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2 Corinthians 7
And we'll be reading the entire chapter
reading the entire chapter.
2 Corinthians chapter 7, please say amen if you're there.
Amen.
2 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 1,
having therefore these promises, dearly beloved,
let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness
of the flesh and spirit, perfecting wholeness
and the fear of God.
Receive us.
We have wronged no man.
We have corrupted no man.
We have defrauded no man.
I speak not this to condemn you, for I have said before
that we are in our hearts to die and live with you.
Great is my boldness of speech toward you.
Great is my glorifying of you.
I am filled with comfort.
I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulations.
For when we were coming to Macedonia,
our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side,
with our fightings within our fears.
Nevertheless, God has supported those that are cast down,
supported us by the coming of Titus,
and not by his coming only, but by the consolation
wherewith he was comforted in you,
when he told us your earnest desire, your mourning,
or fervent might toward me, so that I rejoiced no more.
For though I made you sorry with a letter,
I do not repent, though I did repent,
for I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry,
though it were but for a season.
Now I rejoice not that you were made sorry,
but that you sorrowed repentance,
for you were made sorry after a godly manner,
which you might receive damaged by us in nothing.
For a godly sorrow worketh repentance,
salvation not to be repented of,
but the sorrow of the world worketh death.
For behold it self, same thing,
that ye sorrowed after a godly source,
where carefulness is wrought in you,
yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation,
yea, what fear, yea, what beam and desire,
yea, what zeal, yea, what preventing you,
and all things ye have approved yourselves
to be clear in this matter.
Wherefore, though I wrote unto you,
I did not for his cause that hath done the wrong,
nor for his cause that hath suffered wrong,
but that our care for you in the sight of God
might appear unto you.
Therefore we were comforted in your comfort,
yea, and exceeding the more weak were the joy of Titus,
because his fear was repressed by you all.
For if I have boasted any thing to him of you,
I am not ashamed, but as you spake all things to you
in truth, even so art boasting,
which I made before Titus, is found of truth.
And as inward affection is more abundant toward you,
would you remember the obedience of you all,
how with fear and trembling you received him,
I rejoice therefore that I have confidence in you
in all things.
Bless the ring of God forever, let us pray.
Lord God, in heaven, thank you, Lord,
for the faith you've given to us,
and to our Lord, the Lord of good peace,
bless her fast and her teaching,
your Lord, Lord of the faith,
please give us good weather for our soul winning,
and I'll pray to tell it to the Lord later on,
in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
All right, we're here in 2 Corinthians 7,
and this is the final part of this mini two-part series
of words of etiquette or having proper manners
and proper etiquette.
And the first sermon was thank you, please, and po.
And when it comes to thank you, please, and po,
these are things that you should be taught at a young age,
and you don't even have to think about them.
Somebody does something nice for you or gives you something,
thank you.
You ask for something, you say please.
You use the word po in a respectful way.
These are things you don't even really have to think about
or you shouldn't have to think about,
it just is what you do, right?
But this sermon is about saying I'm sorry,
and I'm sorry is different because of the fact
when it comes to us apologizing,
it's not just something that is just innately we do it
because that's what we're taught,
but we always have time to consider apologizing,
and the reality is when we say we're sorry,
it's a humbling thing.
Nobody likes to apologize.
Nobody wants to admit they're wrong.
Nobody wants to say they did something wrong
or did something bad, but it should be something
that is part of our life,
regularly saying that we are sorry.
Now, before I show you the four points here today,
let us look at this passage of sorrow in the Bible,
2 Corinthians 7, verse 8.
It says in 2 Corinthians 7, verse 8,
for though I made you sorry with the letter,
I do not repent, though I did repent.
Now, what is Paul saying?
Well, the letter that he's referring to
is 1 Corinthians, right?
That is the letter that he wrote to the church of Corinth,
and this is 2 Corinthians, and he's saying,
when I wrote that letter, I made you sorry.
You say why?
It's a pretty rough letter, isn't it?
I mean, the 1 Corinthians, he's just kind of criticizing
them for everything that they do.
I mean, it's pretty rough, and a lot of people
felt really bad, like, man, we're not a very good church.
We've got all this sin.
We've got all these problems, and he said,
I do not repent present tense, though I did repent,
and what Paul's saying is, when I wrote that letter,
and it caused you to feel bad, and I wrote that letter,
he's like, I kind of wish I hadn't written it,
because he didn't want to make people feel bad,
but then he says, because it resulted in a change,
I do not repent, meaning it was the right thing to do, okay?
It says, for I perceive that the same epistle
hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season.
Now rejoice, not that ye are made sorry,
but that ye sorrowed to repentance,
for ye are made sorry after a godly manner,
that ye might receive damage by us in nothing.
For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation
not to be repented of, but the sorrow
of the world worketh death.
Now this is a very controversial verse here,
and I'm not talking about the topic
of repentance here today, but what I'll say is,
Paul is writing to a church of saved people.
He never questions their salvation in 1 Corinthians, right?
When you read 1 Corinthians,
you never find Paul questioning their salvation.
Now he does question the salvation of the church of Galatia
when they have the wrong beliefs,
but sin does not cause Paul to question
the salvation of the church of Corinth.
What he's saying to saved people
is that when you do wrong and you get right,
you need to have godly sorrow and not worldly sorrow.
Everybody is sorry when they get caught, right?
But the question is, what kind of sorrow do you have?
One of the famous examples in history,
there was a famous serial killer in the US, Jeffrey Dahmer.
Probably a lot of people know who that is,
a complete weirdo, perhaps the most famous serial killer
in US history, and when he got caught,
he immediately said, for what I did, I deserve to die.
I mean, he was sorry, but it was not godly sorrow.
It was worldly sorrow.
It was basically, yeah, he didn't want to get caught.
He said he was sorry, he wished he hadn't gotten caught.
