Christ life & ministry seeks to edify other believers

So we're going to today finish 2 Corinthians chapter 12. We're going to be taking a look at four subsections. Basically there are going to be four mini lessons in a row. But Paul's going somewhere. There's actually a flow and a trajectory to them. So that's good.

The thing I would say is that Paul is going to finally tell us why he really has been defending his ministry. He's been defending his ministry. In fact, that's the major theme of the book, the defense of his ministry. But he's going to pull a switcheroo on us and tell us why he actually has been riding this defense.

And it's not what the Corinthians may have thought. And maybe it's not what we thought either. But he's going to tell us that as well. The first question I've got here in the introduction is, is this hefty defense ultimately out of anger, frustration, or care for the body in Corinth?

Yeah, it's care for the body. We want to start with that. He's going to tell us really specifically what kind of care he's hoping to be the outcome. So that'll be good. It's kind of hard. Does anybody else feel like Paul might have been belaboring these points? Right? Some of this has felt kind of redundant.

And I know as Roger, Bob and I have taken turns teaching, there's a lot of overlap. And as a teacher, you always want to feel like you can present some kind of special truth that you can glean that's different from another section. And when Paul kind of gets long-winded on some of these things, it's like, OK, well, I have to exposit the verses in front of me. And they're the same as the ones that Roger or Bob exposited when they had to teach. But Paul is belaboring this stuff, but we're going to discover here a really valuable purpose for that.

My challenge to you, and I'll restate the challenge when we get there, is that once we find out what the secret is, take some time this week to go back and just read through 2 Corinthians and see if you can Observe the context. I did it again. I lowered my voice. See if you can go back and observe the context that Paul says this letter is for. I'll repeat that again later on. But up front, I just want to say, finally, in chapter 12, we're going to find out why Paul is going to do this. So let's go ahead and read. I'll read out loud so you can follow along. 2 Corinthians 12, verses 11-21.

I have become foolish. You yourselves compelled me. Actually, I should have been commended by you, for in no respect was I inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I am a nobody. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance. No signs and wonders, I'm sorry, by signs and wonders. That's not a negating word there. By signs and wonders and miracles. For in what respect were you treated as inferior to the rest of the churches, except that I myself did not become a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong.

Here for this third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you, for I do not seek what is yours, but you. For children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. I will most gladly spend and be expended for you, for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less? But be that as it may, I did not burden you myself.

Nevertheless, crafty fellow as I am, I took you in by deceit." and I've already lost my place because I looked up smiling, saying, certainly I have not taken advantage of you through any of those whom I've sent to you, have I? I urged Titus to go and I sent the brother with him. Titus did not take any advantage of you, did he?

Did we not conduct ourselves in the same spirit and walk in the same steps? All this time you have been thinking that we are defending ourselves to you. Actually, it is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ and all for your up-building, beloved. 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 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, immorality, and sensuality which they have practiced."

Alright, so we've got this really short, simple passage, right? It's going to be a cakewalk. So I've broken it down into four sections here, as I mentioned earlier. And so we'll start in this first one. What should have happened? OK, so he kind of transitions from the previous passage Bob covered last week. I've become foolish. You yourselves compelled me. So Paul says, you compelled me. Actually, I should have been commended by you. And so the first section we've got there is compelled or commended.

Now, I want to highlight whenever we can, places in the New Testament where somebody else maybe got it right. So he's been chastising the Corinthians and they have basically compelled Paul to air his dirty laundry, to be foolish, and call out his humility and his weaknesses so that they would realize that he's not being false with them. Because when we have a false teacher and a false teacher comes in they always want to build themselves up. They've either got all the right letters after their name or they're from a great church background or a great heritage of people who you've heard on the radio or the television or whatever it is that's going to sucker you in.

So Paul is in chapters 11 and 12 here humbling himself. He's become weak. He says, these are my weaknesses. I'm boasting in my frailty. And so Paul says, I have been compelled by your stinky attitudes and bad life choices to be humble, but I should have been commended.

