A few taps can broadcast someone else’s failure before you’ve felt any of their pain. In 2 Corinthians 2, Paul describes correcting a troubled church through affliction, anguish, and many tears—insisting the words came from abundant love, not a desire to wound. His example presses a searching question: what is actually happening in your heart when someone else must be corrected?
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What are your blind spots? That’s a question none of us really like to be asked. But it was one I remember I was asked in a class when I first started seminary. Dr. Shawn Lucas, a wonderful teacher, wonderful historian, was beginning his class on church history. One of the things we have to wrestle with when we study church history is that many of the people we would rightly consider heroes of the faith who did wonderful things also said and did some things that were totally abhorrent.
We’re just past Reformation Sunday, and for example, if you’ve studied the historical figure of Martin Luther, there is so much to get excited about and appreciate. I know for myself, I have been so encouraged over the years by Luther and his teaching. But on the other hand, there are some absolutely horrible things he said—terrible things that there’s no way I can even begin to embrace or excuse. That’s true of probably most people throughout history.
As we began that class, my professor said, what are our blind spots? Because we can see them clearly in history, but do we see the places we’re saying and doing abhorrent things too?
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We don’t like to talk about our blind spots because it’s uncomfortable. I can point out where Luther said abhorrent things, or maybe some of the American early colonial theologians said abhorrent things. And rightly so. Sometimes, on some of them, it is so integrated into everything else they taught that it’s really better just to set the person aside. That’s not really the case with Luther because he, in his worst moments, said things that contradicted things that he’d said in his better moments. So you just say, well, I’m just not going to deal with that. He was a complex figure.
But so are we. We’d like to think not. We’d like to think, well, if someone looked at the scope of my life and the things I say, there’d be nothing to correct. It’s all good, or at least not bad. But that’s simply not the case.
And that was my professor’s point and one that stuck with me. Because there are things that we might be blind to right now, maybe even as a whole society, that simply aren’t apparent but will be apparent, say, 200 or 400 years from now if Jesus doesn’t return. Things where God is refining his church. And there are things that we simply recognize, wait a second, that does not agree with scripture. That’s just wrong.
Interestingly enough, when it comes to Luther, he would have been the first in line to say, you should spot those things and go right to where the word of God leads you.
As Paul is talking to the Corinthians, we’ve been looking the last few weeks about how he’s wrestling with some of their misunderstandings and yet grounding them in their faith as he does. Tonight, we’re going to see where Paul addresses how he chooses to correct them for the right reasons.
Last week we saw how he held off, right? He didn’t come to town because it was going to bring sadness. It wasn’t going to help. But then the question is, what are we actually trying to do? Where are we trying to go? What is it that is the business that we are assigned to by God? What do we cry out to him and ask his help in? That’s what we’re going to be thinking about as we turn to 2 Corinthians 2 tonight.
And so as we do, would you pray with me, please? Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for your word. Please help us to see those places where we’re blind and to receive your correction and the correction of your people on them. Help us as we also offer correction, that we would do so in a loving and gracious way, a way that builds up rather than tears down. We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Well, if you want, please do turn with me. We’re going to go starting at verse 2. We looked at verse 1 last week. Here’s what Paul says:
“For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained? For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of the heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain, but to let you know the abundant love I have for you.”
Paul says, I wasn’t writing for the reason you think I was writing. I wasn’t writing to cause you pain. That’s what we talked about last week regarding lording it over others. When we see how Paul was writing them, it wasn’t so he could feel superior. But just as important as what he wasn’t supposed to do is what he was doing.
Part of what’s going to drive that is the fact that he actually felt it. If we feel the need to point out someone’s error and we don’t feel any pain in doing it, we’re probably doing it wrong. Because either it’s not something that we really are called to do—it just isn’t—there isn’t any desire to really wrestle with this and help somebody. Or we’re not taking seriously enough what we’re doing to others because we don’t think it’s a big deal and we’re not really understanding them. Or maybe even worse, as we talked about last week, we actually enjoy lording it over people.
So it should lead to pain. We don’t enjoy it. And that’s what we see with Paul here. What does he do? He’s writing a letter, but he’s writing a letter through many tears. He knows they need to be corrected, but he doesn’t just want to point out how they’re wrong. So often, that’s what we want to do. We want to say, “Well, you’re just wrong. Here’s how you should see this.”
Paul’s pained to do this because he knows it’s not going to be pleasant for them and he doesn’t enjoy it a bit. But out of the love that he has for them, he realizes leaving them in that situation is even worse. And so that’s what’s grounding it. The fact that he loves them means that it actually hurts him to do it. He shows that it hurts him to do it. He’s weeping as he does it.
