We Need Deliverance

It shows how God constantly delivers. How God is constantly there. Everyone in this book outside of Jesus is dumb. All right? They all make mistakes, but God is faithful. God is faithful. God is faithful. He's delivering. He's delivering. He's delivering. And he says he has delivered us. He continues in verse 10. He says, "And he will deliver us." Paul points to the fact that in their present time, not just in the past faithfulness of God, but in the present faithfulness of God, he's continuing to deliver him. and we put our hope in him that he will deliver us again. [Music] Well, today we are starting a new series. And if you have been with us here at Cross Church, we love to study through books of the Bible. And today we're going to be in 2 Corinthians chapter 1. And if you have a Bible, you can flip there. You can pull open the Bible app and go to your notes there as well. And you can find all the sermon notes we have. But as we get in here, we're starting this new series that we're calling Rooted. And and we're talking about rooted in holiness. And and as we go through this book, we're going to kind of talk about what that means and kind of dissecting of how do we navigate things in life. But as I've been preparing for this book and as I've been praying over this, my mind drifts a little bit and I've been thinking about roots. Do you think about roots often? Just like, you know, in the ground, roots, plants. Yeah. Just me. Okay. Um, and it became really apparent because uh, we moved into our home that we're currently at in October and we moved into a new build and we were the first home on the street. So, as people moved in, me, my wife, and our four kids, we were going to every house and bringing like a plant or a gift as a housewarming gift and everyone thought we were Mormons or Jehovah Witness or selling solar, I don't know. Um, but they're all like, "Go away." Uh, but we got to meet all our neighbors and it was awesome. But my one of our next door neighbors, Terry, he's an awesome guy. Uh, got to meet him and and when he first introduced himself, he's like, "We live in Missouri. My wife didn't want me to buy this house. I probably won't be here very often, but if I am, you'll see me." Super cool. Um, I've seen him twice in 6 months. Uh, he is the best neighbor ever. Never makes noise. All right. Um, but with him being gone, sometimes some weeds come in the common area in front of his house. So, I've been like trying to be a nice neighbor and picking some weeds. But recently there were some really thorny ones that I pulled and there was one that I kind of saw I was like it's getting bigger but I'm just going to leave it alone. Um like it it can't get that bad. It's 115 outside. Weeds don't grow when it's 115. This past week as I'm driving into my garage I look out and see this in next to Terry's house. Do you think it got a little out of hand? All right. I should have picked it earlier cuz as I was like, "All right, I need to pull this thing." And if you want the full story, I ended up putting in my trash can cuz he put his trash cans in his garage. Thanks, Derry. Um, and like I was like, and then it was hanging out and the trash can man was very mad and I watched it all from my daughter's bedroom. It was hilarious. Anyway, um, but as I'm getting it, I finally get this over and let me show you the root. Uh, sorry, show you the root of this. That thing was nasty. Like, I couldn't pull it out. And you're like, "Well, of course you can't pull it out." But hey, all right. I got some strength when it comes to pulling out weeds. But I was like everything I was like I thought about hooking up to my minivan, but I knew I'd lose my bumper or something if I tried to take it off. So like I just cut it really low and like covered it with rocks and said please Satan like you know don't try to bring that thing back. God like cursed that fig or whatever that's happening there. But in that, what was crazy to me is as ugly as it was on the outside, the root underneath was even crazier uglier in causing all that stuff that came about. And today, as we start this series of talking about being rooted in holiness, we're going to go down this road and Paul's going to introduce us to this concept of what's on the outside of what is showing, of what we're weathering through life. All of it comes down to what our roots and what we are ultimately rooted in. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 starting in verse three, Paul writes this. He said, "Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and the God of all comfort." It says, "He comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, though the comfort we ourselves receive from God." You see, Paul is giving us a little insight to this theme we're going to see throughout this book that we cannot comfort those if we are not first comforted by God. And you think about this as Paul kind of sets this up is he's getting us to understand of what we are rooted in is going to make us understand how do we minister and how do we love and how do we engage the world around us. This theme could be said in this way. Another way to say this is what we are rooted in determines what we will be ready for. Think about this for example and this is like a leadership principle just leaps off the page. This if we are rooted in laziness for example then we will ready we will be ready to be disappointed in life for