And so I want to emphasize that when we read Paul's letters to Colossae, his letters to Philippi, his letter to Ephesus, not letters plural, I should be careful, letters to Thessalonica is plural. When we take a look at Ephesus next year, which you need to choose the right class if the Holy Spirit guides you to. I'm going to be here in Ephesus. But when we read those things, the first several chapters of Ephesians are telling the church who they are in Christ.

When we read the beginning of Philippians, I've been teaching a small digital Bible study, if you can believe that on smartphones, digital Bible study. through Philippians. What I love about that is that Paul tells the Philippians, thank you for being a co-minister with me. Thank you that you have come alongside, you've understood what God's called me to, you've understood what we're supposed to be doing as believers and saints on the earth, like Cheryl's prayer request, that we may, as part of our life, be sharing the gospel. Not that we're all evangelists, but we know who our eternal life is rooted in, and that there's some value in not having the church die off, because there's no new believers, right? All of these things are coming along, and so when we read Philippians, they were commending Paul, and they were encouraging Paul, and they were praying for Paul, and they understood his ministry.

When we look at this 2 Corinthians passage here, Paul calls out the Corinthians, you guys don't get it. And who had the greatest opportunity? The Corinthians, they're at this awesome intersection by land or by sea. You're going to come through Corinth if you're going to that part of the world. That's some good preaching opportunity.

They didn't get it. So Paul calls them out on it here a little bit. I was compelled to air my weaknesses and instead you should have been commending me for having been obedient. So that's a bit of a rough go if you're Corinth. A little more discipline.

But it's important that we understand that Paul was doing this as a corrective measure, not to be dismissive or disrespectful to the Corinthians. This is a corrective sentence and concept, not just to smack them down and tell them to go to their rooms.

And he says, for in no respect was I inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I am a nobody. And in my notes, I didn't go over the I am a nobody part too much. I could have gone into that in more detail, I guess. But I think what Paul is wanting to refer to is, in this apostleship model here, who is the eminent apostle? Or who are the eminent apostles? False apostles. The false apostles definitely want to be eminent.

But the only one that Paul writes about throughout his letter, and I've got the addresses there, 1 Corinthians 1, 12, 3, 22, 9, 5, and 15, 5, all refer to Peter. So it seems like the Corinthians had a real special place in their cult of personalities for Peter.

And Paul's like, that's not right. Because which apostle is above all the other apostles? Do we know the answer to that? Roger's shaking his head, no. It's important. This is really critical because we're going to see a whole branch of theology be rooted, and when I say theology I mean bad theology, being rooted in the idea of preeminence. There is no head chief apostle. That's really important.

At Holly Hills, who is the senior elder? No. There is no senior elder. It's the three elders. It should be an equivalency. Just because he teaches the main service more often, my dad or Vern is not the head elder. The reason why Mike and Roger get together as often as they can on Tuesdays is often to discuss theological issues that have to be taught to make sure they're saying the same thing. And they want agreement to be saying the same thing, to be teaching the same thing. because there is no head elder that gets to call the shots, and there was no head apostle that gets to call the shots. Let's look at this because I think it's super important. When we look at this next section here about apostleship, there were signs that verified the role of apostleship, so they knew who it was. When we read in Acts chapter 3 verses 1-9, and I'll flip there real quick, and if you've got your Bibles take a second to go there with me. Acts 3 verses 1-9, we won't read the whole thing.

Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer, and a man who had been lame from his mother's womb was being carried along, whom they used to set down every day at the gate. And Peter and John said look at us and they healed him.

Is it because they were extra awesome? They're not Mormon and they were wearing their holy underwear that day? No. That was God's hand on them to say these are my apostles. And as we go throughout the New Testament, when we see the miraculous happening, it's often through the apostles to validate their ministry, to say these are special people.

They also saw Jesus or walked with him. Paul saw Christ on the road to Damascus. And the other thing is that apostles have a role that reveals doctrine through them so that the gospel could be given clearly and without division. So, when we read the first thing that happens to the first church in Acts chapter 2, verse 42, it says the saints devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. So the apostles had a very specific role in establishing the church. And guess what?

