James Richards

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Sunday Morning Service

Jeremy Richards

Copalis Community Church

31 May 2024

Bible References

• 2 Corinthians 13:1-4

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Okay, but we're going to be sharing in two Corinthians. And so I've been sharing out of two Corinthians for a while now. And second corinthians has never been my favorite book, never been something that interests me and glossed over. And for some reason I got stuck sharing in Corinthians and then just continued sharing. And so to those who have been in the church while I've been sharing, I just appreciate the freedom to go through it.

You have been troopers and I have learned a lot through it. I'm grateful for the time, and I hope that someone else might have gained something from it. But the last few chapters we've been going over has been an explanation of Paul's authority as it relates to the Corinthians. And he's talked about the reason he is attempting to establish, establish his authority is because there has been other apostles that have come in, false apostles, who are attempting to lead people away from the simple message of Jesus Christ into another path. And so he is exerting his authority not for his own benefit, but hopefully for the benefit of those who might otherwise have went a different path.

And he's used things, explaining the hardships he's going through, the amount of sacrifices endured. He's talked about the spiritual revelations he's had. He's determined to not put any type of burden on them. He has been willing to humble himself and repent for their sins. And we come now to the end of two Corinthians and there's going to be two more areas that he addresses after this.

And so it's been a long haul in it. And I recognize in my own life, and I'm sure for you personally, probably there's not a whole bunch of earnest desire to come and hear about spiritual authority. If I would guess if it was the thing that you got to choose what you watched on tv or not, you probably wouldn't want to engage with spiritual authority unless you probably had to. Well, today is that day where you have to, right? And there's a real reason for that.

I would like to say that I have been, I am a father, I am a husband, I have a business with employees, and I am an elder in this church. And I have been a part of a kind, I hate the word abusive authority. It makes me cringe. But honestly, it's true. With my own children have got out of biblical line of the authority that is right and biblical and went beyond that with my wife in a honest biblical relationship where authority is the beautiful thing where a husband loves his wife and a wife respects her husband.

I have laid burdens on my wife, hard to bear in business. I have not been the kind of boss that I should be in, training people in the way that is right in the church. I have not been the kind of elder that has treated and encouraged the kind of growth in individuals with whom I have been called to serve. And I first would just like to know and say that I am very sorry.

I just want to ask everyone's forgiveness. I am a. A foolish, ugly man with deep seated sin in my heart. And God has been gracious and kind to me and has not forsaken me when everyone else should have and would have. I appreciate that.

I do. But I would like to also say that you and I, though we've experienced bad authority, though we've been a part of bad authority, though we've been a part of churches that have not acted in accordance with scripture, that the shepherds were working not for the benefit of the congregation, but for their own benefit. We've been part of of families that were out of order, abusive type relationships, horrid situations going on. We've been part of companies or businesses in which leadership was manipulative or acted in a wrong way. And so you and I have a tendency to shy away from authority, to be resistive to the idea of authority because of so much bad experiences we've had with authority.

But I would just like to say that God places the orphan and widows in homes for the benefit of the children, for the benefit of the wife, for the benefit of the husband, for the benefit of the father. He places individuals like you and I into church bodies. I would like to say, though it's horrific, that there's been bad authority, there's an even greater danger of abandoning the idea of authority altogether. God gives us authority as a gift, and as here Paul is preaching to us out of two Corinthians concerning authority. I think on one hand we should be recognizing where we have authority, where children and parents, where husband and wives, the different way that they use their authority, where employers and employees, the different authority they have within a business, and the different way in which individuals in a body work, using their own authority for the mutual benefit of everyone else.

To not have authority is worse than having authority that is compromised. You and I have never had an authority that's been perfect. If you were a child, your parents were not perfect, but thank God for your parents. Thank God they were not perfect people. And a lot of things they do there's no excuse for them.

But thank God for your parents. You and I have God willing and possibly involved in a married relationship. And I just like to say that there has been times, because you were a human, that that authority has not been right. The husband uses his authority and wrong ways at times. The wife uses her authority in wrong ways at times.

But thank God for the marriage relationship that God ordained and brought as an instrument of blessing into your and I's life. Similar with the place you work. Thank God that there's leadership that you were allowed to work under, though it wasn't perfect. Thank God for it. And thank God for the church.

