God’s Will for Us: Giving Thanks in All Circumstances
In this episode of the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast, Pastor Josh Massaro emphasizes the vital importance of giving thanks in all circumstances, particularly through the lens of repentance and revival. He explores how godly sorrow leads to genuine repentance, which in turn fosters spiritual refreshment and restoration. The message underscores that true thanksgiving can often stem from difficult experiences, including conviction—an essential aspect of spiritual growth. Pastor Josh encourages listeners to embrace this conviction, recognizing it as a pathway to deeper faith and connection with God. Ultimately, the episode serves as a reminder that our responses to God's truth can bring about transformation in our lives and relationships.
Pastor Josh Massaro's sermon at Middletown Baptist Church invites listeners to deeply engage with the themes of gratitude and repentance, emphasizing their crucial roles in the believer's life. He opens with a heartfelt invitation to reflect on God's blessings, encouraging the congregation to express thanks not only in moments of joy but also in times of struggle and hardship. This perspective aligns with 1 Thessalonians 5:18, where the call to give thanks in everything is framed as a divine command rather than an optional response. The pastor skillfully navigates the complexities of gratitude, suggesting that the true test of faith is the ability to remain thankful during life's challenges, which often leads to spiritual growth.
As Pastor Josh transitions into the discussion on repentance, he underscores the transformative power of acknowledging one's sins before God. Drawing on 2 Corinthians 7, he illustrates how the Corinthian church's encounter with truth led to genuine sorrow, resulting in repentance that sparked a revival among the believers. This revival is portrayed as a refreshing renewal of spirit, where burdens of guilt are lifted, and believers are empowered to pursue a life aligned with God's will. The sermon stresses that repentance is not merely about feeling remorse but involves a radical turning away from sin and a heartfelt return to God, which ultimately leads to a vibrant and revitalized faith.
In conclusion, Pastor Josh challenges his listeners to embrace conviction as a positive force in their lives. He articulates that the discomfort of conviction is a pathway to deeper intimacy with God, urging the congregation to welcome the Holy Spirit's prompting in their hearts. By recognizing conviction as a divine gift, believers can experience the joy of revival and restoration in their spiritual journeys. The message culminates in a powerful reminder that gratitude and repentance are intertwined, leading to a life filled with hope, renewal, and the transformative love of God.
Takeaways:
- In everything, give thanks, not necessarily for everything, but in everything we face.
- God's will includes giving thanks in both good times and difficult situations.
- True repentance leads to revival, refreshment, and restoration in our spiritual lives.
- Conviction from the Holy Spirit is essential for growth and spiritual renewal.
- We must embrace the uncomfortable truths of our lives to experience true comfort.
- Restoration comes when both parties are willing to humble themselves before God.
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This podcast is produced by Ralph Estep, Jr., host of the Ask Ralph Podcast, a daily podcast on Christian Finance you can find it at https://www.askralphpodcast.com/
00:00 - None
00:00 - Introduction to the Podcast
03:16 - The Importance of Giving Thanks
22:37 - The Ripple Effect of Repentance
31:26 - Receiving the Word with Fear and Trembling
35:10 - The Challenge of Restoration and Forgiveness
44:41 - Embracing Conviction and Repentance
Pastor Josh
Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
Pastor Josh
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.
Pastor Josh
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.
Pastor Josh
Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.
Pastor Josh
I'm thankful for you, thankful for the fact that you're able to come here today and to hear and heed the word of God.
Pastor Josh
And we have a lot of reasons to be thankful here at our church.
Pastor Josh
We have a lot of reasons to be thankful here as believers in this country.
Pastor Josh
We have a lot of reasons to be thankful, just in general, what God has given us in our lives.
Pastor Josh
And I encourage you this week to take some time to count your blessings, take some time, maybe even to write down on a piece of paper or type out on a computer all the things that you can give God thanks for.
Pastor Josh
You could talk about your family, you could talk about your health, you could talk about your job, you could talk about your church family, you could talk about your friends.
Pastor Josh
You could list that list over and over and over again throughout the day, and you probably could keep listing things.
Pastor Josh
But I will say that one of the things that we do sometimes struggle with in the area of giving thanks is giving thanks for the things that aren't so easy to go through.
Pastor Josh
Right?
Pastor Josh
The Bible does say.
Pastor Josh
And if you have your Bible here this morning, we're going to go to a couple different passages before we get to our main text.
Pastor Josh
But in First Thessalonians, chapter 5, the Bible says something that, you know, a lot of times we don't always follow because we're thankful for some things.
Pastor Josh
We're thankful for portions of our life.
Pastor Josh
But the Bible says in 1st Thessalonians, chapter number 5, verse number 18, in everything, give thanks.
Pastor Josh
Not necessarily for everything, but in everything.
Pastor Josh
And so sometimes it's difficult for us to give thanks for things in our life or give thanks to God for who he is and what he has done when things are not going the way that we expect them to go.
Pastor Josh
So he says here in everything, give thanks.
Pastor Josh
And then there's this phrase that comes in the second part of the verse that a lot of times we don't quote.
Pastor Josh
It says, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you, meaning if you want to follow God's will, part of that is giving thanks in everything.
Pastor Josh
It's his will that you do that.
Pastor Josh
I know there's a lot of Christians, hopefully most Christians, all Christians would say, hey, you know what?
Pastor Josh
I want to follow the will of God in my life.
Pastor Josh
I want to follow God's plan.
Pastor Josh
I want to walk in his steps.
Pastor Josh
I want him to guide me.
Pastor Josh
Well, one of the things that we can see here very clearly is that it is God's will that we give thanks in everything, in the good times and in the not so good times, in the easy times and in the difficult times.
Pastor Josh
And you say, well, what does that mean for me today?
Pastor Josh
Okay, what are you trying to get accomplished here?
Pastor Josh
What are you trying to say?
Pastor Josh
Well, in Second Peter, chapter three, Second Peter, chapter three, verse nine, this is where we started last week, and we're going to pick it up this week.
Pastor Josh
It says that the Lord here, in this case, we know that this is the will of God.
Pastor Josh
He says, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long suffering toward us Word not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Pastor Josh
And so what we see here is that it is God's will that everybody comes to repentance.
Pastor Josh
And so if we use our reasoning and if we use scriptural context, it is God's will that we give thanks in everything.
Pastor Josh
And it's God's will that we come to repentance.
Pastor Josh
And so therefore we should be thankful for repentance.
Pastor Josh
Well, what brings repentance?
Pastor Josh
Well, that's 2 Corinthians, chapter 7.
Pastor Josh
That's what we've been talking about for the last few weeks.
Pastor Josh
So I want you to go to Second Corinthians, chapter seven.
Pastor Josh
That's our main text this morning, and we're going to look at the results of repentance.
Pastor Josh
Last week we looked at the first result of repentance, and that was revival, a renewed spirit, a renewed passion.
Pastor Josh
Paul comes at the beginning of Second Corinthians, chapter seven, and he confronts the Corinthian church with the truth.
Pastor Josh
And what was the confrontation?
Pastor Josh
He says, look, you guys are living in sin.
Pastor Josh
You guys are not living the way that God would have you to live.
Pastor Josh
And so therefore, Paul starts this whole process in love with a confrontation.
Pastor Josh
He speaks as the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 15, Ephesians 4, 15.
Pastor Josh
He speaks the truth in love.
Pastor Josh
He says, I love you enough to tell you where you're wrong, and I love you enough to tell you where you can change that.
Pastor Josh
And I love you enough to tell you that God is not pleased with you living in this sin.
Pastor Josh
And so Paul starts with a Very difficult thing.
Pastor Josh
He starts with a confrontation.
Pastor Josh
But I'm gonna tell you here today, one of the things that we're thankful for is friends and family in our life, if we love our friends and if we love our family, we must tell them the truth, the truth in love.
Pastor Josh
And so Paul confronts them at the beginning of chapter seven and really throughout this whole book with, hey, look, there is an issue in your life.
