SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Crazy Absolutely Howard.
SPEAKER_01: And then later recolonized by Caesar with a whole bunch of people belonging to the freedmen class, or ex-slaves, former slaves, pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps.
SPEAKER_01: Corinth was eventually dominated by these competitive and self-made businessmen who at times seemed to possess this sort of insecurity about their status and their wealth and their riches because they weren't really of noble descent.
SPEAKER_01: They were pretending.
SPEAKER_01: It's like the difference between new money and old money, right?
SPEAKER_01: You've heard it said that money talks, but wealth whispers.
SPEAKER_01: The Corinthians were screaming at the top of their lungs all the time.
SPEAKER_01: And in Corinth, there was money to earn, status to buy, and power to fight over.
SPEAKER_01: It was like Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and Washington, D.C., all rolled into one.
SPEAKER_01: Our social media age is not the first one to prioritize building your brand, expanding your platform, getting your name out there.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing new under the sun here.
SPEAKER_01: But from that perspective, that worldview, the Corinthian church struggled to make sense of the Apostle Paul's ministry.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's explaining it to them in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 through chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor Jason showed us last week how Paul's ministry among the Corinthians was of a greater glory than even Moses' glory on Sinai.
SPEAKER_01: A glory which we can see in the transformed lives of men and women who believe in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's last week in chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: This week in chapter 4, Paul explains how we display God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: And he says in verse 1 and in verse 16 of 2 Corinthians chapter 4, so we don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_01: Look at your Bibles with me now.
SPEAKER_01: So we don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Well now I'm all over the place.
SPEAKER_01: Here's my main point, guys.
SPEAKER_01: Christians, by their ministry, display God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: And here's my outline.
SPEAKER_01: Christian ministry displays God's glory by the proclamation, imitation, and anticipation of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: You must be lost.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 1, Paul connects that ministry that displays the glory of God back to the ministry he's received by God's mercy and says that he doesn't lose heart because his ministry that displays God's glory is of a greater glory than the old glory of Moses and the law.
SPEAKER_01: And we shouldn't lose heart either.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look at verse 2 through 6 and the proclamation of God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: Paul writes, We've renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.
SPEAKER_01: We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but instead, by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's adding detail here to what he said back at the end of chapter 2, verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: We're not like so many peddlers of God's word, he writes.
SPEAKER_01: But as men of sincerity, commissioned by God in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And here in chapter 4, Paul explains that those peddlers he's talking about, they practice disgraceful and underhanded ways.
SPEAKER_01: We might call them shameful and sneaky deeds, ministry practices that if they were found out, they would discredit the ministry as a whole.
SPEAKER_01: But it's not just a general attack on a lack of integrity.
SPEAKER_01: It's more specific than that.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying that Christian ministry rejects a particular kind of underhandedness.
SPEAKER_01: Namely, it's right there, we refuse to practice coming or to tamper with God's words.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the picture.
SPEAKER_01: That's the ministry that a God-glorifying ministry rejects at all costs.
SPEAKER_01: Tampering with God's words, peddling God's words, walking in craftiness and trickery as it concerns the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's fair to say that trying to improve upon the scriptures by dressing them up or hiding the problem passages because we think people will stop coming to our church or stop thinking we're good co-workers or stop wanting to whatever if they knew.
SPEAKER_01: Or they'd stop believing the same things we believe if they knew.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says we don't go there.
SPEAKER_01: And this shouldn't be new to the Corinthian church.
SPEAKER_01: Paul told them in 1 Corinthians not to go beyond what is written.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's where arrogant boasting leads to and comes from, he says.
SPEAKER_01: Even Moses and the old ministry that's passing away said, Everything that I command you shall be careful to do.
SPEAKER_01: You shall not add to it or take from it.
SPEAKER_01: Back in Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_01: So how much more should the ministry of the Spirit stay within the bounds of the narrow way?
SPEAKER_01: That's the picture.
SPEAKER_01: Christian ministry, genuine Christian ministry, displays God's glory by proclaiming it as it is.