things not to happen. If we are rooted in hard work then we will be ready for the opportunities to come. If we are rooted in holiness we'll be ready for the fruit that God brings. But if we are rooted in sin, we are ready for the destruction that comes as a result. And this theme throughout, Paul is going to just saturate into this book of we need to be rooted in the right thing in order to weather the storms of life to be able to push through the trials that come our way to be ready to embrace the blessings that God shows us. And as we begin down this journey, the first question that we need to ask and that Paul kind of presents for us is what is the first step of being rooted in holiness? How do we begin to take this? How do we make sure that we don't have a disgusting gross root like that weed that is growing into something outside that we don't want to be? How do we have the right thing, the right systems and structure and foundation set that we can grow from? Well, Paul begins in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 starting in verse one. He writes this. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by God's will and Timothy our brother to the church of God at Corenth with all the saints who are throughout Aaya. Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, Paul starts in this chapter and he starts at the very beginning here and he's going to show us of what steps do we need to take in order to make sure we're going down this path of rooting ourselves in holiness in the first part of this kind of first step. First part of first step, you know, it's going to be a long sermon when that's how it starts out, right? Um, don't worry, I'll cut it short because I was told I went too long in first service. Uh but here here's where he says the first part of this is we need to allow the right people to speak into you to allow the right people to speak into you. Paul um this is called second Corinthians because before this he wrote first Corinthians and some actually uh there's some scholars that believe this is fourth Corinthians that we have four letters that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth and we probably have letters two and four and he kept on writing this church. He's like you guys are idiots. You guys are idiots. You guys are okay. and he kept on sending him letters. But this is a kind of a next step of what started in first Corinthians. And if you were with us at cross church at the beginning of the year, we studied through that book. And as we studied through that book, uh Paul is kind of shows the church at Corenth of what kind of church do you want to be? And through that, what we saw from his instruction to them also became instruction for us here at Cross Church. And we said, we want to be a church that is hungry, that that that feasts off the word of God, that wants to get closer to him, that we want to be a church that's humble, that lives our lives more open-handed to serve and to give our resources than to hoard them. And we said, we want to be a church that is hospitable, that is making Jesus known by inviting people into our lives, into our homes, and into our church family. That means when you invite someone to church, you know, you should be there and sit with them. Um sometimes I'm like, I got invited to church. Like, who invited you? be like, "Oh, whatever." I'm like, "Are they going to sit with you?" Like, "I don't know if they're coming to the service." I'm like, "Well, I'm glad you came. All right. Um, you can go sit with that person. You can meet them." Um, but it's like as being hospitable in our life and welcoming in people into our lives and all these things. We've been talking about this throughout the year of being this hungry, humble, and hospitable church. Paul here now transitions to 2 Corinthians and is like, "How do we continue in that?" And why this is so important is because we need to make sure the right people are speaking into us. Because here's the hard thing is pe we are listening to someone. Someone is shaping who we are. But I think a lot of people they are too often swayed by their own line of thinking rather than who God has appointed to speak into them. Now I don't know about you but I think sometimes we can get skeptical of authority in our life of when someone tries to claim authority or try to speak into us. Our natural rebellion I mean we are Americans right? We were founded on rebellion. That's what we do. It's like we we want to kind of push back against authority. But Paul here is leaning into this. Listen to how he describes himself in this star. He says, "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will." He's saying God's will was to appoint me to this place. You see, when we think about the right people that can speak into our lives, we need people who have God-given authority to speak into us. Now, what this could mean is I I think God places people in our lives that that can rebuke us, that can guide us, that can love us. Uh people like parents and pastors and godly mentors in our lives. I saw a meme this past week and like 10 people shared it. That's the only time I see a meme is when it gets shared more than once, right? Um otherwise, it just goes away. But it's like where I don't read it until I've seen it the third time. I'm like, "Okay, now it's annoying. I actually got to read what's in this thing." But it said this comment says, "I don't trust