THE HEALING GRACE OF LOVING RESTORATION
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on August 30, 2020 under 2020 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; August 30, 2020 from 2 Corinthians 2:5-11
Theme: The loving restoration of a repentant believer brings healing to the whole body of Christ.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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But before I share with you what this important passage describes, I need to remind you of the story that lies behind it. And for that, we must go all the way back to the first letter; and specifically to 1 Corinthians 5.
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When the apostle Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthian believers, he was dealing with many different problems. Among them was a very serious problem of immorality. It was a shocking sin—something so scandalous that it was unlike anything that might have been found even in the pagan world. A man within the church family had become incestuously involved with his own step-mother.
But that was not the greatest problem. The greatest burden to Paul was that the church didn’t seem bothered by it. In fact, the church family was actually proud of how it tolerated this man’s behavior. It grieved Paul greatly that they were not troubled by it; and that they didn’t take action to remove this sinning man from their midst.
Paul urged them, then, to practice ‘church discipline’ toward the man. He wrote to them as if he were actually present with them—and as if he were actually providing leadership in a church disciplinary council; and said,
For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 5:3-5).
Strong words! Paul’s command with regard to this man may seem harsh to many modern ears—turning the man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. But it was a command to do something that was very necessary for the good of the church. And it had a very redemptive purpose. It was—in part—intended to make the man sorrowful for his sin and to bring conviction to his heart so that he would eventually repent of it and be saved.
But notice how concerned Paul was over the attitude of the Corinthian church. The fact that they tolerated such wicked behavior in their midst—and worse; the fact that they were even proud of it—revealed that they didn’t understand the true nature of the church that Jesus bought and redeemed with His own blood. Paul went on to write;
Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? (v. 6).
It wasn’t a small matter that such immorality would have been tolerated in their midst. It actually hurt them. It brought the influence of this sin upon the whole church family. It contaminated their holy devotion to Jesus Christ—the Savior who died on the cross to deliver them from all sin and to make them holy in His sight. And so, just like in the Old Testament celebration of Passover—during which the people of Israel were to separate all leaven from their household, and to celebrate God’s feast with pure, unleavened bread—Paul wrote that they should diligently remove the ‘leaven’ of this man’s sin from their fellowship. Paul said;
Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (vv. 7-8).
What this probably meant in actual practice was that the church was to read Paul’s letter publicly, and to then, in union with his judgment on the matter, officially declare that this unrepentant sinning man was not to be considered a part of the fellowship of the church family. Out of love for the Lord Jesus and for the holiness of His church, they had to cease having casual fellowship and sacred communion with the man—not even eating with him; and to urge him instead to turn from his sin, and to repent, and to trust in Jesus for deliverance.
It would have been a very hard thing to do. Those of us who have had to participate in such an action in a church family toward an unrepentant church member know what a grievous and heartbreaking thing it is. When it is done as it should be done, it is never done with delight. It is always done with great sorrow. But when it comes to ongoing, unrepentant sin, it absolutely must be done. The very nature of our Lord’s church—His holy Bride—demands that we do so.
Our Lord Himself—the Savior of His church—even commanded that it be done.
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But that brings us to a time a little later in the future—and to our passage in 2 Corinthians 2. Apparently the church family in Corinth—urged on by the strong words of Paul—took decisive action. They held council together, acted in union with Paul’s authoritative judgment, and separated themselves from this sinning man.
And somehow along the way—the details of which aren’t told to us—the sinning man repented. He felt the great sorrow of his sin, and he severed himself from the immoral relationship he was in, and he turned to the Lord Jesus for forgiveness and cleansing. And that’s what was going on behind the words that we find in this morning’s passage. Just as Paul was concerned about the attitude of the Corinthians in tolerating the man’s sin in the past, he was now concerned that—after the man had repented—they did not continue to shun him. He urged them to now welcome him back and restore him into the fellowship of the church family. It’s a wonderful call of grace that is unlike almost anything you can find in the world today—a call that is only made possible by the pardoning grace of our Lord Jesus.
In 2 Corinthians 2, Paul wrote about how hard it was—and how much it broke his heart—to have written such hard things to the Corinthian believers. And in verses 5-11, he wrote these remarkable words:
But if anyone has caused grief, he has not grieved me, but all of you to some extent—not to be too severe. This punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for such a man, so that, on the contrary, you ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow. Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love to him. For to this end I also wrote, that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things. Now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices (2 Corinthians 2:5-11).