Pastor Josh
There are issues, plural in your life that you need to get fixed.
Pastor Josh
And so sometimes the reason why we don't confront people with the truth is the fear of the repercussions of that, right?
Pastor Josh
If I tell the person the truth, the truth of God in their life, they may or may not respond well.
Pastor Josh
They may actually get upset with me.
Pastor Josh
They may even get to a place in our life where they push us away.
Pastor Josh
But what we see here is actually the result of the confrontation is not division.
Pastor Josh
We're actually going to see as we conclude this chapter today that the confrontation led to godly sorrow, the godly sorrow led to repentance, the repentance led to revival, the revival leads to refreshment, and the refreshment leads to restoration.
Pastor Josh
So from the beginning of the chapter, we see confrontation, division, issues with Paul.
Pastor Josh
Remember they.
Pastor Josh
What were they questioning about Paul?
Pastor Josh
They were questioning his motives.
Pastor Josh
They were like, Paul, why would you say one thing and do another?
Pastor Josh
You don't really love us.
Pastor Josh
They were questioning his love, they were questioning his devotion.
Pastor Josh
They were questioning the whole relationship that they had with Paul.
Pastor Josh
And in so doing, they were actually questioning the truth that Paul was preaching, right?
Pastor Josh
So they didn't trust Paul.
Pastor Josh
So they didn't trust the Gospel.
Pastor Josh
And so Paul could have said, well, you know what?
Pastor Josh
Corinthian Church, forget you.
Pastor Josh
I'm going to move on to the next place.
Pastor Josh
You guys are a lost cause.
Pastor Josh
But.
Pastor Josh
But what does he do?
Pastor Josh
Out of love for them and out of love for the Lord and out of love for the Gospel.
Pastor Josh
Paul says, I'm going to confront this and press them on the truth of the gospel, the truth of the word of God.
Pastor Josh
And so he does that.
Pastor Josh
And what was the Response?
Pastor Josh
Verse number 10.
Pastor Josh
For Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation.
Pastor Josh
Not to be repented of, not to be turned away from, but the sorrow of the world worketh death, meaning it was biblical sorrow that brought the Corinthian Church to repentance.
Pastor Josh
It wasn't worldly sorrow.
Pastor Josh
It wasn't, sorry I got caught.
Pastor Josh
It was, I'm sorry that the truth of God has presented and I fall short of the truth of God.
Pastor Josh
And if we're honest with ourselves at some point in our life, we've all had to come to that point in our life where we understand how much we have fallen short of the truth of God in our lives.
Pastor Josh
Repentance is a necessity.
Pastor Josh
Repentance is needed for salvation.
Pastor Josh
Repentance is needed for spiritual growth.
Pastor Josh
Repentance is needed for revival.
Pastor Josh
Repentance is needed for restoration.
Pastor Josh
Repentance is needed for every area of our life for God to work because it brings us to a place of humility and brokenness.
Pastor Josh
The Bible says that God resists the pride.
Pastor Josh
He resists those that are resting in their pride.
Pastor Josh
And he gives grace to the humble.
Pastor Josh
It takes us to a place in our life where we come to repentance, that we place ourselves in the trust of God to change us and to move us and to get us to a place in our life where we need to be.
Pastor Josh
And so Paul says, I'm thankful for the godly sorrow because why it worked.
Pastor Josh
Repentance.
Pastor Josh
And what did that repentance do?
Pastor Josh
Well, we see in verse number 11, it brought revival.
Pastor Josh
If we want revival, we have to have repentance.
Pastor Josh
Revival is new life.
Pastor Josh
Now we have to go back because some of you might not have been here last week.
Pastor Josh
What is repentance?
Pastor Josh
Repentance is literally turning away from something and turning to something else.
Pastor Josh
Repentance is not perfection.
Pastor Josh
Repentance is.
Pastor Josh
I'm walking this way and I'm turning and about face and going somewhere else.
Pastor Josh
We emphasized this last week.
Pastor Josh
Repentance is not just turning away from sin, but it's turning away from sin and turning to God.
Pastor Josh
A lot of people can try to turn over a new leaf in their life.
Pastor Josh
A lot of people can say, I'm tired of this.
Pastor Josh
I'm tired of the results of this sin.
Pastor Josh
So I'm just going to try to fix that, folks.
Pastor Josh
It's not just turning away from sin.
Pastor Josh
It's turning away from sin and turning to God, turning to his satisfaction, to his revival, to his relief, to his restoration.
Pastor Josh
And so we see in verse number 11, the revival.
Pastor Josh
There he says before, behold the self.
Pastor Josh
Same thing that you sorrowed after a godly sort being biblical sorrow brought you to repentance.
Pastor Josh
He says, what carefulness it wrought in you.
Pastor Josh
That phrase there, what carefulness essentially means this.
Pastor Josh
It's this idea of diligence.
Pastor Josh
It's the idea of having a renewed passion for the things of God.
Pastor Josh
So he says, what carefulness it wrought in you, what clearing of yourselves, Meaning it brought them a clear conscience.
Pastor Josh
It Brought them that.
Pastor Josh
You could phrase it this way.
Pastor Josh
That burden was lifted.
Pastor Josh
I don't know if any of you have experienced that moment when there's revival and repentance in your heart.
Pastor Josh
And that burden of that sin, that burden of that guilt falls away at the foot of the cross.
Pastor Josh
That is an amazing feeling.
Pastor Josh
But more than just that feeling, it's an amazing truth that God can remove all of that guilt from our hearts.
Pastor Josh
Folks, as Christians, we should not be walking in guilt.
Pastor Josh
The Bible says In Romans, chapter 8, there is therefore now no condemnation to those that believe in Jesus, to those that are walking in the truth of Jesus Christ.
Pastor Josh
And so as Christians, sometimes we confuse guilt and conviction.
Pastor Josh
Conviction is a good thing, and we're going to talk about that.
Pastor Josh
That conviction is something that we should be thankful for.
Pastor Josh
Guilt is not a good thing.
Pastor Josh
Condemnation is not a good thing.
Pastor Josh
Condemnation is what falls upon those that are outside of the faith of Jesus Christ.
Pastor Josh
We as Christians no longer have to bear that condemnation in our life because Jesus Christ has paid that price.
Pastor Josh
And so what we can be thankful for is the conviction.
Pastor Josh
See, I started out with saying there are some things that we're comfortable with being thankful for, and there's things that we're not comfortable with being thankful for.
Pastor Josh
One of the things that I struggle with being thankful for is conviction.
Pastor Josh
But I'm gonna tell you, one of the greatest things that God can bring us in our life is conviction.
Pastor Josh
And we should be thankful for that.
Pastor Josh
We should be thankful for the fact that God works in our heart, because in conviction always comes the path to restoration.
Pastor Josh
You understand that, right?
Pastor Josh
God doesn't just condemn us in our sin.
Pastor Josh
He says, this is what's wrong and this is how you fix it.
Pastor Josh
That's the beauty of conviction.
Pastor Josh
Conviction always leaves us with hope.
Pastor Josh
Condemnation leaves us with no hope, leaves us with judgment.
Pastor Josh
And so the Bible says here in this case, that when we get to that clearing in our lives, that conviction is something that we celebrate.
Pastor Josh
Now, most of us are not going to sit around the Thanksgiving table with our turkey and go, I'm thankful for God's conviction in my life.
Pastor Josh
The truth is, is that maybe we should more often say, lord, thank you for pricking my heart.
Pastor Josh
Thank you for cutting my heart and showing me where I need to change so that I can be the person that Jesus wants me to be, so that I can be the Father that God wants me to be, so that I can be the Christian that God wants me to be.
Pastor Josh
And so, so many times, we don't celebrate the conviction.
Pastor Josh
We celebrate the Comfort which the comfort comes.
Pastor Josh
But the conviction had to come here in verse number 10.
Pastor Josh
Before we get to the comfort.
