Sermon Tone Analysis

2 Corinthians 12:11-13:14

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church he wrote 1 Cor 2:14

Most of you experienced this first hand before you came to know Jesus as Lord.

You tried to understand religion, you opened a Bible and struggled to understand, maybe even you tried to talk to God through prayer, but it just didn’t make any sense to you, you couldn’t figure it out, and probably got discouraged and gave up.

In this verse the Apostle Paul tells us, yeah that’s going to happen all the time.

It’s not because you’re dumb, it’s because your human and trying to understand spiritual things in your humanity, but you really can’t…that’s what he meant by nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Then, for many of you, when you finally said, God, I don’t understand more than I do understand, but I know that I am a sinner, and that the wages of sin is death, I understood that part, and I need you to forgive me.

Not because I deserve to be forgiven, but because you sent Jesus to this earth, and He lived a perfect, sinless life, and paid the price, paid my penalty for sin, when He died on the cross, and He defeated death when He rose from the grave, and I place my faith and trust in Him for Salvation.

And then, it was like this book came alive, and you got to the part where it says, Heb 4:12

and maybe you squeaked out your first amen, which just means yes, so be it.

Because you were starting to understand.

What is funny to me, and I don’t think it is a regression, so much as it is just human nature to look at things through the perspective of our own life experience.

Do you guys ever do that?

Read a passage in the Bible and interpret it, or try to make sense of it just through your own life experience?

I do.

I say this because I really want to encourage you to pray, every single time before you read the Bible for God to speak to you through it, to help you understand it, and to understand the so what of it.

Meaning how does what I’m reading here apply to my life, how should it change my life?

Paul is wrapping up his letter to the Corinthian church here in these final chapters, well he wrapped it up a few thousand years ago, we’re catching up with him I guess.

Remember, Paul planted this church in Corinth and spent about 18 months with them.

Then heard things were turning to a hot mess, and he wrote a corrective letter 1 Corinthians.

Some then mocked Paul, it wasn’t received well, wasn’t taken seriously, Paul couldn’t believe it, wanted to examine the situation for himself, made a quick visit and it was worse than he thought, he then wrote a harsh letter, he calls it a sorrowful letter which we have since lost to history, and Paul was overjoyed when he heard the report from Titus that many had repented and they received the correction.

Now these false teachers had come in with their fancy speech, charisma, and manipulation and they were beginning to deceive some in the church that Paul wasn’t a real apostle, wasn’t up to par with them, and really was of little value.

So the first 7 chapters of this letter Paul expresses his joy and gratitude for the church and their receiving the correction that he sent.

Chapters 8&9 Paul addresses the offering that they had agreed to participate in a year prior to help the church that was struggling in Jerusalem.

Now he really started this section in chapter 10 where he is addressing his decenters directly.

We are picking up this morning in chapter 12 vs.

11, and I know you think I forgot about the whole looking at the Bible through the lens of our own experience thing I started with, but I didn’t.

My point was that was sort of what I started out doing this week, trying to understand where Paul was coming from here.

In the passage we will read today, Paul is basically saying.

I want to give you a heads-up.

I’m coming to town.

I’ve written, I’ve warned, I’ve defended myself when I should never have had to and now I’m coming and the ball is in your court.

My visit can be really, really good, sweet fellowship, or it can be nasty.

I can show you all of these accusations about me being weak couldn’t be farther from the truth.

So ready or not here I come, the ball is in your court, good or bad, it is entirely up to you.

It reminded me of my days as a probation officer.

Hello Mr. Bank robber, or Mrs. drug dealer....

In Paul’s closing blessing, he concludes with blessing them with the entire trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In his hear to edify them or build them up he doesn’t want to leave anything out of the fullness of God.