Sermon Notes

Please join us as Pastor Patrick Joyner continues the series on 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 2:5-17. This passage draws our attention to the biblical norm of forgiveness and recovery.

Being in a warm, loving congregation that reflects the love of Christ is one of the most important aspects of our relationship to the Lord Jesus. Healthy church life involves a normal process of confession, repentance, forgiveness, and reaffirmation of love.

It’s much easier to say we forgive than to restore such a one with warmth and comfort. This would be full obedience by the congregation in their forgiveness, but we are prone to incomplete obedience.

As we take time to involve ourselves in the full biblical process of forgiveness and recovery, we see the aroma of Christ.

Only as congregations grow in their love and realistic experience with the living Son of God in a way that involves a transformational reaffirmation of love, will they then begin to truly enjoy a certain level of breadth of numerical and expansive growth.

Please join us as Pastor Patrick Joyner continues the series on 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 1:12-2:4. This letter is about Paul’s unashamed commitment to the gospel as revealed in scripture.

The Corinthian church was not a mature church. They were acting like they didn’t receive the gospel but germinated it on their own. They exalted strength and were attracted to flashy and contemporary ideas. Paul is trying to get them to understand that the strength of Christ is revealed in the weakness of man.

This church has committed themselves to what is temporal and seen and Paul is trying to draw their attention back to what is eternal and unseen. We are inclined to be drawn to today or tomorrow and forget that all we do is of urgent importance against the last day. Every decision we make needs to be made in light of eternity. He’s not calling into question their redemption but urging them to reframe in a way shaped by the gospel.

Please join us as Pastor Patrick Joyner continues the series on 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 1:1-11. One of the keywords in the first chapter of 2 Corinthians is “comfort”. But this isn’t comfort as we typically think but rather more of a sense of “encouragement”. Part of the issue in 2 Corinthians is the inclination to “clip-short” the promises of God. Paul is drawing their attention to what it is the Lord has set in front of them for their own good and the salvation of others - the comfort, or encouragement, to go on with the gospel and be strengthened by the comfort God gives them amidst their afflictions.