I must tell you, dear brothers and sisters in Christ; I am so very glad those words are in the Scriptures! On the one hand, they show us that sin in the church family is a grievous thing—and that it is hard and grievous to have to deal with. They show us how unrepentant sin in the life of one church member hurts the whole church. But on the other hand, these words also underscore to us the wonderful, healing power of forgiveness through Jesus Christ after the hard things are over. They show us that the loving restoration of a repentant believer brings healing to the whole body of Christ.
Christians who tolerate ongoing sin in their midst don’t understand the church Christ. But Christians who ongoingly refuse to restore a repentant sinner in their midst don’t understand the Christ of the church. Our Lord Jesus is all about saving sinners and welcoming them into His loving arms. He died on the cross to make it possible for sincerely repentant sinners to be washed completely clean in His sight. His Father in heaven is just like the father in the parable of the prodigal son—who ran out to meet and embrace and welcome back the wandering son when he repented.
And just as the world needs to see us take much more serious action toward sin in our midst than we do, it needs to also see us—as God’s people—celebrate the healing grace of loving restoration more often than it does.
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Now; let’s look at this passage a bit more closely. We need to see it in its context.
Back when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, he was dealing with problems within the church. But now, when he wrote 2 Corinthians, he was happily celebrating. They had been resentful toward him for the things he said; but now that they themselves had repented in their attitude, he was overjoyed that they expressed their love to him once again.
It had hurt him greatly to have had to write those hard things that he wrote to them—particularly with respect to their toleration of the sin of this immoral church member. He said in verse 4 that it was out of “much affliction and anguish of heart” that he had written to them. And then, in verse 5, he says this:
But if anyone has caused grief, he has not grieved me, but all of you to some extent—not to be too severe (2 Corinthians 2:5).
And in this, we see an important principle; that …
1. ONE PERSON’S SIN HURTS THE WHOLE CHURCH FAMILY.
Paul was very careful and very gracious in this letter not to name the man. He speaks of him only in the abstract—saying ‘if anyone has caused grief’. But Paul didn’t want anyone else to mistakenly think that he wrote about this problem because—somehow—he felt personally grieved and offended by the man’s sin all on his own. He wrote because he loved his brothers and sisters in Christ; and because the sin of this one man in their midst was—to some extent—causing grief to all of them.
We aren’t just a group of people who have come together—in a merely human way—simply because we all believe the same things. We’re not just members of a loosely-connected country club. Jesus Christ has died on the cross to redeem us for Himself, and to form us into His body on earth. We are joined together and united together in a spiritual union for Christ—through the Holy Spirit—that is more tightly bound together and connected than any other organization on earth could ever be. And therefore, what one member of the church body does cannot help but affect the other members of the body.
Not long ago, I was making dinner; and I recklessly chopped off a significant portion of one of my fingers. It really hurt; and interestingly enough, my whole body reacted to the emergency. It reached all the way down to the other side of my body, in fact; because even my toes curled and my feet did a dance. I had learned from other experiences that if I didn’t get immediately to the hospital and get some help, a dangerous infection could set in that would spread to other parts of my body. Fortunately, I was able to be taken to ER; and the nurse practitioner who was on duty that evening sewed that portion of my finger back on, and treated me for infection. And now it’s just fine—a fully restored member of my body. It was only a portion of my finger—but the potential impact on the whole of my hand, and perhaps the whole of my body, was a very big matter indeed.
We should never minimize the potential impact for harm that one unrepentant sin—in the life of just one member of the church family—can cause to the whole church family. We should always take it very seriously—in just the way that an untreated infection that can cause harm to the whole human body. The writer of the Book of Hebrews put it this way in Hebrews 12:14-15;
Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled (Hebrews 12:14-15).
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So Paul was realistic in what he wrote. He acknowledged that he wasn’t the only one grieved by this man’s sin. To some degree, the whole church family had been grieved by it. And it may even be that this intense sense of grief caused them—after a while—to be resentful toward the sinning man.
But do you notice Paul’s expression of grace in what he wrote? He said that the man’s sin had caused grief to them all, “not to be too severe”. To whom was it that Paul was seeking to not be too severe? It was to the sinning man himself—who, by this point, had grieved over what he had done; and was already overwhelmed with sorrow. The man needed the healing love of God’s people; not more condemnation and grief.
And this reminds us of another important principle we find in this passage; that …
2. THE GOAL IN DEALING WITH SIN IS RESTORATION IN FORGIVENESS.
When I cut off the end of my finger, my wife very wisely put the severed part in a zip-lock bag for me to take to the hospital. If she hadn’t been careful to preserve the severed fingertip for future restoration, it might not have been able to be sewn back on later. And similarly, the goal in severing ourselves from a sinning church member is not to keep ourselves forever distant from them. The goal is to help them to repent and—by God’s grace—fully restore them to the body afterward.