Thank God that though imperfect, because there's imperfect people. Thank God that there is authority. And I would just like to encourage you and I in this to see authority as a blessing, to try to remove ourselves from an idea that all authority is to be rejected. We are living in a culture right now in which a group or a stream of people whom we are also influenced by are rejecting authority outright. Do you really think now I agree with them, that their authority is absolutely not as good as it should be.

But do you think by rejecting authority they're going to end up in a better place than when they started? Do you think their societies, their school is really going to end up better? I don't believe so. And so as we start this on biblical authority, the second to last area in which Paul is going to bring his biblical authority over the Corinthians, I first would just like to encourage you that maybe you have been resistant to God's authority over your own life. Maybe you've rejected authority partly because of the idea that has come from a contaminated culture and that the rejection of biblical authority has left you stranded where you should have moved forward with vigor.

No one is trying to say that your authority is perfect, not at all. But God is saying that when it is there, it provides a degree of protection that is better than no authority at all. So we're going to start in two corinthians chapter 13.

Okay. Now in verse chapter 13, this will be the third time I am coming to you by the mouth of two or three witnesses. Every word shall be established. I have told you before and foretell as if I were present the second time. And now being absent, I write to those who have sinned before, and to all the rest that if I come again, I will not spare.

Since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, who is not weak towards you, but mighty in you. Verse four. For though he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God towards you. Okay, let's pray.

O Father Lord, I absolutely want to repent for being resistive to the authority that's over my life, for being critical, removing myself from authority. Lord, I thank you, Lord, for what you've given me as a person. Lord, I also just want to repent for not using any biblical authority that you've given me in the right way, Lord, but I just ask that a sweetness and a comfort and a blessing that comes out of your word will encourage us today. In Jesus name, amen. So we're talking about an area of biblical authority towards the end of individuals not coming under that biblical authority.

This is coming to a crucial, a crux of time that is at the end, the severing of the relationship of authority over those who are under authority. There is a time in which that relationship no longer continues, is broken, is severed. The blessing that came from that authority over the individual is severed here. And it doesn't mean that the relationship ends. It only means the tie of that authority ends.

We're going to look at it here. It says, I told you before and foretell as if I were present the second time. And now being absent, I write to those who have sinned before and to all the rest that if I come again, I will not spare. There is an idea that says here by the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. And there is an idea, if we remember in Matthew, Jesus giving some directions to his church says that first you are go to a brother and confront him yourself.

If there's a confrontation, a difference of opinion, that you are to go to that individual, attempt to reconcile the relationship. If they won't listen to you, you are to present your case to someone, mature and bring them along with you to confront the issue to see if there can be a way of resolving it. If that fails, then there is the idea that you are to bring the issue before the body of Christ, to present it to them to see if they will and if possible, to reconcile the relationship that way. And so we see these three different steps that you and I are to use when there is a difference in relationship here. But it says, if they refuse to listen to the church, it says, let them be to you like an unbeliever.

Now, this doesn't mean that at that point you're free to pick up stones. Everyone kind of gather that, oh, you're not a Christian and you think you have the opportunity at that point to grab a stick or something? No. It only means that the relationship, the dynamics of the relationship change at that moment. Right.

There is a separation at some point in which there is a irreconcilable difference where the relationship changed. So next time I get a chance to share, I'm going to talk about that. Let them be like an unbeliever to you and what that might mean, but they're here. We're going to talk about that separating moment. There is, if there is biblical authority, there is the last step of that biblical authority where there is a severing of that authority, a breaking off of it, a removing of it, an abandonment of the authority that you have over that person, and also a release of that individual.

I know that it's a very uncomfortable thing to think about, but we, we hear that scripture that says, turning them over to Satan, this is a horrible thing. It is not some sort of a weird seance or something grotesque in that, but it was merely a removal, a breaking off of that umbrella of protection that your authority afforded to that individual. Right. You can hold an umbrella for a long time over a person and protect them from the rain that's falling. But there comes a moment in time in which paths diverge when it is no longer biblical or right for you to attempt to hold the umbrella of authority over a person's life.

In doing so, it means that you must diverge from the path that God has called you to. There is a point in time in which continuing to hold your authority over someone means that you actually have to follow them at that moment after you've done all these other steps. There is a moment in time where you have to continue on in your path that God has called you to with your authority, not extending over the individuals that you previously had some sort of authority over. That is a tremendously difficult experience for a lot of people, but it does exist. It is a biblical thing.

