There are sorrows that are brought on by lawlessness and law. But God speaks to us deeply and confronts the disorder of our lives. There’s sorrow that makes us right in repentance and sparks us to follow hard after the Lord. (2 Corinthians 7:9-11)

Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller
Sermon 11839
6:30 PM on 2/16/2020

P. Schaller –

I have an introductory word for you to think about and in your seat do a little study on it, maybe even
with a telephone. Here is the word: lawlessness. Do you feel the world we live in is more
lawless than it was 10 years ago? Lawlessness. Where is that coming from? And what is
lawlessness in our Bible? Are we living in a world where people are moving away from law and
talking about what they deserve, who they are, that they have been a victim and deserve
something?

Are we moving more in a subjective direction and calling the shots on our own and
not based on law? 2 Timothy 3 the description of life at the end times, last days, perilous times will
come. Is there such a thing as lawlessness? Judges 4:24-25 they did what was right in their own
eyes. This morning we used that as part of our message. Isn’t that a great starting point? There
is a lot of joy and liberty and freedom here tonight.

We could have an old fashioned breakdown. Maybe our spiritual hunger and anointing and blessing comes from telling the truth. What about that? Maybe Jesus wasn’t so much into entertaining people as he was
revealing the Father’s mind and heart. We are looking for a weighty message, where we would
like to know where is lawlessness written in our New Testament. What is the meaning of it? Is it
happening? Have you met anyone who would rather follow their own heart and mind and not
care about the law.

Evading it. Civil law. Moral law. Old fashioned. Adultery. “Don’t you know
the age we are living in? I’m not interested in that.” Is any of this on the increase? Is there an
increase of lawlessness? I don’t know how you’re going to do it. Get on our phone, go to your
concordance, talk to your neighbor. Does anyone know what we are talking about? Do we have
any volunteers who can do a quick testimony from your seat on the Marriage Getaway? Anyone
want to say something that went and build us up?

Would the survivors of the Marriage Getaway raise their hands! Kathy Caron is asking, I didn’t go, but why did men have bags over their heads? Rene, thanks for the song. God bless you. You are more than a Pharisee! In our
Easter play, he has been the Pharisee, but he is a singer also. Kathy saw on Facebook men with
paper bags on their heads. The short answer was it was a game where the ladies were in the
room, the men left and put bags on their heads with a little window, and the women were to
leave the room and go find their husband and go from meeting them to a certain specified
location.

There was first, second, third places. The idea was the woman wouldn’t be able to
identify the man without seeing their face, but we found they could do it anyway by their shoes
and body size and many other things. Anyone want to raise their hand? Testimony? P. Steve
Paragello: I thought it was great. My wife couldn’t make it. She’s been sick and it’s been a
challenge. Sometimes we get this whisper that everyone is old and there’s not enough young
couples, but they were wonderfully represented, and we had a good time with them.

The young people in our church are doing great and I’m proud of them. God bless them. There was a lot of
them, and they blessed us. How many of you feel there is not a generation gap in our church?
All the young people are not raising their hands! Apparently there is! In reality, as you know in
the Lord, remember what Paul said. It really is true that we are in a mystery and we lose sight of
things that other people really focus on. We lose sight of it because we are just in a spiritual
mind and God uses young people.

Timothy don’t let anybody despise your youth. Elihu was the youngest of Job’s four friends. You have differences in economic backgrounds and education. Someone in the military and someone not. Someone is a missionary and someone is not. Someone is old and someone is not. Someone is black and someone is white. Someone is from
Asia. Very important what we talk about. Human beings are good at finding differences and
building a camp around them. The Spirit of God leads and moves us and gives us gifts and
shows us another way, the mystery of Christ.

None of the writers wrote about Jesus in terms of his physical appearance. What color was his hair or eyes or how much did he weigh? Some of these things people would focus on. We know no man after the flesh, not even Christ. When I was in a foreign country at different times in my life, I made a point to say when we were on a
team it’s not about the Americans and the Fins. It’s about Christ. In Hungary, it’s not about the
Hungarians or Americans. It’s about God and what God is saying. When we did our translation
work and I’d ask a Hungarian in fellowship, I know you know Hungarian and English.

Which language do you listen to when you do the preaching? They almost always said I don’t know. I
just hear the message. I speak to a Hungarian who only speaks Hungarian and they are like
saying they are hearing something and that’s the important thing. Not the language but what
the Spirit is saying. In our church, I don’t care about a generation gap. There might be but the
Spirit of God fills us, and gaps are filled by the Spirit of God. I think the older people should
hang out with the young because they benefit and the older benefit from the younger. You
know how it goes.

I highly discourage pastors from making the difference. Go out and reach
young people. Pray for the young people. Get a youth pastor. Invest your money in a youth
pastor and get young people coming. Get the word of God and saving people and building them
up. Very important, isn’t it? Let’s go to our message. We shared it this morning. I had another
one for tonight. I think we will do that one too. The sorrow of the world is different from the
sorrow that comes from God. 2 Corinthians 7:9, Let’s put down the word “sorrow.” He said I rejoiced
that you sorrowed.

