2:7 Part 2

2 Corinthians 2:7b

Read 2:1-8

I don’t know about you, but I have been glued to the news media this week. I can’t remember the last time (maybe it was 9/11) that I was so connected to the minute by minute unfolding of world events as I have been this last week. And the headlines have been apocalyptic: “World Financial Collapse”; “Worst Economic Disaster Since the Great Depression”; “Unprecedented losses”…. The effects of this crisis are communicated in the most shocking terms by doomsday prophets and economists alike.

And many of you are feeling the sting of this week’s losses and the anxiety of what lies ahead. So how fitting… how providential- that we would come together on Sunday to find peace in God’s Word and be in the text we are in today whose theme so aptly fits the spirit of this age.

When you get right down to it what you find at the core of this crisis is not numbers and accountants and economic cycles, you find debt and unforgiveness of it.

I heard about a banker who discovered that one of his senior lenders had made some unethical financial decisions. The banker called this senior lender and said to him,
‘What’s this I hear about you? You’re fired. And I want a complete audit of your books.’
3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What am I going to do? I’ve lost my job as manager. I’m not strong enough for a laboring job, and I’m too proud to beg.… 4 Ah, I’ve got a plan. Here’s what I’ll do … then when I’m turned out into the street, people will take me into their houses.’
5 “Then he went at it. One after another, he called in the people who were in debt to his master. He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
6 “He replied, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’
“The manager said, ‘Here, take your bill, sit down here—quick now—write fifty.’
7 “To the next he said, ‘And you, what do you owe?’
“He answered, ‘A hundred sacks of wheat.’
“He said, ‘Take your bill, write in eighty.’[1]

When the banker found out about this senior lender’s activities, he restored him and commended him for his shrewdness. Jesus said, “For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light” (Lk 16:8b).

But let’s not profane this sacred thing by applying it to trifling matters like banking and commodities when there are more momentous eternal matters at hand: like the condition of your soul and its eternal reward.

We Christians believe that a day of judgment is coming and it will be a day when the secrets of all men’s hearts will be revealed. Even the unethical unbelieving mammon loving senior lender is more commendable to Christ than we Christians if we cling to unforgiveness and linger for the opportunity to demand retribution upon our enemies.

Last week I began this section with the intention of only preaching it for one week. But then I realized that I really only had time to introduce the subject and so I planned to make it into two sermons. But as I reflected on the subject this past week and on how much Paul says in these few verse about the one of the most important aspects of the Christian life, I decided if I have to spend a year preaching on forgiveness, it would still not be enough!

So last week I explained how Paul had been wronged by painful accusations from a member of the Corinthian church and had left that Corinth with a heavy heart only later to discover that the man had accepted punishment from the congregation for his wrong. I left you with three elements of forgiveness which Paul describes in 2 Corinhians 2:7-8, they are: 1) turn; 2) comfort and 3) reaffirm your love. I have decided that to try and unpack those three elements of forgiveness into one sermon would do a disservice to the subject by trivializing an eternal and weighty matter. So this week we are going to look at the first element of forgiveness: turning.

I also asked you last Sunday to pray and ask God to bring to mind areas of your hearts where you have harboured unforgiveness and this week I sought to apply it to my own considerations. I am sad to say that many… too many people came to mind for whom I have harboured hurt and resentment. It was a painful diagnosis of my disease, for which I am sure we all suffer; and the cure is equally painful and difficult to apply.

But that is no reason to give up; we must strive- fight- against our own wills and weak, selfish, sin loving, backsliding human desire to need to get revenge and to hold on to soul rotting, joy robbing, God dishonouring unforgiveness because it is the only way we can grow and become like Christ, who, as he hung emaciated, drenched in his own blood, bruised, and covered with spit and human insults, used what little air was left in his lungs to pray “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

With that in mind, let’s turn to 2 Corinthians 2:7 let me read it in the English Standard Version and as I read it you will notice by comparison to your own version that the ESV adds a word: “so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him (that is the man who had insulted Paul), or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.”