Pastor Josh
We're gonna see that the comfort comes through all of this.
Pastor Josh
But there is great conviction.
Pastor Josh
He says, clearing of yourselves.
Pastor Josh
What indignation.
Pastor Josh
That's hatred for sin.
Pastor Josh
That's repentance.
Pastor Josh
That's one of the definitions of repentance.
Pastor Josh
I hate this sin in my life.
Pastor Josh
I gotta get rid of that in my life.
Pastor Josh
What indignation?
Pastor Josh
Yay.
Pastor Josh
What fear?
Pastor Josh
That's the fear of God.
Pastor Josh
So one of the elements of revival is the fear of God in our lives, in a healthy respect for God in our life.
Pastor Josh
The moment we lose that healthy respect for God is the moment that we fall back into that trap of sin and division and fleshly desires.
Pastor Josh
So fear of God, yea, what zeal.
Pastor Josh
He's describing someone who's revived in Jesus Christ.
Pastor Josh
He says, what zeal you have, what passion you have, what fire is in your heart, and what revenge.
Pastor Josh
Now, revenge is a.
Pastor Josh
Is a word that sometimes we think, well, what is he talking about here?
Pastor Josh
Is he talking about you got revenge on someone that sinned against you?
Pastor Josh
No, he's talking about really in this case, what.
Pastor Josh
The way that you could say it is this vindication.
Pastor Josh
God vindicates you, so it's God's revenge in your life.
Pastor Josh
God is vindicating everything that has been done in your life, whether it be wrong, whether it be the wrong that you have done, wrongs that others have done to you.
Pastor Josh
He's vindicating you.
Pastor Josh
And so ultimately, that's revival and all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter, standing clear before God, that is repentance, that is revival.
Pastor Josh
And so how did this happen?
Pastor Josh
Started with the confrontation, and it went to conviction, then it went to comfort.
Pastor Josh
There's the godly sorrow that worked.
Pastor Josh
Repentance, repentance, revival.
Pastor Josh
And what we're going to talk about here for the most of our time here today would be after the revival, what was the result of that?
Pastor Josh
Well, the result of the revival was, as we're going to see here in verse number 12 and 13, it's relief, it's comfortable.
Pastor Josh
And so we're gonna go ahead and pray and I wanna talk to you today about the results of revival.
Pastor Josh
And that is relief and restoration.
Pastor Josh
Let's go ahead and pray and then we'll jump right in.
Pastor Josh
Lord, I thank you for this time and thank you for this opportunity to look into your word.
Pastor Josh
Thank you for this opportunity to see that we can be thankful for conviction, that we can Be thankful for repentance, that we can be thankful for the fact that you work in our lives as a God who cares about us and a God who can change us.
Pastor Josh
And that can move us to a place of the truth, that can move us to a place of transformation in our life and, Lord, a place of restoration.
Pastor Josh
Lord, we're thankful for the fact that we no longer have to walk as those who are lost, but we can walk with those who have hope in the light of Jesus Christ.
Pastor Josh
Lord, I pray that you convict us today.
Pastor Josh
If need be, comfort us where need be.
Pastor Josh
Lord, help us to see you clearly in a place of repentance this morning.
Pastor Josh
So, Lord, we thank you and we love you, removing distractions from our minds and from our hearts and allow us to see you clearly this morning.
Pastor Josh
In Jesus name I pray.
Pastor Josh
Amen.
Pastor Josh
Remember, what Paul is talking about here is he's talking about the result that happened after Titus went and reported to him what's going on at the Corinthian Church.
Pastor Josh
Paul is talking about where he was in Macedonia.
Pastor Josh
Titus, a fellow that's working with Paul as a minister, went to the Corinthian Church with the letter that Paul wrote about the confrontation.
Pastor Josh
He's returning back, Titus is returning back to Paul and giving him a report.
Pastor Josh
So this is Paul's results.
Pastor Josh
This is his reaction to the report that was given to him by Titus.
Pastor Josh
And so he says, wherefore, though I wrote unto you, I did it not for his cause of the one who did wrong.
Pastor Josh
So Paul's like, I didn't take that side.
Pastor Josh
I didn't take the side of the one who had suffered the wrong.
Pastor Josh
But I came to you in the sight of God so that the sight of God might appear unto you.
Pastor Josh
So he said, I came for your sake.
Pastor Josh
I came with you with this confrontation for the betterment of your spiritual life.
Pastor Josh
It wasn't for my good.
Pastor Josh
It wasn't for his good.
Pastor Josh
It wasn't for his good.
Pastor Josh
It was for the good of the Lord working in your life.
Pastor Josh
And so he says in verse 13, this is our main text, he says, therefore we.
Pastor Josh
Paul talks about him and his company were comforted in your comfort.
Pastor Josh
So there's comfort that is given by God to the Corinthian Church through their conviction and through their repentance.
Pastor Josh
And so therefore we see that God comforts the Corinthian Church, the Corinthian Church and their comfort comforts Paul and his folks there.
Pastor Josh
What a beautiful thing that is.
Pastor Josh
With conviction comes the comfort.
Pastor Josh
With repentance comes relief.
Pastor Josh
Folks, if you're looking for relief.
Pastor Josh
It's not just in working harder.
Pastor Josh
If you're looking for comfort, it's not just in ignoring the problem around you.
Pastor Josh
The comfort and the relief comes through addressing the truth of God and addressing the conviction that comes to our life.
Pastor Josh
And I'm gonna tell you, folks, if you're like, I don't feel conviction in my life.
Pastor Josh
I don't ever feel wrong.
Pastor Josh
I feel like I can do what I want to do.
Pastor Josh
Folks, that is a warning sign that the Holy Spirit is not guiding your life.
Pastor Josh
Now, it's not my judge to tell you whether or not you're saved or not saved.
Pastor Josh
But what I am saying is, if you say, well, I don't feel conviction at all when I read the Word of God, that's a big red flag.
Pastor Josh
Because all of us, as we read the truth of Scripture, as we see the perfection of God through the words of Scripture, we must see how short we fall when it comes to our life and our flaws.
Pastor Josh
And so God is always working on a Christian.
Pastor Josh
You ever.
Pastor Josh
You know, in Delaware, we see this all the time.
Pastor Josh
Road work, right?
Pastor Josh
Construction ahead, under construction.
Pastor Josh
You see those signs all the time.
Pastor Josh
That should be what a Christian wears on their chest.
Pastor Josh
All the time I'm under construction, God's still working on me.
Pastor Josh
Work in progress.
Pastor Josh
Paul said that.
Pastor Josh
You know, think about what he said in Philippians.
Pastor Josh
He's like, I have not attained.
Pastor Josh
I've not gotten to where I need to go.
Pastor Josh
Folks, if we all get to a place in our life where we say, you know what?
Pastor Josh
I'm good.
Pastor Josh
I don't need anyone telling me that I need to change.
Pastor Josh
I don't need any change in my life.
Pastor Josh
That's a dangerous place to be because that is a place characterized by pride and not humility.
Pastor Josh
And so we need that godly sorrow to bring us to a place of repentance, to see that we need to continue to change in our life for the cause of the Gospel.
Pastor Josh
And the change comes through the conviction of the Spirit.
Pastor Josh
So he says, therefore we were comforted in your comfort.
Pastor Josh
Yea, and exceedingly, the more joyed we were for the joy of Titus.
Pastor Josh
We see that Titus found joy in seeing the Corinthian Church change.
Pastor Josh
And therefore Paul saw the joy of Titus.
Pastor Josh
And in Paul experiencing the joy of Titus, Paul was able to share that joy back with the Corinthian Church.
Pastor Josh
And so the relief comes in a couple of different areas.
Pastor Josh
Comfort and joy.
Pastor Josh
A life characterized by a life of repentance and conviction is a life characterized by comfort and joy.
Pastor Josh
We would actually think it's the opposite.
Pastor Josh
The more conviction we have, the less joy we have.