It doesn't mean he felt bad about what he did though, right?
See, what we see in this passage,
and what we see in verse 11 is this,
that godly sorrow results in a change,
and worldly sorrow is just the fact
that you're sorry you got caught.
Verse 11, behold the self-same thing
that ye sorrowed after a godly sort,
what carefulness it wrought in you,
yea, what clearing of yourselves,
yea, what indignation, yea, what fear,
yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal,
yea, what revenge, in all things ye have approved yourselves
to be clear in this matter.
He says at the end of this verse,
in all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear,
meaning that a time period went by
and Paul was checking this church and saying,
you know what, you did make the change, right?
The things mentioned in verse 11, they take time to prove.
You know, sometimes a celebrity gets in trouble for whatever
or somebody famous, they say they're sorry on the news
and people say, how sincere was that person
when they apologized?
Here's the reality, if somebody is a complete phony,
you might be able to see it immediately,
but even if somebody has the most sincere apology
you've ever heard, that does not guarantee
that they're actually sorry for it.
It might be that they're sorry they got caught.
In America, there was this preacher that,
is this Pentecostal preacher, he's a famous guy,
he got caught committing adultery
and tens of thousands of members
and then he stood before the church
and he said, I have sinned
and he had like tears running down his face.
I mean, he looks sincere
and then a couple years later he got caught
for the same thing with another prostitute
and then the second time he said, you know what,
it's nobody's business, right?
At least he was honest the second time.
But the thing is, you cannot tell if somebody's sincere
based on the way that they look.
That doesn't tell you whether they're actually sorry
for what they did, right?
Now sometimes you can tell somebody is not really sorry.
Like for example, you know, raising kids,
I can kind of tell with my kids
if they're really sincere or not
because sometimes I'll tell my kids, okay, say sorry
and now hug them and I notice with my kids
if they're not really sorry, instead of doing a real hug,
they kind of do the tap on the shoulders.
It's like, no, that's not a hug.
A hug is actually hugging, not just tap.
It's like, I'm sorry, tap.
It's like, no, go back and actually hug them, right?
And so you can kind of see it in your kids
but my point is this, that when you're actually sorry,
it's something that takes time to prove
whether or not someone's sincerely sorry.
I'm gonna give you four different areas in our lives
where we need to be willing to say we're sorry, okay?
Go to 1 Samuel 15, 1 Samuel 15.
Now point number one and the most obvious
is saying sorry to the Almighty.
Apologizing to God should be part of your daily life.
I mean, unless you live a perfect life during a day
but the Bible says the thought of foolishness is sin
so I promise you, even if you go soul winning all day long
and you read your Bible and you have a clear mind
and everything, I'm sure you've thought
at least a few foolish thoughts during the day.
We sin every single day and we need to have a pattern
in our lives, we go to bed at night
and we get right with God, every single night.
And how do we start our day?
By apologizing to God for what we did wrong yesterday.
God, help me do a better job.
I mean, prayer should be part of our, at the very least,
before we go to bed and when we wake up, right?
We need to make sure we're getting right with God,
apologizing, saying sorry to the Almighty.
Now in 1 Samuel 15, we have the story of King Saul.
King Saul, when he started, was a humble man.
King Saul, when he started, was a man
who the Spirit of God was upon.
I mean, he was a good man when he started.
And he basically rebels against Samuel
and rebels against God's rules.
He does wrong, he does not obey
and now he gets in trouble.
And notice the reaction of Saul.
Verse 13, and Samuel came to Saul and Saul said unto him,
blessed be thou of the Lord,
I have performed the commandment of the Lord.
Now look, right off the bat in verse 13,
I think you can tell that Saul did not
perform the commandment of the Lord.
You say, why?
Because when people are guilty,
they don't feel the need to justify themselves.
I mean, Samuel's walking up.
I mean, Saul could just shake his hand and say,
oh, it's great to see you, Samuel.
But it's like, Samuel's coming.
I've performed the commandment of the Lord.
That's a little bit weird
because the assumption would be that,
of course, you've done it.
I mean, why do you have to say that you've done it?
Of course, that's a given, right?
Or it should be.
And Samuel said, what meaneth in this
bleeding of the sheep in mine ears
and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?
See, Saul had to justify himself because of the fact
there should not be any animals alive.
They were told to kill all of them
and they didn't kill all of them.
So it's like, there's sheep around, there's animals.
It's like, I performed the commandment of the Lord.
It's like, why are there sheep over there?
You're supposed to kill all of them, right?
Verse 15, notice verse 15.
I love this verse.
Pay attention to the pronouns.
And Saul said, they have brought them from the Amalekites.
For the people spared the best of the sheep
and of the oxen is sacrificed in the Lord thy God
and the rest we have utterly destroyed.
Do you notice the change in pronouns?
For the part about keeping the animals,
they, the people, and then we destroyed.
It's like, well, why don't you say that we kept?
Why don't you keep your name in that part?
Because what he's doing is subtly distancing himself
and blaming the people.
And what you see with Saul is a major problem
because the way that good leaders should be
is they share the credit and they take the blame.
And what does Saul do?
The opposite.
He takes the credit and he shares the blame, right?
It's like, if you've ever seen with sports coaches
where there's a team that, a basketball team
that has a horrible game, they mess up.
It's like, there's some coaches at the end of the game
that would say, you know what?
I did not prepare the players.
I'm at fault, I'm the reason we lost this game.
And then there's other coaches that would be like,
yeah, you know what?
Our players just kept missing the shots.
I mean, we had them ready and they messed up
and you hear that with coaches, right?
Look, if you're a player,
I mean, I've played on a lot of sports teams.
You know the sort of coach that you like to be underneath?
The one that takes the blame
when things don't go correctly, right?
Saul, on the other hand though, he blames the people.
It's like, well, why don't you take responsibility
because you're the head guy.