The church wasn't in one place We don't have an equivalency, if you will, and I'm going to be very careful how I say this, we don't have the Holy Temple back in Jerusalem for the church that we go back to as our special holy place. And we don't have Mecca, which strangely is really close to the same place geographically. The church doesn't have a special place. Where is the church? where believers are gathered, and where did the disciples have to go to make believers? Everywhere! So there was no head apostle.

So when Paul says an eminent apostle, it's that this one was considered to be extra special, and apparently in Corinth, that was Peter. But Paul says of himself, even though I'm a nobody, I am not below or above the other apostles, because that's not what the rule is about.

Eldership, I think we find throughout the New Testament, eldership is treated the same way. There shouldn't be a senior pastor, senior elder kind of a role based on the biblical example. That doesn't mean that American churches haven't figured out that corporate America has executive leadership so we should do the same thing in the church.

When I say figured that out I mean somebody contrived it. It's not in the text of the scripture. So that's a bit of a rabbit trail but I want to call it out because I think it's important. It's easy for us to be attracted to specific teachers or leaders and then we fall into the same trap as the Corinthians. So we want to avoid that.

That's why I'm honored to say that I have taught with all three elders at Holly Hills, and I don't favor any one of them. I love to teach with each one of them. God has taught me through all three. Any questions on that? Because we've got to keep moving here, but I also don't want to blitz through too much.

Like I said, we're not going to emphasize Paul saying he's a nobody other than to say that he's just saying, listen, God picked me. He gave me this responsibility, and I get to do it. The irony being that in chapter 11, if he was going to be a nobody, he said exactly who he was in Israel that made him a somebody. But he says in Christ, I'm a nobody.

So continuing on in lightning fashion, apologies that we're moving so quickly. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles. Now, signs and wonders. I think everybody in this class was also in 1 Corinthians. And when we look at chapters 12, 13, and 14, Paul actually spends three chapters going over spiritual gifts, and he covers signs and wonders and miracles during that time. Now, anybody want to guess why he covered that doctrine and that set of things with the church in Corinth? You should probably know if you were in a class.

Well, they were not much different from the Athenians. They wanted to get into whatever was the newest trend of the day. That would be probably drawing them away from what the real deal is, God himself through Jesus. So if the Holy Spirit is moving in the body, and some of the people had spiritual gifts that manifested healing and speaking in tongues and all of those things, but they're not doing it, or they don't want to seek doing it out of fellowship with the Lord, but instead for their own egos and building themselves up and having more power within the community, they don't understand. So, they didn't understand it for themselves, and they seem to also not have understood it for the apostles.

Paul came and he was doing the miraculous things. That's why he's an apostle. It wasn't just because he was a Christian. This was God validating his ministry before them so that they would not doubt that whatever he taught, the actual doctrines, would be listened to. So the doctrines would be listened to because of the miraculous signs. That's why he's an apostle. Not so that he can just heal people, but so that he can preach the gospel and teach New Testament doctrine that, remember, until the New Testament was finished, they only had parts and pieces of.

They didn't have the New Testament. One of my favorite things I ever heard a teacher say as a joke is that the reason why I teach out of the King James Version of the Bible is it's the one that Paul taught out of. That's a joke, right? He wrote in the Greek predominantly, but it looks like he had Aramaic and Hebrew as well. But the thing that's important to recognize here is that Paul had the authority, the spirit-directed position of doing the miraculous to establish himself as a teacher. It wasn't so that he could be like the David Copperfield roadshow. It's not an illusion. It's not magic.

It's to establish him as an apostle. And that's why I said, I did the signs of an apostle. That's how you would know that I was really sent by God to teach you about his son, Jesus. So carrying on, moving through here. Sorry, we're just blitzing through. For in what respect were you treated as inferior to the rest of the churches, except that I myself did not become a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong.

So one of the things that theologians believe was true of the church in Corinth was that there was a lot of poverty in the church in Corinth. So when Paul gets there and a lot of the people are in poverty, that matters a lot. That if you're taking poverty into consideration and you're an apostle and the Holy Spirit is directing you to stay there for, we get the impression, months at a time. Paul wrote about that in First Corinthians.