Pastor Josh
But it's actually the opposite.
Pastor Josh
You want to see a joyful Christian?
Pastor Josh
A joyful Christian is a Christian who realizes that he needs Jesus Christ as a savior, that he needs Jesus Christ to change his life.
Pastor Josh
And he has the joy in knowing that that is a.
Pastor Josh
Is a.
Pastor Josh
Not just a possibility, but it's a guarantee that God will change us if we come to him in repentance.
Pastor Josh
The Bible says here that that brings joy.
Pastor Josh
Titus saw the joy from the Corinthian church which brought the joy to Paul, which Paul brings the joy back to the Corinthians.
Pastor Josh
He says, there's comfort and joy in this relief.
Pastor Josh
So in repentance comes relief, and in this relief comes joy and comfort.
Pastor Josh
Folks, should we be people characterized by joy?
Pastor Josh
The answer to that question is yes, we should be exuding joy in our lives, the joy of the Lord, as the book of Nehemiah says, is our strength.
Pastor Josh
What does Paul say in Philippians, chapter four, verse four, rejoice in the Lord alway.
Pastor Josh
And again I say, rejoice.
Pastor Josh
So a Christian who is miserable, a Christian who has no joy, is a Christian who is not resting in the truth of God, resting in the conviction of God, resting in the humility that God brings us through that repentance.
Pastor Josh
You would actually think it's the other way around.
Pastor Josh
Well, you know what?
Pastor Josh
I'm feeling good about what I'm doing, so I've got a lot of joy.
Pastor Josh
Folks, that's no joy.
Pastor Josh
That's a joy.
Pastor Josh
You know what's a black hole?
Pastor Josh
Black hole.
Pastor Josh
Everything that goes into it is just destroyed.
Pastor Josh
Like nothing can live there.
Pastor Josh
That's what happens, right?
Pastor Josh
When we live in pride.
Pastor Josh
We can't find the joy of the Lord.
Pastor Josh
And the joy of the Lord is our strength.
Pastor Josh
And so therefore, we can't find strength.
Pastor Josh
So ultimately, what happens here is a result of the repentance of the Corinthian Church.
Pastor Josh
The result of them responding in repentance to the confrontation is that they found comfort and joy.
Pastor Josh
Titus found comfort and joy.
Pastor Josh
Paul found comfort and joy.
Pastor Josh
And therefore, today we can learn that in our conviction, our family can find comfort and joy, our church can find comfort and joy, our community can find comfort and joy.
Pastor Josh
Our country can find comfort and joy.
Pastor Josh
Right?
Pastor Josh
We want to be the propagators of comfort and joy through Jesus Christ.
Pastor Josh
Where did that start?
Pastor Josh
It started with the truth.
Pastor Josh
Truth in love.
Pastor Josh
And so, therefore, what we see here in this case is that Paul is celebrating the truth and love.
Pastor Josh
He's celebrating the comfort and the relief and the joy.
Pastor Josh
He says here, because Titus was joyful, because his spirit was refreshed by you all.
Pastor Josh
You could say refreshed or relief.
Pastor Josh
But in revival comes refreshment.
Pastor Josh
We all need spiritual refreshment in our life.
Pastor Josh
We all need to be renewed in the Spirit.
Pastor Josh
We all need to have that renewed passion for the cause of the gospel.
Pastor Josh
How do we do that?
Pastor Josh
Well, it takes each and every one of us to come to a place of conviction in our life, come to a place of the truth and say, lord, change.
Pastor Josh
Me and my change can affect other people's change.
Pastor Josh
And what we can see in our life is that we can bring refreshment to other Christians by the change that we show, by the difference in our lives.
Pastor Josh
Folks, we live our Christian life.
Pastor Josh
So.
Pastor Josh
So individually, it has been told to us in our Western society that Christianity is an isolated thing.
Pastor Josh
This is your personal thing that you do in private.
Pastor Josh
Folks, that is the opposite of what the Bible says.
Pastor Josh
The decisions that we make affect those that are around us.
Pastor Josh
The decisions that I make for the Lord are going to affect those around us.
Pastor Josh
Now, I don't have to answer for someone else's decisions, but I do have to answer for the way that I influence others by my decisions in my life.
Pastor Josh
Because the Corinthian church was willing to take the word of confrontation and allow that conviction to change them.
Pastor Josh
Through godly sorrow and repentance, they were able to influence Titus.
Pastor Josh
Titus was able to influence Paul.
Pastor Josh
Paul was able to influence the Macedonians.
Pastor Josh
The Macedonians were able to influence Paul again through giving, which we're going to talk about in the next chapter.
Pastor Josh
And then Paul comes around and uses the Macedonians who were helped by Paul and challenges the Corinthians with the Macedonians good life.
Pastor Josh
You see, it's just a big circle.
Pastor Josh
And so what I would tell you is this.
Pastor Josh
There's gonna be times in your life where you need the comfort of others in the church.
Pastor Josh
There's gonna be times in your life where you need to comfort others in the church.
Pastor Josh
You don't go, well, they didn't comfort me.
Pastor Josh
So I'm not gonna comfort them.
Pastor Josh
No, I'm gonna comfort them.
Pastor Josh
Because you know what the supernatural thing that's gonna happen is that eventually when I need that comfort, God's gonna work through somebody else and work that into my life.
Pastor Josh
It's an idea of thankfulness.
Pastor Josh
It's that attitude of gratitude that we should all live with in our lives.
Pastor Josh
And so we get to this place where he says, thank you, Lord, for the refreshment.
Pastor Josh
Thank you, Lord, for the repentance.
Pastor Josh
Thank you, Lord, for the revival.
Pastor Josh
Then we see more in verse 14.
Pastor Josh
He says, for if I have boasted anything to him of you, meaning if I have said anything good about you to Titus, he's talking to the Corinthian Church.
Pastor Josh
He said, I've said some good things about you to Titus.
Pastor Josh
Now you gotta think about Titus position.
Pastor Josh
Titus has only heard of the negative things about the Corinthian Church.
Pastor Josh
He's only heard what they're doing to Paul in the accusations and evil.
Pastor Josh
And he's heard about what's happened in First Corinthians, about all the sin that's there.
Pastor Josh
Titus probably was pretty scared to go and bring that letter to the Corinthians.
Pastor Josh
Paul says, no, they're good people.
Pastor Josh
They just got some issues, okay?
Pastor Josh
Titus is like, I don't know.
Pastor Josh
And Paul says, no, they've got good attributes.
Pastor Josh
He says, I've boasted in things, for I've boasted anything to him of you.
Pastor Josh
I am not ashamed.
Pastor Josh
He says, I haven't.
Pastor Josh
I'm not ashamed of what I've said about you.
Pastor Josh
There's good things to be said about you.
Pastor Josh
You have a lot of spiritual gifts.
Pastor Josh
You have a lot of blessings in your midst, and you're good people in the cause of the Gospel.
Pastor Josh
He says, but as we spake all things to you in truth, even so, our boasting, which I made before Titus, is found a truth.
Pastor Josh
Meaning.
Pastor Josh
That's a hard way to say it.
Pastor Josh
But what he's saying is this says some good things about you.
Pastor Josh
And the way that you responded to the truth validated those good things about you.
Pastor Josh
And so what he's saying here is this.
Pastor Josh
I want to speak life into your life.
Pastor Josh
I want to say good things about you.
Pastor Josh
Now, I think there's a lesson to be learned about this with Paul as well.
Pastor Josh
He's doing this to people that are against him right now.
Pastor Josh
Now, how many of you would say, okay, I'm gonna say good things and continue to say good things about people that are saying bad things about me.
Pastor Josh
Most of you are like, no way they say one bad thing about me.
Pastor Josh
I'm not gonna say anything good about them.
Pastor Josh
They.
Pastor Josh
They've lost credibility in my life.
Pastor Josh
Well, that might be justified in our way of doing things, but how can we get to a place of restoration in someone's life?
