2 Corinthians 1:15-2:4

In this message from 2 Corinthians 1:15–2:4, Pastor Josh Turansky looks at Paul’s “change of plans” and the accusations that he was flaky and double‑minded. We trace Paul’s original travel itinerary, why he delayed his visit, and how he defends his integrity by anchoring it in the faithfulness of God whose every promise is “Yes” in Christ. Along the way, we see how Jesus rescues us from suspicion and misjudgment, fleshly planning, and domineering relationships, and calls us to Spirit‑led integrity and coworking for one another’s joy.

Transcript

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We've covered some ground. I want to again put up in front of you, and some of you are new to our church, and so you just need to know that this is our framing of who you are. You're a blessable, image-bearing covenant partner. You're a blessable image-bearing covenant partner. That's how God made you, that's how he designed you, and that's going to be a part of what we're looking at this morning. What we've covered so far is Paul's greeting. And then Paul has talked about his own personal trials and how God's comfort is woven in to the midst of his trial experience. I've told you in previous weeks that the relationship between Paul and the Corinthian church is strained. Paul planted this church. He's like the spiritual father to these people. But he's away, uh he's for three years in Ephesus doing ministry in Ephesus. And he's getting bad reports about the church. He's hearing, he's hearing negative things about the church. And so Paul has been dealing with this. He wrote 1 Corinthians. He did a quick trip across the water. I'm going to show you a, once I get we get to it, I'll show you a map of where we're at. He's done a quick trip across the Aegean Sea to try to really like deal with the most difficult issues. And now Paul has been expelled from Ephesus by a riot, and he's traveling up the uh coast of Turkey, the western coast, into um uh well, where you've got like Thessalonica up there, Thessaloniki, and you've got Brea, um Macedonia region is basically where you're at. Yeah, thank you. Um so there's conflict. You ever had conflict in a relationship? Okay, good. So it's a human thing that you're used to. Good. So we're gonna we're gonna look at a part of that this morning, specifically the travel plans of Paul. Let me let me put in front of you the text. Here's the original travel plans. Well, before we do this, because I'm gonna walk through the text, let's just pray up front. Lord, we um commit our time in your word um to you. Um we're asking for just the work of your spirit that you, Lord, would would guide us. As we're reading the text, Lord, would you apply it into our lives by your spirit? Speak to us, Lord. Teach us. We want to say yes, we want to obey as you're laying things on our hearts. So, like however it works to open up our hearts to you, that's the posture we want to have. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So, we're gonna talk about the travel plans of Paul. One of the criticisms, one of the beefs that the Corinthian church has with Paul is that he had said he was coming for a visit, but he's not there yet. And so people are accusing Paul of being flaky, double-minded, not following through on his plans. And so here's the original travel plans that Paul had, starting in verse 15. It's because of this confidence. So he's referring to what we studied last week, their relationship, this mutual pride and boasting in each other. It's because of that confidence that I planned to come to you first, so that you could have a second benefit, or your version may say, blessing. So Paul had this plan. Um because of this relationship that he's been talking about, he was planning to come to them first and then go to Macedonia. He was gonna travel through, he's gonna pass through. Again, I'll show you the map in a minute. But but notice his anticipation. He's gonna come for a visit, and he's like, when I get there, I'm gonna bring to you a blessing. It's a beautiful way of understanding yourself and myself. What do you bring to the table in the relationship? Are you a blessing to the people around you? Remember, the people around you are blessable, image-bearing covenant partners. And here's Paul saying that when I come to you, I want to bring to you a second blessing, a second benefit. And so one of the ways in which God blesses us is through other people. And when when you bless another person, you're participating in that framework of how God made people to be blessable. They're a container that is blessable. And here's Paul saying, I want, I wanted, or I had this plan to come to you to bring a second blessing, a second benefit. And to visit with you on my way to Macedonia. So you first, and then I would go up to Macedonia, and then to come to um come to you again from Macedonia. So I'm gonna pass through, visit with you, go to Macedonia, come back down, spend some more time with you, and be helped by you on my way to Judea. Here's the map. Okay? This is just uh scraped from Google Maps. Paul's here in Ephesus, or he's left Ephesus, and he's been here in Ephesus for three years. The whole region has changed as Paul has taught daily Bible studies to anybody that would listen. He would teach in what was called the School of Tyrannus. He would teach every afternoon. People would come and the word of God spread through this whole region, through towns and villages, all out here, to the point that the culture began to change. And it cut into the