So if they didn't kill them,
why don't you kill them afterwards, right?
But Saul blames them.
We have utterly destroyed, they have brought.
Then Samuel said unto Saul,
stay on and I will tell thee
what the Lord has said to me this night.
And he said unto him, stay on.
Now look, you would think that when you're talking
to the prophet of that day that you would be afraid
and Saul's just like, well, stay on.
He's like, I didn't do anything wrong.
You would think that he'd be afraid, right?
But Saul's not afraid at all.
And it says, and Samuel said,
when thou was little in thine own sight,
was thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel?
And the Lord anointed the king over Israel.
Now the Bible says here, Samuel says about Saul,
he was little in his own sight.
Actually speaking, was Saul a short man or a tall man?
Very tall.
The Bible says he's head and shoulders above anyone.
He was the tallest man in the land.
And if you remember when he becomes the king,
he was very embarrassed and shy.
And Samuel's gonna be bringing up,
hey, this is the next king.
This is the king of Israel or the first king,
I should say, of Israel.
And this is the king that's been chosen
and they try to find Saul and they can't find him.
You say, why?
He was hiding.
I mean, Saul is like hiding
and then all of a sudden, Samuel's like,
okay, where's the king?
And it's like, well, he's hiding in the stuff.
And then all of a sudden, it's like they bring Saul out.
It's like, get up here.
It's like, this is the king that's been chosen.
But he was so embarrassed and shy.
It's one of those places in the Bible
because the Bible is a very serious book
and there's a lot of humor you can kind of miss,
but if you're paying attention, it's pretty funny.
And Saul, the tallest man, the king is hiding, right?
He's embarrassed or shy to be seen.
But what you're seeing is he was little in his own sight.
He did not think himself to be worthy to be the king, right?
He felt low of himself.
He was a humble person is what the Bible's saying
when he started.
And the Lord sent thee on a journey and said,
go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites,
and fight against them until they be consumed.
And this is nothing new with Amalek.
Amalek was wicked throughout the Bible
and going all the way back to Exodus,
God is like, get rid of Amalek, destroy them all.
It was a wicked society and God did not want
that false religion and the wickedness
to spread to his people.
He said, destroy them all until they be consumed.
Everything, every one of them, gone.
Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord,
but didst fly upon the spoil
and didst evil in the sight of the Lord?
At this point, wouldn't you think that Saul would say,
okay, I've sinned, I've done wrong, I've been rebuked,
you told me exactly what I did,
I disobeyed and yet he doesn't say sorry.
And Saul said unto Samuel,
yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord
and have gone the way which the Lord sent me
and have brought Agag the king of Amalek
and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
But the people took of the spoil,
sheep and oxen, the chief of the things
which should have been utterly destroyed
to sacrifice in the Lord thy God and Gilgal.
Once again, Saul says, I have obeyed,
but the people took.
Once again, he's blaming them.
Now, look, I can say that as a leader,
sometimes you have to deal with situations
where people have done wrong
and I've had meetings with people that have sinned
and it's like, do you apologize for what you did?
And I can say this, that when people will say that,
hey, you know what, I'm not sorry, or they make excuses,
it's like, well, they're not really sorry.
You understand what I'm saying?
It's like, we've dealt with this at this church
years ago with people and it's like,
they did something wrong and all they had to do
was say sorry and they refused to admit responsibility.
And you know what ends up taking place though?
Eventually when someone gets in trouble,
they realize that you're serious,
then all of a sudden they're like, I'm sorry.
It's like, well, if you're really sorry,
you would have just said it immediately, right?
Saul is not sorry, very clearly.
He makes excuses, but then here's what it says in verse 22.
And Samuel said, have the Lord has great delight
and burnt offerings and sacrifices
as in obeying the voice of the Lord.
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice
and to hearken than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is as a sin of witchcraft
and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry
because thou has rejected the word of the Lord,
he hath also rejected thee from being king.
So what Samuel said to Saul is, you're no longer the king.
And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned.
Well, it's amazing after you're told
you're no longer gonna be the king, it's like, I've sinned.
Imagine you work for a company because in this situation,
I mean, Samuel is above Saul
in terms of spiritual leadership, right?
Because this was a kingdom where the political kingdom
did not reign above the religious kingdom.
And Samuel on behalf of God says, you're guilty.
You've done wrong.
Imagine you work at a company and your boss tells you,
hey, you did this, you do this.
And he's expecting you to apologize.
And you just say, I didn't do anything wrong.
I didn't do anything wrong.
Well, you're fired.
Okay, I did something wrong.
Come on, they're not serious, right?
Saul is not sorry.
You can tell it because he wants to blame other people
and he wants to justify himself.
I have sinned for I have transgressed the commandment
of the Lord in thy words,
because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
Once again, he gives a bit of an excuse
because he's blaming the people once again.
Well, I'm sure that's true,
but why are you obeying the people if you're the king?
If you're the leader, it falls on your head and shoulders.
It's your responsibility, Saul, to do what God said,
regardless of what the followers do, right?
I mean, look, if a bunch of people at this church
tried to bully me into preaching from the NIV,
it ain't happening.
Now, I don't expect that to be a problem at our church.
But if that were the situation, it's like,
no, I'm pretty sure I'm the leader here.
I'm pretty sure I make the decisions
and we're going to use the King James, right?
Saul is saying, why obey the people?
It's like, well, why are you obeying the people, okay?
Turn your Bible to 2 Samuel chapter 12, 2 Samuel 12.
2 Samuel 12.
The thing is, I do believe that if Saul
had genuinely gotten right with God and meant it,
that God would have forgiven him.
I do believe that.
But the reality is, he did not really mean it.
And he was kind of acting as the king after this,
but he never had God's blessing upon his life.
And eventually, not only did he lose
the power to be the king,
he also lost his own life later on,
as we saw during the first sermon.
