Starting with verse five, this is God's word. Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely, to all of you. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him. Or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him, for this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs. as far we read from God's word. How do we restore a troubled marriage? Maybe you know a husband and wife who got into some arguments and it only got worse. How do you help them? How do we help anybody who has a spat with a sibling, a difficulty with a neighbor? How do we improve a rift across a clan, a dispute in a school, a neighborhood? How do we make pain and grief stop? not by pointing out as many sins as we possibly can, but by forgiving and loving as much as we possibly can. Corinth, you remember, was called Sin City, the city itself, and yet God built a holy church in that city, a church that was unified in its fellowship. But sin had broken the fellowship between that church and Paul and between that church and some other factions within it. And in our passage, we have instructions from Paul to the church in Corinth for how to restore that fellowship. It brings us to our main point if you're looking at your bulletin handout. Because the risen Lord Jesus is present in the church by his spirit, we're shown how to restore our fellowship with Christ and with each other. First, we'll see forgiving, comforting, loving those who caused us grief. Secondly, passing the obedience test, the presence of Christ. And third, knowing Satan's strategies. Failure to forgive had put the church out of step with our gracious Savior who looks down from heaven. So Paul is reminding them of this. He begins with verse five. Now, if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely, to all of you. So here Paul is addressing the issue, the disciplinary matter that had come before the church in Corinth. There was a certain man in the church who had sinned and whose sin had caused pain and grief, not just to Paul, it was somehow connected to Paul, but to everyone in the church. That's what he introduces here to the church in Corinth as he writes. And even the Holy Spirit is grieved when sin disrupts the fellowship of his people. So it makes sense that the believers in Corinth who were filled by his Holy Spirit would also be grieved, be in pain because of it. So he's talking here about church discipline in Corinth. It was to be done in that context, the context of a good number of people in pain and basically church-wide grief about that sin of that person that had been addressed. So in verse six, he brings up the actual issue of that one person for such a one, That one person he's talking about, now he addresses what had been done about that person. This punishment by the majority is enough. So we gather from that that the leadership of the church in Corinth had brought the sin of the one man before the church, and they had dealt with it and had given a response of how that should be handled. And the word here, notice, the word is majority, not everybody. Isn't that interesting? that he writes in verse six, for such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. The word majority, rather than the word everybody, showed us that some smaller number of people still disagreed with what had been done and how it had been handled. So now what? Paul's point in verse six is to show that the majority agreed upon action of discipline was enough says Paul, so he's weighing in on the issue. He says it's enough. This punishment by the majority's enough, verse six. Enough for what? Enough for the person to repent, and therefore, what should the church do to someone who has sinned and been disciplined and then repented? In that situation, Paul gives this instruction in verse seven. Read verse seven. So, you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or, he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. Paul's instruction here was that since the man had received discipline, and Paul had shown him to be a person with genuine repentance, that the church ought to forgive, comfort, and restore him to their fellowship. You have to admit this would apply to all the issues we listed, a marriage. an extended clan dispute, something in your neighborhood, something in your workplace, something in your school. If these sorts of principles were applied, we can already see how it would be a blessing. So let's continue to follow through how Paul gives instructions. The goal of addressing the sin through official church discipline had been achieved, to restore the sinning person. And what's left now is for the church not to fail in the next step. And the next step is to respond to the failing man with forgiving and comforting so that that man would not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. And this is very instructive for us. The word overwhelmed here in verse seven is the same word that the apostle Peter used over in 1 Peter 5.8. You can look it up. I'll explain it to you and quote it in a second. But it's a familiar verse to us. It's here describing Satan overwhelming people like a lion overwhelms people. That's the verse in 1 Peter 5 about our adversary, the devil, prowling around like a lion seeking someone to, and here's the verb, overwhelm, someone to overwhelm, someone to devour spiritually. So that word means to completely overpower, much like a lion might overpower you or a lion could even swallow you. The word is sometimes translated swallow, to overpower, to overwhelm, to devour, or to overpower. The writer of the Hebrews also uses this same word, Hebrews 11, 29, to refer to the Egyptians being engulfed and drowned by the waters of the Red Sea. So here in our passage, in verse seven, the verb overwhelmed was used to describe that person's spiritual state. The person who had sinned, had been disciplined, but is now not being forgiven by the church. That person could be drowning. in despair, the person under discipline coming to the point of repentance but not being forgiven by the body of the church there in Corinth could, despite his repentance, drown spiritually under a false conclusion that God doesn't love him, that the church