When You’re Under Pressure, It’s Easy To Break

Where can we find hope? Godly repentance, that’s where. But how do we know what it is?

Is your To-Do list overwhelming? Do you feel constant pressure to perform-at home, at work, even in your downtime? Sometimes it can feel like you’re barely keeping up. Our culture pushes us to achieve, finish, and win-but what happens when it’s all too much? In 2 Corinthians, we meet someone who knew the pressure firsthand. The Apostle Paul faced expectations, criticism, and weakness-yet he discovered something surprising: God works powerfully not through our strengths, but through our weaknesses.

Transcript

So, we’re in a series about being under pressure. How do you know when you’re really under pressure? Uh, my body gives me some cues. I get like a twitchy eye. Anybody else twitchy eye? Or maybe you get that spot in your neck where you’re like, “Oh, yeah. I’m not really aware of how stressed I am until my body tells me.” Uh, also sometimes my words and or my tone gets out of control. Does anybody feel me on this? Uh, sometimes when you’re under a lot of control, you lose it. You snap or you break. Sometimes when we are under pressure, we fail. And that’s what we’re talking about today. But even in the midst of those failures, there is hope for us.

And in 2 Corinthians, the series that we’ve been in, we’re going to be in chapter 7. Apparently, something went down in Corinth. We’re not sure exactly what. And they were uh they were not responding well. Paul had written a letter to them so severe that he regretted it. Or maybe he didn’t. It’s a little confusing, but I think at the end he did regret it.

So, we’re going to be in 2 Corinthians chapter 7 starting at verse 8. If you have a Bible with you, you can open up. Otherwise, the words will be on the screen. Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, Paul writes, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it, I see my letter hurt you, but only for a little while. Yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended, and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance, and that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. But worldly sorrow, well, worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you. What earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point, you have proved yourself to be innocent in this matter.

So, do you see why it’s a little confusing whether Paul actually does regret it or not? He seems to say, “I don’t regret it.” Oh, maybe I do. And I think what he regrets is for hurting their feelings. Just a note of clarity when we read the Bible in this case we’re reading an actual letter. It’s literally a letter that a person wrote to a church. Paul, the writer of the letter and the church, neither are perfect. And even though we say scripture is the word of God in this mysterious way, it’s also an actual letter written by a human being, Paul, who is not perfect. Paul when he writes this letter, there are things that he did or didn’t do that aren’t always perfect. Corinth also not perfect. Clearly not perfect because the letter includes a lot of rebukes.

Have you ever said anything thinking believing you’re in the right, but maybe the way you said it wasn’t so great. I kind of think that that’s what’s happening with Paul here. They were hurt. But they didn’t just get hurt. They actually received the rebuke and did something different. They were sad. And it says they were sour sour sorrowful. And that sorrow is the same word in the New Testament that’s used for the night before Jesus died on the cross when the disciples were sad when they were grieving. This is the same word in Greek. It’s like a deep heaviness. It’s not just like, “Oh man, I’m sad San Antonio couldn’t extend the series longer.” That was a basketball reference. Or, “I’m sad that it rained the day of my party.” This is like deep grief.

This sorrow that those in Corinth felt, it led them to repentance. They had many other alternatives. They could have received this rebuke, gotten hurt, and canceled. Paul, I do not like how you said that to me. I am hurt. I am offended. You’re so close-minded. I feel like you’re judging me. Anyone? So often we can receive a rebuke and maybe it was done in a crappy way. But then for them to say what I can imagine happening in Corinth, man, Paul, chill out, Paul, that was hurtful. But then for them to pause and say, gosh, I wonder if God is actually trying to say something to me in the midst of this. And that’s what happened with those in Corinth. They chose repentance.

And that is what I want to suggest today is the good news for those of us who crack under pressure where there are hot messes everywhere we go because we are that hot mess. What is repentance? It’s kind of a Christiany word. We don’t maybe say that every day. Hey, did you repent this week? It’s not normally a normal word. It literally means in the Greek a changing of the mind or of your understanding. Sometimes also I’ve heard it talked about you’re going one direction and you change the direction that you’re headed. Paul under the pressure of needing to measure up to other pastors and leaders feeling actually rebuked by those in Corinth and then rebuking them because obviously they had done something wrong. He changes in the very letter we can see in this letter Paul saying ah maybe that last letter was a little severe. In this letter, he over and over and over and over and over and over and over again tries to remind those in Corinth that he loves them. He is gentle in this letter. He changes.

Paul actually says because of their repentance, he is happy not for hurting them. He’s happy for their sorrow because it leads to repentance. Also, it says in verse 9 that God intended that sorrow, that deep grief, that somehow God was glad for that. And then Paul sets up this contrast between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. You don’t have to follow Jesus to feel really crappy about stuff. Second time I use that word. You don’t have to be a Christian. You don’t even have to be spiritual to have deep grief because you did something wrong or because of what’s happening in the world.