Pastor Josh
How can we have them restored back to the truth of the Gospel?
Pastor Josh
How can we have them restored back to our fellowship if we just discredit everything about them, right?
Pastor Josh
It's not an enemy that we see.
Pastor Josh
It's someone that we can speak truth into.
Pastor Josh
So what Paul says here is, hey, I still have concern for you.
Pastor Josh
I still have love for you.
Pastor Josh
I still want to tell you good things about what you are in Christ.
Pastor Josh
And so what does he say here?
Pastor Josh
He says, I am not ashamed of the things that I've said because our boasting was made true.
Pastor Josh
You validated those good things in the way that you responded to Titus, verse 15.
Pastor Josh
And his inward affection, talking about Titus is more abundant towards you, meaning this has helped Titus grow in his love for you.
Pastor Josh
This has helped him grow in his understanding of how he can have grace with other people.
Pastor Josh
And so his inward affection is more abundant towards you, whilst he remembered the obedience of you all.
Pastor Josh
So you actually see here that the Corinthians obedience affects Titus life.
Pastor Josh
Right.
Pastor Josh
Titus is renewed in his love for the Corinthians and for other Christians and for the Lord by seeing the obedience of the Corinthian church.
Pastor Josh
Your obedience to the Lord matters, your faithfulness to the Lord matters, the way that you respond to the preaching and the reading and the study of the Word matters, because it can affect those around you.
Pastor Josh
And so what we see here is that the Corinthian Church, though they had a lot of flaws in their repentance and their revival, can be used to minister to a minister.
Pastor Josh
Right?
Pastor Josh
Titus is a minister.
Pastor Josh
Titus is renewed by these Corinthian lay people, serving God, obeying God, and ultimately that affects him to the core.
Pastor Josh
He says here that the obedience of you all, how with fear and trembling, ye received him.
Pastor Josh
Now, Titus brought this message from Paul, and the Corinthians could have responded in many different ways, but what did they do?
Pastor Josh
They responded here with fear and trembling.
Pastor Josh
That's.
Pastor Josh
That's speaking of brokenness.
Pastor Josh
That's speaking of their humility.
Pastor Josh
And so therefore, they received the Word of God properly.
Pastor Josh
And I would encourage you to receive the Word of God properly in your life.
Pastor Josh
One of the things that I do in difficulty sometimes is hear the Word of God, especially when it convicts me, when it cuts me.
Pastor Josh
It's easy to build that shell around us to say, you know what?
Pastor Josh
I don't want to hear that.
Pastor Josh
And most of you wouldn't do this.
Pastor Josh
But sometimes, figuratively, what we do is we stick our fingers in our ears and go, I just don't want to hear it.
Pastor Josh
If I don't retain this, I'm not responsible.
Pastor Josh
But the truth is that when the Word of God is preached or when the word of God is taught, or when you study the word of God yourselves and something jumps off the page, it's doing that for a reason.
Pastor Josh
You ever had a preacher preach and you thought that he was preaching to you that day?
Pastor Josh
I've been there.
Pastor Josh
I remember there was a preacher that was preaching.
Pastor Josh
It was actually the service that I trusted in the Lord in, and he was preaching, and I was sitting there.
Pastor Josh
I was 15 years old.
Pastor Josh
And I'm like, oh, man.
Pastor Josh
My parents must have called this guy before the service, because he knows everything about my life.
Pastor Josh
He's exactly describing me.
Pastor Josh
And so I tried to reject it for a few minutes.
Pastor Josh
I was like, you know what?
Pastor Josh
No, I don't want to hear this.
Pastor Josh
But the moment I said, you know what?
Pastor Josh
Okay, Lord, you're speaking to me, and I submitted to that.
Pastor Josh
There was this miraculous thing that happened in the concept that the Holy Spirit was speaking to me.
Pastor Josh
And I encourage you to think about that.
Pastor Josh
I'm not saying that, you know, I don't know anything about.
Pastor Josh
If I've ever been up here and I've said something that you're like, man, that's me.
Pastor Josh
I don't know.
Pastor Josh
Okay.
Pastor Josh
I don't sit there in the week and think about different people.
Pastor Josh
I don't sit there and plan my sermons out.
Pastor Josh
You know, that expositorily, we just preach through passages of scripture.
Pastor Josh
But if something in scripture is speaking to you, that is there for a purpose to respond.
Pastor Josh
And what we can see here in this case is that Titus brings them the Word from Paul, ultimately from God.
Pastor Josh
And how did they respond?
Pastor Josh
Not with pride, not with arrogance, not with a lack of concern.
Pastor Josh
What does it say here?
Pastor Josh
They were.
Pastor Josh
They received it with fear and trembling.
Pastor Josh
That's how we have to see it.
Pastor Josh
Now, you're gonna have different speakers come up.
Pastor Josh
You're gonna have me come up here.
Pastor Josh
You're gonna have Pastor John come up here.
Pastor Josh
You might have Pastor Carlos speaking.
Pastor Josh
You might have a preacher that you listen to online.
Pastor Josh
It's not fear and trembling from that person, because sometimes different people can be a little bit more intimidating.
Pastor Josh
Like if someone gets up here with a booming voice, or they run up and down the aisles and they shake the Bible in your face, and you go, man, maybe I am a little bit fearful this guy's gonna hurt me.
Pastor Josh
It's not fearing and trembling over the person that's speaking.
Pastor Josh
It's fearing and trembling of the source of that message, and that is God.
Pastor Josh
So when the word of God is preached and it's preached clearly, and it's Preached from the truth of Scripture.
Pastor Josh
That is literally God speaking to his people.
Pastor Josh
In the Old Testament, it looked like this.
Pastor Josh
The prophet would come and he would say, thus saith the Lord.
Pastor Josh
And God would give the prophet the truth that he needed to preach.
Pastor Josh
Nowadays, we have the revealed prophecy of God, the revealed word of God right here.
Pastor Josh
Peter says that we have a more sure word of prophecy.
Pastor Josh
And he's talking about the.
Pastor Josh
You know, Peter, you guys know the story.
Pastor Josh
Peter, James and John go out to the mount of Transfiguration, and Jesus reveals himself in his truest form before Peter, James and John.
Pastor Josh
And what happens?
Pastor Josh
Peter says, we want to stay here.
Pastor Josh
We want to build.
Pastor Josh
We never want to leave this mount.
Pastor Josh
And then later on, Peter says, hey, he's describing that process.
Pastor Josh
The voice of God is heard audibly.
Pastor Josh
The voice of God the Father is heard audibly.
Pastor Josh
And we would think, well, man, none of us have experienced anything like that.
Pastor Josh
And what does Peter say?
Pastor Josh
He says, you have a more sure word of prophecy in the Scriptures.
Pastor Josh
That's amazing.
Pastor Josh
It's amazing the fact that we have the word of God given to us.
Pastor Josh
So when the word of God is presented, never see it as an agenda of a pastor, an agenda of a teacher.
Pastor Josh
See it as the word of God being spoken to you.
Pastor Josh
And when you do that, and you receive it in fear and trembling, it brings us to a place.
Pastor Josh
What does it say here in verse 16?
Pastor Josh
I rejoice, therefore, that I have confidence in you in all things.
Pastor Josh
What happens here?
Pastor Josh
Paul says, I haven't lost my confidence in you as my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
Pastor Josh
That is restoration.
Pastor Josh
Okay?
Pastor Josh
Restoration is when two parties can come together and say, even though there's been hardship, even though there's been things said, even though sins have been committed, we can come together and we can trust each other in the cause of the gospel.
Pastor Josh
That is beautiful restoration.
Pastor Josh
Because what's happened here is that we have people that at every point in their ministry have fallen short, right?
Pastor Josh
The Corinthian church have fallen short.
Pastor Josh
I mean, if you go back to 1 Corinthians, they were doing pagan acts in the temple.
Pastor Josh
They had people within the church that they had to separate from because of their public sin.