idol maker's business. And all of a sudden, the men who were making and selling idols were like, wait, if everybody keeps believing what Paul's saying, that God is not an idol, then he's gonna put us out of a business out of business. And so they started a riot. Paul got kicked out of town, and so he's fleeing, having been persecuted along this western coast. What we're gonna see, I think it's next week or in the next couple weeks, is he's hoping to run into Titus in Troaz. He's upset with what's happened. Like the his plan is not working, right? He didn't expect to be expunged from the city, to be kicked out, or expelled from the city, rather. And so he's looking for his ministry partners along the way, and he's gonna talk about how upset he felt. Here's where Corinth is at. So it is really easy to take a boat just across here. So what he's saying to the church is look, my original plan was to come to you first, and then I'm gonna go up to Macedonia. This region here is called Macedonia. He's gonna do church planting, he's gonna strengthen churches all up here in Macedonia, um, the Greece region, and then he's gonna come back, he says, and then they're gonna help him at the Corinthian church go all the way around. If you would, if we continue the map, it would be where Jack is over there in the corner, is where Judea is. All right? And he's been talking about this in Acts 18, in Acts 19, we get the story. He wrote to them in 1 Corinthians 16. He's been telling them that Paul has this passion for the poor, Jesus followers living in Judea. They were persecuted mercilessly back in Judea, and they were some of the first original followers of Jesus. And Paul's like, listen, we're a part of their legacy. It's those people back in Judea that told us about Jesus. We get to know about Jesus, be born again, have new life, have hope because of those people and their suffering. And so it's on us that we need to put together a relief package. We need to, he's basically collecting money in all of the churches. You've got Berea, you have Thessaloniki up here, you have Athens, the church in Athens, you have Corinth. Um, he's talked to the church in Rome about this. He's encouraged all these churches, put together your money. I'm gonna come and collect it, and just so that everything is above board, that that there's no monkey business going on with the money, you designate somebody from your church to go with me to deliver the money to Judea. So that was the big plan of what was going on. Meanwhile, Paul's dealing with the mess in Corinth. They're fighting with each other, they're bickering, and now he's got to deal with the super apostles, quote unquote, who are coming in and stabbing him in the back, saying that Paul is a second-rate apostle. And so, Paul, this is the this is the world we step into, and and people are saying, Paul, you told us you were coming to visit, you're not here. You are just um, that just makes you even more of a second-rate apostle because you didn't keep your word. So Paul's gonna walk him through. Here's how I make my plans. All right? He says, now, when I plan this, he already said, here was my plan to come to you, go up to Macedonia, come back. When I planned this, was I of two minds, or was I double-minded? Or what I plan, do I plan it in a purely human way so that I say yes, yes, and then no, no, at the same time? Notice here. There's a human way to make plans, and then he's gonna get into a Jesus-filled, Jesus follower way to make plans. How do you make plans? Do you make plans in a purely human way? In your version, it may say, according to the flesh, or are you following Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 to trust in the Lord with all your heart? Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. How are you making your plans? So Paul is telling them, hey, listen, I, when I make my plans, I'm not doing it how in a purely human way, and he characterizes a human planning way. It's when you say, Oh yeah, yeah, I'm coming, I'm coming. And then, oh no, no, I gotta cancel. Right? It's double-minded. I had this guy, Lewis, I think it was Lewis Mateo. I don't, I don't care if his he uh he was a flake. He was like the most epic flake ever. And he was a talker, right? He was like, I was working, I was a young guy working at a Bible college. This guy, he was older, he's a missionary, he talked his way into getting a job at this Bible college. Oh, you know, how's it going, brother Josh? You know, we gotta get coffee. Two years. Two years, he was telling me we gotta get coffee. He started to figure out the guy was out surfing every morning, never showed up for work. Never showed up for work. He would talk, he knew who to talk to. Talk, he would just scratch the right people's back pretty soon. Other people started to get upset with him. Oh man, he was a talker. He was a talker. Oh, still bitter about it. Um, I had a boss. Finally, everybody was upset with this guy. He was such a flake. Finally, we put him into this one department in the Bible college where we had a weekly staff meeting. And in the staff meeting, it was very well organized in this one department where we would go run through here's the projects, we would put a name next to the project that need to be compassed, here's what's gonna happen next week, report back, come back the next. So Lewis is in this group. Put his name next to something, he comes back the next week. Okay, Lewis, give us a report. How'd you do? Oh, didn't do it. Okay, yeah, all right. Did it three weeks, four weeks. How'd