Now, what's interesting about this is,
if you compare the life of King Saul to the next King David,
what King David does is far worse than what King Saul did.
Far worse.
I mean, what Saul has done up to this point,
because at this point, what we saw with Saul,
he had not tried to kill David, which is pretty bad.
But at that point, he had just disobeyed
and not destroyed the Amalekites,
but there's a different reaction when being rebuked.
Because notice what it says here with David
in verse number 13.
And David, 2 Samuel 12, verse 13,
and David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.
See, they both reach these words, I have sinned,
but the difference is, when Nathan rebuked David,
he immediately said, I have sinned.
It wasn't, wow, this is the reason, it's their fault.
He immediately said, I have sinned.
And he doesn't say, I have sinned,
because he says, I have sinned against the Lord.
David immediately admits that he did wrong.
And you know what the result is?
God is very merciful to David,
even though David's sin was more grievous.
And Nathan said unto David,
the Lord also hath put away thy sin,
thou shalt not die.
And of course, Nathan said that to David,
because the expected punishment,
I mean, he not only committed adultery,
but he also killed Bathsheba's husband, Uriah.
I mean, that's pretty grievous.
And then Nathan says, you're not gonna die.
God's put away your sin, God is forgiving you.
What there was was a punishment from God
as a result after this.
Verse 14, howbeit because by this deed
thou hast given great occasion the enemies
of the Lord of Laspheme,
the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.
Now, what David said when he was being rebuked by Nathan
is that the man who did this deserves a fourfold punishment.
Question is, what is that fourfold punishment?
Because I do believe that David got a fourfold punishment.
And if you look at his life,
he had a lot of horrible things happen to him.
But I think the fourfold punishment
is that he had four sons that died at a young age.
The first one was his baby boy dies.
Then Amnon, right, Amnon who forced his half sister.
Now, obviously having your daughter
getting forced is horrible.
I don't think that was part of the fourfold punishment
though, that's just kind of like a side effect.
Amnon died at a young age.
So his baby died, baby son, Amnon,
and then you had Absalom died at a young age.
Remember, he's like Absalom, Absalom, my son Absalom.
Then you had after he died, Adonijah died at a young age
when he tried to usurp the throne from Solomon.
So he truly suffered a fourfold punishment.
But when you see this comparison of Saul to David,
because these are the first two kings,
and the Bible shows you this comparison,
Saul to David, Saul persecutes David, Saul does bad things.
But when Saul first got rejected,
what he did was not that bad.
But the difference is that Saul was not willing to admit
and say, I'm sorry, that's what God wanted.
Say, I'm sorry, and I will forgive you.
Turn your Bible to Psalm 51, Psalm 51, Psalm 51.
I mean, look at worst case scenario for Saul
when he got rebuked by Samuel.
He admits he's wrong.
He says, I've sinned, I'm sorry.
Worst case scenario, God removes him from being the king,
and he can serve God and be a great believer
the rest of his life.
You don't have to be the leader to do great things for God.
I mean, I've said this before, and I do believe this,
that when it comes to this room,
I don't think there's a guarantee
I'm gonna get more awards in heaven
than anybody at this church just because I'm the leader.
I have no idea how many rewards I'm gonna get
in comparison to other people,
nor is it something that should be our motivation
trying to compare yourself with other people.
I don't know how my rewards are gonna stack up
against anybody else.
I'm doing the best I can with the life that God has given me,
you're doing the best with the life you have given me,
and then one day it's gonna be revealed to all of us, right?
We don't know these things now,
nor are we meant to compare ourselves one to the other.
Here's what I'm saying.
Saul could have still served God
without being the king, right?
There's only one king.
You don't have to be the king.
You don't have to be the leader, Saul.
You could, because before, before he was the leader,
he was actually a really good guy, and he was humble.
You know what, that kind of shows you
that maybe Saul, you would have done better
not being the leader, so maybe it'd be a blessing to you
to no longer be the king, because he can't handle it.
It's kind of like in the Bible,
Aaron is a great character in the Bible, isn't he?
Aaron's a great character, he's the right-hand man of Moses,
but was he a good leader?
No, he was not.
I mean, he becomes the leader,
and then right when he's the leader,
they're worshiping a golden calf, and then what does he do?
He blames the people.
Same thing, because he feared the people.
It's like, I mean, you're the leader.
I mean, look, if somebody's making a molten golden calf
up here next week, it's just like,
I might not be the one making it.
I might not be the one that asked for it,
but if somebody's making it up on stage and I allow it,
I'm to blame, am I not, right?
And Saul allowed it, and Aaron, and what it just shows is,
hey, Saul, you weren't a good leader, but that's okay.
You don't have to be the leader,
you can just be a member of the kingdom
and just do right and serve God.
Psalm 51, and this Psalm is written
after David is rebuked by Nathan,
and it shows the reaction of David here in Psalm 51.
Now, make no mistake about this,
because when you read Nathan rebuking David,
right when he rebukes David, he says, I have sinned,
and immediately Nathan says, you've been forgiven by God.
Now, I think there's two ways that you can look at this.
My opinion is that Nathan was told by God ahead of time
that David will get right with God and he will not kill you,
because Nathan doesn't have the power
to make the decision if David dies, right?
I think that he was told ahead of time
that I think he was told by God, you rebuke David,
he will get right, and I will not kill him.
The other possibility is that there's a break in the action
where David says he's sinned,
and then Nathan goes back and talks to God,
and the Bible doesn't mention the break in action.
I don't think there's a break in action there,
but it is possible, because obviously in the Bible,
it doesn't write down every word in a conversation.
It gives you a quick summation of what takes place.
But immediately, David gets right with God.
Here's the thing about this, though.
When you do something wrong,
even when you get right with God,
you can often carry guilt about something from your past,
even though God has forgiven you.
A great example in the Bible
is the character of Joseph and his brothers.
Joseph and his brothers sold Joseph into slavery, right?
