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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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Transcript
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.