I brought a dictionary today, a thesaurus of kinds. Uh Brené Brown became an ally of mine. I don’t know her personally, but I listened to her a ton during COVID. I learned from Brené Brown. She has spent over 25 years studying things related to vulnerability, but also shame. In this book, it’s basically a dictionary of emotions. It’s actually really helpful for those of us that feel like they don’t have time for emotions and they’re kind of messy and I’d rather just not think about them. So, I have this on my shelf. Okay. She categorizes emotions in different places. And chapter eight, number eight is the places we go when we fall short. And because so many images are copyrighted, everyone, and I don’t want to break any copyright rules and put them in my slideshow, I’m bringing a book with OG books. There is a dog. It has eaten the couch. And this poor puppy is so sad. The places we go when we fall short.

I’m going to suggest that worldly sorrow can lead to feelings of shame. Brené Brown would say, “Shame is thinking I am bad. The focus is me.” The result is feeling flawed or unworthy of love, unworthy of belonging or unworthy of connection. Now, if you heard Brian this morning say, “We exist to help connect you to Jesus and Jesus to your world. We want to make sure that no amount of shame or other worldly sorrow leads you to think that somehow you are unworthy of connecting with God. Guilt is a different emotion. Guilt is based on how I feel about what I did. Do you see that difference? Shame is like I stink. Guilt is what I just did was not right. Brené Brown says, “The focus is on behavior. Guilt is the discomfort we feel when we evaluate what we’ve done or failed to do against our values. It can drive positive change and behavior.”

Now, she also talks about humiliation and embarrassment, and I’m not going to go into that today, but it’s fascinating to me when I think about how those emotions can lead to only worldly sorrow and not necessarily repentance. Her definition of guilt, and I don’t know Brené personally, okay, I’m not like judging her, but this is what she says about guilt, okay? And listen with the ears of someone who teaches, reads, and wants to follow the Bible. We feel guilty when we hold up something we’ve done or failed to do against our values and find they don’t match up. It’s a psychologically uncomfortable feeling, but one that’s helpful. The discomfort of cognitive dissonance is what drives meaningful change. Shame, however, corrodes the very part of us that believes we can change and do better. It corrodes that part of us.

Now, I’m going to leap off Brené and say guilt can lead you to wanting to make change, but I’m here to tell you I am almost 50. I’ve been trying really hard to change some things and I just can’t. I am educated. I have a great structure at home. I have enough food in my belly. I get enough sleep. I have medicine. I have adequate health care and I can’t. Maybe you can. Maybe you have discipline. God bless you. I just there’s a few things right now I just can’t change. Guilt however I also think is one of those things God perhaps as we are created in God’s image when we have that gut check. I think that’s when God’s going. One of the things I teach my kids is how to listen to the voice of the spirit. And when they’ve done something wrong, I will say to them, “Do you feel something literally in your body right now?” Yeah. And I’ll say, “That could be the Holy Spirit. That’s the Holy Spirit talking to you, prompting you, reminding you that God has more for you.” That guilt can lead us to making changes.

Now, worldly sorrow, Paul says, leads to death and destruction. That shame of I’m not worthy. I’m disconnected and I’ll never get past this. You may not feel this in all areas of your life. Like, you might not just walk, you know, the road of shame in all areas, but maybe there are parts of your life that are sort of like that. Worldly sorrow leads to death. Godly sorrow, Paul says, leads to salvation. That word salvation literally means to rescue. I just read a story about a woman who for three days was stuck in the mud somewhere around Alexandria. She was not in the Boundary Waters. She was not in Congo where you could get stuck in the mud. She was around many, many people, but she was stuck in the mud. Two guys were out on their ATVs the other day and happened to come upon her. It took her 30 minutes to get out with help. She’d been there three days. Godly sorrow brings salvation. Someone who rescues you from that stuck place.

Specifically, Paul says, and this is a list, friends, godly sorrow is happening in those in Corinth. And it says earnestness. Earnestness. Earnestness in Greek is the word. Ready for this? This is why you came to church today. Spudday. Spudday. Like speedy. That’s what it means. It comes from the word meaning speed. Earnestness, quickly, an eagerness to clear oneself. The root of this word is where we get the word apology from. Or if you’ve ever heard of apologetics, people who are apologists want to create conversation and debate defending that Jesus is who he said he was. An earnestness, indignation, grief and displeasure, alarm, literal fear, phobos, where we get phobias from. It created in them a longing, a desire. Paul continues to say, “You had real concern, a zeal, excitement, and a fierceness.” I love the word fierce, by the way. And then lastly, a readiness to see justice done. The way I think about that like fruit basket of words is that those in Corinth somehow got over their hurt and then said, “We need to make a change and we need to do it yesterday. This is not okay.”

