I want to focus there in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 beginning of verse 11 where the Bible reads,
O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. You are not straightened
in us, but you are straightened in your own bowels. Now, if you are recompensed
in the same, I speak as unto my children, be ye also enlarged. The title of the sermon
is Straightened in Your Own Bowels. Of course, bowels isn't a word that we use a lot today,
and it's a Bible word that gets used a lot, especially in the New Testament.
But it's really referring to when the Bible uses that term bowels, it can literally mean
that portion of the body and the organs that are in there. But when he's saying here,
you're feeling straightened, you're straight in your own bowels, what he's talking about
is feeling straightened in the seat of your emotions. The bowels, the reins, the kidneys,
these are the places that are often associated in Scripture with the way we feel about things.
What I want to preach to us about this morning is the fact that in the Christian life,
there is a tendency to feel straightened. That's what Paul is telling the Corinthian people.
He's saying, look, you're not straightened in us. You're straightened in your own bowels.
You feel that way. It's not because of what we're doing. It's just that's how you're taking it.
That's how you feel about it. He's saying you're straightened in your own bowels. You want to
keep something in 2 Corinthians 2, but go to Psalms chapter 2. And he says there that you're
straightened in your own bowels. You're straightened. Now, what does it mean to be
straightened? A lot of times we would probably think about standing up straight or straightening
up, but really what he's talking about is feeling constricted, feeling constricted,
being in a tight spot, being straightened. And that's how the Bible uses that word,
straighten. You think of Philippians chapter 1. We're going to be that later this week. But
he says, I am in a straight betwixt two. I'm in a rock and a hard place. I'm in a narrow
place, having a desire to part and to be with Christ, which is far better. We can think of
Matthew chapter 7 where he said, enter ye in at the straight gate. Why? Because the straight
gate is narrow. He's talking about a narrow way, a straight place, being constricted.
So he's saying to these Corinthians that they are straightened. They're feeling constricted.
They're feeling restricted in their own bowels. That's how they feel about the things that Paul
has written unto them. That's how they feel about having to live the Christian life. They
say, oh, it's so constrictive. It doesn't let me do the things that I want to do.
And really this is, and there's a grain of truth to that, of course. The Christian life
is restrictive. You know, the Christian life does hold us back. It does put limits on us.
It does bind us in a certain way. It does straighten us in our bowels sometimes, doesn't it?
I mean, that's how the heathen perceive Christianity.
The heathen look at Christianity and say, oh, you Christians are so strict.
You're so straight-laced. You're such a goody-two-shoe or whatever.
You look there in Psalms chapter 2, that's their attitude. It says in verse 1,
why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? So they're raging. Raging is
lashing out, rebelling, resisting, right? Verse 2, the kings of the earth set themselves together,
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.
So what are these bands? What are these cords? Those are things that restrain, aren't they?
There are things that constrict us. Those are things that might make us, if our spirit
isn't right and if our attitude isn't right, those are things that might make us feel
straightened in our own bowels. Now, it's natural for the heathen to look at that and say, oh,
yeah, my flesh wants to do this and my flesh wants to do that. And if I get saved and start
to live for the Lord, there's going to be an expectation that I'm not going to do those
things. That's too strict for me. I don't want to live that strict life. What are you? You're
straightened in your own bowels. That's just the way you're feeling about the Christian life.
And I know that's my testimony. I mean, before I got saved, shortly before it,
you know, as I started to look into Christianity as a young man and think about these things,
I used to watch the Christians around me. I always say, well, I don't want to be a Christian
because, you know, they say you can't do this and you got to do that. And I just felt,
man, I just want to be free, you know, whatever that means.
So when the heathen look at it, that is a proper perception, isn't it?
The problem is, is their heart. The problem is, is their attitude. We understand that. Go over
to Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four. See, really, it comes down to it's a
heart matter. It's a matter of your heart. If you're feeling straightened in your own
bowels this morning, if you're feeling constricted by the Christian life, really,
it's just a problem with your heart. You're just not seeing things the right way.
Because, you know, that is a true thing. The Christian life is walking the straight and narrow.