Pastor Josh
They were condemning Paul and his motives.
Pastor Josh
They were condemning the gospel.
Pastor Josh
But we can see at the end of verse 16 that even though they did all of those things, there can still be restoration between Paul and between the church at Corinth because of the repentance.
Pastor Josh
Restoration comes from both parties submitting to Jesus Christ, both parties coming and submitting themselves to the power of God and saying, hey, you know what?
Pastor Josh
It's not me versus you.
Pastor Josh
It's not a winner or a loser.
Pastor Josh
It's we come back in repentance before God.
Pastor Josh
And in that repentance, we fall broken and humble for him and say, you know what?
Pastor Josh
We both must receive each other because God received us in our sin as well.
Pastor Josh
And I would encourage you to think about that in your own life.
Pastor Josh
This is hard.
Pastor Josh
This is the hardest thing to do in the Christian walk, is to have forgiveness and restoration with someone who has harmed you or wronged you.
Pastor Josh
I mean, maybe not.
Pastor Josh
Maybe you say there's other things that are more difficult.
Pastor Josh
I'm gonna tell you one of the hardest things that I've ever experienced in my life is being able to see someone through the eyes of God and not through the eyes of my offense.
Pastor Josh
Okay?
Pastor Josh
That is the hardest thing, because we have an ego.
Pastor Josh
We have all the teachings of the world in our brain that says if someone wrongs you, you wrong them back.
Pastor Josh
Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth.
Pastor Josh
They don't deserve forgiveness.
Pastor Josh
They don't deserve grace.
Pastor Josh
Paul could have said that, and none of us would have batted an eye if he said, the Corinthian Church doesn't deserve me, I'm gone.
Pastor Josh
But no, what does he do?
Pastor Josh
He comes back.
Pastor Josh
He comes back and loves them enough to tell them the truth, risking their cause.
Pastor Josh
By the way, restoration doesn't always happen because in restoration, two parties have to come to repentance.
Pastor Josh
Both parties have to come to Christ.
Pastor Josh
Let's say, for example, someone comes in here as I'm preaching, and they walk right up to the front, and hopefully the security would notice that.
Pastor Josh
And he comes up to me, and I think he's gonna give me a hug.
Pastor Josh
He's walking up, and he comes up, and he just clocks me one right in the face.
Pastor Josh
Knocks me out right here, and I fall down, okay?
Pastor Josh
And he walks out.
Pastor Josh
And I could say all day, man, I forgive you.
Pastor Josh
I want to be restored to you.
Pastor Josh
I want you to come back into the church and be a part of us.
Pastor Josh
But if that person goes, well, I don't want to be a part of this church.
Pastor Josh
I don't want to be restored to you.
Pastor Josh
I don't think what I did is wrong, folks.
Pastor Josh
You see how that restoration can happen right now?
Pastor Josh
One side can be forbearing, meaning I'm offering grace, I'm offering forgiveness.
Pastor Josh
I'm offering all these things.
Pastor Josh
And we have the responsibility as an offended party to do that, to tell them the truth.
Pastor Josh
And now what I would need to do is I would need to go to him one on one and go, hey, brother, you punching me in the face in front of the church really wasn't a cool thing to do.
Pastor Josh
Please don't do that ever again, okay?
Pastor Josh
It offended me in many ways, but if I've done my part in everything and said, I forgive you, I forbear, you know, and then there's that concept of them coming back.
Pastor Josh
So I say all that to say this.
Pastor Josh
This doesn't always work out.
Pastor Josh
The Bible does say, live peaceably with all men if possible.
Pastor Josh
And so it doesn't always come to pass.
Pastor Josh
But when two parties come in repentance and in the conviction and say, you know what, we need to get this right, we need to overlook these differences, and we need to come to a place in our life where we show love and grace to each other because we're on the same team, that's when true restoration happens.
Pastor Josh
And I believe even though the church at Corinth isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination in scripture, this is where I do see Paul saying, hey, we've got restoration.
Pastor Josh
I'm here for you.
Pastor Josh
I'm committed, and I trust you.
Pastor Josh
I rejoice, therefore, that I have confidence in you in all things.
Pastor Josh
I don't think Paul is being sarcastic here.
Pastor Josh
That sounds like something maybe that could be sarcastic.
Pastor Josh
Like, you've given me no reason to have confidence in you, but I have confidence in you completely.
Pastor Josh
No, I don't think he's being sarcastic.
Pastor Josh
I think he's trying to encourage the Corinthians, showing them that he is convinced that their repentance is genuine and that they can work together.
Pastor Josh
And so by lifting them up, by exhorting them, by edifying them, he's able to continue this path to restoration.
Pastor Josh
And so this is an example.
Pastor Josh
This is an example for all of us.
Pastor Josh
And so at the end of this chapter, Paul encourages the Corinthian Christians.
Pastor Josh
And the real reason for this restoration is their repentance.
Pastor Josh
The real reason for this refreshment is repentance.
Pastor Josh
And so all throughout this chapter, we see how concerned Paul was about the relationship with the Corinthian Christians.
Pastor Josh
He didn't just discredit them.
Pastor Josh
And so Paul's relationship with God affected his relationship with the people that he's ministering to.
Pastor Josh
And Paul's relationship with God and his relationship with the people brought him to a place to speak the truth in love.
Pastor Josh
And then the Corinthian Church responded to that truth with repentance, revival, refreshment, restoration, folks.
Pastor Josh
If we want restoration, it has to start with the truth.
Pastor Josh
It has to go through revival.
Pastor Josh
But it starts with that repentance.
Pastor Josh
Truth reveals the repentance.
Pastor Josh
Truth reveals the turn.
Pastor Josh
And then we get to the point where the godly sorrow sustains the shift.
Pastor Josh
And ultimately true revival brings.
Pastor Josh
Excuse me, true repentance brings revival, refreshment and restoration, man.
Pastor Josh
You know what?
Pastor Josh
Some of us in our life need that restoration with people that have wronged us.
Pastor Josh
Some of us have been on the side of being the ones that have wronged other people.
Pastor Josh
And we need to go back in humility and brokenness and say, hey, I'm so sorry.
Pastor Josh
I need to get this right with you.
Pastor Josh
That doesn't happen outside of the power of God working in our lives, folks.
Pastor Josh
This is a miraculous thing that happens.
Pastor Josh
This is a wonderful thing that happens.
Pastor Josh
Have I been perfect in this as a pastor?
Pastor Josh
Of course I have not been perfect.
Pastor Josh
Who is perfect in these things?
Pastor Josh
Well, we know who is perfect.
Pastor Josh
That's the Lord.
Pastor Josh
And we have to go back to him on that.
Pastor Josh
Think about all the examples of Jesus, right?
Pastor Josh
We could go through many.
Pastor Josh
Jesus is sitting there right before he goes to the cross.
Pastor Josh
He knows that there's one guy sitting at this table that's gonna deny him.
Pastor Josh
It's the same guy that says, jesus, I'll die for you, Jesus.
Pastor Josh
I'll go anywhere with you, Jesus, I'll go to the ends of the earth.
Pastor Josh
And Jesus goes, you're gonna deny me three times.
Pastor Josh
There's another guy in the room.
Pastor Josh
He's about to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
Pastor Josh
Yet what does Jesus do?
Pastor Josh
He doesn't say, hey, get out of here.
Pastor Josh
Forget you.
Pastor Josh
He gets down.
Pastor Josh
John 13 takes the form of a servant and washes their feet.
Pastor Josh
He washes all their feet.
Pastor Josh
And all of them are going to deny him.
Pastor Josh
Really.
Pastor Josh
Peter publicly denies him, but all of them run except for John the Beloved.
Pastor Josh
But he shows that Jesus shows opportunities for us, that we can exercise love in the midst of wrongdoing in our life.
Pastor Josh
Now, there's a lot to this.