I think a lot of times when people see Christians saying boldly the truth, they see a lot of boldness. They don’t see a lot of pain when it brings pain. And it’s okay to say something is true and also be pained for how it hurts someone where that truth cuts.
Paul makes no apologies for the truth. It’s true. What he makes apologies for is their pain. He wants them to know, “I’m in this pain with you.”
It’s one of the key things if we’re working with someone, if we’re going to disciple someone, if we’re going to correct someone. Scripture doesn’t say, “Go and tell someone their faults.” Scripture says, “Go and get in the dirt and the mud and help someone with their faults.” Are we willing to actually get dirty and to do the hard work? Or do we like proclaiming? That’s the challenge. And I think that’s a challenge that was apropos then, but especially apropos now where we can do rapid-fire posting online.
We saw that a little bit with email and the emergence of that, text messaging, and all that kind of rapid communication. But even more so when we have social media and we can post something, we don’t even have to think about it that much. Maybe we don’t even write it. We just share a meme that is true but also not tactful, not loving. And incidentally, way easier than actually getting involved in helping someone through something.
Are we willing to get involved? The first step to that is, can we feel the pain? Are we taking on that pain?
This week there was a really painful story of a notable Christian writer, Samuel Say. He set off to go show up on a conservative podcast from Ben Shapiro’s podcast network. Samuel Say is kind of an interesting figure in that he doesn’t fit exactly our society’s political molds, but he’s very pro-life, and I believe that was what he was going to go talk about, the sanctity of life. Wonderful voice for that.
But along the way as he stopped in the airport, as a legal immigrant in the United States, somehow he got mixed up in an immigration raid and he’s been detained for, I believe, four days now. There are a lot of questions about what exactly happened. Did he somehow violate the terms of his legal status here in the United States? Did he just get mixed up in the wrong crowd and hasn’t been able to prove that yet? We don’t really know. I can’t answer that. It may be that he actually violated something and there should be penalty.
In fact, the show he was going on is very pro-immigration restriction, so it’s not that he or the people that he was going to speak to were protesting this. Maybe there are consequences, right consequences. But the striking thing wasn’t really the situation, even though it’s a hot-button situation in our society. The striking thing were the people that disagreed with him.
The people who don’t necessarily like what he has to say, whether he’s too pro-life or they don’t like the fact that he often will say we need to stick to what the Bible says rather than whatever rant they feel like going on. And there were so many people posting his mugshot and celebrating that he’d been detained. Talking about how great it was that he was being detained. Not only wishing that he would be deported out of the United States, but not to his country of citizenship, Canada, but to his country of birth, Uganda, because we just need to get rid of him.
I thought about that. I don’t know him personally, although I follow and know some people who do know him and said that it really does look like a paperwork error here. But I don’t know. Maybe something more will come out. I really don’t know. But what I do know is that it’s more about the people celebrating what had happened to him than it is about him.
Because they were joyful that bad things were coming to him. And even if some of those ultimately end up being, quote-unquote, just, what’s clear is that even when justice is served, we should not celebrate someone’s hardship. Paul here is not celebrating someone’s hardship. He’s weeping with them, even as they are rightly corrected and called to justice.
That is the Christian way to do it. If we celebrate people suffering, even people that deserve suffering, we’ve lost the plot. We don’t want God to do that. In fact, he doesn’t. Paul here doesn’t. The Corinthians deserve it.
Unlike the people celebrating this writer’s situation, most of whom have never met him personally and just don’t like his opinions, Paul had actually gotten into years of ministry work with the Corinthians. He had been the one that God used to bring many of them to faith. He had far more invested, far more reason to want them to feel pain and for him to get relief out of that. And he didn’t. He wept because he loved them.
I think that’s the real challenge for us. If we’re going to do discipleship, if we’re going to actually minister to people and genuinely help people to change their lives when we see them going through something, now sometimes it may be unjust. I don’t know in Say’s case. But even if it ultimately is proven that he really was violating something, we weep.
We weep for him and for his family, his American wife and their child. We weep for that. We weep when the people we have to interact with and tell them they’re wrong. Feel pain. You should feel pain, too. And if we don’t feel pain, we probably shouldn’t even bother to say anything.
If we don’t feel the challenge of being called to righteousness and how it actually cuts into us, then we don’t yet have a heart for that person.
A question about correction: Am I doing something that is a necessary thing in an evil world, or is it gratuitous? I think that’s really it.
Posting someone’s mugshot and celebrating his possible downfall as a man who clearly speaks the gospel and clearly loves Jesus and clearly speaks for the weakest in society, the unborn.
To celebrate that. And it’s really easy. I can point to these people. But where do I do that? Where are my blind spots? Where are the spots where I just get angry and I don’t necessarily see that as bringing pain to somebody else?