SPEAKER_01: Paul will have none of giving in to overstatement or understatement and tampering with God's word by making it say more or less than it really does.
SPEAKER_01: Paul calls that giving up.
SPEAKER_01: Calls that giving in, losing heart.
SPEAKER_01: Real ministry doesn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: So say it plainly.
SPEAKER_01: By the open statement of the truth, say it simply.
SPEAKER_01: And in that way our consciences can remain clear in the sight of God that we've deceived no one.
SPEAKER_01: But even if we proclaim God's glory that simply as a display of God's glory, they don't all believe, do they?
SPEAKER_01: In verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: I love how Paul says, even if, even if our gospel is veiled, even if they don't believe, even if their minds are blinded, and some are, right?
SPEAKER_01: Even then Paul won't lose heart and Paul won't tamper with God's word.
SPEAKER_01: His ministry will continue to display God's glory by proclaiming God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we have to measure our ministry success, whether or not we're doing a good job, on how faithful we are to the text, not on how many people show up to hear it.
SPEAKER_01: And this is where Paul starts to look crazy.
SPEAKER_01: Just like Noah to the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_01: He just keeps teaching the same way, he keeps ministering the same way.
SPEAKER_01: Even when people start to laugh at him, he keeps going.
SPEAKER_01: Even when the Corinthian elite get bored and move on to the next fad of religiosity.
SPEAKER_01: Paul just keeps preaching.
SPEAKER_01: And so will we.
SPEAKER_01: So must we.
SPEAKER_01: We have to keep on preaching the same gospel.
SPEAKER_01: No matter how they respond.
SPEAKER_01: There's some interesting theology in that verse, though, isn't there?
SPEAKER_01: The veiling, Paul writes of that keeps unbelievers from seeing Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He's referring back to chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: To the veil that Moses wore to keep Israel from seeing God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: From the veil that now lies over the Jewish nation's hearts, whenever the old covenant in verse 14, which is the word of God and the law of Moses in verse 16, a veil lies over their hearts because their minds are hardened.
SPEAKER_01: But in this verse, Paul isn't talking about the Jewish people specifically anymore, is he?
SPEAKER_01: No, he's talking about those who are perishing.
SPEAKER_01: Back from chapter 2, verse 15.
SPEAKER_01: And the gospel, he says, is veiled to all who reject the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul's comment here about the blinded minds of unbelievers applies to both Jews and Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: The Jews specifically were hardened in their hearts by the law, and in that way their minds were blinded by Satan, the God of this world.
SPEAKER_01: But, as we know all too well, Satan has many ways to blind Gentile minds like ours, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_01: And because their minds are blinded, they cannot see the light of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And in Romans 11, Paul teaches us that it was God, God, and not Satan, who gave the Jews up to blindness so that they could not see the light of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: So therefore, in our text here in chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians, we have to assume that Paul must understand this blinding of the mind as a judgment from God, giving them over.
SPEAKER_01: Sound familiar?
SPEAKER_01: It's Romans 1.
SPEAKER_01: Giving them over to Satan's blinding lies to keep them from seeing.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: Those who are perishing cannot see because God has allowed Satan to blind the unbelievers.
SPEAKER_01: And even still, Paul will keep on proclaiming the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: But the hard question is what came first, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: The unbelief?
SPEAKER_01: Or the blinded minds?
SPEAKER_01: What came first?
SPEAKER_01: Surely they feed off of each other, right?
SPEAKER_01: We all see that.
SPEAKER_01: A blinded mind can't believe and it becomes blinder still because it doesn't believe, and so its unbelief continues and gets blinder and blinder and believes less and less in this downward spiral of hard-hearted, unbelieving blindness.
SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: But is it the chicken or the egg?
SPEAKER_01: Satan's blinding or man's unbelief?
SPEAKER_01: Did Eve doubt before Satan whispered?
SPEAKER_01: Did Adam?
SPEAKER_01: I want to present to you today that this text doesn't say.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say.