The Bible says in Galatians five, and they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh
with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Look, if we're born again, if we're saved by the Spirit of God, we might as well act like
it. If we live in the Spirit, we need to walk in it. And if we're going to walk in the
Spirit, what are we going to do? We're going to crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts.
We're going to mortify our members, as he said in Colossians three. Mortify, therefore,
your members which are upon the earth. And it gets real specific about what that means.
And what does it mean to mortify your members? It means to kill them, right? You know,
you think about that word mortify, like mortuary or mortician. It has to do with death.
Mortify your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness,
inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which
things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience. So you don't want
to partake in these things. God pours out his wrath on people over these type of things.
You need to mortify the flesh. And you know what? That is a constrictive thing, isn't it?
That is restriction in the Christian life. That might make you feel straightened. He said,
well, I can't do any of these things. I can't fornicate. I can't be unclean. I can't
have inordinate affection. I can't be covetous. And, you know, this is a short list. We could
go on and on and on. And if we're looking at those things that we can't do and the things
that the flesh wants to do, and we're feeling constricted, we have to understand that maybe
we just haven't mortified our members yet. And that's not something you just do once.
That's something you got to do every day. You got to wake up and say, I die daily.
I die daily. I die daily. And that's the real struggle. That's the real work of the
Christian life. You're there in Ephesians 4, look at verse 20. It says,
But ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard of him,
and have been taught of him, as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the
former conversation of the old man. Again, this is speaking the fact that the Christian life
is constrictive. You could see why somebody might say, I feel straightened by this.
Because the Bible's telling us to put off concerning the form of conversation of the old man,
to crucify him, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit
of your mind, that ye put on the new man, which is after Christ Jesus, created in righteousness
and true holiness. Look, these are things that don't just happen by themselves.
These are things that we have to determine to do for ourselves. And like anything else,
you got to want it. You got to want it. You're not just going to wake up and walk in the
new man every day. You have to wake up and say, I want to walk in the new man.
I want to be renewed in the spirit of my mind. I want to put off the old man,
which is deceitful and corrupt. He says in verse 25,
Wherefore put away lying? Man, I like lying.
This Christian life is so constrictive. What do you mean, I can't lie?
Yeah, sorry. You know, we probably don't have, you know, as we grow older,
probably don't mind that so much. But, you know, the kids in the room might be saying,
Well, I've gotten pretty good at it. You know, I know how to get my sibling in trouble.
You know, I'm getting turned into a pretty good liar. And we know adults do it too,
you know, usually with much worse consequences. But he's saying, Look, put it away.
You need to put off the old man. You need to put on the new man. You got to put away
lying. Every man speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of
another. Be angry and sin not. There is a tough one. You know, that's what I know.
Let me just confess my fault. That's what I struggle with. Not just flying out the
handle when people are really getting under my skin. You know, I was out on this trip
down to Safford. And I got put in a room. And the guy next door, you know, was,
you know, let me just put throughout the culturally insensitive term. And this is what
somebody else told me. You know, he was he was a cholo. He had the fedora and he had the
bandana. And he's walking around like this in the lobby, you know, and he's got his
kids with him. And I'm listening to him, just talking to his kids. I mean, F bombs
and everything else coming out of his mouth. And just just talking, you know,
hey, I'm gonna teach you how to brush your teeth. I mean, and you know what, I
don't care what he's saying. But he says so loud, I can hear him. And I'm like,
you know, you know, it's four third in the afternoon, whatever. It's kind of amusing,
you know, that probably not a bad guy. Well, then I come back at 830. And he's still
going at it. And the kids, man, they don't know how to close the door. They're in and out,
in and out. Like, man, you're such a tough guy. Get you get your kids under control.
Keep from slamming the door. Then I realized he's slamming the door. And I think, oh, 830.
I mean, I got things to do. I got to get to bed. I got stuff to do tomorrow.
How long is this going to go on? I'll give them to 10 o'clock. And the whole time
I'm listening to him talk to his kids and the way he was talking and the language he was using.
And I thought, how am I going to handle this? Am I going to go knock on his door and try to
reason with them? Or am I going to, you know, I'll probably get stabbed or something.