Pastor Josh
We're not going to be able to handle all of this because there is going to be time and a place in our life where there can't be restoration.
Pastor Josh
How do we deal with that?
Pastor Josh
Well, that's coming in different passages of Scripture, but what we see here is the ideal.
Pastor Josh
We see the ideal of Paul saying, I need to confront you with something.
Pastor Josh
I need to confront you with the truth, the truth of the Word.
Pastor Josh
And then the Corinthian Church responding as it says, there with fear and trembling, with humility that brought godly sorrow, that brought repentance.
Pastor Josh
Repentance brought revival.
Pastor Josh
Revival brought refreshment.
Pastor Josh
And that refreshment brings restoration.
Pastor Josh
Folks, some of us need to be in a place of repentance.
Pastor Josh
Some of us need that place of refreshment.
Pastor Josh
Some of us need that place of restoration today.
Pastor Josh
And I would encourage you to think about that.
Pastor Josh
I would encourage you to pray about that.
Pastor Josh
Some of us are in the role of Paul.
Pastor Josh
We need to be the ones that are speaking the truth into people's lives.
Pastor Josh
You know what?
Pastor Josh
Sometimes for me, this is embarrassing for a pastor to share, but whatever, I have nothing to lose.
Pastor Josh
I sometimes will sacrifice the truth for grace because I don't want to offend somebody.
Pastor Josh
Someone might come up to me and be like, hey, what do you think about this?
Pastor Josh
And I really want to tell them, like, well, I think it's a terrible decision that's going to ruin your life.
Pastor Josh
But then, because maybe of fear, it literally goes back to pride.
Pastor Josh
It goes back to pride.
Pastor Josh
I want the person to judge me.
Pastor Josh
I go, well, you know, I don't know if I would do that, but it could work out, maybe.
Pastor Josh
And you're like, right.
Pastor Josh
So sometimes there's that struggle, that inner struggle that we have where we don't want to offend so we won't tell them the truth.
Pastor Josh
And sometimes people come.
Pastor Josh
My thing is this.
Pastor Josh
If someone comes and asks me for the truth, that's my gateway to give them the truth.
Pastor Josh
Okay?
Pastor Josh
There's no more hesitancy on that.
Pastor Josh
If you really want to know the truth, I'm going to give you the truth in love.
Pastor Josh
But there are going to be times when people don't come to ask you for the truth.
Pastor Josh
That's the hard part.
Pastor Josh
And what Paul did is he says, I'm going to send this letter to the Corinthian Church because I love them enough to tell them the truth.
Pastor Josh
And this is hard because where does this go from judgment and, you know, being, you know, the whole idea of plank in, you know, speck in my brother's eye and plank in my own eye, right?
Pastor Josh
So there is that.
Pastor Josh
And Jesus teaches all about that.
Pastor Josh
Make sure you're right with God before you start going around and telling people the truth.
Pastor Josh
But he's not saying you can't tell people the truth.
Pastor Josh
He's saying, just inspect your own life to make sure you're not just living in disorder and then coming to people with issues.
Pastor Josh
But there is a time and a place in love to tell someone the truth about Jesus Christ, even a saved person, right?
Pastor Josh
So, like, for example, if I had my children, I don't struggle with telling my children the truth.
Pastor Josh
I don't sit there and worry about like, well, I'm going to offend my son today by telling him that this is wrong.
Pastor Josh
I'm going to tell him the truth because I have an investment in my son.
Pastor Josh
I have an investment in my family, right?
Pastor Josh
Because if my family breaks down, it's going to affect me completely, right?
Pastor Josh
And so therefore, I don't struggle with telling my family the truth.
Pastor Josh
So what do I have to see in that way?
Pastor Josh
I have to see it this way.
Pastor Josh
This is my church family.
Pastor Josh
And I don't want to see my family broken down.
Pastor Josh
I don't want to see my family get to a place because we're in this together.
Pastor Josh
And so it's done in love, it's done sensitively, but it's done in a way that brings someone to a place of where they have to respond to the truth of the gospel.
Pastor Josh
The godly sorrow works repentance.
Pastor Josh
So that's the side of the one who needs to speak the truth.
Pastor Josh
But some of us maybe are on the other side.
Pastor Josh
Maybe some of us need to hear the truth.
Pastor Josh
And how we respond to that truth matters too, because the Corinthians could have said, who are you, Paul?
Pastor Josh
Who are you?
Pastor Josh
You're the one that chose Macedonia over us.
Pastor Josh
And you told us you would be here, and you're not here.
Pastor Josh
Paul says, no, you need to receive this in truth.
Pastor Josh
You need to receive this in love.
Pastor Josh
And so some of us need to receive the truth in that love and to receive it with humility and to receive it with godly sorrow that brings forth repentance.
Pastor Josh
I've had people come to me and say, pastor, or maybe it's just Josh.
Pastor Josh
Maybe it's not someone in the church.
Pastor Josh
I've had other pastors come and say, hey, I think you're seeing this from the wrong perspective.
Pastor Josh
You know what my flesh wants to do?
Pastor Josh
Well, you're not here, you're not around me.
Pastor Josh
You don't know what you're talking about.
Pastor Josh
But what do I need to do?
Pastor Josh
Well, wounds of a friend are a blessing.
Pastor Josh
If a friend comes up to me and tells me that there's something wrong with what I'm doing, and I know that they're my godly friend, I gotta say, hey, you know what?
Pastor Josh
There's some truth to that.
Pastor Josh
I need to listen to that.
Pastor Josh
If I have someone that's invested in my life and someone that loves me and has proven their love to me.
Pastor Josh
And they come to me and they go, hey, you know what?
Pastor Josh
I see this going in your life a certain way, and I just want to caution you, that's time for me to say they love me enough to tell me that I need to listen to that.
Pastor Josh
And it's ultimately from the truth of God.
Pastor Josh
Maybe I'm sitting in a pew or I'm sitting in a chair and a preacher gets up and preaches something from the Word.
Pastor Josh
And that cuts me deep.
Pastor Josh
What is my responsibility?
Pastor Josh
My responsibility is to receive that in humility and come to a place of repentance in my life that is not easy, but it's biblical.
Pastor Josh
And for some of us, it's been a long time since we've wrestled with conviction and repentance.
Pastor Josh
We've been living our lives the way that we want to live it, and when something comes that makes us feel uncomfortable, we just push it away.
Pastor Josh
Embrace.
Pastor Josh
Embrace conviction.
Pastor Josh
Be thankful for conviction.
Pastor Josh
Be thankful for when God speaks to you and changes your heart.
Pastor Josh
I encourage you to think about it from that perspective, because we're all going to sit around the dinner table on Thursday and say, I'm thankful for God's comfort.
Pastor Josh
The comfort does come, but the comfort sometimes comes through conviction.
Pastor Josh
And I would dare say that most of us are not naturally going to say, well, I'm thankful for when God really convicted me in that service.
Pastor Josh
Some of us might.
Pastor Josh
That's a great place to be, but it's that place of humility.
Pastor Josh
How are we going to respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit?
Pastor Josh
If you're a Christian, there is conviction.
Pastor Josh
Okay?
Pastor Josh
The Bible does say that we can quench the spirit.
Pastor Josh
The Bible says that we can see our conscience.
Pastor Josh
But if you're walking in the spirit, there will be conviction.
Pastor Josh
I don't know about you, but when I study for my sermons throughout the week, I'm riddled with conviction.
Pastor Josh
By the time I get up on Sunday morning, I'm like, I'm not even qualified to preach this because I need to take, like three or four steps.
Pastor Josh
The preacher gets the first fruits right as I'm preparing.
Pastor Josh
Some of you like to cook on Thanksgiving.
Pastor Josh
How many of you are the cooks in your house on Thanksgiving?
Pastor Josh
How many of you cooks.
Pastor Josh
Be honest.
Pastor Josh
How many of you cooks take a little bit of a sample of what you're cooking?
Pastor Josh
Okay?