doesn't love him, and that even though he's reached a point of repentance, there's no forgiveness to be found. Who wants to be there, says Paul. He's instructing the church to look at it for what is really happening in their church. Paul made an important distinction here that's very important for us to notice in verse seven, between A, being sorrowful, and B, being overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. A, being sorrowful, B, being overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. That's an important distinction. Being sorrowful for sin is good. It's a necessary part of repentance to realize what we have done, to see the impact on others, to grieve and be sad about it. It's an important aspect of repentance. It's needed for all those situations we've talked about. Marriage, extended family, workplace, squabbles in the neighborhood. To see the impact of our actions and words on others is an important part of repentance, to have some sorrow and sadness. but it's not the same as the other. This other category that he's distinguishing it from, that the person who had been disciplined had come to the point of repentance could then swing so far as to come to the other side and drowned under the engulfing sorrow that completely overpowers him. And that's not what Christ came and died and rose again to give to him, to give to sinners. Applying church discipline could be illustrated then with bowling. Too far on the left goes in the left gutter ball lane. Too far on the right goes in the right gutter ball lane. it has to go down the middle. Church discipline can't be so lenient on the one side that it barely treats sin seriously. And it can't go so far on the other side that it treats sin so severely that it's as if there's never forgiveness in this life for someone who has done wrong. Church discipline has to be like the bowling ball that makes it down the lane all the way to the pins. Not too much, not too little, church discipline. So how do we bowl a strike? How do we hit some pins? Verse eight, he gives the answer. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. To reaffirm is a verb that meant to decide in favor of. Love is a decision at that point. This is a person who did wrong. This is a person who hurt Paul. This is a person who hurt all of us. And this is a person who we're going to decide to love because Jesus is looking down from heaven on our situation. And we need that grace now. This person needs to be reaffirmed in our love for him and God's love for him. Love is a decision. Love is not simply an emotion in the church in Corinth. The relationship between Paul and the church in Corinth is not just, am I feeling it today? Love is a deliberate determination to act and to speak toward the other person in a way that provides for their spiritual health and good for their walk before Christ and under the watching eye of the head of the church. Love is a decision, so I beg you to reaffirm your love for him is what he says. That's the key. That's how we bowl and hit some pins. How do we make a church fellowship pain and grief stop? By bowling. strike of disciplining what's necessary followed by forgiving and loving. That's the same for a marriage. That's the same for a family squabble. That's the same for the tension in your workplace. How do we make the pain go away? By dealing with disciplinary matters and things that can't be avoided and covering the rest in love. Brings us to our second point, verse nine. Now he says, for this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you're obedient in everything. The test was whether the church in Corinth was genuine in spiritual matters. As they looked at the scene, are they seeing it the way Christ sees it through his apostle Paul? They must be obedient. Notice what he wrote in verse nine. Obedient not in most things, obedient not in a good majority of things, obedient in everything. What is he referring to? On the one hand, they have to comply in both taking the needed actions of discipline in the first place, but on the other hand, they also have to comply in taking the needed actions of embracing the repentant person with sincere love. They have to discipline, but they have to love. They have to address what's sin and wrong, but they have to forgive. Obedient in everything, that's the test. Will the church in Corinth be able to recover? Will the church in Corinth be able to have fellowship with Paul and with each other? Will the factions be healed? This is the test. Are they obedient in everything? Verse 10, he says, anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ. There's the presence of Christ. He keeps in front of them. Verse 10. So Paul himself joined in. Paul himself weighed in. Paul himself identified with each of them in the fact that he'd been hurt, in the fact that he'd been grieved, and he had been pained by whatever happened by this sinning person. But Paul's now joining in and weighing in and extending forgiveness and extending words and actions now in his writing, eventually in his visit. Paul found a way to forgive. Paul found a way to move beyond by the cross of Jesus Christ. And he's counseling the church to find a way, that same pathway, to forgive and to move beyond by the same cross of Christ. And they can all together praise God that the act of discipline had been given the God-appointed effect. Discipline really works in the hand of God. That they reached the goal. They had disciplined him and prayed for him to repent. He had repented. They were supposed to praise God at that point and expect then the answer is to reaffirm their love for him and praise God that it happened. Why is it necessary for Paul to write that he forgives them also? Paul is affected and Paul is also like a spiritual father to the church in Corinth because he's the missionary who originally brought them all to faith in Christ, remember? He came to Corinth when there was no church and there were no believers and he preached the gospel and they came to faith and the church was formed by the hand of God. He's intensely interested. And so he needs to weigh in and forgive the person also. Paul himself held no grudges against the man. Paul's not