you do, Lewis? Nope, didn't do it. This guy's a grown, grown man, grown kids, totally irresponsible. Finally, after the fifth week, he comes in and he fired himself. He's like, yeah, I can see I'm not really doing much. I haven't cutting in. This is two weeks into two years of him actually being there, living there, getting free housing, free food, working there. Five weeks in this one department. He's just like, yeah, he fired himself. I'm sure you've known people like that who are just total flakes, good at talking, yes, yes, no, no. And Paul says, that's how humans are. That's the way of the world. That's the way of the world. But look at, here's the contrast. He says, well, first of all, you gotta see he's asking two questions, right? Do we do it this way? Do we this way? No. As God is faithful, our message to you is not yes and no. Paul's job is to bring the message of Jesus to our new community. If he is a person who's like Lewis, and you start to pick up on this guy is a bunch of hot air. He's just talking. Why would you believe what he has to say about Jesus? You follow? And so Paul says, listen, my communication is anchored in the attribute of God's faithfulness. I communicate clearly and I keep my word because God is faithful. Our message to you is not yes and no. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaim among you, and he's gonna name his ministry partners, Sylvanus, Timothius, and I, Timothy. Um, I did not become yes and no. On the contrary, in him, it is always yes. It's consistently yes. So he jumped, he a little ADD here, we like jumped from his travel plans over to his communication about Jesus, but they tie together. Because if you're a flake when it comes to your communication over here, but you want to be communicating about Jesus, you're undercutting yourself, right? If you're like a salesman and you have a horrible reputation, that's going to undercut the product you're trying to sell, right? Verse 20. For every one of God's promises is yes in him. Therefore, through him we also say, Amen to the glory of God. So Paul is just ratcheting down on the on the character and the nature of God. The message of Jesus is God's faithfulness. Like when we when we look at Jesus, we see in Jesus the faithfulness of God. But then Paul like puts on it in an umbrella statement that all the promises of God are in him, yes, and amen. God is faithful to his word, he is trustworthy and reliable. It's a part of his nature. He is not perfect if he is unfaithful to his word. If he is um, yeah, if he if he is a liar, then we obviously don't care about Jesus or what he had to say. But because he is faithful to his word, his word does not fail, Paul says everything in him is amen to the glory of God. Amen is agree, we agree. We agree. That's why we say amen when we're done praying. It's like, okay, we agree. And that's why you all say amen, kind of when I say amen. It's like we agree on that prayer, right? Therefore, through him we also say amen to the glory of God. So here's what Paul has done. He said, here's how I make plans. I'm making my plans according to the nature of God. And then when I communicate my plans, I'm communicating my plans in a way that lines up with the nature of God. And so my question for you, and the Spirit of God would ask us this morning: when I make my plans, is it a plan that God is authoring in my life? Or am I just coming up with human plans? Now, if it's just your plan, then you may not want to be fickle. You may not want to be like yes and no. But here's the thing. If it's just you coming up with a plan, there's a lot of things outside of your control. But if it's God who's leading you and God that's guiding you, then you can communicate like this is my intent. This is what I wanted to do. And that's what Paul is saying. Let's go to this next section. God is the author and origin behind their relationship. So he's gonna talk a little bit about just the um, he's gonna jump from talking about the nature of God, he's gonna jump over just for a minute to talk about this relationship that he has with them. Now remember, it's strained. Here's what he says. Now it is God who strengthens us together with you in Christ. So there's this plan. I'm gonna come and see you. I want to bring a blessing. And then he's like, that's the plan that exists, but between us, what God is doing is that he's strengthened us together with you in Christ and has anointed us. Isn't that beautiful? He looks at that relationship. And and I hope that you have relationships where you can look at the relationship and you can be like, yeah, God, God put you in my life, and he's the one that's strengthening our bond. He's the one that has anointed us to just be friends, to be family, to be neighbors. There's just an anointing upon it. And look at, he's also put his seal on us and given us the spirit, this is the spirit of God, in our hearts as a down payment. He's placed the spirit of God in our hearts as a down payment. So he rifts a little bit on this whole idea of the relationship. Now, if you're in a strained relationship and the people, and there's this temptation, we said this a few weeks ago, there's the temptation when relationships are strained are to quit, to cancel, or to withdraw, right? When you're in that place, it probably would be helpful to have this perspective that God is the one who strengthens us together. God's the one that's anointed this, He's sealed this, He's given us His Spirit. And man, if if if the relationship isn't like that, then you've got to begin