Did you hear it? What was the word? ___________________

The word was turn. That word is packed with theology! Not just dry precepts and rationalizations about the things of God, but the very essence of the teachings of the Old Testament; it was the command of Moses, the example of David, the inspiration for the Psalms, the instruction of the wise sages and the cry of the prophets. It was the mission of John the Baptist to:
…go before [Christ] in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord (Lk 1:17).

Now, perhaps the other translations were right not to add the word ‘turn’ to that phrase in verse 7 because it is likely that the phrase is an idiom that means “you should rather”, or “on the contrary”. But that does not mean that ‘turn’ is not implied because “you should rather” or “on the contrary” entails a turning from one behaviour to another.

The “former behaviour” from which they must turn was the punishment, inflicted upon the man (who must have willingly submitted to it) that was in the form of some type of chastisement (it may have been something along the lines of suspension from church ordinances such as communion, public admonishment, or …).

Turn is a widely used word in the Old Testament: Moses warned the people in Deuteronomy to rid themselves idols so that, “the Lord may turn from the fierceness of His anger and show [them] mercy, have compassion on [them] and multiply [them] (Duet 13:17). And the Psalmist prayer to the Lord was, “Turn again, O God of hosts!” (Ps 80:14).

If God can turn from His just wrath upon a repentant people, should not we then also be able to turn from our selfish, sin tainted, partially just wrath? If God (who is light and in Him there is no darkness or evil) can hold out his righteous hand to a rebellious nation all day long, then can’t we who grope in darkness hold out our hand to our fellow gropers of darkness?

To turn in scripture carries the implication of repentance. Ezekiel 14:6 says, “Repent, turn away from your idols, and turn your faces away from all your abominations.”
So what Paul is saying (or implying) is, now therefore (on the contrary) turn away from your former direction of inflicting just punishment (before it becomes sin) and turn to move in the direction of forgiveness. The Christian life is all about having to be constantly turning from bad behaviour, poor choices, besetting sin, self righteousness, self glorification, sinful thinking, spiritual neglect, God ignoring world loving ingorance and turning to God and his mercy and power to over come sin. We sing the song,
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
Bind my wand’ring heart to Thee:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for Thy courts above.[2]

As I pondered this week the names of the people who have hurt me and the pain those memories brought, I realized that it’s not enough to just get up here and preach to you the need to forgive while I harbour unforgiveness myself. To pretend that an exhortation from me will fix you while I continue to struggle with the reality that it’s not that simple!

But there is comfort in the knowledge that we can walk through this together. There’s no silver bullet like throwing $700 billion into the markets, or buying up mortgages or dropping interest rates. It’s more costly than that- its more painful- it’s more consequential.

It happens in stages and stage one is, I think the easiest stage: turn- repent.

This Thanksgiving morning, Communion Sunday, I want to challenge you that before you come to this table, before you go to your homes and families to celebrate a feast in thanks to God, that you come with a clean heart that can only be cleansed by repenting.

This isn’t going to fix everything, its just the beginning. But all I am exhorting you this morning- all I am exhorting myself is, I beg that we would repent before God who turns from wrath to offer kindness that we have thought ourselves to be bigger than Him that we have refused to turn from our wrath. Will you do that with me this morning- turn from wrath against those who (whether justly or not) deserve your wrath and repent for not showing the kind of mercy that you expect from God and others for your own sin?

Let’s Pray.

Benediction:

Now to God who is able to take our turning and make it into something glorious, and liberating and life changing, be all glory and comfort and forgiveness and love affirming mercy, now and forever. Amen

NOTES:
[1]Eugene H. Peterson, The Message : The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 2002), Lk 16:2-7.
[2]Paul Eckert, Steve Green's MIDI Hymnal : A Complete Toolkit for Personal Devotions and Corporate Worship., Electronic ed. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1998).