Pastor Josh
Only also, only a few of you guys are telling the truth.
Pastor Josh
All right?
Pastor Josh
I'm just saying I'm up there.
Pastor Josh
I'm always like, if I'm cooking something, I'm already We like to do a.
Pastor Josh
How many of you have ever seen a security charcuterie board?
Pastor Josh
Okay, okay.
Pastor Josh
By the time the charcuterie board is already.
Pastor Josh
Alicia's, like, working on it.
Pastor Josh
I'm not really the presenter of that.
Pastor Josh
She, like, gets it all fancy.
Pastor Josh
I've already eaten, like, half of the board before it's up there.
Pastor Josh
She's like, you're eating the supply here.
Pastor Josh
Come on.
Pastor Josh
So the truth is that sometimes when we are doing our own biblical study in our own lives, by the time we get to somebody else, we are already convicted with things, and we need to get that right with God.
Pastor Josh
And so if you can take anything with you is the results of repentance is revival.
Pastor Josh
It's refreshment, and then lastly, it's restoration.
Pastor Josh
Embrace, celebrate, give thanks to God not only for his comfort, but for his truth and conviction.
Pastor Josh
It's not an easy message to preach, but nonetheless, it's an important message to hear and to live and.
Pastor Josh
And to learn in our lives.
Pastor Josh
And so I encourage you here today.
Pastor Josh
It's not a big revolutionary truth.
Pastor Josh
All it is is this.
Pastor Josh
What is your response to the truth of God?
Pastor Josh
What is your response to conviction in your life?
Pastor Josh
Maybe you've been pushing away the conviction so much that you've become desensitized to God working in your life.
Pastor Josh
You know, there was a time when I would hear a word or that I would see something, that I would just.
Pastor Josh
I would literally turn my head, I would plug my ears.
Pastor Josh
I would run away from something.
Pastor Josh
But how many of us have gotten so accustomed to the things of this world that when something wrong pops up in front of us and the conviction of the Holy Spirit is trying to press on us, we just reject that because.
Pastor Josh
Well, that's just silly.
Pastor Josh
It's like when I was.
Pastor Josh
I've used this analogy before.
Pastor Josh
It's like when we were in college, and the first few weeks in there, I'm like, man, this guy's dorm stinks so bad.
Pastor Josh
Okay?
Pastor Josh
None of the guys, you know, we just.
Pastor Josh
It was just stinky in there.
Pastor Josh
And after two or three weeks, I'm like, man, the stench went away.
Pastor Josh
Then when my.
Pastor Josh
When people would come and visit, they'd be like, wow, this your room stinks.
Pastor Josh
It's like, what?
Pastor Josh
No, it says so.
Pastor Josh
We get so used to what we live in that the stench eventually goes away.
Pastor Josh
Let's not lose the sensitivity.
Pastor Josh
You want to see.
Pastor Josh
You want to see awesome Sensitivity to conviction of the spirit.
Pastor Josh
Deal with, like, a child who's just been saved.
Pastor Josh
They'll keep you straight.
Pastor Josh
My Kids, keep me straight.
Pastor Josh
Dad, that's not a word that we should say.
Pastor Josh
Dad.
Pastor Josh
That's not a place we should be.
Pastor Josh
Dad, should we be reading this?
Pastor Josh
Dad?
Pastor Josh
It's like, wow, okay, you know what?
Pastor Josh
There's a lot of preaching to that.
Pastor Josh
And for us, you know, I think sometimes the Bible does say we need to come back as little children, like, have the sensitivity to that.
Pastor Josh
Now, I'm not saying we have to live under a rock.
Pastor Josh
I'm not saying that we have to live sheltered lives, but it is saying we need to live differently.
Pastor Josh
And that conviction of the Spirit, when a preacher gets up and preaches or a teacher is teaching, or you're in your own spiritual study or you're listening to a podcast and something's there, don't reject that move in the Spirit.
Pastor Josh
And so I would encourage you to do that.
Pastor Josh
Let's go ahead.
Pastor Josh
If you're able to just stand with me.
Pastor Josh
Every head bowed, every eye closed as the music plays.
Pastor Josh
This morning, we have an opportunity to respond to the preaching of the Word here today.
Pastor Josh
How many of you said, you know what?
Pastor Josh
It's been a while since there's been repentance in my life.
Pastor Josh
A marked repentance, a marked change in my direction.
Pastor Josh
Folks, I would encourage you, if there has been a time in your life where you've been repentant, but now it's been a while, I encourage you to come there, come back to that place of repentance in your life.
Pastor Josh
Maybe for some of you, say, you know what?
Pastor Josh
I've been seeking relief in my life from these sins, refreshment from these issues of this world.
Pastor Josh
You know what?
Pastor Josh
Refreshment and repentance and revitalization only comes through that broken, humbled spirit.
Pastor Josh
So you have that revival, you have that refreshment, and maybe some of you are seeking that restoration.
Pastor Josh
Maybe it's with a family member, maybe it's with a friend, I don't know.
Pastor Josh
But that restoration is only going to come through both sides, being repentantly, falling before God and seeking after his will.
Pastor Josh
Maybe you're the one that's done the offense.
Pastor Josh
Maybe you've been the one who has been offended.
Pastor Josh
But seek restoration through repentance.
Pastor Josh
So easy to live a life of bitterness.
Pastor Josh
It's so easy to live a life of ingratitude.
Pastor Josh
But let's be thankful.
Pastor Josh
Maybe it's just this.
Pastor Josh
Maybe it's just I want to learn how to be thankful for the difficult things in my life.
Pastor Josh
Difficult for the conviction.
Pastor Josh
It's difficult to be convicted.
Pastor Josh
But am I willing to give thanks in the difficulty of conviction?
Pastor Josh
Or am I pushing that aside and only thanking God for the things that I like in my life?
Pastor Josh
None of us like the pain of conviction, but all of us should embrace the comfort that comes with that change, that comes through conviction in our life.
Pastor Josh
Let the Lord speak to you.
Pastor Josh
Let the Lord change you.
Pastor Josh
Let the Lord guide you and encourage you to think about that here this week in the time of giving thanks.
Pastor Josh
Give thanks to the Lord for the conviction of the spirit, the convictor and the comforter.
Pastor Josh
He's the convictor and the comforter.
Pastor Josh
Embrace those elements of our Savior.
Pastor Josh
Lord, I pray that you'd be, in this time of invitation, working hearts and lives.
Pastor Josh
Lord, if there's someone here today that has for their whole life tried to earn work, get to a place of salvation.
Pastor Josh
Lord, I pray that today can be the day of salvation.
Pastor Josh
Today can be the day of conviction that leads to that repentance.
Pastor Josh
Lord, I pray that that godly sorrow of their sin can get to a place in their life where they can see that the only remedy to sin, the only comfort to sin, the only relief to sin, the only restoration to God, the greatest lover of our souls, is found through biblical repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
Pastor Josh
But I pray that we can all come to you today in that faith and repentance.
Pastor Josh
But Lord, I pray that if there's someone here who has not found you a Savior, that today can be the day of salvation.
Pastor Josh
Lord, we thank you for your love and your grace.
Pastor Josh
In Jesus name, Amen.
Pastor Josh
As the music plays, if you need to come forward, we've got some folks up here with Bibles that can show you in the word of God what it means to come to know him in faith.
Pastor Josh
But maybe you just need to come forward and thank him for that conviction in your life.
Pastor Josh
I encourage you to do that here today.
Pastor Josh
Give him praise.
Pastor Josh
Give him thanks for everything that he has done.
Pastor Josh
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.
Pastor Josh
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
Pastor Josh
If you would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.
Pastor Josh
You can also email me directly at joshmasaro at middletownbaptistchurch.
Pastor Josh
Com.
Pastor Josh
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and follow along for future podcast and updates.
Pastor Josh
Thank you so much.
Pastor Josh
God bless.
Pastor Josh
Have a wonderful day.
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