Because some people you're like, hey, I could probably, you know, you could go to somebody
who's reasonable. You can kind of get a sense of how they are and say, hey, you know,
your kids and they all sorry, you know. But this guy is just like came pretty evident pretty quick
just from hearing the conversation, the way things were going and the way he was talking,
the way he carried himself. This is not somebody who's reasonable. And then if I go
over there and knock on his door, he's going to say something and I'm going to say something.
The next thing you know, who knows? Right. So I go down there and I say, hey, 225 is out
of control until the front desk. You got to do something about it. I walk around the corner.
I hear pick up the phone. Hey, we just got another noise complaint in my room.
So I realized I'm not the only one. Right. But you know what I'm saying is, hey, I was getting
angry. I was mad. I had to keep that in control. And then, you know, long story short,
through a series of events, one of the other people that are with us had to move out the room
from across the hall and I texted him what was going on. He says, well, just take the room
across the hall. We had to move because they had a leak in the bathroom. So I don't need the
bathroom. I just need the bed. So I go over there and I lay, lay down and get a good night's rest.
And I wake up and I think to myself and I say, go across the hall back into my room next door
to this guy. And I think, he's probably stayed up late. It's six o'clock in the morning.
Maybe he'd like a little dose of his own medicine. And I had to, you know, have my
morning sneeze, you know, where I sneeze every morning like good three. And I don't, I don't
have these little girly sneezes. I sneeze big, you know, like achoo. So I stood right by that door,
that partition door, achoo. And I might have let all three of them out right there. In fact,
I did. Maybe stomped a little harder as I was walking around in the room,
slammed the toilet lid, gave him a taste of his own medicine.
And I said, you better stop because I started thinking, boy, I think I need some spiritual
edification this morning. I need some preaching on high decibel at 6.30. I need to flip open the
laptop and find that hot sermon and just crank it up and point it at the wall. Say,
how do you like it, buddy? And I said, nope, be angry. Said not.
Be gentle toward all men, you know. And at seven o'clock that door slammed again. And then
I lost it. No, I'm just kidding. Well, that's just something that comes to mind.
Look, we have to learn to take rule over our own spirit. We have to crucify the flesh. We have to
put down the old man and his deeds. You know, it's really easy to say, well, I quit smoking,
I quit drinking, I quit fornicating, I quit doing this and all these sins that we might
think of. But what about sins of the heart? What about sins of the spirit? What about our
anger? Have we gotten that under control? Be angry and sin not. Maybe you like being angry,
you know. Maybe you like flying off the handle. Oh, it makes you feel alive,
gets the adrenaline pumping. Well, the Bible says you shouldn't do that, you know. And you
say, well, that's constrictive. You're trying to tell me I can't do all these things that my
flesh just wants to lash out and do. Yeah, that's true. And if that's a problem,
if that's something that you don't, that's a problem for you, well, that's a heart
matter. You haven't gotten your heart right. He says in verse 28, let him that stole
steal no more. Verse 29, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth
and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed in the day of redemption.
Oh, the Christian's life is just too restrictive. I'm saved, you know, and I know,
I don't want to go to that old-fashioned church, you know, where they preach the Bible
and tell you they have all these do's and don'ts. You know, I just want to do whatever
I want. I just want to be able to do whatever I want as a Christian.
I want to do all these things. I want to fornicate. I want to drink. I want to cuss.
I want to get angry. I want so on and so on and so on. Well, if you want to do all
those things, what you really need to tell yourself is what you want to do is grieve the
Holy Spirit. Maybe that'll help us put it in perspective. We want to give in and lash out
or get into sin. Say, well, I just want to do that. I just want to satisfy this lust.
I just want to satisfy my flesh. I'm tired of putting off the old man. I just want to
do the sin. No, what you want to do is grieve the Holy Spirit, and maybe that'll put things
in perspective for us. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking
be put away from you with all malice, and be kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
And these aren't things that are just going to happen. These are things that we have to work
on. We have to catch ourselves. I'm not being kind. I'm not being tenderhearted.