SPEAKER_01: I think you can apply this verse, therefore, to either the more Calvinistic perspective or the more Arminian perspective.
SPEAKER_01: Either way.
SPEAKER_01: And frankly, I think you can be a Calvinist or an Arminian and choose either interpretation because this text fits in both of them.
SPEAKER_01: Greek scholar Murray Harris, he prefers to say, prefers to say that the blinding came after the unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: But he nonetheless argues that the text does not make the relationship between the blinding and the unbelief explicit.
SPEAKER_01: It's not there.
SPEAKER_01: And that, the reason I tell you that, that, my friends, is the best illustration I could find all week to demonstrate for you what it looks like to refuse to tamper with God's word.
SPEAKER_01: The open statement of the truth is simply that Paul did not make it clear in this text which came first, the chicken of unbelief or the egg of blinding.
SPEAKER_01: And that means, if I could put the pointy end of the stick forward this time, that means that arguing from this verse that either a Calvinistic perspective or an Arminian one is incumbent upon all believers is exactly the sort of going beyond what is written that Paul will have none of in this text.
SPEAKER_01: So say it plainly.
SPEAKER_01: Say it simply.
SPEAKER_01: Guard your tongues from going too far.
SPEAKER_01: It's easy to do.
SPEAKER_01: We've all done it.
SPEAKER_01: But either way, either way you take it.
SPEAKER_01: The glory of Jesus Christ, who is the image of God.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ is the radiance and the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul's saying by image of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so the gospel message, look at verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel message is the good news, the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ, who is the image of God, the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: So we put it together, it moves fast.
SPEAKER_01: Once you see it, we have this ministry by the mercy of God, a ministry more glorious than Moses'.
SPEAKER_01: And our ministry displays the glory of God by proclaiming the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: And who then is the glory of God?
SPEAKER_01: It's Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It is his glory unveiled that opens hearts and unveils minds.
SPEAKER_01: Why would we proclaim anything other than Jesus, the man born in Nazareth, to save his people from their sins?
SPEAKER_01: The Christ, the long-awaited Messiah and anointed servant of God, as Lord, King, sovereign monarch of everything, whose power and dominion commands and demands all allegiance, all obedience, and all love from all of you, and from everyone, the world over.
SPEAKER_01: What else is there to proclaim?
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus Christ and his Lordship.
SPEAKER_01: Certainly not us, right?
SPEAKER_01: Certainly not ourselves, certainly not our accomplishments, certainly not our wisdom, our insight, our riches, our ministry success, our faithful obedience, our theological precision, our platform, our boldness, our compassion.
SPEAKER_01: I could go on.
SPEAKER_01: It's a warning, I'm going to.
SPEAKER_01: Not how many meals you serve to the hungry, not how many gospel tracts you hand out, not how many people were baptized or trained to read Greek, no matter how obedient our children, how pure our homeschooling, or how winsome our public schooling, none of it.
SPEAKER_01: It's all rubbish and dumb compared to the surpassing worth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And so, whatever this church is known for, whatever this ministry is known for, may it be that above all else.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever you are known for, may it be Him and not ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Notice though, friends, whether you take verses 4, verse 4 is blindness and unbelief as a Calvinist or an Armenian.
SPEAKER_01: By verse 6, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God and the face of Jesus Christ is shown into our hearts by God.
SPEAKER_01: And therefore, any perspective, call it what you want, any perspective that robs God of glory by denying him the initiative, the efficacy, or the glory of saving souls, by insisting upon any kind of human work over and against the sovereign free action of God who gives the knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Any position that does that is therefore unbiblical.
SPEAKER_01: Whether Satan blinds believers so they can't believe, or Satan blinds them because they don't believe, it is God.
SPEAKER_01: It's God, it is God who saves.
SPEAKER_01: And God alone.
SPEAKER_01: Charles Wesley, you know him, an avowed Arminian, taught all of us to sing this.
SPEAKER_01: Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin, and nature's night, that is the darkness of evening, nature's night.
SPEAKER_01: But thine eye diffused, shone forth, as a glass diffuses light.