He stayed there for several months. That's not an inexpensive thing. It's not a weekend. If I have company for a weekend, I don't really sweat the expense of feeding a couple of mouths over a weekend. Yeah, Tom? My uncle had a pet saying, fish and company stink after three days. Yeah, three days, right? And that kind of got the message to us that we were not supposed to hang around too long, find a hotel, whatever it is. Yeah.

Well, and we hope that as believers we may be the exception to that. But I understand completely what he's saying. But the idea here with Paul is he did not want to be a burden. And he's saying to them again in his exaggerative form in these last several chapters, I'm really sorry that I robbed you of the opportunity to give me money and be a burden. Again it's out of exaggeration a bit here but he's going to keep going again as he belabors some of these points so we'll keep moving forward. He says in verse 14, here for this third time I am ready to come to you.

Okay, so we know that he wrote a letter earlier saying, hey, I'm not going to be able to make it. And they were super upset. He'd already been there twice, right? When he first preached the gospel, and then on his third missionary journey when he came back through, and he had said he wanted to come again, and he said, hold on, God's called me somewhere else, directed by the Holy Spirit, to take a different road trip. And he's writing this letter saying, I'm prepared, I'm ready. to come visit you again. We're going to see the repeated idea in chapter 13 verse 1. For I do not seek what is yours, but you.

Super important. Super important. When I went up to Fort Collins yesterday to visit Brad and Connor Anderson, I went up there specifically to see them. Now, this is purely by way of illustration. I'm not saying this to be braggadocious. I can't remember what variation Tom used last week or the week before. But I did some repair on Brad's guitar and his banjo. And he goes, well, how much do I owe you for that? I said, nothing. Just take them. It's fine. Because what I really want to do, I want to have fellowship with Brad. That's what I want.

And in the same vein, the same idea, Paul says, Hey, I don't want your stuff. I don't want your money. I don't want your possessions. I don't want to be able to brag that I know so and so in Corinth. What I want to do is love you. I want to know you. I want to see you. I want to be with you. And I'm getting quiet, I can tell. So as Paul is writing this to them, he's saying, I'm going to come see you because I want to see you. And he is not going to be a burden yet again. Third time through, I'm promising you, I'm not going to be a financial burden.

Now Paul has also written in chapter 7 of this letter that he sent Titus to do what? collect money. This letter, 2 Corinthians, got sent with Titus to the Corinthians and he says give as generously as you can because I've been bragging about how generous you're going to be. by the Holy Spirit. What's cool is he pointed out a church that was even in more dire shape, but they were giving more than the Corinthians. He went through that whole routine where these guys are in deep poverty and they're giving out of their deep poverty and they're out giving you. So Paul says, I'm not going to be a burden. Paul's care at this point in time financially is for the church in Jerusalem. And he knows that God will provide his needs.

We'll read that in a different way when we go through Philippians chapter 4. Someday we'll teach Philippians 4. Did we do it one time before? I can't remember. But we'll do it again if we did it before. And if we didn't, we'll do it anyways. It's awesome. But Paul knows God will provide his needs. Philippians 4, 18 and 19. For children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. All right. So Paul takes this parenting principle and applies it to his relationship as their spiritual parent.

Now, this is an awesome rabbit trail. If there was ever a rabbit trail that I got to teach, I could go way off the tracks on this one. There are so many areas that money touches in our own lives and when you talk about parents and money then it gets very real for lots of people because they think about college and whatever else. We're going to intentionally not let me follow the rabbit trail, okay? Because Roger did not schedule six weeks for this lesson.

I just got this morning. But let's take this very briefly and understand that Paul sees his spiritual parenthood as modeling the priority being the children, being those who are his responsibility spiritually. And when my dad turned 42, and I will tell one short story, when my dad turned 42, he was actually mowing the lawn, if I recall correctly, and my sister came out the front door where I was pulling my really beat up old Chevy truck into the garage and she said, Jeremy, who is my bass player in my band, is on the phone.

