Raise you up from the evil's wings, Beg you on the path of dawn, All right, well, welcome to the Chester ARP Church devotional podcast. Clint Davis, your host. I told you last time I thought we would jump to chapter three, but I've actually changed my mind just a touch. I want to read one small reading from chapter two of the book of Second Corinthians. And beginning in verse 5 through verse 11, this is what the Apostle Paul writes to the church here. Now, if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely to all of you. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him, for this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan. for we are not ignorant of his designs." Now, I think this is a really helpful section. This is just a conversation, really, Paul's having, introductory remarks that Paul's having with the church in Corinth, and he's addressing a particular issue of which we really don't know what it is, but certainly he's talking about anyone causing pain to him, whether it be as a result of some kind of sin that someone has done to him. And he says a couple things about it. Number one, sin when committed in the body of Christ, particularly toward another member of the body of Christ, isn't just a personal thing. It has an effect that is corporate. It is to some measure, Paul says, and he's not trying to be too severe. Paul says, when someone's sinned against me, when they've sinned against what's going on here in the church, it's affected all of you. And there's a reason why that is. One, sin has negative effects. in your life and in my life and on the body of Christ. If I sin, especially publicly, or you sin publicly, it will have impact on everyone who is attached to the body of Christ. Certainly, we hopefully understand that concept. But also, in a situation like this with the church in Corinth, someone sins against the Apostle Paul. So if someone sins against the Apostle Paul, everybody in the church is going to rile up against them. They love the Apostle Paul. Don't come after the Apostle Paul. We had his back. And so it affects the entire church. It affects the whole church. It impacts the body life and every member of the congregation. And so Paul says our sin is not just personal one unto ourselves. It's not just between us and God. It has a public dimension, especially as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, especially public sin has a public, excuse me, impact on the rest of the body of believers. Then verse six says, Paul says, but the punishment is majority of them, of people have turned against him, right? He's isolated. Now he understands, he knows the significance of the sin, the severity of the sin, because everybody's turned against him, everybody's taken aside. They've taken presumably the Apostle Paul's side. And so that should be enough punishment for him. He knows that he is exposed. He knows that everybody's turned against him. He knows that no one is going to take his side. And so Paul says, you rather should turn and forgive him. Now the importance of forgiveness is certainly cannot be understated when it comes to the Bible and to the living of the Christian life. For Jesus says we are to forgive the sins of others as we have been forgiven. And one of the indications that we have been forgiven is our willingness to forgive other people. In fact, it's in that great model prayer that we call the Lord's Prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, say, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Or forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who've trespassed against us. And so the idea is, Forgiveness of other people is tied to the reception of forgiveness from God. It's a fruit of being forgiven. It is a proof of our forgiveness. You have received forgiveness, therefore you're gonna extend forgiveness. Like Paul says in the beginning of 2 Corinthians, we've received comfort in our affliction so that we can then comfort other people and give that comfort to other people. And so the importance of forgiveness here, the body needs to learn to forgive the offenses of others. Interestingly, Paul says, If you do not, he may be driven to excessive sorrow, into despair. Right, so the idea is if we harshly treat someone, kick them out, we don't extend forgiveness, right, and we don't try to continue a relationship, we may push them further and further and further into excessive sorrow to despair that could have dire consequences in their lives. Maybe they feel guilty. Maybe they feel like nobody wants to be around them. Maybe they are ostracized, isolated, and they go into despair. And we hope and think, oh, well, they'll learn their lesson. Tough love. Well, sometimes tough love's important. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Paul says in this particular case, if everybody turns on somebody and don't forgive, you're going to push them off into excessive sorrow. So there's great danger in our lack of forgiveness, not just for us and our bitterness and the growth of a bitter root, but it also has great danger on the offender. And we should all want to see offenders come to faith in Christ. We should want to see people come to know the Lord and so testify to the glory of Jesus Christ and find their hope in Christ. We have all sinned and fallen short of God's glory, but God has reached out to us and we should want to reach out to others. But he doesn't want the guy to be overwhelmed. by an excessive sorrow, driven to despair. We need to learn to forgive. And if we want to have some kind of relationship mended and see someone turn their life around, forgiveness is, in this particular case, Paul says, in some ways, more important than tough love. And so if everybody's turned and pushed him out, he's just gonna go into despair, walk away from the faith, walk away from everything, rather than recognizing, hey, that guy sinned, let's address it. Now let's forgive him and bring him back in so that he can know the wonder of the forgiving grace of God. So listen, forgive those who have sinned against you. Forgive those who sinned against people you know and love. and seek to live righteous lives because all of our sin impacts one another. You guys take care. God bless you. I'll see you next time.