SPEAKER_01: So God's eye diffused a quickening ray, a life-giving ray, as in the quick and the dead.
SPEAKER_01: God's eye diffused a life-giving ray.
SPEAKER_01: I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: God, who said, Let the light shine out of the darkness.
SPEAKER_01: Let light shine out of darkness.
SPEAKER_01: That's creation.
SPEAKER_01: He did that all by himself, too.
SPEAKER_01: God has shone into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Call yourself an Arminian or a Calvinist, however it pleases you.
SPEAKER_01: Either way, it was God who sent the life-giving light into your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Where then is boasting?
SPEAKER_01: It's excluded.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Why does our ministry display God's glory as we proclaim the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because this ministry we have is not about us.
SPEAKER_01: It's all about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: All about his salvation, which includes his lordship over all things.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul says, preach it that way, and you preach the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so we display God's glory by the simple, humble, and plain proclamation of the truth of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Rather than in cunning speech or slippery, self-serving wisdom, declare Jesus Christ and not yourself, and hold forth the glory of the heavens in the face of Jesus Christ for all to see.
SPEAKER_01: Christian ministry displays God's glory by proclaiming the glory of God, which is Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And that's an amazing thing to display.
SPEAKER_01: An incredible thing that you and I get to shine forth such glory.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says in verse 7 that even though this ministry we have is so glorious, it nonetheless we have this magnificent treasure in clay jars.
SPEAKER_01: Even though we hold forth the pearl of great price, we carry it around in basic earthenware vessels.
SPEAKER_01: Like a sports car under a tarp in a dilapidated barn.
SPEAKER_01: We all have the stars of heaven hidden in our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed.
SPEAKER_01: Perplexed but not driven to despair.
SPEAKER_01: Persecuted but not forsaken.
SPEAKER_01: Struck down but not destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: We can better understand what Paul's getting at with this list when we see what the Corinthian complaint is against Paul, or at least part of it.
SPEAKER_01: Back in 1 Corinthians, Paul defends his decision not to receive financial support from the Corinthians, even though he had the right to.
SPEAKER_01: He says this if we've sown spiritual things among you, Corinthians, is it too much if we reap material things from you?
SPEAKER_01: If others share this rightful claim on you to reap material things, money, do we not even more?
SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless, we've not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul explains he didn't accept support from the Corinthian churches because he refused to be a burden to them.
SPEAKER_01: Even while at the same time he accepted payment from the church down the road in Macedonia.
SPEAKER_01: And then in chapter 12, 13, he asks the Corinthians again, for in what were you less favored than the other churches, except that I myself did not burden you?
SPEAKER_01: And so we have this picture of a Corinthian church that's troubled by the fact that Paul won't take their money.
SPEAKER_01: It's probably complicated.
SPEAKER_01: Some of them might accuse him of being a mooch if he did accept their funds, and others at the same time would be offended if he did, or that he won't.
SPEAKER_01: We don't really know.
SPEAKER_01: But I think there's something to learn from the pompous culture of Corinth that we saw earlier, and Paul's statement that accepting funds would put an obstacle in the way of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Because no city was ever so self-focused on self-promotion as Corinth was.
SPEAKER_01: And then, one day, here comes Paul, not the most spectacular public speaker, experiencing affliction and perplexity, persecution, getting struck down.
SPEAKER_01: He's in a city dominated by people who have become wealthy merchants by their own bootstraps, and Paul is selling tents.
SPEAKER_01: It's embarrassing.
SPEAKER_01: It makes the Christians in Corinth who follow him look, you know, poor.
SPEAKER_01: That's part of the picture, at least.
SPEAKER_01: They hated this idea of their leader who didn't have his life together.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, guys, would we ever hire a pastor who was a homeless man?
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't seem out to he doesn't seem to know how to manage his own household very well, does he?
SPEAKER_01: But then, well, would you hire Jesus as your pastor?
SPEAKER_01: He was homeless.
SPEAKER_01: And that uncomfortable thing that we're all feeling right now is at least part of Paul's point in the next three verses, I think.
