As we finish up here, we see Paul giving us a nice summary of the point that he's really been making. We've been on quite a journey through Second Corinthians here, seeing all of the emotions that have been involved, essentially culminating in that last chapter when Paul told the story of his being taken into heaven.

This chapter starts out in a rather interesting way with Paul saying that he has been a fool. Now, what he is meaning here is that he has told this story that we saw on Friday about being taken into heaven, and he didn't want to tell it. He didn't feel that it was necessary, but he was forced to do it.

We have arrived in what I find to be my favorite part of second Corinthians. Paul has been concerned about the boasting of these Super Apostles. We don't know exactly what they were saying, but they were claiming to be better than Paul and that they should not listen to Paul. Instead, they should listen to them. Paul believes they're leading the people in Corinth astray.

Here we see Paul continuing to address this idea of the Super Apostles, these people who are claiming to be better than Paul. He is going to do some boasting of his own, and he decides to, as he says, boast according to the flesh.

As we start off here in 2 Corinthians 11, things are starting to get a little bit spicy. Paul starts off here. I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me. He's using some of his intellectual skill here. He is trying to set himself up against these Super Apostles. Now, that is not a good term. Paul is using the term Super Apostles to make fun of them, like woo, you're super apostles.

So, as we start here with Chapter 10, the issues at hand in Corinth, or at least the issues they have with Paul, become even more clear. They're saying, This Paul, he writes a really strong letter. But when he's around, look at the dude. He's not very imposing. He is not a good public speaker. Come on, who are you going to listen to? Paul, who writes a good letter when he's not around, or us?

As we start to consider what we've read today, I want us to first look at the obvious point that Paul is making in verse 6. He says the point is this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Now, we know that you can have a good harvest. You could plant a few plants in your garden and have those plants have a ton of stuff come from them.

As we come to this text, we see Paul making a request of the church in Corinthians. Now, he is talking about the generosity of the churches in Macedonia. That would be the churches in Philippi, in Thessalonica, and in Berea. What has happened from what we can see here in the text, is that there was a point where they were asked to give for another church, and they did this, and they did it way beyond their means. These churches in Macedonia did not have much means.

 So, this passage here from 2nd Corinthians helps us piece together a lot of what has happened since the first letter to the Corinthians, right? He sent that letter. Uh, challenging them, calling them to repentance, and then we see here written out. What happened? How, how they eventually did come to repentance, and how proud Paul is of them.

 So, we come to this passage, and we see Paul calling back upon an Old Testament passage about not unequally yoking animals. Now, Paul is obviously seeing a deeper spiritual reality here. Now we understand the idea of unequally yoking animals being counterproductive, right? Animals of different size animals who have maybe ideas of different directions to go.

 So, I want to start off today by reminding you how chapter five. Ended up. Remember, he was talking about being reconciled to God. And then we saw the gospel in the words of verse 21. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin. So, then him, we might become the righteousness of God. This is the idea that we're continuing into chapter six with.

 Honestly, I did not plan this out, but I don't know that we could have come up to a better part of 2 Corinthians for Good Friday than we have today. We see here a lot of talk about what Christ has done for us. In fact, we see the idea that he died over and over again, right? We see, for the love of Christ controls us here in verse 14, because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died, and he died for all.

 So, we arrive in this passage and we get some real encouraging statements here from the apostle Paul, don't we? He is talking about the struggles of their persecution and he says that he knows that if the tent of their earthly home is destroyed, they have a building from God. Now we know from reading before that he's not talking about a house or a tent that he is living in here, right?

 We have seen Paul talking about the salvation that we have and about how we were veiled from the truth, but God unveiled his glory in the gospel for us. The Holy Spirit gave us the gift of faith, and we have this assurance of salvation. But now Paul is talking about... This body that we have, uh, we, we talk about salvation, we talk about the assurance that we have in that salvation, but at the same time, things don't always seem so great here, do they?

 And so, we see here Paul continuing this idea that we saw at the end of chapter three regarding the veil that was over the face of Moses. Remember, his point was that the gospel is not going to fade away. So, their message is not veiled. The gospel is going to continue. It is the true glory of God. And we see that.

 Here in 2nd Corinthians 3, Paul tells us or reminds us of a story from the Old Testament. You'll remember when Moses was on the mountain, and he was receiving the commands of God. He came down the mountain and his face was glowing. So, they veiled his face. His face was radiating the glory of God because he had been in the presence of God.

 As we start off this passage today, we see Paul telling us a little bit of a story. He goes to Troas to preach the gospel. A door had been opened for him, so he should be nothing but excited. But what do we see? That his spirit was not at rest because Titus wasn't there. Now, was it because he didn't feel confident without Titus?

 As I said, we're just looking at a short passage today, but I kept it short when I was reading through deciding how to break this down, because I think it's an important thing that we talk about. Now, obviously all of scripture is important, but forgiveness is a big thing. And as we think about this, we see here.

 So, as we come to this part of 2nd Corinthians, it's very important that we refresh our memories a little on 1st Corinthians. You will remember that there were some serious moral issues being addressed in the book of 1st Corinthians. There was some hard stuff. There was a lot of sexual immorality and other things going on there.

As I said, right off the bat, Paul gets into this issue that they are having with the church in Corinth. And you can see here, how does he refer to God? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies. Okay, so that is a part of comfort, right? The idea that God shows mercy to people.