pastors who don't have a pastor." And the first time I read it, I was like, "I don't think that makes sense to my head." But as I dwelt on it a little more, here's what I realized that means. It's like, if you don't have someone speaking into your life, then you're not growing, you're not pushing, you're not forming. And Paul establishes right off the bat that both himself and Timothy are people that God has established in order to point them in the right direction. And where was he pointing them to? He was pointing them to Jesus. I love how Paul and Timothy are both brought up here. And when you look throughout the New Testament, Paul and Timothy are often referred to as servants of Christ. You see, the right voices in your life, they're not trying to build their own kingdom. They're pointing you to Jesus's kingdom. And maybe as you hear this, you might feel kind of like, ah, I I wish I had that person. I I wish I had a Paul in my life. I don't know if you want a Paul in your life because he probably, you know, write a lot of angry texts to you all the time of like, you need to fix this, right? Um, but it's like, I wish I had that spiritual mentor like there walking me through every step. But even when we look at the life of Timothy, Timothy had other people before Paul came on the scene pouring into him. And when I think about this, I I was someone my disciplehip journey, my spiritual journey is marked by really being discipled by the church. Some of my earliest memories in kids church, I remember a faithful old lady who has since passed, but she was so amazing is Miss Peggy. Miss Peggy loved us. Miss Peggy probably saying Jesus loves me to us. That's how it's ingrained in our head, right? Is Miss Peggy was there. I think of Johnny who was a a high school student when I was in kids ministry. And he was probably just he was dumb, too. But he was just a little bit further down the not as dumb line as I was as a kid. and and he gave up his Sunday serving in kids ministry to help bring me along. I think of Karen and Mari and Jason and Ryan who were leaders in my youth group who poured into me, who shaped me. I think of some of the pastors in my life like Monty and Brett and Pastor Jackie who have loved me and helped guide me. And many of these people were just simply serving within the church family and helped be the voices that God spoke into me. And Paul establishes from the start that when we talk about kind of rooting ourselves in holiness, the first part of that is we need to allow people to speak into our lives. But he continues on in verse three. He said, "Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and the God of all comfort." Paul after moving on from these first two verses and these first two verses are often ones that people skip when they start a letter because it's just Paul like signing his name saying, "Hey, what's up? I'm Paul." And like it's easy to kind of skip over those even though he was establishing something. But in verse three, he starts getting into the meat of what he's saying. And as he's about to kind of give correction, as he's about to share some struggles he has and struggles the church is going through, he starts in verse three with praising God. And and I think this is so important. Before he talks about problems, before he mentions suffering, he acknowledges who God is and what God has done. Now, this is huge for when we talk about Paul and and him guiding us to being rooted in holiness. is holiness does not start with us focusing on our sins and our failures. Holiness starts in being rooted in holiness by focusing on the savior who actually is holy. And notice three things that Paul acknowledges here when he's acknowledging just the blessings that God has given is first he refers to God as the father of mercies. Now mercy is not getting what we deserve. uh uh Paul actually recognizes that everything good in his life flows instead from not getting what he deserves which is mercy and God's kindness in keeping him from his consequences. But we also see that he is the God of all comfort. The word comfort here, it doesn't mean God makes us cozy. It means God strengthens us. He gives us what we need to keep going. And then he says God is blessed. This word means praised or worthy of worship. You see, Paul's starting point isn't his circumstances, but God's worthiness. You know, what I've noticed in kind of ministry and being a part of church is usually the people who kind of grow in and a churchy word is sanctified to become more holy, but kind of grow in maturity in their spiritual life the fastest aren't the ones that maybe our world sees as most successful. aren't the ones that we think always have it together the most, but are the ones that are the most gracious even when situations are bad. That too often we we kind of have our heroes we look up to who make it look like they have everything all together and make it look like everything's figured out. But the problem is sometimes in our world we can build things on our own success, but when the real hardship comes and life punches us in the face, if we're relying on our own strength, we will fall. But it's usually those humble people who you're like, "Why are you so happy? Your life looks miserable right now." They're like, "I'm just praising Jesus." I'm like, "Man, you are like praising Jesus when I would be cursing Jesus right now." But we see in that is the sign of maturity. And