I'm not forgiving one another, so on and so forth. And so, yeah, the Christian life is
restrictive, isn't it? For the better. For the better. And if we feel like the Corinthians
this morning, and if you want to go back to 2 Corinthians 2, and we say, I feel so
straightened. Well, that's just the way you feel about the Christian life, because the
reality is the Christian life is what liberates us. It's what frees us from sin, because all
these things that we want to do that are to read the Holy Spirit, they're sinful,
and sin bringeth forth death. If we feel straightened this morning, it's because of
our own carnality. He said, ye are not straightened in us, verse 12, but ye are
straightened in your own bowels. You want to go over to Romans chapter 6, Romans chapter 6.
He said, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of
his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. You say, I feel straightened in my
bowels this morning. I feel like the Christian life is so constrictive. It's because you're
carnal, and you're resisting. Look, the Bible says in Romans 8 that he did predestinate us
to do what? Not to be saved. He will have all men to be saved. He's the Savior of all men. He's
not willing any whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He died for
the sins of the whole world. We understand that, but he did predestinate us to be
conformed to the image of his Son. As we read on Thursday, that he which hath begun a
good work in you shall perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. If you're saved, if you're
born again, God's got you on a spiritual tractor beam, and there's no resisting it.
I mean, he's pulling you in to being what? Conformed to the image of his Son.
So whenever we're feeling, you know, that feeling of being straightened and saying,
yeah, the Christian life, I can't do it. It's too hard. It's too constrictive. That's
just you resisting God's predestination for you. That's you trying to pull away from that
tractor beam, right? Because that's what we're predestined to be, the image of his Son,
to be conformed to it. And again, that's a process slowly being brought to that,
and we know we'll never get there until we're given a new body when we see Christ,
so on and so forth. But the flesh doesn't want to follow the Spirit.
The flesh does not want to follow the Spirit. The Bible says in Galatians 5,
this I say then, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
So it's one or the other. It's not like you'd say, well, I'm not going to fulfill
the lusts of the flesh, but I'm not going to follow the Spirit either. No. You're going to
go in one direction or the other. And if you don't want to fulfill the lusts of the flesh,
then you have to walk in the Spirit. There's just no other way about it.
Why? Because the flesh lusted against the Spirit. The flesh is not passive this morning.
We know that we've crucified the flesh. We know that the old man is dead in Christ,
but we're still walking around with the old man's skin on. We still have this body
that still lusts against the Spirit every single day of our life.
For the flesh lusted against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary
one to another, so that you cannot do the things that you would. The flesh doesn't want
to follow the Spirit. Therefore, you must reckon the flesh to be dead. And he says here in
Romans 6 verse 11, likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.
And he goes on and says, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord,
let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in lust thereof.
Now he said, likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin.
So what does it mean to reckon something? A lot of times you probably hear some
good old boy from down south say, I reckon. What's he saying? You ever wonder that? What does he
mean, I reckon? Well, one way to interpret that, one definition, it means to count,
to reckon something, to count it. Another meaning it has is to esteem something,
or to consider something, or to regard something as. So what he's saying in here is,
regard yourself to be dead indeed unto sin. If you've been born again, if you're saved,
you're God's child, you might as well just reckon, you might as well just esteem yourself,
you might as well just consider yourself, you might as well regard yourself this morning
as dead indeed unto sin. So how am I going to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lust
of the flesh? Just say, I'm dead. Reckon yourself dead. And every time the flesh
raises up its old head and says, go do this, go do that, whatever sin, don't want to do this,
don't want to say, oh, that's the dead man talking. And just tell yourself,
that's a dead man talking. So you're dead flesh. I'm not going to listen to you.
Why would you listen to the flesh? It's dead. Reckon yourselves also to be dead indeed unto sin,
but alive unto God. And see again, it goes back to you have to walk in the Spirit or
fulfill the lust of the flesh. You have to reckon the flesh dead indeed unto sin,
but alive unto God. See, so many times in the Christian life, people leave a vacuum there.
They leave a vacuum. And you can't have a vacuum in the Christian life. You just can't
say, well, I'm done with sin. I'm done with that. But I'm not going to live as though I'm
alive unto God because that's too constrictive. Well, guess what? That creates a vacuum,
doesn't it? And you know the easiest thing that's going to fill that vacuum is sin.