There are people who are still chasing people down a wrong road, attempting to cover them with their authority, when God has called them to walk a journey on a different path. And so we're going to look at that. Paul says in verse two, I've told you before and foretell as if I were present the second time. And now being absent. I write to those who have sinned before and to all the rest, that if I come again, I will not spare a couple things that we have to recognize in this before we look at this issue.

In a couple different scriptures is that this, this is not the first conclusion a person draws to. There are individuals who abandon relationships quickly just because they're not committed to where God is calling them to be. It's easier to flee. That's not what we're talking about. Paul has been engaged in this relationship for a long time.

This is the last step. Last we talked about him falling and repenting for their sins. Before that, he just refused to lay a burden on them, demonstrating his own spirituality in different Ways, sacrificing deeply, experiencing physical and emotional pain for this individual. This is not the first step. If you feel like fleeing, it's probably not the right time.

You need to be willing to go through all the steps. But if there does come a point where the paths have to diverge, there is this time that does come eventually. Okay, so we're going to go to a couple, a couple different scriptures. I'm going to start off just to reaffirm this idea. In chapter twelve of verse 18 of Hebrews.

Here we see quite a lot here. But here we see that fathers discipline their children, that they love. The father, whom we are all under authority, exercises spiritual authority over us. He disciplines us, he corrects us, he leads us, he guides us. That's the kind of authority we should want to be under, but also that kind of authority that we should attempt to exercise.

Okay, but that kind of authority that is biblical, we see compared to a different kind of authority. In verse 18, it says, for you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire into blackness and darkness and tempest, the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken, spoken to them anymore. So here is a kind of authority. If you remember, Moses set bounds around the mountain. He says, if anyone even come close to this mountain in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt, he said that anyone who comes close to it is to be shot through with an arrow or stone.

Right. It is blackness and burning with fire. Some of us have existed with that kind of authority before.

I pray that you're not currently in this kind of a situation of authority. There's this brimming fire and retaliation and anger and such. But the kind of authority that you and I have come to within the bounds of the body of Christ. First of all, in verse 20, it says, they could not endure it. It was terrifying in 121.

But it says, but you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel. You of I have come to an authority that is based on the authority of Jesus Christ, of him giving his life for us. That's the kind of authority that we're submitting ourselves to. But there does come a point where individuals absolutely refuse to walk under that authority. In verse 25 it says, see that you do not refuse him who speaks, for if they do not escape, who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven.

Then in two Peter, just to show there is a time where you and I, as a possibility rejecting the authority of Jesus Christ, walk out from underneath that authority and continue on our own path, we see that Jesus's teaching became difficult and many walked with Jesus no more. Even though that authority was so beautiful, him as a teacher was so wonderful, there were individuals who did not continue under that authority. We see even at the last Supper, when Jesus was demonstrating his love and his servant like authority towards his disciples, in stripping himself down to a servant's garment and then washing their feet, that right after that there was an individual who would not walk with Jesus or under his authority. And Jesus gave that individual up. He walked out from underneath Jesus authority and experienced the result of not having that Christ like authority.

In two Peter, chapter two, around verse 18, and part of the encouragement and resistive nature of Paul to resist individuals who are false teachers. In verse 18 we see, for when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lust of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in terror. There are individuals constantly drawing you and I away from that biblical authority that God has called us to live under and with. There is surrounding us, inundating us, constant pressure to not live under God's authority. In verse 19 it says, while they promise them liberty, they themselves are a slave of corruption, for by whom a person is overcome, by whom he is also brought into bondage.

So if an individual decides to leave and follow these ones who speak great swelling words, there is a recompense for it. In verse 20 it says, for if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them. According to the true proverb, a dog returns to his own vomit and a sow having washed to her wallowing in the mire.

So I would like to just kind of start towards the conclusion in this, in saying two things. Number one, that you and I need to be in a spot if God has entrusted us with biblical leadership, to recognize there is a long path up to this, but there is absolutely a biblical commandment to not follow people to their wallowing in the mire. There is a separation of paths that happens at time that is biblical, when a person refuses to stay under the biblical authority that God might have given them. I know that you have known people and have been a part maybe of situations in which people were unwilling to let an individual go, who needed to go. And what it ends up doing is it ends up dragging both people down a path that is not good.

We see parents unwilling to let children go. It says of elders in two, Timothy and Titus, that they have to have their children in subjection to them. But there has been times where, because of our love for our children, have not been willing to release our children and instead kept them and sometimes their sin in our own homes. And it undermines the position of authority in that house. There is a point where parents have to allow their children to go out from underneath their umbrella.