SPEAKER_01: His suffering.
SPEAKER_01: His insistence upon going about like a cheap, disposable clay jar, was troubling to the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to have this great and glorious ministry, they would say.
SPEAKER_01: So shouldn't our apostle, our pastor, the guy we tell our neighbors, is our leader?
SPEAKER_01: Well, unless you're one of those Corinthians who follows Apollos instead of Pastor Jason.
SPEAKER_01: I mean Paul.
SPEAKER_01: He's not an apostle, but he is a pastor, right?
SPEAKER_01: Bear with me.
SPEAKER_01: They think, shouldn't our leader also look great and glorious too?
SPEAKER_01: Why would anybody want to become a Christian like us if they have to work a manual labor job, like making tents or get made fun of for their beliefs or experience persecution and violence and get shot at from the shadows?
SPEAKER_01: If Charlie Kirk gets assassinated, why would anybody decide to take a stand against sin in the public square?
SPEAKER_01: We can't say for sure a lot of things yet.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think we really know what motivated the shooter.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm bad at reading the news.
SPEAKER_01: Many of you are better at it than me.
SPEAKER_01: But I think the illustration still holds up, don't you?
SPEAKER_01: But here, I'll let me take the current events out of it.
SPEAKER_01: If Christians have to sell all they have and give it to the poor, then the rich young ruler says, no, thank you, right?
SPEAKER_01: And the Corinthians really want that guy to come to their church.
SPEAKER_01: He's cool.
SPEAKER_01: So lighten up, Paul.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: But Paul's response is a Christian ministry displays God's glory by imitating God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: When we suffer for the gospel, when we clearly value the things of God instead of the things of earth, when we risk violence or persecution for the sake of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, well then that's when you look the most like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The word there is necrosis.
SPEAKER_01: Always carrying in the body the deadness of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Carrying about the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be displayed.
SPEAKER_01: As the CSB translates it.
SPEAKER_01: Our translation says manifested.
SPEAKER_01: The life of Jesus may be displayed.
SPEAKER_01: Our sufferings, our deadness, our humiliation displays the life of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Because Christ's death, which our suffering reflects, Christ's death implies, entails, his resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: And so our suffering displays his eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: You can't look at the cross and forget the empty tomb.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul says you'd have to be blind not to see the same pattern in his ministry.
SPEAKER_01: So why, Christians, do we ever delude ourselves by thinking that following a homeless, betrayed, crucified Messiah would result in a happy, healthy, wealthy life.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: No, if you want to look like Jesus, you do it by being so committed to the proclamation of God's glory as he was.
SPEAKER_01: So committed that your whole life is given over to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: That commitment led Paul to a working man's ministry in a city that demeaned him for it.
SPEAKER_01: Counterintuitive, right?
SPEAKER_01: But in that way, Paul decided to know nothing among them but Jesus Christ and him crucified, and he did that in the hopes that their faith might not rest in the wisdom, the power, the self-glorifyingness, the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: But Webb, I say to myself, we're not supposed to become hermits, right?
SPEAKER_01: We shouldn't be poor just for the sake of it.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: You're absolutely right.
SPEAKER_01: I'm still talking to myself.
SPEAKER_01: You're absolutely right, Webb.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul doesn't think so either.
SPEAKER_01: That's that's if he did, he never would have stayed at Lydia's house, remember?
SPEAKER_01: That's why verse 12 is there.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see verse 12?
SPEAKER_01: Why does Paul do it?
SPEAKER_01: Why does Paul choose to suffer by hovering right above the first century poverty line?
SPEAKER_01: Why does he do that?
SPEAKER_01: He does it for the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: Or it is all for their sake.
SPEAKER_01: He does it for the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: So death is at work in Paul, but life in them and in you.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 4, he proclaimed Jesus as Lord and himself as a slave for the Corinthians' sake.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: Why did Jesus suffer and die?
SPEAKER_01: That's the next question, right?
SPEAKER_01: Did Jesus suffer and die just to prove a point?