Again, it’s not about whether there’s truth or not. It’s not about whether we should hold to that truth or encourage people to that truth or correct people in that truth. It’s what do we feel as we do? And that’s the thing that Paul is modeling for us here.
Just as when Jesus looked over Jerusalem, he wept. Do we have God’s heart for God’s people? We’re called to. Not to chase after the satisfying moment that’s deeply unchrist-like. Because we’re not in the “celebrating people are in trouble” business. There’s something so much better.
There’s something that takes patience and pain and maybe years, but it’s so much better, and that’s what Paul gets to as we go on here. Correction is for restoration. It’s for restoration.
Take a look again at verse 3:
“And I wrote as I did so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice, for I felt sure of all of you that my joy would be the joy of you also. For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears not to cause you any pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.”
Correction must be, if we’re going to do it as Christians, tied to restoration. That is the goal: to restore people and help people to understand God’s will, His righteous way, and help people to actually get there. It’s not to tear down, but to build up.
It might feel like a demolition process, like when you say you need to take down a brick wall and redo it so it doesn’t tumble over. But it’s never just to wreck it and leave an empty lot. We’re fallen human beings and it might do that, but we can’t start out aiming for that.
Paul had to correct them and remind them of the truth, and that’s the thing. This is not a question of whether we insist on justice, if we insist on doing what is right. That was what was so striking to me with that story this week. People weren’t getting into, is this right? It was just a question of, I like seeing this person’s downfall.
Even in cases where it’s clear-cut from the get-go that someone has done wrong, there’s something deeply wrong inside of ourselves if we say, “I like seeing this person’s downfall.” And I admit there have been times, yes, I feel that. I think we probably all do. I certainly do, though. It’s not good.
We need to battle it and ask God for strength in it and say, “Lord, I even know that a lot of times I don’t even know what my blind spots are, but I can tell this is a blind spot because I’m not feeling the things you say I should be feeling here. Help me to do better. This is not of you.”
How do we get to something better? We remember who loves us. We remember that our God loves us when we’re unlovable, when we do what’s unjust and unright. It’s why Jesus talks about the log and the speck. If we truly realize the logs in our own eyes, it’s very hard and very painful when we need to mention the speck in someone else’s eye because we already realize how unworthy and how broken and how wrong we are.
It doesn’t mean we leave people going around blinking with something in their eye and we don’t help them. No, getting the speck out of someone’s eye is an act of mercy. It’s just we remember where we are situated in all this. We don’t forget that and think it’s just a bunch of stupid people that like to blink with stuff in their eyes.
We’re not just blinking with stuff in our eyes. We have a giant tree coming out of our eyes. Do we realize that? When we do, we realize that God loves us anyway and that Jesus went to the cross for us as those with giant oak trees of unrighteousness just pouring out of our eyes.
Then how do we possibly approach other people with anything other than the pain of the Savior? He felt that for us and died and all that suffering leading up to his death, but then death itself, for us, because of what we do. How do we do anything but approach others with compassionate pain when they have to feel pain?
Notably, it’s not just to prove they’re wrong. It’s out of hope that they will become right again.
I see that a lot with church discipline. I know this is not some coded message that we’re getting ready to do church discipline at Little Hills. I’m thankful to say that’s not the case. There’s not that going on right now. There’s not a need for that. But we all know churches sometimes will have to call someone out because they’re acting in a deeply unchristian way. And it almost always goes badly.
But you know what? It almost always ends up being more about showing that person where they’re wrong and putting them in their place than really trying to restore the person. And that’s a whole lot easier for us to do as Christians, as just human beings, because we’re still sinful. That’s not what God’s called us to do.
Do we start from the beginning wanting to see people restored? It causes us to check what we’re doing and make sure we’re really doing it for the right reason, that we’re really doing the right thing, and then to actually feel it so much that, hopefully, in God’s grace, the person understands we’re not wanting to do this. And we really would much rather be on the other end. That’s what Paul’s saying here. I’d much rather be on the other end.
In fact, he has reason here to hope that that’s where it’s headed after his letter because this is following that tearful letter. Take a look at chapter 7, verse 6:
“But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, that’s the Corinthians, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, and your zeal for me, so that I rejoice still more.”
Despite the brokenness of the relationship there, despite all the pain, and it’s not resolved, right? Paul is still dealing with things here. But despite all that, he hears from Titus, who has gone and visited them, that they’re pained too, that they yearn for restoration too, that there is something to look towards.
And that’s what Paul wants to hold on to and focus both himself and them on. Where can we go? It’s not about shaming them. It’s about being restored with them.
A number of years ago, I guess about eight years ago now, come to think of it, this is about this time of year, it was just before it got cold, I had ended up getting to have my grandpa’s van. I love my grandpa’s van. I had that van, and it had not been taken care of very well. It was just incredibly dirty. There was all kinds of dirt on the carpet, stains and so on. So I decided to see if I could get them out.