He was yelling over the lawnmower. And I jumped out of the truck and I grabbed the phone, which was stupid because I had not set the parking brake. And so my truck, with the door open, with the parking brake off, scraped down the side of my mom's brand new to her, Camry. Happy 42nd birthday, Dad. What happened is my dad, in gracious humility, came and ran across the lawn.

Fortunately, when you let go of the lawnmower handle, it stops. He let go of the lawnmower and ran over to help me try to stop my truck, which was going down the driveway. then help me use rubbing compound and get the white paint from my truck off of mom's Camry. It didn't do too much damage, thank you Jesus. But his role as dad and his generosity in dealing with that and some financial things that were a consequence of that in many places in my life as I grew up was a good example to me of sacrifice.

Parents often make sacrifices for their children. And Paul is emphasizing that here. He's not just trying to rub it in or be highfalutin. He's saying, I have been given by God as an apostle, as your spiritual parent, this responsibility. So last point of the rabbit trail. This is in your handouts if you like it. You don't have to write it down. Last point of the rabbit trail is I'll form it first as a question. Do you, as a spiritual parent, the Lord brings you into somebody's life, you preach the gospel, they respond, and they become a new believer. Do you have a responsibility to their spiritual maturity as their spiritual parent?

Within reason you do. I say within reason because it's possible when you're a brand new believer that you're excited about the gospel and you go preach the gospel to more people and you're maybe slightly less than equipped to feed them. But maybe you take them to church and you get them plugged in under someone who's more mature. It's unfortunate how often I run into people who are often convinced that they need to preach the gospel and that's all they know. They preach the gospel, they put a notch in their Bible, right?

You keep track, because God is. You get more spiritual bonus points if you keep track with the notches in your Bible cover. And then you've just got lots of spiritual babies. They're running around, they're ill-equipped, they're not growing. And so Paul, as an example, we want to see that Paul has a pattern here of spiritual parenting that involves passing it on. And we're going to take a look at that more later on in this lesson, but I want to just put that out here to start with and we'll keep going with this spiritual parenting principle a little later on.

Verse 15, I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less? So, That's a pretty hefty statement there, right? Why was Paul willing to be expended for the body and core? He loved her. He was her spiritual parent. As the parent he had to be sacrificial and he was willing to be sacrificial and carry that on.

Now Paul is given a special ministry as an apostle, so I'm not going to try to read too much into that in the sense of every Christian who's led somebody to the Lord should suddenly be living in this extreme sacrificial way for every believer that they preach the gospel to and that gets responded to.

I'm not going to try to draw a parallel that's unhealthy. you can lead to all kinds of weird legalism by following that rabbit trail the wrong direction. So we don't want to do that. But what we see here is that Paul, given the role he was given, given the responsibilities he had, and given the love that he had for the church in Corinth, was willing to expend all of his energy and his own resources to make sure they were established. I'm going to answer this question, why was Paul willing to be expended for the body in Corinth?

Long-term answer, not the short-term answer. Long-term answer is that Paul knows he's only on this earth for so long. He was expecting the rapture any day. But he knows that as long as the Lord tarries, he's only going to be on the earth for so long. And if the rapture doesn't happen tomorrow for him, He has to establish every church that he started so that it will be here into the long-term future.

So he's going to expend himself to make sure they're established. If he can get Corinth to actually understand their value and role in the global body. We have a value and a role in the global body, but we won't go into that too deeply today. If they understand that, they can have a major impact. So Paul is establishing them and seeking to make sure that they are well-loved.

Second half, if I love you more, am I to be loved less? That one hurts a little bit, right? That one's a bit hard. What did Paul write in 1 Corinthians 13? he was writing a sermon for ministers to do wedding ceremonies. Right? 1 Corinthians 13? That's why it's there? Why did Paul write 1 Corinthians 13? Because the church in Corinth was stinky at love. They didn't get it. And so Paul, again, here he is, second letter, well, third letter as far as we know. Third letter, second one we have. and this isn't the first time in the second letter that he's talking about love.

Now, I'm going to bring this home and put some tennis shoes on it. Is this something that every believer wrestles with? I'm going to make eye contact with folks. I'm not looking at anybody. I'm just looking for head nods or whatever. The thing is that as human beings, we're fickle, aren't we?