Paul was a great former this is Paul is going to share his struggles in just a second. He's going to talk about how hard it was. But Paul was one who consistently acknowledged the blessings of God despite the hard circumstances around him. But the acknowledgement of God's blessings led to something else. As he continues on in verse four, it says this that he being God comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. This next part as Paul is building this saying we need to allow voices to speak into us. We need to acknowledge the blessings that God has poured out on us here. He kind of shifts and kind of continues deepen into this. He tells us we need to attach to a community that can surround you. You see, I love the phrase he uses in verse four. He says he comforts us in our affliction, that is in our troubles and our hardships and our sufferings so that it doesn't stop there. And just say like, hey, God, God's there when you struggle. God's there in your hardships. But he's saying there's a reason behind it. So that you may be able to comfort those who are also going through trials, who are also hurting. And Paul shows us that the reason that God comforts us so we can comfort others. It's community and action and being rooted in holiness. It's not this solo journey. Instead, God designed us to be a part of a community that both gives and receives comfort. What are some of the practical ways we do this? Well, I think one is that we need to be we need people in our lives in our community who have walked through similar struggles. Well, one of the ways we structure our Bible groups and our Bible groups are are mixed and have different kind of people at different stages of life. But a lot of times our Bible groups are going to be people either in similar geographic areas of you around kind of our city if they're in home groups. Um or they're going to be at similar life stages of you. I told you I have four kids, one to eight. And part of having that many children is I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to parenting. All right, I will be honest at times. Is it can feel overwhelming. It can feel like what did we do? Did we make a terrible mistake in having this many children? There are those thoughts that come through your head. Um, you are all very serious and I feel like you're judging me and be like, "We're going to call CPS on this guy and take away his kids." Funny enough, one of them's fostered. So, I got one of my kids from that. But anyway, I'm sorry. We adopted her later. But, um, it's nice to have other people in stage of life in our church community who also have a lot of kids and we can see their life and see they're just as much of a wreck as us. So we can share in our sufferings and we can comfort one another. And there is something powerful about being in a community where people are struggling and going through the same struggles that you have gone through or you have yet to go through. So there can be this encouragement, this strengthening, this comfort with one another. But we also need people uh who can serve in their struggles. It's not enough to just be going through the same problems and throw a pity party together and say, "We're both miserable and both have this this issue." But instead is how do you support one another? How do you serve one another? How do you build one another up? And here's what I love is what this leads to is we need people then when have these same struggles that can serve us during these struggles, but then we can surround ourselves with other people when we are in the midst of those struggles. is Paul. Paul doesn't say that like affliction or troubles may come. He says they will come. And the question isn't if you will face hard time. It's when you'll face times. And really the question is will you have the support system around you to help you through it. But here's where Paul starts getting real because because he's kind of prepping them for this. Okay, there there's going to be struggles and God will comfort you. This word comfort is God will strengthen you. and he'll give you the power to move through it. But then in verse 5, Paul really drops the barrier and lets them in. And he says this, "For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are afflicted, if we are troubled, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer." Verse 7. And our hope for you is firm because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will also share in the comfort and the strength that God builds in us to push through it. In verse eight, he says, "We don't want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of our affliction that we took place in Asia." Look at just Paul how transparent he is here. He he doesn't like have this madeup statue of who he is. But listen to what he says here. He says we were completely overwhelmed. We were beyond our strength so that we even despared of life itself. Paul as he's continuing down this road, he's he's saying you need to allow these voices to speak into your life that you need to acknowledge the blessings that God has uh poured out that you need to put this community around you. He then moves to this point and he says that you then need to admit the defeat that lies before you. You see, Paul gets brutally honest here. He doesn't minimize his suffering. He doesn't minimize his trials. He doesn't try to put a spiritual spin on it. Instead, he admits