I found some great carpet cleaning solution on Amazon and started putting it on. It took days of soaking cloths and pulling up the stains and using an actual carpet cleaning machine and then doing it again and again and again. But most of them came out, and it looked really good. As I was doing that, at times it was like, “Is this even going to work? Can I actually get this clean?”
But here’s the thing I wasn’t trying to do because I love that van. It reminds me, I can still see my grandpa in that van. When I was looking at it, I was thinking, I want to restore this like he would want to. I want to make this like he would want it— to care for it, to love it again like he did because it was his. And it matters to me because it was his. I mean, I love him.
It wasn’t where I wanted to shame the van, “Look at how filthy your rugs are. I want to just try to clean them because I can show how dirty you are.” No, I wanted to do it because I wanted it to be as close to how it was when he had it and cared for it as possible because it was his.
As Paul looks at the Corinthians, for one, he’s deeply ministered to them and they matter to him on that count. Even more so, they matter to Jesus who paid the price for them. He looks at those people who are Jesus’s and he says, “I want to restore you. I want to be used as an instrument to pull the stains out, not to shame you, not to show you how you aren’t as smart as I am, or as authoritative as I am or anything else, because I love you and Jesus loves you. And because Jesus loves you, I want you to be okay. I want you to be restored.”
As we think about correction, here is our mission. As Christians, we are in the restoration business. We are servants of the Master Restorer, being sent out to restore. Are we those who actually keep that in mind? Are the things we do, are the actions we take, are the words we say meant to be restorative or destructive?
Jesus calls us to restore. He calls us to remember how much each person we encounter matters to him and is loved by him. And because we see that preciousness that Jesus sees in that person, for his sake we clean and we celebrate.
It’s our calling. Let’s pray that we can fulfill that tonight. Will you pray with me, please?
Father, help us to join in your restoration business. We can’t restore, but you send us to go restore in your power and in the grace that you give. Would you help us to be gracious? And likewise, when we need correction, when we have those blind spots, help us to receive it with graciousness. Help us to share each other’s pain. It’s not fun, but as we’re knitted together and we love each other and we do what you’ve called us to do, Lord, it is so much better than the alternative.
Even though the alternative feels satisfying in the moment, Lord, you call us to look to the ultimate restoration, where we’re headed and not where we are. Help us to join your Apostle Paul in that, as he did with the Corinthians. Help us to do that in our situations today, to see our blind spots and also just to recognize that we’ve been blind at times even as we see others’ blind spots, that we can help, we can build up.
Would you help us to be those restoring people today? We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Here’s the first step in that. You know, if you’re going to clean carpet, you need steps. The first step is to get the right cleaning solution. And that’s God’s grace. We can’t clean with anything else.
If you don’t yet know Jesus, make tonight the night you come to him and say, “Yes, I know I have stains all over, but I know that you clean. And Lord, would you clean me tonight? Would you be my Lord?” And he will say yes. That’s the very first step.
There is correction involved in that, right? We’re called to be followers of him. So we’re all in a constant process of realizing we don’t get everything right. And we don’t like that. It’s not fun. But in that, Jesus will meet us and he will be with us in that. He understands what we’re going through and he knows exactly where he’s taking us into that full restoration.
Let’s pray that we can see that in others but also first make sure you see that in yourself—that Jesus loves you and wants to restore you.
We’re going to be thinking more about broken people who have lots of stains and the need for cleansing and God’s faithfulness even in that as we go into our brand new series that we’re starting on Sunday. I hope that you’ll join me for that. You can see that up on your screen: Unfaithful.
Because in truth, we’re a lot more unfaithful than we’d like to think. And the Israelites were a lot more unfaithful than they wanted to think. I’d like to talk about how we’re going to be faithful, but we need to actually look in our own hearts and say, no, we struggle. They did. We do.
We’re going to be looking at the first couple of chapters of the book of Judges over the course of November. We have some special guest preachers throughout the month, too. I can’t wait to share with you. So it’s going to be great.
5:30 p.m. on Sunday—that’s when it starts—this Sunday, November 1st. So I look forward to seeing you then.
Remember the time change then? So you actually get to come at what is now 6:30. It’ll be 5:30 Central Time at that point. Get that extra sleep and then have a nice long afternoon and then come and worship our God. It’ll be great to share it with you whether in person or online.
Also, of course, we’ll be back together here next week as we wrap up this series. So I can’t wait to share that with you as well.
I hope you have a wonderful and blessed week in the meantime. And don’t forget, if you need any prayer, you can always text our texting line: 833-356-4032, or leave it in the comments below. Have a blessed week. I’ll see you again very soon.
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