to ask God, is this a key relationship in my life? Now, just like I've said every week, we're gonna keep looking at these relational themes from 2 Corinthians. But but here's just this little nugget as you're evaluating relationships in your life, is it from God? Or is there a sense that God is the one who is strengthening it? Now, let's look a little bit at the current motivation for the plan. What's Paul's current motivation? I call God as a witness on my life that it was to spare you that I did not come to Corinth, right? So Paul said, I had a plan, here's how I made the plan, here's our relationship, and now he's saying, here's why I'm not there yet. The reason is to spare them. What does that mean? What's he saying? Why does he need to spare them? What's going on? I do not mean that we lord it over your faith, but we are workers with you for your joy because you stand firm in your faith. What we're gonna see in just a second is that Paul. Paul is saying, if I was there right now, it would just be another painful visit. You ever have like many of you have had kids, and you you have to correct them, and they're upset, and maybe they're throwing a tamper or tantrum, and you tell them, hey, you just need to take a break, just chill out in your room. And you know, ten minutes goes by, it's gonna be a whole brand new child. Well, maybe some of you took a little bit longer than ten minutes. Maybe you're stubborn longer than that. But but if you keep going as a parent when they're in that tizzy and that emotional state where they're freaking out, you're not gonna get very far, right? We had this a couple weeks ago. There was a lady who, you know, she got out of, she got like skipped in the line, blew up. Oh my gosh, I can't believe it, it's unfair. I was here before that guy. And so then she waited, she finally got her food, and then I wait, I was looking, I went to follow up and talk with her. And I was waiting to see, yeah, can I talk? It's like your heart opened back up, right? Are you are you approachable now? Or are you just defensive and accusing people of all kinds of crazy nonsense and just a nutcase, right? Or you calm back down. She calm back down a little bit, a little bit, enough to have a conversation. And we talked it through, and it was a good conversation, and she apologized, and um you know what I'm talking about. This is what's happening with Paul. Paul's saying, I have not come there yet. It's to spare you. I'm not being a flake, I'm not there right now because you needed some time. And as the letter goes on, it seems like Paul writes this book or this letter, 2 Corinthians. He writes it over a period of time because he's gonna start to talk about the reports he gets back from the church. And he gets some good reports of things that are going on. There's some good changes that are occurring as he's given them, as he's spared them, he's given them a moment to breathe. And notice how he characterizes his relationship. He says, I do not mean that we lord over your faith, but we are workers for your joy. Do you remember? I think it was last week. I put in front of you the new covenant. Remember, you're a blessable, image-bearing covenant partner, the covenant that when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, the covenant that we enter into, the covenant partner that we become, is with God under the new covenant. One of the things in the new covenant is that no longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother saying, Know the Lord, for they will all know me from the least to the greatest. So the priesthood concept where you have to go to the priest to learn about God goes away. Jesus becomes the high priest, he places the teacher spirit, the Holy Spirit, in your heart and my heart, and that is what is truly teaching us to know God. Now, it says in Ephesians chapter 4 that there are still people who are gifted to be pastors and teachers. So there is still this human role of teachers, but the true teaching of God is this, like the awesome thing about the new covenant is the Holy Spirit's given to you, and the very Spirit of God is in you, teaching you about God. Teaching you to know God as your Lord. And so Paul he says to this church, when it comes to us, I don't mean that we lord it over your faith. In other words, we're not gonna boss you around. Do you see that here? We are workers with you. Many, many other times, like a couple dozen times, this word right here, workers, is translated co-worker. Co-worker. Paul is saying, we're not, there's not this power dynamic where I'm bossing around your faith. No, we're co-working with you for your joy. Like we're cooperating together so that you have a joy, and it's because you stand firm in your faith, we're helping you stand firm in your faith. And the product is this joy, this beautiful joy that's coming from your life. Again, if you're operating in your relationships according to Moses' law, then you think that you need to tell people to know the Lord. You think that you need to mediate for your spouse, for your husband, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You think you've got to play this role to tell them to know the Lord. But when you operate according to the new covenant, the promise of God is that He is gonna teach them to know the Lord. If you're operating according to the old covenant, Moses' covenant, then you're going to have this bossy, domineering dynamic towards the people around you. If you're operating according to the new covenant, you are excited because the Spirit