I was happy about the fact that you sorrowed. The church oftentimes
doesn’t want people to be sorry. We want the church to be happy. Paul was saying I was very
glad you had sorrow. Many of you are from P. Steven’s era. And again there is an old man
talking about the old days. We understood that the ministry was not fabricated to produce a
certain effect, but the ministry was that we were seeking God in prayer and worship and truth.
If God gives us something that makes people sad, maybe that is a good thing.

If I would go out of the assembly hall and be under some kind of conviction, then I have met God and he
corrected me. I am sorry in a good way. This is the theme here. Sorrow that is good. Sorrow
that is healthy. Any of you had a good cry lately? Isn’t that a good statement. No, that’s a bad
thing to be sad and crying. No, that’s a bad thing. Wait a minute. Have you actually had a good
cry where it kind of cleansed you and worked in you? It was real. Somehow reality spoke to
you. What does that mean? I don’t know. I’m wondering.

Reality. How sad would life be if I lived in God’s reality. Jesus is called a man of sorrows because he lived in God’s reality. When he lived in God’s reality, he was affected by it. Oh no. Oh, no. Does this mean that the church in
Laodicea that Jesus Christ speaks to is rich and wealthy and happy and well dressed and
everything about it is polished and shiny. They’re having a good time, and everything is rolling,
and the speaker is charismatic and dynamic, but I don’t know where to find the gospel of
Matthew in my Bible.

I would never go there if it made me sad. If listening would affect me and make me a sad person. I wouldn’t go to a church like that. I think you would. I think you would. You would go to a church like that. You are looking for a church like that. I got very blessed this morning by a woman who is starting to come here. How many know the Bible by Eugene Peterson, The Message? How many read his books? He was a pastor in Belair, Maryland. He
was an amazing scholar and spiritual man. This woman said I was in his congregation. I think
she said 15 years and she said I’m coming here.

I feel the same thing. But it’s a lot bigger. His philosophy was only to the degree that he could know he names of people. He only knew 300 by name so that’s as far as it would go. This woman is also serious about God and so are you. And so am I. When we teach about hell, and we believe in hell and think about hell and we
think about people and we think about God and his plan, – the whole subject of hell is out of my
reach. It’s way beyond my capacity. I shudder when I think about it. I’m so glad I can’t see it
tonight. I know it would crush me somehow.

I believe that’s why God hasn’t shown it to us. It also makes me serious. Christ was serious. You might say this is too heavy for me. I know. Me too. I can’t handle it. I believe that you and I are made for this. We are built for God and God is so kind, so loving and so caring. God is so wise. God does everything perfectly and you can
handle it. Don’t let our culture determine for you your world. Let God determine for you your
world. We only have 70 or 80 years. It’s not a long time. Sorrow when it comes from God is a
blessing to us. Read vs. 9.

I wouldn’t want you to be in a state of “sorryiness” but would like the
sorrow to work in your life and bring you to a change of mind. I would like the seriousness of
what God is saying to affect your life in your bones, in your spirit. The psalmist said none of
your bones is broken and also our bones are made fat. Jesus’ spiritual life being his bones and
none of his spiritual life was broken. Using that term as a descriptive term for our new life. Our
bones are not broken either.

Our bones are healthy with God, fat, made by God and our bones
have some sorrow that work from God in reality and truth. Vs. 9. I love it when people can be
sorry and snap out of it. They can be sad but it’s not soulish. It’s spiritual. They can weep and be
broken and get up and have a good time with a group of kids and play with the dog and roll
around on the floor. They are not heavy. They are light. When God is serious about what he
wants to say to us, we take it that way and move on…. vs. 10. The sorrow of the world. This
morning we had a profound message.

We said there’s three kinds of people in the world. The first one is this one who lives without law. He is lawless. He says I can believe in anything I want to. I can do anything I want to. You can’t tell me. It’s also high philosophical thinking that objective truth doesn’t exist. There is no such thing as absolute truth or dogma. There are no
Ten Commandments that mean anything to me. I do as a please. I’m street smart. I saw a
program about the little boys being murdered on the streets of Baltimore…. traumatized
families…13, 17, 15 years old.

The mothers were weeping and broken. They said they never
found the murderer. Nobody in the neighborhood reported anyone. $4000 reward on the
murder of a 15-year-old and nobody is talking. Why? They don’t want to get murdered. They
don’t want to get murdered. I got information about a murder, but I can’t bring it to the police
because I’m afraid I’ll get murdered.

Do you know what that is called? Lawlessness. He’s untouched. He got away with murder. He got away with it. He is a murdered sitting in his mother’s house. And his mother doesn’t know, or she does know. Nobody knows. The police don’t know. The government doesn’t know. Who knows? Terrible. Horrible. City of Baltimore.
Horrible. Lawlessness. When I was watching that with my wife and talking and thinking about it,
they were saying what is the answer. What can we do? They are working on it. 2) Law abiding.
He lives by law. He looks for law. He looks for it. Looks for the rules and regulations. Who is the
head of the school? Where is the security guard?

