Beating the dead horse and go on. Well, I'm almost done. I got three left now. You waited. But no, two left.

But in what we read earlier, when we started out from from 1220, he's afraid he's going to come and find them sitting. OK. and he tells them in 1221 to repent of their sinful ways. Paul's message to the Corinthians about living a life that reflects Christ's life is consistent. We have two letters of this, and we didn't go back and read every verse because I wanted to try to move through it quickly, but the point of these here, and we talked through them, was that Paul is not surprising them with what he's saying, that he's going to come and he's going to face these people and they're going to deal with accountability and what belongs in and out of the church. So Paul is going to come and he's not going to spare anyone.

And he's going to kick them out. If I wanted to put this in a different light, sin inside of the body of Christ behaves like cancer if it's not dealt with. It spreads. Well, if so-and-so is doing it, then it will mutate and it will change, because permission becomes exploration. So, as Paul is dealing with that, he wants to have them focused.

There's an impact on evangelism, there's an impact on wounds within the body of Christ. Why do you think he wrote 1 Corinthians 13? There's a bunch of wounded folks walking around, and he goes, you need this love. But they don't understand 1 Corinthians 13. They don't understand that because they're all in fighting and dealing with these sinful issues.

And so that's why I should be careful using the word all. Many, many are dealing with those things. So putting things back in a Romans vocabulary, which I think is more familiar for some of us, is Romans 6.1, shall we continue sinning so that grace may abound? No, may it never be, may it not be.

So then Paul says, since you are seeking for proof of the Christ who speaks in me and who is not weak toward you but mighty in you. So you're seeking for proof of this not-weak Christ. Paul has already said, you guys think that when I come I'm weak, and that I'm an under-apostle, if I'm an apostle at all. Do you guys want a strong apostle? Here I come. And the funny thing is that he tried to be gentle. We just went over a long list of direct, but gentle, kindly written things. He says, I'm coming. and you want the strength, here it comes.

So Paul will not be weak towards them anymore. Christ who speaks in me and who is not weak towards you. Christ is not weak towards you, I'm sorry, not Paul, but mighty in you. So why are the Corinthians seeking proof of Christ's power in Paul? Well, there are days, you know, we've just read past, you know, many past verses that they were somehow locked onto these, quote, other apostles, and they somehow thought Paul was an inferior apostle.

And he has constantly been trying to, you know, bring them around and show them, no, no, I'm the real deal. And, you know, my life testifies to that and so on. Well, you know, also, Roger, I'm thinking, Could it also be because the other apostles are not bringing these things to their attention? The other apostles are are sort of letting them get by and not correcting them and not being critical of them. Whereas Paul, on the other hand, is is from the get go been saying these things are happening. And so, of course, they would rather hear from those other apostles. Nobody wants to hear how badly they're doing. We don't know exactly how much interaction came from other apostles. We have these two letters specifically. In the flesh, the Corinthians were being arrogant.

And they wanted Paul's They wanted to see the power of Christ in them, even though Paul had done miraculous things. We read that in the last chapter. They wanted Paul to come in, and how many of you, and this is a personal confession as well as a question. How many of you have ever prayed, Lord, please help me to stop sinning? And you just pray, Lord, will you just miraculously take this lustful desire away, or this fleshly something or else, and then you find yourself How are we out of time? You find yourself dealing with these carnal things because the biblical principle is to be abided. That's where the life of Christ pours out of us.

It's his life and we're resting. What we find is that that's the case But these people were not abiding. They didn't understand that. They saw Paul as somebody who was, as you well stated, nagging them. He's always nagging us, always to get our lives together. But the point here is that Paul says, you're seeking proof.

This is what Christ looks like. You want the power of Christ? It's here. It looks like this. And then verse 4, For indeed he was crucified because of weakness, yet he lives because of the power of God. For we also are weak in him, Yet we live with him because of the power God directed towards you. That power of resurrection, the weak power, and I'm exaggerating and saying the opposite of what Paul said. That's how big the power was.

It's the power that caused the resurrection and all eternal life. That's moving towards you. That's what I want to see. If we're going to use that vocabulary, that's the life. The life is the power and the life of Christ in us. that's what Paul is expecting to see in them and these are not idle threats because he's saying you want proof? This is what proof looks like. On the other thing, the tense of the verbs is interesting.