Sin is just going to go whoomp. And you go, oh, I thought I was dead indeed unto this.
The problem is you reckon yourself dead indeed unto sin, but then you don't live unto God.
It's both in the Christian life. You've got to have both.
Be alive, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign
in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust thereof. And verse 12 is interesting
because he's saying, don't let it. And people say, well, it's the flesh. I just don't have any
control over it. I just, you know, whatever it wants to do, it just does. You know, I've tried,
and I've tried, and I've tried. Nope. That's not true. There is no temptation but taking it
but such is as common to man. But God is faithful who also give you a way to escape
that you also may be able to bear it. That's not word perfect. But the Bible tells us that
if we seek God, there is always a way to escape no matter how hard the temptation gets,
no matter how much we're tempted to sin, God has given us a way to escape.
It's just sometimes we look at that way of escape and we go, I don't like that way of
escape. That's not very grand. You know, I'm not going to be burrowing under some, you know,
prison. There's not going to be spotlights looking for me. There's nothing glorious about
that way of escape because the way of escape often is just you on your face crying out to
God. No one's going to hear it but God. It's just prayer, and there's really nothing,
you know, humanly speaking that's all that appealing, I guess, about prayer. It's pretty
simple. It's pretty basic, isn't it? But often that's where the way of escape is, isn't it?
And we understand we don't make provision for the flesh. You know, we live our lives a certain
way. We stay away from certain places, and we don't have things in our house, and we do what
we have to do to even so we don't have to get to that place where we're looking for that way
of escape. But look, when you get to that place where you're looking for the way of escape,
that's where it is, and we don't like that sometimes in the flesh.
He means, what do you mean pray? What do you mean read my Bible and go to church?
I got other things I want to do Sunday. I got other things I need to do besides pray.
But he says, let not sin therefore reign hear more about it, which tells me that it's
possible to not let sin reign in your mortal body. Now, again, it's not let it reign in your
body. I know that we're all sinful, and that we're going to make mistakes, and that we're
going to sin. I'm not up here preaching some kind of sinless perfectionism, but we shouldn't
let it just reign in our mortal body. Just let sin run wild in our life. And he goes on
in verse 13, neither yield yourselves as members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin,
but yield yourselves unto God, unto those that are alive from the dead, and your members as
instruments of righteousness unto God. So you can kind of see here the right perspective to have.
Why is it that people like the Corinthians, they feel straightened in their bowels?
Because all they're thinking about is what they're not going to do, what they can't do.
But look what he's saying here in Romans. He's saying in verse 13, neither yield yourselves
as members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God.
Who are you yielding yourself unto? To God. That's pretty cool. I don't care who you are.
As those that are alive from the dead, as your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
Oh, you know, what do you mean I can't do all this stuff? What's the alternative?
Being an instrument of righteousness unto God? To me, that's a pretty good trade-off. I'll take
that. Well, I just want to live my life over mine, just fulfill my lust of the flesh,
and just let sin reign in my immortal body. Why? Because being an instrument of God
is just boring. That's not what I've found. That's not what I've found.
And that's not what others have found. And anyone that's done this knows how exciting that really is
to be used by God. In any area of life, my mind always goes to soul winning.
To go to someone's door and knock on it and open up the Bible and just simply preach it to
them and watch God work and understand that you're being used as an instrument of God unto
righteousness? That you're bringing righteousness into the sinner's life?
I mean, that beats any six-pack or dirty movie or pot or anything else.
So he's saying, go over to 2 Corinthians chapter 2.
You know, but again, that's all work, isn't it? It's real easy for me to get up here and
just tell you to do it. Say, look, the Bible says you should. You're the one who's got to
live that out. He says in 1 Corinthians 15, I protest by your rejoicing, which I am in Christ
Jesus our Lord. I die daily. That's what Paul said. Well, Paul had it easy. It was easy for
Paul. Well, if I was the apostle Paul, then yeah, I could live a holy life. I could get
this sin out. I could be an instrument of righteousness unto God if I was like Paul.