nursing any resentments while waiting for an apology that would never come. No, he saw the man come under discipline, saw the man reach a point of repentance, and he extended forgiveness personally to him. He says, I'm in this with you. I have skin in the game. It's going to cost me to overlook it too. He's emphasizing what Jesus emphasized. Paul's reminding them of the presence of Christ from above in the church. And in the church and the need for the cause of Christ to press forward in that church, the reminder of the presence of Christ looms so large in this passage. The presence of Christ brings the teachings of Christ to our minds. Think of verses like this, Matthew 12, 30. Whoever is not with me, says Jesus, is against me. And whoever does not gather with me scatters. Matthew 12, 30, so the presence of Jesus brings about the teachings of Jesus, and it was Jesus who always taught that a tone of animosity would divide believers in the church in Corinth, and would scatter believers into splinter groups in the church in Corinth. Some for Apollos, and some for Paul, and some for somebody else. When Jesus gave his disciples the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, there's a lot of different elements in the Lord's Prayer that we just prayed together this morning. But the only element of the Lord's Prayer that was immediately picked up and taught upon by the Lord Jesus, right after giving them the Lord's Prayer, was this idea of forgiveness. Listen to it. Right after the Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6, picking up with verse 12, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Remember that? Part of the Lord's Prayer. Then verse 14, Jesus teaches, for if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, neither will your Father forgive your sins. Now this is not a sermon on those verses, this is only the point that Jesus picked up one aspect of the Lord's Prayer and taught on it immediately, the aspect of the central, foundational importance of forgiveness, vertically and horizontally in the body of Christ. So here Paul's emphasizing the same things Jesus emphasizes. Paul's own forgiving of the man for the sake of the believers. How does he do that? In the presence of Christ. How can he hang on to something against this man when Paul himself is in the presence of Christ who died and rose again for his own forgiveness? It means Paul's forgiveness is genuine. Paul's forgiveness was seen by the all-seeing Christ because Paul's sins were seen by the all-seeing Christ and his sins were cleansed. Hebrews 4.13, nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. Cleaning up the big mess of sin in a marriage. Cleaning up the big mess of sin in a family, a clan, a workplace. Cleaning up the big mess of sin in a church fellowship must be done in a way that honors the Lord Jesus Christ who sits preeminent and reigning over all of it. head of our church, the head of the church, everything we must do, we must do to reflect the manner in which Jesus has already graciously forgiven each of us. All official dealings with sin, all unofficial dealings with sin, must be done with the recognition of Jesus himself, present in his church, by his spirit. Revelation 2.1, it is Jesus who walks among the golden lampstands, he's not simply above us, he's in every pew, he's between every coffee cup, he's in every point of fellowship, whether it's 10, three, or two. Paul's applying to the church in Corinth that was in pain. He had said in verse five, they were all in pain, that they were to live their whole lives in the sight of Christ who walks up and down the church in Corinth between the huddles of people in fellowship time. Godliness in a church, and godliness in a marriage, and godliness in individual lives in the workplace is always as Jesus himself hears and sees everything by each of his people that he would be honored by each of us, that he would be obeyed. That's point two, passing the obedience test in the presence of Christ. In the presence of Jesus, reminded of his nail-pierced hands, that Jesus didn't just urge us to forgive. He paid the ultimate price for us to be forgiven, and then commanded us to forgive one another. It brings us to our third point. It's interesting that Paul wrote verse 11, isn't it? In this occasion, right here now, he brings up Satan. Verse 11, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we're not ignorant of his designs. Why would he bring up Satan? Ah, yes. Doesn't take long to figure out why he might do that, right? Holding on to grudges in Paul, holding on to grudges in the congregation would be quickly exploited by Satan because he loves to undermine the church's healthy fellowship with itself. It was Jesus, again, who taught Luke 22, 31, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat. Luke 22, 31, what does Satan desire to do? to take Simon Peter and sift him like wheat. Satan's desire is to cause divisions between Peter and the other disciples, and to keep those divisions going. Satan's plan is always to cause believers to harbor ill will toward a repentant sinner, and instead of showing love, mercy, and grace from Christ, to keep those sins dividing. The devil hates forgiveness. It's our superpower. It's the one thing that's the glue for the church of Jesus Christ and for marriages that are Christian marriages. Christian love covers. It really does. It puts a manhole cover over the sewer and stink. Christian love. The devil's goal is to push people into weariness, push people into despair, and push people farther and farther down a dark path where there is no forgiveness and it leads to despondency. People wonder if there is a God, and they wonder if the church is even the church. But Christ, by His Spirit, commissioned Paul to write verse 11 to remind the church in Corinth that discipline must be exercised and must be applied with special care in order that they would not give Satan an opportunity to outwit them. What in the world does that mean? Satan is always attempting to outsmart the church in Corinth. He's got strategies, he's got tricks, and then he's got more. And verse 11 is Paul giving a troubled, pain-filled church in Corinth a warning