If we're not abiding, if we don't have the Holy Spirit driving our motivation and our direction, it's easy for us to be selective about who we want to spend time with and who we want to love. So Paul says, hey, I love you more, but do you have to love me less? I told you that when God loves through you, what that looks like. And so for us today, we can look at this and we can, no guilt trip. This is not about guilt. This is about recognizing that as we abide, we should never have had anybody describe the church this way, that we love less.

I have a friend in Texas who I talk to most Mondays in the morning on my drive into work. I call him on the phone. And he told me that at their Wednesday night service that their church holds, there was a guy visiting. This is a zinger, okay? There's a guy visiting and after the end of the service, the pastor says, does anybody have anything they want to share? And the dude stood up and started saying, the church is judgmental.

Which is always good from a visitor. Like, what? You don't know us. Well, what's going on here? And the pastor was gracious with this visitor and said, are you saved? He started there. Let's talk about if you're saved or not. And then kind of redirected things back to biblical truths. But I think it's important for us as believers when we recognize what the world sees, what the world sees is often jaded. Do they have the Holy Spirit to show light on biblical love? They don't. Because they're not saved. The Holy Spirit is not moving in them to say, look what I'm doing. But for us as believers, we need to have an awareness. Again, this is not judgmental or legalistic guilt bringing truth here. This is encouraging truth. Encouraging us to love one another.

Just like Paul was saying, hey Corinthians, please love me back. I'm going to come a third time, can you love me back? That's a lot of love. Because when Paul takes time out of his missionary journey to come visit you, he's not going somewhere else. Right? And it's costing him resources, but he loves you. So that's a lot of love. And he's saying, can you love me back? That's really what he's after. Continuing on in verse 16, this is the next section here at the bottom of page three, the what happened section. What happened historically in his previous interactions with the church.

But be that as it may, I did not burden you myself. Nevertheless, crafty fellow that I am, I took you in by deceit. Now, we have been seeing a side of Paul that is foreign to most of his other letters in this book. Okay? He is riding with way more hyperbole and way more exaggerated facetiousness than in other places. But he's not going to answer how he did the deceit until he takes a little parenthetical. So we'll take a look at how he was being deceptive and I'm going to put deceptive in air quotes but that doesn't show up on the recording so I'm going to call it out.

So he says, be that as it may, I did not burden you myself, nevertheless. So again, he's reemphasizing his having not been a burden. so that, and then so we'll just keep going so we can find out why he was being crafty, okay? Verse 17, certainly I have not taken advantage of you through any of those whom I have sent to you, have I? So he himself had already been declared as not being a burden.

And then he talks about Titus. And when we look at 1 Corinthians, Timothy had represented him at that point in time. And again, so Paul says, when I sent my representatives, were they burdensome? And it's a rhetorical no. No, they were not burdensome.

So now you have a group of people that are all traveling at different times to this church, and there is a repetitive behavioral pattern that is not to be burdensome. It is financially not a problem to have Paul or one of his cohorts come. If you can spare some resources, great. They're not going to turn it down. But their goal is the gospel, not worldly wealth.

He continues on in verse 18, I urged Titus to go and I sent the brother with him. Again, we have these mystery people that we ran into earlier. But it's cool, I mean, they have somebody, it's not like he pays on his own, he's just taking in this money, he has somebody to watch him. Yeah, there's accountability. Accountability, I thought that was kind of cool, even though we don't know who this is.

The brother. The brother. When we get to heaven, I'm going to have a million questions before I get to the brother, but I'm eventually going to get to ask, who's the brother? And the Lord will be like, oh, and he'll introduce us to the brother, and we'll be like, oh, totally not what I was picturing.

So, they did not take advantage of them. Second half of 18. Super, super, super important. Second half of 18. The same spirit and the same steps. I'm in the middle of page four there. It's worth noting that Paul and Titus operate by the same spirit and ministry approach.