I know that's extraordinarily difficult for all of us who have children to accept. But sometimes the turning over to them, to the ways of the world, is actually the means by which God rescues them. And sometimes the turning them over releases us to treat them as an unbeliever, which sounds kind of dangerous, but is actually a place of blessing. Sometimes the way we treat unbelievers, if we're biblical, should be a completely a beautiful thing that we serve them in a desire to save their souls. I think there has been instances in a husband and wife relationship when one or the other has come to the end of using their authority and done all that they could in a biblical way.

And it says scripturally that it is better that if they depart, let them depart. There are been husbands and wives have tried to maintain their umbrella of protection over their spouse when it was better that they actually departed, maybe just for a season, maybe to bring them back, maybe for that other individual salvation. I'm not sure, but I'm trying to communicate. There are times that you and I hang on to authority when God has continued down a path without you or the person you're still trying to protect. It's better for you to continue with Christ if the other won't go with you.

There are individuals in business and in the church where this is also true that we're to continue. And sometimes it means leaving one person we may have considered a brother sister, to continue in the direction that God has called the church to. It's better to continue in the way that is right. The second thing that I want to encourage you and I in is that you and I are also under authority. Jesus is moving forward.

That way in which he walks is difficult. It's dangerous, it's exciting, but it is absolutely holy.

He is marching on there. The gates of hell cannot prevail against the strength that he moves in. There is no situation or circumstance where he is not going to be victorious. But I have to let you know that if you love your sin more than Jesus, he will do everything he can to bring you to repentance. He loves you.

He pleads for you. He's there on the hill of Golgotha, pouring his soul out in tears with great drops of blood for you. He's willing to go to the cross for you, for you to continue on that path with him. He wants you there so bad. But you have to understand that if you will not walk with him, he marches on.

I would like to just give a bit of a solemn warning to you and I. There's a lot of pleasure in this world.

I don't know about the president very much, but I heard that Trump was convicted of a sexual sin with a pornographic movie star. Now, I don't know much about this thing. This is not my business. I just. Please forgive me.

All I know is that afforded him some degree of pleasure. If it was true. That's not my business. He probably enjoyed it. One person said, if you're not having fun sinning, you're probably doing it wrong.

But I can absolutely tell you, though, I was not there, don't have any desire to be there regarding their relationship. I guarantee you that the pleasure he experienced during that interaction was not worth what he's experiencing today. I bet you that if he had his choice, he probably would have made a different decision. I think you and I, if we could fully experience or recognize the path that we take that does not follow Jesus Christ and fully understood where it goes. Walking out from under that gracious umbrella that he holds over every one of us who walks with him.

You and I would be more mortified than Mister Trump. If her. I think her name's Stormy Daniels. Or whichever. I'm sure she was a beautiful woman.

I'm sure what's confronting you right now is beautiful. It's tempting. It's that woman enticing that young man walking by her corner. In proverbs seven, it's not necessarily a physical woman. But you and I are also being entitled.

But we're not being enticed. Not just to experience something. We're being enticed to leave that gracious umbrella. Which Christ holds over those individuals who will walk with him. God forbid that you and I would enter the fire and brimstone.

That falls upon those who are enemies of Christ. Do you think that thing he holds over us is of no avail? Do we despise the greatness and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. By thinking that he will suffer with us forever. And not move on without us?

He is marching forward. And though he tarries. And he bears with his children a long time. I hope someone can say, thank God. Thank God he bears along with us.

But there does come a moment where he will walk on alone. And though the whole world forsake Jesus. You will see him stoutly, resolutely walking on. Still holding his umbrella. The question is not whether he will continue.

But whether you will be under it. And so I just want to encourage you two things. Number one, if you have biblical authority. I pray it never happens. But recognize there is a point where you have to move on alone.

But number two, that it's only a picture of Christ's authority. And if you are not under that umbrella. Though at the moment you're sleeping with stormy daniels. I pray that when you see that umbrella start to move. That you'll be found under it.

Let's pray. Oh, Father. Lord, I thank you so much for your grace. That, first of all, I want to impress on my own heart. But on everyone's.

That you bear long that Paul bore long. That he did everything possible. But, Lord, there was a point. And I pray you give us courage in our own heart. That if that time ever comes, Lord.

That we would move forward also, Father. But if we're not under that brella. Or where we're not, Lord. I pray that we would hustle. We would make haste, Lord.

To find ourselves there. In Jesus name. Amen.