All Paul did was die daily. That's all he did. Yeah, all. That's not easy. I'm glad it's not
easy though. You know, I'm glad it's not easy. I'm glad the Christian life takes toil and effort
and struggle and sweat. Makes it interesting. Don't you get bored with easy things after
you've mastered that level on whatever video game where you know every guy is going to pop
out here, you know, right? Just when to jump and when to hit this button. It gets boring.
You got to go find the next one, right? Christian life's not like that. It's a fight
all the way to the end. There's something in us that desires a fight. At least there should be
a spiritual struggle. He said in Galatians 2, you're going to 2 Corinthians 2, it says,
I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me. Look, if we fail to crucify the flesh,
we are going to feel straightened. We're going to be like the Corinthians.
If we fail to crucify the flesh and die daily, we're going to feel straightened in our own
bowels. And who do we have to blame? No one but ourselves. It's our own fault.
We don't have anybody else to blame. Oh, it's the preacher's fault.
Nope. Oh, it's my parents' fault. They're always telling me I can't do this and I can't
do that. The preacher, I go there and he says, oh, you shouldn't do this and you should do
that. And I feel straightened. It's their fault. So I'm just not going to listen to him.
I'm just not going to go to that church. And as soon as I can, I'm out of that house.
Because it's their fault. No, it's your fault. It's your fault if you feel straightened in your
own bowels. He said in 2 Corinthians 2, look at verse 11, oh, you Corinthians,
our mouth is open unto you. Our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straightened in us.
He said, don't blame me. Don't blame me. I had to write you 1 Corinthians and rip your face.
You did that to yourself. If it comes down on us, if our parents or the preacher or whatever,
God comes down on us and does like Paul did to the Corinthians and rips us up,
we should understand, well, it's our own fault. And we get to feeling straightened
in the Christian life. It's because we haven't crucified the flesh.
We're ignorant of the struggle in the Christian life.
He said, am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?
Go to 2 Corinthians chapter 12, 2 Corinthians chapter 12.
If you feel straightened by the preacher, if you feel straightened by the parent,
if you feel straightened by the Word of God, you need to understand that it's not their fault.
Those people in your lives, those sources that frustrate you, that make you feel that way,
they're doing all that out of love. They're doing all that out of love.
I think that's what God does to us. He's saying, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't
do that. Do this, do this, do this. Why? Because he's just an evil taskmaster.
He's just up there, you know, he's just pounding some big drum.
Work longer, harder, or I'll starve your family, right? No, he's doing out of love
because he knows if you go that way, there's that pot, there's that pit,
you're going to fall into, there's that snare, there's that wasted life.
All that. He's saying, look, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged.
She said in 2 Corinthians 12 verse 14,
Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be burdensome to you.
For I seek not yours, but you. For the children ought not to lay up for the parents,
but the parents for the children. And I will very gladly spend and be spent,
though the more I abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.
Look, everything Paul did was for them, and he was willing to spend and be spent.
I mean, you read these verses and you read Philippians where we're going through and
Thursday nights, I mean, Paul's motivated out of nothing but love for all the people
that he ministered to. Sometimes it was tough love, though. Read 1 Corinthians.
Same thing with the Lord. He says in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 11,
O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged,
you're not straightened unto us. And you know, Paul showed his love how? He said,
well, our mouth is open unto you. What do you mean by that? He's dealing with things.
That's what he's talking about in 1 Corinthians. I opened up my mouth and said what needed to be
said. And if we feel straightened by that, it's our own fault. It's our own carnality
coming through. Because you have to understand that's always coming from a place of love.
His mouth is opened. Why? Because his heart is enlarged.
That love was shown by what Paul said, not what he didn't say. And everyone wants to think,
oh, the loving person just wouldn't say anything, would never want to tell anybody
to do anything or not to do anything. It's the complete opposite. Paul said, look,
I opened up my mouth. Our mouth is open. Why? Because our heart is enlarged.
And Paul had some harsh things to say to the Corinthians.
That love that Paul had was shown by what he did say, not by what he didn't. I should
have had you go to 2 Corinthians 7. Look at verse 8. I'll begin reading in 2 Corinthians 7.