that he was in way over his head. Look at verse 8 again. How he describes his situation. He said, "We were completely overwhelmed. We were beyond our strength. So, we even despared of life itself." He says, "We wanted to die." This is intense language. Think about this. For example, Paul the great apostle. Paul the church planter. Paul, the guy who got to hear the voice of Jesus, who blinded him, who then later gave him sight, who discipled him, who said, "You will carry my world or carry my word to the ends of the world." Paul, the guy who's probably the second greatest leader in history next to Jesus himself. He said, "I was so over my head, I wanted to die." Paul is trying to get them to understand that being rooted in holiness takes us admitting that we have needs. And one of the needs that we need to admit is Paul shows us we need to admit that we're overwhelmed. Paul doesn't pretend like he has it all together. And holiness here doesn't mean having it all figured out. Sometimes it's honestly acknowledging that you're in over your head. But not only does he show that he's overwhelmed, Paul shows us that we need to admit you're overmatched. Listen to the words he uses. He says beyond our strength. Paul realized he got to a point when his own resources wasn't enough. When his own abilities weren't enough, when his own smarts weren't enough, he went back and he's like, I reread my books that the Holy Spirit wrote through me and I didn't even find all the solutions I needed in there. Instead, he had to rely on God's strength. And when we come to this point to say we're outmatched, we allow space to come in for God to work. And lastly, we see that Paul shows us to admit that we're at the end of our self. He said we despared of life itself. We wanted to die. Paul hit rock bottom. And sometimes God allows us to get the end of our to the end of ourselves so that we'll turn to him. Church, this is hard to do. I think we live in a culture where we want to put a face out that everything is great. I mean, that's what social media is, and I you're probably annoyed that I talk about that all the time, but it's true. Is we put out a perception of us in social media that says we have it together. But we also do that in the workforce. We also do that in our family of you want to make sure your kids see you as a strong leader, not as a person who has no idea what they're doing, right? And we put out this persona of ourselves. The old saying is like never let them see you sweat. But hey, guess what? I sweat a lot. Okay? Especially when it's 110° outside and I sweat in between services. Literally, I told my wife last week, I'm like, I think I need to put some deodorant behind the green room. Um cuz in between services, I was like drenched my armpits. Uh last week, okay, it was a lot of sweat. And I was talking to Josh about it and Josh is like, "Hey, I do have deodorant back there." I'm like, "All right, but we're not using the same one." All right, separate deodorants. But it's okay if people see you sweat. It's okay if people see you limp. Paul didn't run away from that. Paul was transparent about that. Paul was open with that. Paul led with a limp. Paul showed him, "I am not perfect, but I know the perfect one." And Paul as he gets into this passage, as he opens this letter, he is trying to get the church at Corinth to understand that if you're ever going to be rooted in holiness, you need to admit that you can't do it on your own. Which leads beautifully into the last part of our passage today. In verse 9, he says, "Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death." Picking up in verse 8, he's like, "We thought we were going to die. We couldn't do this anymore." But here's where he continues. So that why did this happen? We would not trust in ourselves. We died to our own strength, but instead we trust in God who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a terrible death and he will deliver us again. We have put our hope in him that he will deliver us again. While you join in helping us by your prayers, then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gift that came to us through the prayers of many. You see, Paul has been moving in this church. He's like, "Hey, you need to allow people to speak into your life." If you're ever going to be rooted in the holiness of God, rooted in the right things so that you are ready for anything that comes, you need to allow the right people to speak into your life. You need to acknowledge the blessings that God has poured out. You need to surround and attach yourself to a community around you. He said, "You need to see all and admit the defeat that you have put yourself into, but it all leads to here that you then need to adore the Savior that delivers you." I I love this in these verse in these three little verses. Look at verse 10 alone. He says this, "He has delivered us from such a terrible death." Why is the Savior so great is he has delivered you. He points to God's prior faithfulness. You know what this book is? This is a record of God's faithfulness both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. It shows how God constantly delivers. How God is constantly there. That people, everyone in this book outside of Jesus and obviously God the Father as in heaven is dumb. All right? They all make mistakes. But God is faithful. God is faithful. God is faithful. He's delivering. He's delivering. He's delivering. And