Paul steered the Corinthians toward this goal—and all while keeping mercy toward the man very much in mind. In verses 6-7, he wrote;
This punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for such a man, so that, on the contrary, you ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow (vv. 6-7).
The ‘punishment’ which was inflicted was probably just the very thing that Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians 5. They broke fellowship with the man, and didn’t eat with him or have casual conversation with him. I appreciate how Paul puts this sort of thing in 2 Thessalonians 3. He wrote there about some people who were living sinful lives and not repenting; and he told the Thessalonian Christians;
And if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother (2 Thessalonians 3:14-15).
Apparently, the majority of believers in Corinth had been doing that sort of thing toward the sinning man in their midst. He had come to the point of being ashamed of his sin; and he had repented of it. But if the Corinthian Christians had continued to hold resentment toward him, and had and pressed the matter any further than was necessary, they would have crushed and destroyed his spirit. They would have lost sight of the goal. And that would have led to more hurt all around.
May God help us to take sin in our midst seriously, and to sever ourselves from those who will not stop sinning. But may God also help us to remember that restoration in forgiveness is the goal. May God help us to feel the sorrow that the repentant sinner feels, and to be ready to pardon them and comfort them as soon as they repent.
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This is very important to do—not only for the sinning church member’s sake, but also for the sake of the whole church family. This is because, just as sin hurts the whole church family …
3. FORGIVENESS IN LOVE HEALS THE HURT OF SIN.
Paul went on to tell them, in verses 8-9;
Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love to him. For to this end I also wrote, that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things (vv. 8-9).
When Paul had written to them before, it wasn’t just to express his anger over the man’s sin—or over the way that the church tolerated the sin. It was to see if they would obey the Lord in His command to deal with the sin rightly. He wanted to see if they would not only put the unrepentant man out of their midst, but also whether they would welcome him back in love after he had repented. Therefore—now that the man had repented—he urged them to ‘reaffirm’ their love to him.
There was something that the Lord Jesus said about this. You’ll find it in the prayer that He taught us, as His followers, to pray. He taught us to say, “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). And He went on to explain;
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15).
The forgiveness shown to a genuinely repentant sinner isn’t just for that sinner’s sake alone. It is for the sake of all of us together in the body. An unforgiving spirit in us causes the Lord Jesus to withhold His blessing from us. That’s because He is the one who has so richly forgiven us of all our sins. His forgiveness of us puts us under obligation to forgive one another.
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And notice one more thing; and that is that …
4. SUCH HEALING FORGIVENESS DEFEATS THE DEVIL.
The devil is clever. He knows how to make us hurt one another from out of what seems so ‘righteous’ to ourselves. When we extend our punishment of sin beyond its proper bounds—when we tenaciously hold on to our own grief over the sin—when we, out of some attitude of ‘righteous indignation’, refuse to extend the pardoning grace of forgiveness and restoration to a sinning brother or sister after they have repented—we’re playing right into the hands of our enemy.
To help prevent this, Paul took the lead. Just as he was the one who initiated the call to put the sinning man out of their midst, he took the initiative of joining with them in their forgiveness of the man. He wrote;
Now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices (vv. 10-11).
Without the loving grace of restorative forgiveness, the repentant brother would have lost heart. He might have fallen into deep, overwhelming, soul-crushing sorrow and depression. Or it might have been that he would have responded with bitterness and resentment; and might have turned away from the Lord Jesus completely. And what’s more, the church family itself would have grown judgmental and harsh. It would have lost its joy; and might have descended into a poisonous ‘legalism’ and ‘divisiveness’. Its witness to the world would have been lost; and the wounds of that man’s sin upon all the members of the church family would never have been healed.
The devil truly knows how to destroy a church through attitudes that—at the time—seems so ‘righteous’ and ‘holy’ to the ones who hold them. But the devil completely loses his advantage when we—in the love of Jesus—fully forgive and love the genuinely repentant sinner in our midst.
Our Lord Jesus Himself was once brought under criticism by self-righteous ‘religious’ people because He lovingly welcomed sinners into His midst. And He told His critics;
“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:4-7).
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Jesus said that the world will know that we’re His disciples by our love for one another. Such love includes the healing grace of restoration. Let’s be careful, then, to show this to the world through our love for the repentant sinner in our midst.
EA