He sold into slavery, and over a decade later,
Joseph rises up in the kingdom,
and his brothers come, and they're begging for food.
They do not recognize Joseph,
even though Joseph recognizes them.
Joseph recognizes them,
and even though they don't realize it's Joseph,
they're essentially saying they're sorry.
They're like, we did wrong, this is our judgment.
And honestly, what's amazing about that story
is the moment that they really actually got right with God,
or they admitted they did wrong,
Joseph actually, biblically speaking, needs to forgive,
and he's the one who's actually not right with God
until he actually forgives them.
But if you remember, Joseph forgives them,
and after their father dies, what takes place?
They go to Joseph, and they beg him for mercy.
Please don't kill us.
You say, why?
Because they're still carrying guilt
from something decades ago.
What are some examples in this world of carrying guilt?
How about if somebody gets an abortion?
Look, if a woman got an abortion,
and then they get right with God, and they truly get right,
God will forgive them instantly.
Now, they might still have a big punishment,
I'm sure they will, but God will forgive you instantly
if you honestly get right with him.
Here's the thing about this, though.
I promise you that every woman that gets an abortion
is gonna be carrying guilt for decades,
probably until her grave, because of the fact,
I mean, you're a murderer.
That's a pretty big sin.
It's not the same thing as stealing a cookie
from a cookie jar when you're five years old, right?
And I'm sure that women, and look,
there's a lot of stories of women that talk about
how they have guilt from things from years ago,
and look, I'm not trying to make anybody
feel bad in this room.
I have no idea about the past that people have,
and if that's your past, hey, you've been forgiven by God,
and you do need to move on.
You already got right with God.
You asked for forgiveness.
It's time to move on, but I'm just saying the reality is
that people can carry guilt with things for a long time.
All of us sin every single day, but you know what?
There's some days that, some nights,
I go to bed with a clean conscience, a clear conscience,
because I haven't done anything majorly wrong.
I'm right with God.
There are other times that I ask for forgiveness,
and I mean it, and I'm sure God forgives me immediately,
but I still feel guilty the next day.
You say, why?
Because what I did was more serious, right?
So here in Psalm 51, David has already been forgiven by God,
but yet he still feels guilty about it
because what he did was so serious.
Notice what it says in Psalm 51.
Psalm 51, verse one, have mercy upon me, O God,
according to thy loving kindness,
according on the multitude of thy tender mercies.
Blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,
and done this evil in thy sight,
that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest,
and be clear when thou judgest.
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts,
and in the hidden part, thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Make me to hear joy and gladness,
that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
And one of the things you see in this passage
is that David mentions he does not have joy.
He's depressed because of what he did.
And the reality is that if we commit big sins
and we get right with God,
we can still have guilt that we carry inside of our hearts,
even after we're forgiven.
But you see a difference is that Saul
did not get right with God,
and David did get right with God.
Go to Luke 15, Luke chapter 15.
Luke chapter 15.
But the first area in our life that we need to be willing
to say we're sorry is to the Almighty,
and this is something that should be every day.
I mean, if you go a day without saying you're sorry,
you're doing something wrong, right?
Because you should be praying to God every day,
and part of your prayer is going to be God.
You know, forgive me, help me to do better,
cleanse me, help me to serve you better, forgive me.
Because you say, well, I can't think of anything
I've done wrong today.
Yeah, but you know, the Bible speaks about secret faults,
meaning that you might not be aware of something
that you did.
I mean, it would be very easy for any of us
to have even the slightest bit of pride or bitterness
or covetousness slightly spring up in our heart,
and it's like, yeah, that's wrong, right?
And so we need to get right with God when we sin.
Number two, not just saying sorry to the Almighty,
but number two is saying sorry to authority,
saying sorry to authority,
meaning that you are in a position
where you have an authority above you.
So for example, the government is above us
in terms of the rules here in this country, right?
A great example is the prodigal son
in the story in Luke chapter 15.
And I'm assuming you're familiar with the story.
You have two sons, you have a father,
and you have a father that does a very foolish thing
by giving an inheritance to his teenage son
that is not ready for it.
And he gives him all of this money,
and the younger son, what does he do?
Well, he goes out and it is just a parable,
so we don't necessarily know for sure,
but his older brother accused him of what?
Wasting his money with riotous living and with harlots.
So probably he's getting drunk, maybe doing drugs,
sleeping with prostitutes,
probably going to fancy restaurants,
just being an idiot with the money that he gave him.
Look, if your father gives you a big inheritance,
buy a house, right?
Save up the money.
I had a friend in high school and he had a rich uncle,
and his rich uncle died and he got $75,000.
Now, that's a lot of money in today's world,
but even more so 20 plus years ago.
75, it's probably like $125,000 now,
or like six million pesos, six and a half million pesos.
That's a lot of money.
Even in America, that's a lot of money,
and you might not be able to buy a house in cash
in most areas, but you can at least put down
a lot of the money and you can get the house
and then just have monthly payments to pay off.
In a couple years, he had spent up all of that money.
And I'm just like, because I knew him in college also,
I'm just like, how?
Like, what did you spend it on?
And he had like 10 different video game systems
and just wasted his money on all this electronic stuff.
And I tried to tell him, I was like, man,
you're throwing away your money.
I mean, save up to buy a house.
I was like, don't spend all your money.
He spent up all of his money.
The kid was a very smart kid and he failed out of college
due to video games.
And it's just like, and then he got in complete debt.
It's like, you got all of this money.
But you see this with athletes all the time, don't you?
You got these people that are really good
at jumping high and running fast
and then they get a $30 million contract
and it's like, they don't know what to do with that
at the age of 20 years old.
They don't understand the concept of money
and what ends up taking place.
They often end up just spending it all.
It's like, how do you go bankrupt
when you have $100 million five-year contract
and yet athletes do it all the time, don't they?