he says he has delivered us. But then I love it. He continues in verse 20. And he says, "And he will deliver us." Is Paul points to the fact that in their present time, not just in the past faithfulness of God, but in the present faithfulness of God, he's continuing to deliver them. But he doesn't stop there. He ends verse 10. And we put our hope in him that he will deliver us again. because of God's past faithfulness, because of God's present faithfulness, he is confident in the future faithfulness that the savior of the world, the one that we adore, will be there no matter the trouble we get ourselves into. Now, when you hear all this and you kind of think of how do we start to apply this, how do we start to root ourselves in the holiness of God? How do we even begin to start putting this into our life? Yesterday I was sitting on my couch and sometimes on Saturdays I think about my sermon and sometimes I zone out and won't touch it till Sunday morning and I was in a zone out phase. My kids were in quiet time. Everything seemed to be great. It was quiet and I got a phone call. I got a phone call of a guy I've spoken to twice in my life. And he was the father of a young man who was 25 that I pastored before. And as he called me and and this 25-year-old, we surrounded him with community, but he had these huge bouts of depression. He's diagnosed bipolar, did not want to get help uh medically, but we had tried everything we could be the support, be the support, be the support. and he would go through these mood swings and these things and he'd got these low lows within these high highs and we were walking with him through it and and over the course of the last year we had checked in a couple times and we had lost touch and his dad called me he's like hey he went into his deep depression spells and this last Sunday he didn't come back he took his own life on Father's And as I'm talking to this dad who I can't even imagine what he's going through and we were talking about services and I'm praying with him and and going through and he's telling me where it's going to be at at the church they attend and and and we're going through all this and then he's like, "Hey, I know he had some close friends. Can you call them?" And I spent the next kind of time calling through and talking to some other young men who were close to him. In my mind, I'm like, God, what am I doing? I'm not qualified for this. Like, how do I have a conversation with a dad who just went through something I can't understand? How do I have a conversation with trying to convince another young man that this is not his fault and this is not something God, I cannot do this. And God's like, what are you preaching on Sunday? I am the one who comforts you. I am the one who gives you strength. I am the one who delivers you. It is not about your power. It is not about your ability. But Paul, the same thing he was telling the church at Corenth is the same thing he's telling us today is he has delivered us. He is delivering us and he will deliver us because he is the God of the universe and the savior that we run to. And as we look at this passage and we say, where do we go from here? How do we begin to start to root our lives in a holiness that is so much bigger than us, that is so much better us, so that we will be ready for whatever life throws us, ready for whatever blessing God's pour out. Here is where it starts. Here is the first step is we need to plant a seed. And here is our holy seed this morning is we must plant a seed of our very greatest need. And that need is what we see all over this passage. We need deliverance. We need to be delivered from ourselves. Maybe you have an ego in your life and you think that you can just keep everything going. You can just put more on your shoulders. You can just keep running faster and longer. You can take on the problems of your family, of your friends, of your community, and you can solve it. You can't. Paul, smarter guy than all of us, more talented than all of us, couldn't maybe need to be delivered from a fear in your life that you feel like you can't keep going forward. You feel like you can't step out on that edge because something is going to fall apart. It is too scary. It is too much. You don't trust God enough. And you need to deliver from that fear. [Music] Maybe you need to be delivered from a pet sin in your life. And every time that you seem to be making progress, it creeps back up and it pulls you down. And you need to just ask God to rip that root, rip that weed out of your life so you can plant something greater and you can start to see the roots of holiness start to take shape in your life. Or maybe you're sitting here today and for the first time you need to accept that God has delivered you through the sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ. through his death on a cross, through the raising from the grave, through the declaring and the sitting on of his throne so we can see him as savior that maybe you need to be delivered from your life of sin and delivered to a salvation that only the God of this book provides. Our world promises a lot of things. Our world tells us to strive for a lot of different things. But as Paul shows us, the only true God who strengthens us through trials, who strengthens us through affliction, who is there through the suffering, who delivers us from all this is our God, our savior, and Jesus Christ. [Music]