Paul as an admonisher elsewhere tells believers that they should be walking with one spirit and let's take a look at Philippians 1.27 but we can see also right there in the notes 1st Corinthians 6.7 so in his earlier letter he already wrote to them but Philippians 1.27 And if you get there, somebody go ahead and read it out loud for us. Only let your conversation be as it becomes the gospel of Christ, that whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. All right. Really brief side note on it's a it's a note you can make on your King James there. Conversation means how you live your life. Conversation isn't just the words you say. That's a King James variant and it's worth calling out. So what we have here with this idea is that there is one spirit. As a body, the consequence of following Paul and the lead of the Holy Spirit should be that our focus is together. One spirit.

Titus and Timothy were examples of what that looks like. They followed a pattern. They followed what Paul example and taught, which is why they were given the responsibility. Paul knew that they would follow those steps. They had the integrity and the consistency so that Paul knew what the result of their traveling to your church would be. They were respected and valued contributors to Paul's ministry. So he says that they had the same spirit and in the same steps, the same walk.

So Paul told the Corinthians in 1st Corinthians 11.1, he says copy or imitate me as I imitate Christ.

So there's a pattern, there's a principle here. Paul is saying listen, I'm going to follow Christ, and if you follow me, you're going to follow Christ, too. The focus is on Christ. But that principle of imitation, I think, is one that's OK, as long as we're imitating Christ and not some earthly personality cult pattern. So the goal is that they're following Christ.

But Titus and Timothy, and I'm guessing Onesimus, since he was also sent to the Philippines, That's a different place. That's, man, the theology that you could derive from that era. OK, because Onesimus was sent there, there seems to be also this pattern of his maturity, especially since he'd been a runaway slave. That's a big shift, right? So this pattern of those that Paul sends is that they're consistent, and they follow through with what Paul's character and integrity is.

Now verse 19, and all this time you have been thinking that we are defending ourselves and here is his deceit. Are you ready? Actually, it is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ and all for your up-building. And that is a non-English word, up-building. So Paul invented a word and the translators tried to carry that through. So, is this a spankin'? Has Paul been writing a spankin' letter? It might be a little bit of a spankin'.

But the purpose and the direction and why I said, and I said I'd repeat myself, why I said earlier, go back and re-read 2 Corinthians. I know this is not a five second chore. Go back and re-read 2 Corinthians in light of this being an up-building letter. If it's to grow the church in Corinth, then you re-read 2 Corinthians and you see that as his purpose, not just the defense, although the defense is still there, that's why he calls it out. What you find is that Paul has lovingly, caringly, consistently, repetitively been trying to teach truth and correct error for the building up of the church. Not just Corinth, though.

We've got this letter, so it can build us up, too. So, as you have time this week, go back, do some re-reading with that in mind. Just take the word up-building, write it on a 3x5 card, and just put it right above your laptop, or your Bible, or your Kindle, or whatever you're reading in. and look for all the up-building and on the other side of that 3x5 card maybe this is feeling fancy if you're feeling really special with your time on the other side of that card write down all the up-building passages and I bet you fill up that card a little bit more than you might have thought That's totally a recommendation, not some legalistic demand of your time. But consider that. Consider the up-building qualities of what's in here. It's a great Second Corinthians bookmark, suddenly, and it will highlight some things that maybe you missed the first time through.

Alright, that's the craftiness, that's the deception. And he suckered them in with up-building. Yeah, I deceived you by secretly upbilling you. And so that's why I love Paul. His hyperbole and his exaggeration is he's got them. They got to be pretty worked up by now. Right. He said that you made me foolish. And he's been disciplined. But he's he grabs him with the comedic hook, if you will.

Now, 20 and 21, I got only a few moments to go over this, which is a humdinger because Paul says, I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish. We already know that he's listed problems that he doesn't want to find when he comes. But the second half of that sentence, and may be found by you to be not what you wish. And I want to address that specifically because I think it's possibly less obvious than the first half.

And that is this. Their expectations of an apostle were jaded and wrong. And Paul has been trying to correct that for chapters and chapters now. And so he's saying, listen, you need to understand what an apostle is. I am an apostle, and I come to you by the direction of the Holy Spirit and your expectations have been wrong, fix them. This is a fix them opportunity. It's not that Paul is not the person he should be, it's that their expectations are off. So, that's one problem.