This son gets a lot of money and he's not ready for it.
And notice what it says here in verse 14,
and when he had spent all,
there arose a mighty famine in that land
and he began to be in want.
So he wastes all of his money and now there's a famine.
Money is hard to come by.
Verse 15, and when he went and joined himself
to a citizen of that country
and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
So now he's gonna work basically as a hired servant
for this man, feeding the swine, feeding the pigs.
Now look, there's nothing wrong with any job
that people do that as a moral job, hardworking job,
nothing wrong with it.
But what the Bible's trying to show you is
this was not a prestigious job.
He was not a manager.
He was not telling somebody what to do.
Personally, when I prepared for that sermon on swine
earlier this year and watched videos,
I was like, man, I'm a bit afraid of a wild pig, right?
And so he's got the job of feeding the pigs.
Well, I'm sure that was something
that he saw other people doing on his dad's farm
and yet now he is doing that.
Notice what it says in verse 16.
And he would fain have filled his belly
with the husk that the swine did eat
and no man gave on them.
Look, swine and pigs eat some pretty disgusting food.
They will eat whatever is in front of them.
And it's saying this guy is so desperate.
I mean, this guy has gone from eating filet mignon
and smoked salmon, fancy food, everything.
I mean, just grape juice and wine
and all these expensive things.
And now it's like, I'll just eat the slop
that the pigs are eating, right?
Pretty desperate.
Then it says in verse 17, and when he came to himself,
meaning he stopped acting like an idiot.
And when he came to himself, he said,
how many hired servants of my father's
have bread enough in despair and I perish with hunger?
What he's saying is the hired servants for my father
have a place to stay.
They can take a shower.
They have food to eat that is decent and good food.
I mean, they're treated well by his father.
And he's like, I'm a hired servant for this man.
I have nothing to eat.
I'm basically envious at what the pigs are eating.
And then he says this in verse 18,
I will arise and go to my father
will say unto him, father, I have sinned against heaven.
And look, I love what his son says
because he starts by saying, I've sinned against heaven.
Basically, I've sinned against God.
Of course, that's point number one,
saying sorry to the Almighty.
But regardless of what we do in this life,
the number one thing is, who did we sin against?
God.
And he says, I have sinned against heaven and before thee,
and am no more worthy to be called thy son,
make me as one of thy hired servants.
Now, maybe he's not worthy to be called
the son of his father,
but he still is the son of his father.
People try to use this passage to say
you can lose your salvation.
Well, he got right with God,
but if he never got right, he's still a son of his father.
When he's saying I'm not worthy,
what he's basically saying is,
my father has a good reputation.
My father has a good name.
My father is respected.
He's obviously a decent man
because he's treating his hired servants well.
He's like, my father has a good reputation.
And then now I go out and destroy it.
Imagine at Christmas time,
you have like a family get together with your cousins,
your aunts, your uncles,
and you go around the table
and the parents are talking about their kids.
It's like, well, you know what?
My son, he just passed the bar exam
and he passed the exam a couple months ago.
He studied really hard for it.
Now he's looking for a job with a law firm.
Somebody else says, hey, my son's in college.
He's doing well.
And then all of a sudden it goes to this rich person
and it's like, his son is sleeping with prostitutes
and he's living as basically a vagabond,
like a homeless person,
and destroying his life.
You're gonna be embarrassed as a father, aren't you?
You're gonna be ashamed, right?
He's saying, I'm not worthy to be called
a son of my father because I've embarrassed my father.
My father was a good father.
He loved me.
He cared for me.
He treated me well.
And now I went out and just destroyed my life with sin.
And it says in verse 20,
and he arose and came to his father,
but it was yet a great way off.
His father saw him and had compassion and ran
and fell on his neck and kissed him.
And the son said unto him, father,
I have sinned against heaven and in thy side
and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
This man says he's sorry and gets right with his father.
His father was his authority.
His father was his boss.
He lived with his father basically on this farm
or this giant house or whatever.
And basically his father is the authority
as he's in the home.
He did wrong.
What does he do?
He says, I've sinned.
I'm sorry.
And even though he destroyed his father's name,
his father forgives him immediately.
Because there's a lot of power in the words,
I'm sorry, isn't there?
When you say you're sorry, you know what takes place?
People forgive you.
Usually people are gonna forgive you.
If you say you're sorry, no matter what,
you say you're sorry and you genuinely mean it,
usually they are gonna forgive you, right?
Turn your Bible to Matthew 18, Matthew 18.
Now when it comes to saying sorry to the Almighty,
this is a daily thing.
Every single day you should be saying sorry to the Almighty.
When it comes to saying sorry to authority,
this is not necessarily something
that's gonna take place every day
because hopefully you're not breaking all the rules
of authority every single day.
But it's certainly something that's gonna take place
in your life because all of us are in positions
where there's an authority above us.
Look, even if you were the president of a country,
if you walk into a McDonald's,
you need to abide by the rules of that restaurant.
I mean, if you walk into a company,
it's like no matter how much money you have,
it's like they have certain rules.
You should follow the rules that that company has.
Inside there, that's the authority.
When I walk into Robinsons,
I mean, I can't just go and just break stuff
and be like, oh, no big deal.
It's like, no, because there's an authority there, right?
They have basic rules they follow, right?
I'm sure that you've been somewhere before
and you accidentally spilled something at a restaurant.
And what should be your reaction when you do that?
I'm so sorry, please forgive me.
I mean, they'll clean it up and they'll do it
and that's their job,
but shouldn't the normal response be to say, I'm sorry?
That's what you should do.
I was at a 7-Eleven several months ago.
My wife was soul winning and I was watching the kids
and man, a Pepsi spilled all over the floor.
I don't remember which child it was,
but I was just like, and someone's cleaning it up.
I felt horrible.
I started to clean it up myself with a paper.
They're like, no, no, no, no, we got this.