For though he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives. So he was crucified, but he lives. We also are weak in him, and our weakness in him relates to that co-crucifixion. And Paul knows that, although he didn't exemplify that in detail here. But I think that's what that means. We are weak in him. And that our sins are not only forgiven, but we've been crucified with him. And so the power of God resides in us. I mean, so verse four really is exemplary of what this new life should look like. It's the power of God working in us.

Yeah. And that's the thing is you guys keep wanting this big powerful thing. This is what it looks like. This is the resurrection power. But wasn't the contrast between the showy apostles that looked good, and Paul didn't look good, he didn't speak well, but that's not what it's all about. It's about Christ in you, that's what it's about. He constantly brings it back to that point.

All right, we're going to have to blitz through the next two verses. I feel like this is probably the most challenging part of this passage, so we'll try not to blitz through it too badly here. So then Paul says, test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves, or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you fail the test, but I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test.

So what is this testing? We better really nail that down, because if this testing is you can lose your salvation, we have a serious theological error. So what is the testing? What is the examination? Are you saved? Did you believe? That's the singular question. Or better, is Christ in you? Yeah, is Christ in you? Which would only be the result of you believed. And so there's two different Greek words here, and I won't get into the nerdy side of it, but the one is the test, and the one of them is the examination. One is the test, and one is looking at the results.

The results part is what we see in 1 Peter 1.7, when he says that the test proves our faith.

So these are parallel passages, actually, from 1 Peter 1.7. where an assayer would test the metal. So I grew up in Nevada. We had lots of mines in Nevada, in the Sierra Nevadas, where people would come in with fool's gold and try to pass it off to be able to buy whatever they needed.

You would never take straight gold from anybody you didn't know because there's people trying to pass off false or impure things. So you would take it to the assayer who would then test it and say this is the value of whatever it is and you might be able to do a transaction with the gold.

So I grew up with that and there was this funny stuff that would happen. They were doing slurries to try to get the gold and there was this nasty blue stuff everywhere. Well the nasty blue stuff was silver. But they didn't know. They just wanted the gold. They didn't know that it was valued. They were washing it down the stream. There's money. There it goes.

But an assayer will do a test and then be able to evaluate the value of what's there. And so Paul says, evaluate. Do you believe? Do you have Christ in you? Is there faith here? And if the answer is yes, and I The impression here is that he wants it to be yes, right? He's not really doubting their salvation. But if it's a yes, then there's consequences. He also says that if Christ is in you, you pass the test. Because that's the test. Do you not recognize?

Also, don't you think it's not only do you believe, but do you believe what he said about you I mean I think that's just as important because I think people believe they say yeah I believe but then they don't believe truly all the things that were said about us and who we are and who I mean they don't trust that I would say this is a generalized evaluation of Christendom across my exposure so That's the context. But I would say that we under-teach what is true of us in Christ in the first place, in the church. Instead we look at the you shouldn't sin, and we're just like, by your own bootstraps, pull yourself up, rather than this is true being Christ. And this is what it looks like to have the life of Christ in you, empowered by the Holy Spirit to do these things.

All of that comes together, but instead we just get told, hey, Make sure you don't drink or chew or go out with girls that do. And we've got our dumb rhymes rather than biblical truth and abiding. So Paul says, test yourselves. Examine the results of the test. And he says, just in case you're not sure, remember, we passed the test. And so when he comes, he's going to come with apostolic authority. to cast out anybody who's being obnoxious and is destroying, through the cancerous sin, destroying the church.

Because these are his kids and he loves them. And he wants to see them grow. He wants to see them built. And that's the focus of this. It's not just simply for a good old smackdown. Any other thoughts? We're past the bell a second time, two weeks in a row. Any other thoughts?

All right, Heavenly Father, we come before you. We are so grateful for your Holy Spirit indwelling us and that that is how we can be empowered to live out the life of Christ. We pray for our church body that we would be able to be encouragers and builders up, as you've called out here, and that we can even be encouragers and builders up in the lives of other believers that you bring to us. We praise you and we thank you for who we are in you.