We’ve been in the series of second Corinthians and I don’t know how it’s been landing for you or maybe this is the first time you’ve been here today. We’ve talked about how Jesus is a suffering servant. And lots of times and in other places you can hear about how great it is once you come to Jesus. Um God’s a winner. Uh there’s a lot of like woohoo, we’re Christians and um power to us. And that is true because in the end Jesus is going to conquer all things, but the path to that is suffering on the cross. Brian preached about what do we smell like? What does our church smell like? Do we smell like grace and forgiveness? I talked about motivations a few weeks ago. Are we compelled by Christ’s love to talk about reconciliation, to talk about Jesus, to talk about the cross, the reality of judgment and the offering of good news and forgiveness and grace.

Perhaps you have had sorrow recently. Maybe it’s over telling your family that they needed to be there at 8 a.m. instead of 10:30 a.m. Yep, that was me yesterday. Meaning I woke up at 5. Felt really bad about that and I quickly tried to change and make uh make that right. Or maybe there’s something that has been happening for a while and it actually has led to a place of sorrow for you. Maybe it is needing to forgive someone. Maybe it’s just lacking motivation to do something that you’ve been called to.

Well, as you consider perhaps what God might be calling you to repent of today, I’m going to tell you a little story about a man named Calvin. Calvin was living a life of crime, crime, drugs, and violence, and really general debauchery. So bad I couldn’t even mention it in church because there are children who are part of this service. He was part of a gang in Long Beach. His mother was an avid churchgoer. Tried desperately to help him return to his church roots and singing at church, but instead he became a recording artist. Now, he eventually ditched his whole gangster lifestyle except he adopted a new persona. And the cleanest way I can describe this right now is that he organized women to visit men for money. Okay, so not a great trade-off, not a great repentance there.

Somehow this is not a joke. This character whose persona, lyrics, and lifestyle only suggested something crazy and not godly has now become an ambassador for the United States somehow. And as I researched this this week, I am still baffled as to how this came about. One of the things I will tell you is that he wrote a cookbook and then appeared with Martha Stewart about 10 years ago. The cookbook was called From Crook to Cook. Does anyone know who I’m talking about yet? Uh in 2018 he actually wrote a gospel album called the Bible of love and when he gives financial gifts he actually does not want it to be published because he doesn’t want other people to think it’s a publicity stunt. Now I’m going to give you the last hint and perhaps you will know who it is. He ran with the torch in the 2024 Olympics. Anyone know who I’m talking about? You can say it out loud. Snoop Dogg.

Now, he has this nickname either because he reminded his mother of Snoopy in the cartoon Peanuts or because he loved Snoopy so much. I never knew that. Snoop Dogg. Everyone, Snoop Dogg. If you grew up like I did in the 80s and 90s, Snoop Dogg, there is one thing we think of. Okay, now Snoop Dogg, my mom even likes him. How did this happen? How did Calvin C oh what’s his full name? Calvin Cordoza Brous Jr. who was on this path everyone become a torchbearer for the United States and my mom thinks he’s delightful on TV. Now you can do your research and there is actually some faith in this guy’s life, okay? Grew up in church. There is some evidence. I’m not here to judge him, okay? That’s not this that’s not what this is about. The point is that kind of radical change I don’t think is possible without Jesus. And even if Snoop Dogg doesn’t identify that it’s Jesus at work, I’m going to give God the credit. He’s also still married to his high school sweetheart. They divorced at one point, but then they got remarried. Just saying.

How do we know when we’re going the wrong way? How do we know if we’ve truly repented? Now, that’s like a literal. It still baffles you guys. But how would we know if Snoop Dogg even now is following Jesus versus not? How would you really know? I mean, some of those are pretty good. That’s pretty good fruit, right? But at the end of the day, it really is about you and Jesus. You can have accountability. You can talk with a therapist. At the end of the day, it is also us in community helping one another.

1 Corinthians 6 tells us, “For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. You are invited to have God be your God. To be aware because God’s walking with you whether you want him to or not. To be aware that God is walking with you. God then says in chapter 17, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.” Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you and I will be a father to you, God says, “And you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

No matter which direction you’re going today, you have a choice. It could be screwing up your schedule. I’m trying to do better with my calendar. It could be how I feel about a certain person. It could be a habit that you have. It could be a belief that you have. You have a choice. Either way, in Christ, we have hope. If I continue to screw up my calendar, which I’m sorry, honey, I’m probably going to keep doing, there is grace for me. And Jesus says, “I am enough for you.”

I’m going to invite the worship team to come forward. If you have kids in Sunday school, you can go bring them back in for continuing to worship. Jesus offers himself to reconcile us to the one we’ve sinned against. If the Holy Spirit’s at work in your gut today, calling you to something, I would love for you to reach out to someone. Maybe you have a small group that you’re in. Uh we’re going to have prayer ministers over here to the side. They’d love to pray with you and for you. If you’re online, same thing works for you. Go in the chat and leave a message or reach out to us.