God’s Purpose

• God’s hope for each of us is for restoration!

Overview of scripture –

• Fall
• Noah
• Covenants
• Israel
• Jesus
• Gentiles
• Us

Our God, the Father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…Is a God who restores!

In 2 Cor, this is Paul’s heart as well. He’s going beneath the surface writing this personal pastoral letter hoping to comfort and restore a relationship with them.

Paul is making an appeal to the church in Corinth on behalf of an unknown believer to reconcile their differences, so that Satan’s schemes don’t prevail.

Paul’s Appeal (read 2:5-8)

• Set the scene -- Who is the he? Who is the anyone?
• Sin causes grief
• When challenged -- They obeyed!

But the pendulum swung too far.

• The desired effect was obtained
• BUT

RESTORE HIM

• Forgive him
  • Forgiveness is NOT
    • Forgiveness is not empty words to avoid conflict..
    • Forgiveness is alsonot the equivalent of trust, or forgetting.
    • One of the common consequences that accompanies an offense is distrust.
• Comfort him 
  • 2 Cor 1:3
• Reaffirm love for him
• Luke 17:3 -- If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.

Why Restoration?

• For his sake -- “overwhelmed by excessive sorrow”
• For the sake of the church -- Obedience
  • God doesn’t ask us to do only what’s comfortable…He wants us to step out of that comfort zone and restore this brother.
• For God’s sake -- Don’t let Satan Take advantage of you (vs 10-11)
  • Un-forgiveness is a foothold for Satan! 

Satan’s Schemes (read 2:9-11)

Paul identifies several of these schemes in this text:

• Self-righteousness that stems from partial obedience
• Excessive sorrow – crushed over the exclusion (the partial obedience of others)
• Un-forgiveness is an open door

 Satan would love to see our community broken/fractured over sin. He’d relish in that grief, pain. Those are ugly realities that are not only counter-productive for the Kingdom, but opposite of what God would want for a church community!

Not perfection…Repent & Believe

Our Reality

The reality is – None of us are perfect! Take a moment to sit in the other seat…It’s so easy to identify with the “clean church community side” of this text.

Re-Read 2 Cor 2:5-11

God wants to forgive, comfort and reaffirm his love for you! He’s willing to do this as often as you are willing to repent…

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord....(Acts 3:19-20)

"God demonstrates his own love for us in this, that while we still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

He offers forgiveness, comfort and a Fatherly love when we turn to him in repentance and faith in Christ. Forgiveness is a fruit of a right response to our confession of being sinners (1 Jn. 1:9)