And he does not want to find in them the lists of issues that he's already tried to address in this letter and the previous letters. He lists these sins and they look a lot more familiar to the pre-list of the flesh from Galatians chapter 5, right? 19 and 20 when Paul lists the fruits of the flesh. And then in 21, I'm afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you and I may mourn over many those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality, and sensuality which they have practiced.

So I want to take a second because in classic Randy form I have actually taken the opportunity to follow rabbit trail. So at the top of page five there's the question, what does spiritual parenting look like? Because Paul has been correcting, and we want to see what that correcting was unto. What was his target? And so I'm going to take a moment to actually highlight something really cool from the book of Romans, not from the letters to the Corinthians. So allow me this rabbit trail, because I think it's valuable for us to observe as spiritual parents. The first thing that he does is share the gospel. The first, oh man, I'm shorter than normal.

The first four chapters of Romans are a presentation of the Gospel and refuting any carnal answer there is to why we shouldn't believe. And then, carrying that on to the pinnacle of what that is, is Romans 5 verses 8-10 of who we were in Adam, and then following that with who we are as alive in Christ. So he gives the Adam and Christ, first man, second man analogy in Romans 5.

If you don't preach the gospel, you can't do any of the rest of these things and you're not a spiritual parent. So the gospel is the first point. The second point is he establishes why we live for Christ. In Romans 6, he gives us grace as a motivator. not so that we would continue sinning, but so that we would show that life. Grace should lead to life. And then in 6.3-23, sanctification as normative, that we're set aside under the Lord to be growing progressively, and that should be normative for us as believers. It should be the life that we live as Christians, that it's a sanctified life.

And then we have died to the law, Romans 7.1-25. The whole chapter is basically that we've died to the law, even if we might still wrestle with it in the flesh. And then, in the third part of that, as we're spiritually parenting, we have to let people know why they're living for Christ, then we have to establish them the principle of abiding life. What does it mean that we're abiding?

And so we find that in Romans 1-8, that we have to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. And then in Romans 9 through 39, the end of the chapter, we start to understand what this progressive sanctification looks like, being called, being transformed into the image to his son, and knowing that no matter how badly we sin, we're always saved. We can't lose our salvation.

Lastly, and this is what Paul has been working towards all through this letter and what he's going to get to in the next chapter, is he wants to prod the believer into next steps. Looking back in the Romans, chapters 9-11 are a parenthetical, so we're going to skip those.

He goes off into talking about Israel and their misunderstandings about the gospel. So when he comes back into chapter 12 of Romans 1-13, are to correct in the challenge to build up the body. That if you're walking in the Spirit, it should impact the body and build up the body.

And lastly, you will not be stunned to hear, that should lead to sharing the gospel. And what happens when we share the gospel and somebody responds? Well, the process starts all over again. And so now somebody who's a new believer gets to carry on and understand who they were in Adam, how they can be alive in Christ, they can understand grace as a motivator, they can understand that sanctification should be in order of, and guess what that's going to lead to? That's going to lead to them being able to share the gospel, and then the cycle will start all over again. And that's a powerful thing. Because Paul, he's been trying to set up the Corinthians to understand that. But they don't understand it. And I know the second bell rang, and I know I'm running long.

Let me close with this thought. When Paul gets there the third time, and he gets to go there the third time, I get the impression that it may not have worked out. What he wants to be able to go to is a mature body. So when we get to Ephesians, Paul comes to a mature body that he's able to write to, and look at the meat of what he's able to write, because they understand what body life is supposed to look like on a better level.

All right, let's close in prayer. I'm sorry that I have at least another page and a half of material we didn't get to go over, but it's good. I appreciate your patience with me in this. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would just focus our hearts and minds on things above yet again throughout the week so that we can look at Paul's Holy Spirit-guided surprise of up-building. And we just pray for your wisdom and guidance in all that we do. We lift up all the prayer requests to you as well. and pray that you would be healing and helping and continuing to focus all of our attention on you. In Jesus name, Amen.