In 2 Corinthians 7, verse 8, he said,
For though I made you sorry with the letter, I do not repent.
He knew what he was writing. He's writing that down. He's saying,
this is going to be tough. I'm not sure how they're going to take this. This is hard.
I know for myself as a parent, it's so often just going, I got to deal with this kid. I
got to tell him that I got to do this and spank him and everything else. I just don't feel like
it. This isn't going to be fun. It's not fun. It's not fun to be the bearer of bad news,
right? But if we love somebody, that's what we'll do.
You know, if we love our children, we will discipline them.
And if we need to say something, we'll say it. He said,
For though I made you sorry with the letter, I do not repent.
It needed to be said, though I did repent. He's saying, I didn't want to write it,
but I wrote it anyway because it needed to be written.
For I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were for but a season.
Now rejoice not that you were made sorry. He said, I don't get any pleasure out of making
you feel bad. He's saying, I rejoice not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed
to repentance. He's saying, I rejoice because I said those things and I had to write that
letter and you changed. You made the difference. But that you sorrowed to repentance.
For you were made sorry after a godly manner. They might receive damage by us and nothing.
For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of.
But the sorrow of the world worketh death. For we behold the self same thing,
that you sorrowed after a godly sort. What carefulness it wrought in you.
Now this is interesting. He's showing the fruits of what he did through writing that letter.
The fruits of it. He's saying, I rejoice because after I wrote it, you sorrowed for a season
and you got right and look what happened in your life. It was great.
He said, for behold the self same thing, that you 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. And there's an exclamation point on all the end of that.
And all these things you have to prove yourselves to be clear in this matter.
I mean Paul, he said, I don't want to write this, but I'm going to write it. It needs to be
said. And he gave it to him. And you know what it produced? Zeal. Revenge. It produced
a clearing of themselves. So we have to understand that those, whoever they may be in our lives,
that constrain us, they often do it for our own benefit. They often do it for our own benefit.
I feel constrained. Well you are constrained, but just understand it's for your own benefit.
And sometimes that's hard to understand at that point, you know, but often we can look
back and say, oh that's why this and that's why that and that's why this rule and that rule
and so on and so forth. You say, well I don't know. That's just kind of your take on it.
Well how about this? Who loves us more than anyone? It's the Lord, right? Does anyone love
you more than God? Nope. Nobody. Does God constrain us? Oh yeah. Big time. Right?
Wrote a whole book. It's just a bunch of don't do this, do do that. Lots of examples.
Here's what happened to them when they did listen to me. It's a whole book of that.
It's a whole book of that. God loves us more than anybody, but he also constrains us more than
anybody. The Bible says, we all know it, Hebrews chapter 12, for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth,
right? And that's like a whipping. A chastening. And scourgeth, that's like a whipping, right?
Every son whom he receiveth. Whom he loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth.
And so we as God's children, when we go through that, and the Bible says we're all going to go
through that. There's no son whom he chasteneth not. And if you be without chastisement,
then are you bastards and not sons. That's what the Bible says. Meaning if you can just
go through the Christian life thinking you're Christian and just live in sin and never
experience any kind of repercussions for it, you might want to check your salvation
to see if you even believe the right gospel. Because he's saying if you be without
chastisement, then are you bastards. Meaning you're fatherless. You don't have a Father in Heaven.
We're all going to be chastened. We're all going to go through that.
But the difference between the people that are going to feel constrained by that,
straightened in their own bowels, and the people that aren't are the people that look at
life spiritually. People that have a spiritual mindset. The spiritually minded people
are going to understand that being constrained by God is actually being liberated from sin.
It's being liberated from sin. When we get on that spiritual mindset, we say,
oh, God doesn't want me to do all those things. And you know what? I'm really sick
and tired of doing those things anyway. Because I've been doing those things, and all they've
brought is misery and woe and regret and shame. And I'm tired of those things. And God says,
well, they don't do them anymore. And I'll tell you what, I'll give you my spirit. You won't have
to do it anymore. And I'll give you away escape. And you don't have to do that anymore.