But you just feel bad because of the fact,
it's like, I made this a mess.
I'm making somebody else's job harder.
Your natural reaction should be, I'm sorry.
And it should become part of your normal routine.
You do wrong, apologize to authority, right?
Number one, saying sorry to the Almighty.
Number two, saying sorry to authority.
Number three, saying sorry to associates.
Associates meaning you're equal.
Someone that's at the same level as you.
You can think of your brother or your sister in Christ.
Now, even in marriage,
even though the husband is the head over his wife,
you're still equal in the fact
that you're brothers and sisters in Christ,
you're both human beings.
And I look at that more as an associate
than an authority structure.
Although obviously in marriage,
there's the husband and there is the wife.
But the idea is whether you're the husband or the wife,
if you do wrong to your spouse, say sorry, right?
If you do wrong to your brother, sister in Christ,
say sorry.
If you're walking out in public
and you accidentally spill something on a random person,
which is your equal, your associate,
just some random person,
wouldn't it be rude to accidentally spill a coffee
on someone and just walk by and not say sorry?
I mean, if somebody did that to me
and they didn't apologize, I would be pretty upset.
It's like, are you kidding me?
I mean, it's like you spilled coffee all over me.
It's like, you can at least say the words I'm sorry, right?
Matthew 18, verse 15.
Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee,
go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.
If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
Bible says if you sin against your brother
or your sister in Christ and the idea is in a church setting
you do wrong, what do you do?
You go to them alone if somebody sinned against you.
If somebody makes you mad and it really bothers you
and you cannot hold it inside
and you've got to tell somebody about it,
number one, tell God.
And number two, if you got to tell somebody else,
go to that person alone.
What you don't do is tell everybody else at church about it
because what our tendency is is to tell our best friends
at church about something that bothers us
about somebody else.
But the problem is your goal should be to gain your brother.
The goal should be to restore your relationship
with your brother or your sister in Christ.
The Bible says go alone.
Then it says in verse 16, but if he will not hear thee,
then take with thee one or two more
that in the mouth of two or three witnesses
every word may be established.
If he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church,
but if he neglect to hear the church,
let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
Now drop down to verse number 21.
Verse 21, then came Peter to him and said, Lord,
how oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?
Till seven times?
And Peter makes a statement as if it's very, very spiritual
like should I be willing to forgive him up to seven times?
Now that might seem like a lot,
but imagine that you're in the same church
with someone for 30 years.
It's very likely that once every four years
you might have an argument or a disagreement
or they say something rude or you say something rude.
Seven is not actually that much
if you're around someone a lot, right?
And so he says seven times and what Jesus says is,
I say not unto thee until seven times,
but until seventy times seven or 490 times.
Now 490 times is a lot, but I would say this,
that if you're married to someone for 40 years,
it's only one time per month
that you get mad at one another.
Quite honestly, it's like once per month is not,
it's probably more common marriage
to be more than once a month,
that you get mad at your spouse or they get mad at you.
You say something rude, they say something rude.
Look, if you're around somebody 24 seven
and you're not always filled with the spirit,
you're gonna say some things that make them mad sometimes.
You're gonna be in a bad mood, say something rude,
have a bad attitude and you can fake it with somebody
that you're not around all the time,
but if you're around them all the time,
it's kind of hard to fake it, right?
So here's the thing about this.
If people go into marriage without this attitude,
with this attitude that they're not gonna apologize,
you're in for a horrible marriage.
Because this is what we do as people, okay?
And I'll give you the example.
I have an older sister and when I was growing up,
like every sibling, you fight with your siblings sometimes.
She's less than two years older than me,
so we're near the same age.
And you know, we would fight sometimes
and sometimes it's like, I knew that I did wrong.
But what I said is, I am 45% at fault.
She is 55%.
So if she's 55% at fault and I'm 45%,
I'm willing to apologize if she apologizes first.
Isn't that what we do?
This is what we generally do in marriage too.
You get in an argument with your spouse,
and you're willing to apologize,
but you don't wanna be the one to humble yourself
and say, I'm sorry first, right?
You say, why is that?
Because of the fact we're prideful.
Because of the fact we're sinful.
But the problem is if neither side is willing
to say they're sorry, eventually it's gonna get worse
and worse and worse and worse.
Now obviously, you know, the Bible says,
or I mean, not the Bible, but an expression is
you can't see the forest for the trees.
And the idea is this, that when you're involved
in a situation, you're emotional, you cannot see clearly.
And you know, we're all guilty of this sometimes.
But from an outsider's perspective, it's like, man,
just say the words, I'm sorry, and it'll be over.
But then you got two sides and neither one
is willing to do it.
And it's gonna be like Samson and the Philistines.
Well, he did that to me.
Well, you did that to us and it gets worse and worse
and worse and worse and worse.
And all it took to resolve it were two words, I'm sorry.
Why is that so powerful?
Because of the fact when somebody says they're sorry,
you know and understand that that was a humbling thing
they did, especially, because here's the thing,
if you have an authority or to the almighty,
of course, you're underneath them.
So you say sorry when you do wrong.
But when it's your associate,
you're on the same level as them.
And so saying you're sorry is very difficult
because of the fact it's like you're putting them
under yourself underneath that person
when you say you're sorry.
But what almost always happens when you say
you're sorry to someone?
What are the next words out of their mouth generally?
I'm sorry too, or I shouldn't have done this,
I shouldn't have done that, right?
So it's a foolish attitude to just wait and say,
I'm gonna wait for them to say I'm sorry first.
Well, if you wanna live your entire life with strife,
then go for it.
But if you wanna resolve the situation,
just say the words, I'm sorry.
Go to Proverbs 22, Proverbs 22.
Now I would say this,
I don't believe you should be dishonest
because obviously if you've done absolutely nothing
whatsoever, then you haven't done anything wrong.