of God is at work in that other person. And it's not on you. They're gonna have an attitude. It's like, well, God, you're gonna have to deal with them. You get to work with that attitude. It's not my job to shape them into the image of Christ. I just am a coworker. How can I help their faith be stronger? You know? How can I cooperate with what your spirit's doing in them? God teach me. Like, how do I how do I be in this relationship and just be a coworker with you? It's beautiful. It's radically different. Sometimes people have been Christians for a long time and they think, oh, you know, these all these baby Christians, I gotta help them. You know? But they start thinking they're helping, but they're doing it according to the old covenant. And they're not recognizing that the new covenant is God's dynamic power in them. So Paul, in his relationship with them, he's corrected them. That was being a coworker. He didn't boss them around. He's just pointed out that was wrong. You should have felt ashamed. It's on you to feel ashamed if you want or not, but that should be something you feel ashamed about. He told them, You're being arrogant. You need to be humble. Um, wait till we get to chapters eight and nine when he talks about the money. Remember, he had already told him you need to put together some money. You know how hard it is to operate according to the new covenant and get people to put their money together to give towards Judea? He puts on, in you can go read it this afternoon, chapter 8 and 9. He puts on a masterclass on how to operate according to the new covenant, not the old covenant, and talk about money. Not gonna lord over you, not gonna tell you what to do. I'm gonna encourage you, I'm gonna appeal to you, I'm gonna make suggestions, but it's between you and God. Man, take that home this week. Some of you are in relationships where it's just like, that's what I needed. I'm doing it like Moses. I got the Ten Commandments in my arms, and my hair is flaming when I come into the room. I got these kids, man, they're just gonna get whacked over the head with those Ten Commandments. What does it mean to be a parent empowered by the new covenant, where you know that God is the one who can work in their hearts? Yeah? Yeah. We gotta keep going. We're running out of time. How the new plan formed. So here's the new plan. He says, in fact, I made up my mind about this. I would not come to you on another painful visit. Remember, he says, I'm not gonna come to you. I didn't come yet because I wanted to spare you. Here he says, I made up my mind about this, I would not come to you on another painful visit. Why? Why, Paul? Why did you delay the immediate visit? It's for this cause. For if I cause you pain, for if I cause you pain, then who will cheer me other than the one being hurt by me? It seems like this would not be appropriate. You're my joy. He just said last week we looked at it, like you're my boast. You're my proud, like, you're my pride and joy. And then if I come to you and I'm like, I have to like cause you sorrow, it's just, it just doesn't, it doesn't line up for Paul. It just doesn't fit. I wrote this very thing so that when I came, I wouldn't have pain from those who ought to give me joy because I'm confident about all of you that my joy will also be yours. He's here's what he's doing. Do you see what he's doing? He's like, he's creating anticipation. Some of you salespeople, you know what this is, right? He's creating anticipation. He's just saying, I am confident about all of you that my joy will be yours. And they're like, oh shoot. I hope. Are we following through? Is his confidence going to be proved out? Is he going to have joy? Last verse. For I wrote to you with many tears, out of an extremely troubled and anguished heart, not to cause you pain, but that you should know the abundant love I have for you. We don't have that letter. We have 1 Corinthians. Then there's another letter that probably should have been called 2 Corinthians. We don't have it. But then we have 2 Corinthians, this book that we're looking at. And he talks about just the pain that he wrote, and he's just, here he is again narrating, like we talked about last week. He's narrating the relationship. I want you to know I wrote that painful letter. I wanted you to know I just love you. That's why I wrote with many tears, extremely troubled, and just the anguish of heart. If your perception of Paul is anything like a TV evangelist with like big hair, then you totally got it wrong. This guy had a lot of sorrow, a lot of suffering in his life, a lot of pain. A lot of pain. As he followed Jesus and he's committed. Man, I don't know. I don't know if Corinthians, I would have hung in there with them. I don't know if you would have. They were a pain in the butt. They had a lot of problems. A lot of problems. And Paul just like hung in there with them, faithfully, caring for them, loving them over the years. It's amazing that love. Lord, we pray that you would just work that love into our hearts for the people around us. Thank you for dying on the cross for our sins, inaugurating the new covenant, making it possible, Jesus, for us to walk in the grace of the new covenant towards other people. Lord, I pray that you would continue to teach us about the grace of the new covenant in all of our relationships. Help us to understand that difference between law and grace and that Jesus, you came to bring grace. We want to walk with you and walk in that grace. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.