Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes that Christ desires a relationship with His people rather than their possessions, drawing from Paul's heartfelt plea to the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians. Paul, distressed by their spiritual insensitivity and drifting from Christ, expresses his deep love and commitment to their spiritual well-being, urging them to return to the headship of Jesus. He highlights the importance of genuine ministry that seeks the hearts of believers rather than material gain. The sermon culminates in a call for self-examination and a return to faith, underscoring the need for unity and maturity in Christ. Ultimately, the message is a reminder of God's longing for His people to walk in truth and love.

2nd Corinthians. I so appreciate the Lord this morning because of His goodness and His grace and His mercy. And I am confident that this morning we have experienced in spirit what we're going to read in the Bible. There is something about the heart of God and the heart of Paul that wept, that was grieved, that was distressed, that was ever desirous to express itself. When in some way, in some form, in some subtle device, the church of God had somehow departed from the head Jesus Christ. There's nothing greater in the heart of God as far as that which brings joy than when His dear children walk in truth. John the Beloved said that in the second and third epistle, and I'm sure that John was sharing the very feeling of Christ Himself. Now we're going to be reading a portion of Scripture, and then we're going to take and share in communion and allow the Holy Spirit to continue to knit our hearts together to the Lord Jesus Christ and to one another in love. But in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12, beginning in verse number 11, I just want to give you a little bit of what Paul has just done. Paul had founded the church in Corinth and had done it through prayer and weeping and crying and preaching the gospel. And he had went to the area of Corinth and God sent him there, and there was a people that God had called out from the world, and there they experienced the glorious gift of salvation. They were very dear and near to Paul's heart. They were beloved in the Lord's eyes, they had experienced the wonders and glories of salvation. But the Apostle Paul could only stay for a certain amount of time, and then he had to move on as God stirred his heart. And as he moved on, he continued to preach the gospel, but from time to time he would receive word from either certain members that were in the church at Corinth or other visiting ministers who would go there and then speak to Paul. And at the present time in this epistle, 2nd Corinthians, Paul's heart is distressed, he is troubled, and he is very, very sorrowful, and it only revolves around one major purpose, and that's what we want to see this morning. Something was happening in the heart of the Corinth church that was tearing them away from Paul and from the Lord Jesus Christ. They had gotten off on some tangent, they had gotten under some so- used and made merchandise of, and somehow the subtle serpent, as he did Eve, was beginning to seduce their mind, and this broke Paul's heart. This broke Paul's heart to such a place where I believe he spent days and nights weeping over the church in Corinth, that it might get back to loving Jesus Christ. In the last few chapters, Paul just got done describing to the Corinthian church why they should listen to him. Now Paul was very grieved because Paul didn't want to have to boast about the things that God did in his life, but he had no choice because the Corinthians had become so carnal and so spiritually insensitive that they couldn't relate to anything but boasting and bragging. They were in the realm of men, so Paul said, all right, you've compelled me to be a fool. Now see, Paul would have preferred the Corinthians to be able to discern by the Spirit the genuinity of his ministry, the authenticity of it, and thereby their hearts would have responded, but they were so spiritually insensitive because they were departing from the head that he had to go and talk like a mere man. So he tried to convince the Corinthians that he was truly a messenger of Christ bringing the mind of God by telling the Corinthians all of the marvelous things that God had done for him. Visions, dreams, persecutions, caught up in the third heaven, and after he gets done mentioning this great list, communicating to them on a carnal level because they couldn't comprehend any other way, he picks up in verse number 11, 2nd Corinthians chapter 12, I am become a fool in glorying. You have compelled me. You see, the Corinthian church compelled Paul to speak like a fool because they weren't listening to the Holy Spirit. They weren't listening to the Lord. For I ought to have been commended of you. You see, Paul was saying instead of having to try and convince you, I should have been commended by you. Now remember, beloved, though we're talking about a man, yet who is speaking through the man? Can you see what's happening? Christ himself is trying to win back the Corinthian church. Paul often said, ye seek proof that Christ is speaking through me. It was Christ himself that was concerned over the church. For I ought to have been commended of you, for in nothing I am behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing. Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience and signs and wonders and mighty deeds. For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong. Now we're going to begin to really see the heart of God regarding the flock, and this is a perfect illustration of the heart of God regarding the church in this hour that we live in. Behold the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be burdensome to you, for I seek not yours but you. For the children ought not to lay up for their parents, but the parents for the children. Verse number 14 lays the absolute foundation, it sets the precedent. Paul is saying, listen you Corinthians, I or Jesus whom I preach is not after anything that you own, but I'm you. Paul said, I want you. Jesus is saying, I want you. The first true sign of a genuine word from the Lord by any so-called apostle or prophet, any so-called preacher or teacher, is an overwhelming zeal for the heart of God's people to be brought back to the headship of Jesus Christ. It's not what's in your pocketbook. It's not how you can help me build my ministry. Paul said, these false apostles that had come in since I left, they're not after your hearts for God, they're after your pocketbooks. They want to get rich off of you. They want you to become their servants. Earlier in this epistle, Paul said, they smack your face and you let them do it. It's what he said. Paul said, not so with me. I don't want what's yours, I want you. Isn't that good? Jesus wants you, beloved. He wants you, and I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. Here Paul makes it even clearer. Not only do I want you, but I'll do anything within my power and within God's grace to win you back to Jesus Christ. Paul said, I'll sacrifice and not take a penny from you if that's what it takes to bring your heart to Jesus Christ. But yet he says, the more I love you, the less you love me. But be it so, I did not burden you. Nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile. All Paul's talking about there, we're gonna go on, we just want to get through this introduction. All Paul is saying is, listen, I was crafty. I didn't take a penny from you so that you couldn't come and say, you robbed us, so therefore we have a right not to listen to you. Paul said, I was crafty. I knew the serpent was gonna come and sift you, Corinthians, so before I even got there, the Holy Ghost said, don't take a penny from him, so that when you leave and the devil comes and lies to him, they won't be able to say in order to believe the lie, well, he did take our money, so really we don't have to listen to him anymore. Isn't God wise? That's what the Lord, that's what Paul's saying here. I was crafty, I didn't take a penny from you, and I caught you. So you can't even say, Paul, we don't want to listen anymore because you robbed us. No, you can't even say that, Corinthians, because I never took a penny from you. See, God stripped the Corinthian church from all legitimate excuses, knowing that there would be a day when they would begin to question what they had experienced because of the subtlety of the serpent. That's all Paul's saying here. Did I make a gain of you by any of them whom I sent to you? I desired Titus, and with him I sent a brother. Did Titus make a gain of you? Walked not we in the same spirit? Walked not we in the same steps? Again, think ye that we excuse ourselves unto you? We speak before God in Christ, but we do all things dearly, beloved, for your edifying. For I fear, now here's the ultimate results, beloved, here's the ultimate results. Now remember, the heart of God, the heart of the always fear. Now this isn't the fear of torment, this is the fear of anguish. There's always fear when people start drifting from the head. For I fear, for I fear, lest when I come, here's what, here's the problem, I shall not find you as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not. Here's what Paul's saying. Whenever we somehow drift from communion with head, communion with the head, here's the dilemma. Christ isn't going to find us, the Word of God isn't going to find us the way it wants us, and sometimes we're not going to find it the way we'd like it. Now listen to what happens. Lest there be debates, envies, wrath, strife, backbiting, whispering, swelling, tumults, and lest when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall be well. Many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanliness, and fornication, and lasciviousness which they have committed. This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. I told you before, and foretell you as it were present the second time, and being absent, now I write to them which hereto have sinned, and to all other, that if I come again, I will not spare. Now beloved, Paul was not speaking as a carnal man here, with fleshly anger, but Paul was simply coming and saying, listen beloved, when I come to you, I cannot come in anything but the person of Jesus Christ, and if I come in the person of Jesus Christ, and things are not right, that person of Jesus Christ is going to have to set things in order, and there's going to be tears, there's going to be sorrow, there's going to be anguish. So Paul is basically saying, please get things in order before I get there, so that when I can get there, we can rejoice together instead of cry together. Paul didn't like to make people sad and unhappy, but he knew that it wasn't his doing. He said he was a bondservant of Jesus Christ. He didn't choose his own way. Now you see what the heart of Christ is? Christ longs for his people to stay under his headship in communion with him, so this doesn't have to resolve. Verse number three, since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to your is not weak, but is mighty in you. For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God towards you. Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know ye not that your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates. Now I pray to God that ye do no evil, not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates. For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. For we are glad when we are weak, and ye are strong. And this also we wish, even your perfection. Now what Paul's saying is this, we wish, that word perfection simply means the way to maturity. Paul's saying, listen, I wish, I wish that you will fix your eyes on Christ every single day of your life, so that by fixing your eyes upon Christ, you may continue on the way to perfection, continue on the way to maturity, continue on the way to spiritual adulthood. This is the burden of God in this hour that we live in. Verse 10, therefore I write these things being absent, less being present, I should use sharpness. Can you see the heart of God in this hour that we live in? Paul wanted things to be right, so he wouldn't have to use sharpness. You see beloved, there is a sharpness, there is a boldness that Christ has, but he only turns to that boldness when everything else fails. Paul knew the power, he knew the boldness, he knew the sharpness that God could give him, he knew how he could openly rebuke sin. Remember Paul looked at someone and said, thou child of the devil, you are full of iniquity. Now that was boldness, wasn't it? But he didn't want to do that. He wanted to be able to walk softly in the church and rejoice with the saints and walk with the saints. So see he's telling them, listen, find Jesus, less being present I should use sharpness according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification and not to destruction. Finally brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace and the God of love and grace or peace shall be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints salute you, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. I'm going to ask if brother Beach and brother Spenson would pass out the communion emblems and we'll share communion this morning. And as we do, may we think on these things and see that the very burden and heart of God for the Corinthian church was their perfection. You could pass it out. What is the Holy Spirit doing? You can continue to take the emblems and I just want to share, this puts on my heart, what is the Holy Spirit doing in our midst? He's putting the church back under the headship of Jesus Christ. Isn't it precious? Back under the true heart burden of Paul. You know, I often think what would Paul do if he came back in person and walked in the churches? See, we can see what he would do. The reflection of his own heart. He would bewail and weep. He would bewail and weep because of the abundance of stripes and envies and jealousies and whisperings and divisions and contentions. He would do as he did to the Corinthians. He would say, come on back to Jesus. Let's come to the altar. And this is what God is doing every service we come here. Not just here, he's doing it all over. Wherever he can find people though that are willing to do it his way. See, so we ought to be so thankful before God that he is establishing us once again in the Holy Faith under the headship of Christ, filling us with love one for another. Amen. Does anyone have anything they want to share from the Lord before we partake of communion? Anything at all? Anything welling up in your heart? Debbie, go ahead.