But the reality is that in fights,
have you ever heard the expression it takes two to tango?
Isn't it true in arguments or disagreements,
regardless of who is mostly at fault,
isn't it almost always true that both sides are at fault?
It doesn't matter who is more than 50% at fault.
And I can say this, all of us have a bias towards ourself.
So if you think you're 20% to blame,
God might multiply that by three, right?
All of us wanna think that we're innocent,
we wanna blame someone else or make excuses.
It doesn't matter whether you're mostly to blame
or just a small amount, it doesn't matter.
You still say you're sorry if you did wrong.
Well, I'm waiting for them to say sorry first.
Or you could just say you're sorry
and then they'll say sorry and then it's over.
You say why?
Your goal is to restore your brother or your sister
in Christ or if in the case of marriage,
restore that marriage where you forgive one another.
Number one, saying sorry to the Almighty.
This is something that should be done every single day
at least two times in my opinion,
morning and right before you sleep.
And I would say throughout the day,
you do wrong, say I'm sorry God, forgive me.
Number two, saying sorry to authority.
If you do wrong to authority, you need to say you're sorry.
Number three, saying sorry to associates.
You don't wanna go through life
just having enemies every single direction.
But number four, the one that is really humbling
is saying sorry to assistants.
Saying sorry to someone who's underneath you.
Saying sorry to someone that is below you.
Now when it comes, and let me just read the verse
because one great application is parents to kids
because yes, husbands are the heads
of their wives in marriage.
But I would say that in this idea,
you're very much associates in terms of you did wrong,
you say you're sorry.
You did wrong, you say you're sorry.
But there's no doubt with kids,
it's like kids are very underneath their parents.
Kids have rules, it's like they have to obey their parents.
If they don't, then they're in trouble.
They are very much underneath their parents,
both their mom and their dad.
Notice what it says in Proverbs 22 verse six.
Train up a child in the way he should go
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Bible says if we train our child in the correct way,
when he gets old, he's not gonna depart from that way.
Now as a father, the way I wanna train my kids is this.
I wanna teach them that when you do wrong,
you say you're sorry.
So how do I teach my kids that?
When I do wrong, I say I'm sorry.
That's the way that I want them to be when they get older.
So I can say this, that yes, I have plenty of times
gone to my two-year-old son Ezra and said, I'm sorry.
You say why?
Because I've lost my temper and yelled at my kids before.
I'm working and then my kids are running around or whatever
and I lose my temper.
And look, kids are very emotional at a young age.
If you've raised kids, you know this is true.
At a young age, they are very emotionally fragile.
You say something a bit rude or you raise your voice,
what often takes place?
They start crying.
You say, what do you do as a dad then?
What I do is I'm like, you know what,
I need to humble myself and just go to them and say,
you know what, I'm sorry.
And look, I've done that to all of my kids plenty of times.
You say why?
Because of the fact when you do wrong, you say sorry.
That's just what you do, right?
Whether it's with the almighty, whether it's with authority,
whether it's with associates, whether it's with the citizens,
regardless of whether or not they say sorry first.
If you've done wrong, you apologize for what you do.
You say why?
Because I want to teach my kids to do likewise.
That when you do wrong, you say you're sorry, right?
So it doesn't matter what position of authority you have.
If you do wrong, you say you're sorry.
That's just the way it is, right?
Whether you're the leader, whether you're the follower,
whatever it is, when you do wrong, you say those words.
Isn't it true that when somebody does wrong to you
and they do not say, I'm sorry, it just aggravates you?
Isn't that true?
I've had times in my life where somebody did wrong to me.
And I've had times, the Matthew 18 sort of situation
where I talked to someone and I just said,
hey, you did this to me.
And then they would not say the words, I'm sorry.
It's like, well, this is the reason why I did it.
And it's just like, just say, I'm sorry.
And it'll be over.
That's all you have to do is say those words, I'm sorry.
And look, we don't want to be people that are just stubborn.
We refuse to humble ourselves
because saying you're sorry is all about having humility.
It's all about just admitting you're wrong and saying,
hey, look, I do wrong every single day of my life
when it comes to committing sins.
But even outside of just committing sins or doing wrong,
yeah, you know what, sometimes I sin against authority.
I do something wrong.
Hey, sometimes I sin or do something wrong to an associate
or to someone underneath me.
And when you do wrong, what do you do?
You say, I'm sorry.
And what you find throughout the Bible
and you find this in your personal life,
you know this to be the case,
that when you're mad at someone,
but they say they're sorry, they don't make excuses.
It's just like, usually, I mean,
a soft answer turneth away wrath, right?
Now, here's what I'll say though.
Don't half apply this sermon.
It's like, I'm going to apply Pastor Stuckey's sermon.
I'm going to say sorry when I do wrong,
but you don't really give a real sorry.
You know, like when somebody gives you like a fake,
I'm sorry, it's aggravating, isn't it?
It's like, why'd you say anything if you're going to say,
you know, well, you know, it's just like, yeah, I'm sorry,
but this is the reason why I did this.
It's like, just don't say anything, right?
When you say sorry, mean it.
And it doesn't matter if they're more at fault than you,
if you're even 1% at fault,
you have something to apologize for, regardless.
And you say, well, why would I do that though
if other people have done me wrong?
Well, you're going to get a lot of mercy from God.
If you're a forgiving person
and you're willing to apologize to other people
when you've done wrong, you know what?
God is going to be very merciful to you.
That's what the Bible teaches.
Let's go to the word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us
to be here today and I ask you to help us
to all apply this sermon to our lives.
God, help us to all be people,
whether men or women or children in this room, God,
help us to be people that are willing and able
to say the words, I'm sorry, God.
Help us to get right with you on a daily basis.
Help us also get right with others in our lives, God,
whether it be to an authority, an associate,
or an assistant, God.
Help us to live our lives with humility.
We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
No
Oh
I
Pray
You