And you don't have to feel all those things anymore. The spiritual minded person understands
that. The carnal person just says, I want to go do that. And God's trying to hold me
back. And God will let you go do that. And he'll let you suffer all the repercussions
that come with it. The Bible says in Psalms 141, I'll just read this, one of my favorite
verses. It says, let the righteous smite me. Well, we know what smiting is, right? That's
getting hit. Now, I'm not saying that this morning. Don't come up to me after service
and smack me across the face. I listened to that sermon. I heard what you said. You said,
let the righteous smite me. I'm righteous. But the Psalmist is saying, let the righteous
smite me. It shall be a kindness. What is he saying? Let him reprove me. Let him rebuke me.
Let the righteous smite me. It shall be a kindness. He's trying to straighten me out.
You know, let God chasten me. Let God scourge me and get me right and not let me go down this path.
It's a kindness. It's out of love. And let him reprove me. It shall be an excellent oil.
An excellent oil. We're talking about like a perfume, right? Or a cologne,
like an oil that you pour on anointing, right?
A person who has that attitude and says, smite me. It's a kindness. Reprove me. It's an oil.
That type of person who has that mindset, it's like that oil in the sense that it's apparent
to others around them. Other people can smell that, so to speak. They can say, oh, this is
a person who has an ability to be reproved. This is a person who's been corrected. This
is a person who's straightened up some things in their life. This is somebody
who has embraced the chastening hand of God and is walking with the Spirit.
Other people can see that. It's like an oil, right? It's apparent. You can't hide that.
So what's the conclusion of all this? You know, the sermon's about, you know,
if you feel straightened in your own bowels, and go back to 2 Corinthians 2 if you're not
there already, verse 11. If you're feeling straightened, it's because we're carnal.
And we don't see the benefit of God's, you know, His working, His restraint in our life.
But the conclusion really, you know, is to respond in kind.
Not walk out here and say, well, I know it's for my own good, and I'll just go through it.
I know I'm being straightened, and I'll be spiritual about it. I'm spiritual.
Thank you for straightening me. That's not the right attitude. Respond in kind.
That's what he said in verse 13. He said, now for a recompense,
right? What's a recompense? Repay, you know, a comp, get paid back.
Now for a recompense in the same, he's like, just like I have to you.
What's the same there? The love, the mouth that is open, the heart that is enlarged.
I want you to do the same to me, Paul's saying. As a recompense in the same,
just as I've loved you and opened up my mouth on you, I want you to do the same for me.
Maybe it's not going to open your mouth and tell Paul what's wrong with him or whatever,
rebuke him or whatever, but it could be, hey, Paul, we love you. Thank you, Paul.
Now for a recompense in the same, I speak as unto my children. Be also enlarged.
You know, the thing is that we need to understand that what restricts us is for our benefit
and that it's done so out of love. And if we're spiritually minded, we'll see it that way. And
you know what our response will be? Our heart also will be enlarged. We also will have love.
We'll start to look at the people in our lives, parents, so on and so forth, and say,
wow, they're doing that because they love me. And if we're right, if our hearts are right,
if our hearts are right, our hearts will be enlarged, and what will we do? We'll love them
back. We'll give them a recompense in the same. But if we're not right, and we're just going to
feel straightened in our own bowels and just feel like the Christian's life is just one long
drudgery, you know, you have two alternatives this morning. Either get right with God and get
spiritually minded. Start walking the Spirit and allow Him to start to open your eyes to see
how you can be an instrument of righteousness, or you can just go the other direction and just
cast off the bands, cast off the cords like the heathen, and just go live like them.
And you can suffer everything that they suffer along the way. You'll still be saved,
but you won't have much to show for it. You know, I'd rather just feel constrained
or whatever. I'd rather just go through that and just say, well, I guess He doesn't want
me to do that anymore. And it'll get better and easier, and eventually it'll be like,
why did I ever want to do that anyway? And then we'll start to have our own hearts
enlarged and say, thank you, God. Thank you for putting barriers in my life. Thank you
for making the Christian life what it is, which is, you know, a walk in the Spirit
and a putting away of the filth of the flesh. Let's go ahead and pray.