He looks for order. Goes to the library and what is the rules about taking out books and returning them. What do we think about littering? We don’t litter because we live by law. We don’t hurt people. We live by law and order. But the
sorrow in the world is this kind of sorrow. It’s the sorrow that comes from both of these: law
and lawlessness. Why does sorrow come from law? Because of guilt. It’s not the purpose of the
law. It’s to have law and order and civilized life. If we stopped here, we’d say that’s all we got.
Law and lawlessness as our choice. We go back and forth between the two. On Monday
morning, we live by law and Friday night we are lawless.

Jesus came and gave us another way. It’s called God. Amazing. God. Keep your heart right before God. Law can’t touch where God touches. Law is important and part of life, but I need something more than law. I need God to
touch me and give me a new birth and fill me with the Spirit and show me wonderful things out
of his Word. People that know the Bible only by law and sorrow. Their religion is a religion of
sorrow, of law and they live by law but not by God. When Jesus was here, his hardest group of
people were the law-abiding citizens of the Pharisees and Judea.

They tried to catch him by the law. This is why we are different because of the new birth and the Spirit of God, the mind of God, the authority of God, the kindness of God, the meekness of God. We thought of Pharaoh
and Moses this morning. When Moses went before Pharaoh, there were 9 or ten times. Nine I
think and then Moses said you won’t see me again, my last time here. That night, the newborn
babies…. every newborn thing died that night. Moses said you’re not going to see me again.
When you are born again, you have an authority in your life you never had before.

You have an authority before Pharaoh. We are enjoying it in our spirit that God is with us in our spirit, in our
hearts. This is what Paul is saying. I know when I visited you, I corrected you and you were
made sorry but it’s a good sorrow. It’s not a worldly sorrow but a sorrow that affects you in a
spiritual way. It’s cathartic, cleansing. Like being in the presence of God. I had a drug addict,
brother who was living over here. He told me the story when he was being cleansed. He prayed
and mucus was running out of his nose for three or four hours.

He was on his knees crying and blowing his nose and he said I felt God healing me and cleansing me. He said it went on all afternoon. He was weeping and blowing his nose and felt there is something going on. When
we talk about our mission, we’re not talking about something on the second level. When we
talk about our mission, it is a mystery. P. Steve said something about our generation gap – I’m
not picking on you. It was perfect. We all understand that. This is more. A young man says… five
years or 50,000 years I have been here.

Not literally. I’m part of the furniture. God is moving in my life. I bought a new Bible. I don’t know what God has for me but there is something going on. That’s what we are all looking for. The sorrow that affects me and the joy that affects me, the righteousness that affects us. Yes. Go back to this verse with me, vs. 10. 2 Corinthians 7:10. Ever
seen Judas Iscariot in Mt. 27 in your mind’s eye as he realizes he betrayed innocent blood as he
lost in the game called life. Every seen someone weeping and crying for the mess of their life? Godly sorrow in the world works death. It’s when I’m afraid of my life being meaningless. That
should be part of our message that it is meaningless.

That’s what brings us to the end of ourselves. We lift up our eyes and say, God is there anything more? Who are you? I seek you. Vs. 11. There are seven words. This is kind of what I am looking for in my heart these days.
When I would feel in my heart this incredible desire, this amazing desire for God, for truth. I
can’t talk about it. I can’t hang out with people too much. We talk about things and it’s good
and enough. It’s edifying and precious to me.

Even the smallest word of encouragement and edification. Then there are those times I’m looking for God, hungry for God like the deer pants after the water brook. No Ferris wheel great enough, no vacation good enough, no dinner at the Inner Harbor. There is nothing I can find in this world. This is what happened to you when
you realized, when the ministry came to you and you got up off your seat and you started to
move in faith. Don’t settle for the stuff back here. Let godly sorrow work in you this direction.
Don’t settle in the past in what you accomplished in the status quo in who you are.

We got God who might say to you, go to Egypt. It’s the last place in the world I’d want to go Moses would
say. I’ll be in Egypt and you go, I’ll be with you. That’s exciting. Many people here in our church
are raising families and doing amazing jobs. I realize how much I need to say to these moms and
dads congratulations. You are excellent people. Highly committed people. Extraordinary
people. I saw at the Marriage Getaway more than a hundred of them. They are just amazing. I
want to say that. Yet I have it in my heart to say this tonight.

Wherever God puts me, a glass of water, there you go and laugh. Go nuts in life. Walk with God and go nuts in life. Go nuts. What are you doing? I’m going for it. I have this attitude. I want to rejoice a lot, be thankful a lot, live
in faith, believe God for everything, pray up a storm, move a mountain, find things out of this
book, live in preparation for meeting God one day and take people from hell to heaven and
darkness to light. I want to go nuts in this world with God. I think God is a little bit nuts! I do.
He’s way out there.

Believe me. If he would use a person like you and me, he must be crazy!
He’s walking on water, raising the dead, came here, went into hell, got it down. He’s at the right
hand. He said go ye into all the world. Who are you talking to? I’m talking to you. Thank you,
Lord. We’ll have sorrow but not a worldly sorrow. We won’t be crying in our beer tonight. We
don’t have any beer. We will be by his grace. We will be having a good time. Yes. That’s it.

Amen.

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