and a caution that if their church discipline was too lenient, Satan would be gaining because the sin was being minimized or even encouraged. Or if their church discipline was too harsh, it may engulf the offending individual and send them into a drowning state of desperation and perhaps even leave the faith. Satan is always trying to turn something good into something bad. And church discipline is something good. He's trying to turn it into something bad by either having it absent or having it crush people. We know this about Satan. It's predictable. We know his designs. We know his plans. Satan is always cheerleading churches to go to excess in church discipline. Go farther, go farther, strike harder, strike harder, says Satan. It's predictable. Of course he says this. He says, don't worry about it. You don't need to discipline. We can have unholiness in the church of Jesus. Of course he says that. He's Satan. It's kind of like we talk about cancer. If the cancer doesn't get you, the treatment could get you, because the treatment is so severe. And we start to think that Satan's got us convinced that sin is the problem, but then we try to address it with church discipline, and the church discipline is the problem. Like the treatment becomes the problem instead of the cancer, like the church discipline becomes the problem instead of the sin that started it in the first place. That's Satan. We understand that about him. Satan's goal is to open wounds in the life of a local church and to leave them open and unhealed and oozing as long as he possibly can. That's his goal. We know that about him. It's how he always rolls. And that's why Paul could write verse 11, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we're not ignorant of his designs. What have we seen? Because the risen Lord is Jesus, is present in the church by his spirit, we're shown how to restore our fellowship with Christ and with each other. Number one, forgiving, comforting, loving those who cause us grief. Number two, passing the obedience test in the presence of Christ. Number three, knowing Satan's strategies. So there's two steps to restore church fellowship, but I'll use these as our closing application. Number one, reinstate our forgiveness. Number two, reaffirm our love. Number one, reinstate our forgiveness. Forgiveness on earth, since Christ reinstated forgiveness in heaven. Whatever is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven, bound on earth is bound in heaven. We're hand in hand with the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of his church, to reinstate forgiveness. When there's genuine repentance, There must be full-scale reinstatement of forgiveness. Listen to Paul write elsewhere, Colossians 3.13, And right along with forgiving comes comforting. He lists it here. We're reinstating forgiving. We're reinstating comforting. We're reassuring each other of the love of Christ, the love of the church, the gospel of grace of our Lord. We've forgiven the sight of Christ who died and rose again in order that we might be forgiven and restored in our fellowship with heaven. That's number one, reinstate our forgiveness. Number two, reaffirm our love. Churches heal their fellowship through words of encouragement. Hebrews 3, 12, take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Hebrews 3, 12 to 13. Fellowships must not allow a forgiven sinner to turn away from brothers and sisters and abandon the faith because the church lacks love for him or her. John Calvin wrote it this way, whenever we fail to comfort those that are moved to a sincere confession of their sin, we play into Satan's hands. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. And just because it's two steps doesn't mean it's easy. Two steps, two easy steps it sounds like, right? Reinstate forgiveness, reaffirm our love. Do you realize that those are some of the hardest things on earth to do? Of course you do. We've talked about marriage, we've talked about school relationships, clan relationships, workplace tensions. It's the hardest thing to do to swallow that and offer forgiveness and overlook the wrongs. I end with an illustration to show I understand it's the hardest thing to do. Paul understood it's the hardest thing to do. We need Christ's strength to do it. Remember Corrie Ten Boom, who wrote about forgiving a Nazi guard? Years later, when she had this opportunity to meet him, she had been speaking at a conference about forgiving. And here comes this fellow. She recognized him immediately. A cold notion went down her spine. She knew she had to talk to him. Here he comes. She's standing before him. She tried to smile, and a smile wouldn't come. She tried to raise her hand for a simple handshake. She couldn't raise her hand. Her elbow just wouldn't bend. She felt nothing inside. She had just spoken about forgiveness. Not the slightest spark of warmth or charity for this Nazi guard. So she breathed again a silent prayer. Jesus, I can't forgive him. Give me your forgiveness. And from her shoulder to her arm, from her arm to her hand, she was raising her hand and found herself shaking him like an out-of-body experience, and passed through her arm, from her heart, she suddenly had the sensation of a heart springing with love for this stranger that overwhelmed her. Jesus answered her prayer. Give me your forgiveness for him. Satan is ever ready to deepen division and spread bitterness. Jesus is ever ready to bring forgiveness and spread love. Satan is always leaving open sores that ooze to despair. Jesus is always bringing closure and healing and the balm of comfort and the bandage of peace. Each believer, each spouse, Each coworker who belongs to Jesus, whatever the situation, lives in the presence of Christ himself. And the awareness of his presence reminds us of his nail-pierced hands. He saw all our sins, and he restores all of our fellowship with him. And when our fellowship with God vertically is restored, we can restore fellowship horizontally, because he died and rose again to give us grace and power to do so. Reinstate forgiveness on earth, reaffirm our love. Hardest things to do. You're gonna need divine power, and divine power you have. Let's pray.