SPEAKER_01: Was he trying to convince everybody he was the best sufferer in the whole galaxy?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
SPEAKER_01: But not really.
SPEAKER_01: No, Jesus suffered and died because he loves you.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what you needed most.
SPEAKER_01: You needed somebody to die for your sins, or else you would have to have had to face the wrath of God all by yourself.
SPEAKER_01: And trust me, you would not be able to withstand God's wrath for your sins, the punishment upon your blasphemous, murderous, adulterous, covetous heart.
SPEAKER_01: You would not be able to withstand that punishment.
SPEAKER_01: It would be so severe that you couldn't pay it back should you suffer an eternity of deaths, dying forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: You'd never pay it back.
SPEAKER_01: But then there's Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The one who knew no sin, Paul writes, became sin so that in him you might receive his righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: The righteousness of God, Jesus is God, his righteousness, the righteousness of God, and stand before God as blameless as God himself.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't die for fun, he died for you.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul doesn't suffer for fun or suffer for himself.
SPEAKER_01: He suffers for the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: Can you?
SPEAKER_01: Can you give up an extra hour of your week to serve your brothers and sisters in Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Can you endure the awkwardness to have your unbelieving co-work over for supper?
SPEAKER_01: Start there before you try to launch a global evangelism campaign.
SPEAKER_01: Or you pull a spiritual hammy.
SPEAKER_01: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Start small.
SPEAKER_01: Can you give up an hour of sleep a night to study your Bible or theology or how to teach it until you've shown yourself a workman approved to teach others?
SPEAKER_01: Guys, I've known people who quit their well-paying jobs, sold their homes, and found factory line jobs in small towns, deciding to work with their hands just so that they can be a greeter.
SPEAKER_01: A greeter and a giver in a church plan.
SPEAKER_01: This text teaches us that that is a glorious thing.
SPEAKER_01: Glorious thing.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm calling you and myself to endure every affliction.
SPEAKER_01: Not for affliction's sake, but for the sake of other people.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you'll be rich, other times you'll be poor, sometimes you'll be impressive, other times you'll be awkward, sometimes excellent, and other times humble, even if we have to suffer for it.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it looks like to carry around the deadness of Jesus so that his life would be manifested to others, displaying the glory of God by imitating the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: Just like Jesus did.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul's getting at in verse 13 and 14.
SPEAKER_01: We have the same spirit of faith as Jesus, and as the psalmist who wrote, I believed, and so I spoke.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote this in Psalm 116 For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.
SPEAKER_01: I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
SPEAKER_01: I believed, even when I spoke, I am greatly afflicted.
SPEAKER_01: So I think Paul sees in this psalm a portrait of Jesus who trusted the Lord even through death, a picture of Jesus who could believe, and at the same time admit that his suffering was in fact hard.
SPEAKER_01: I believed, even when I said, I'm greatly afflicted.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul says, even though we call it suffering, we're not complaining.
SPEAKER_01: And we still believe and we still speak because we have the same hope of resurrection that Jesus did, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
SPEAKER_01: So then how?
SPEAKER_01: How does Paul's afflicted, near poverty ministry reflect the glory of God?
SPEAKER_01: It's because it imitates God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: The same spirit of faith imitates God's glory as he suffers for the sake of others in the sure hope of eternal life, just like Jesus did when he died on the cross in the sure hope of being raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: A ministry that displays the glory of God is not about us, not even in our sufferings.
SPEAKER_01: It's about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so we should follow in his humble, servant-hearted, sacrificial footsteps.
SPEAKER_01: All that you have, all of it, belongs to his service.
SPEAKER_01: So find a new way to display the glory of God through serving others this week.
SPEAKER_01: And we deceive ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: We do.
SPEAKER_01: We deceive ourselves if we think that we are greater than our master.
SPEAKER_01: We all have a lot to learn, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: And so we don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_01: Even though our outer self is wasting away and being destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus didn't lose heart when he suffered for God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: And so Christian ministry displays God's glory by imitating Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So don't give up.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't give up.
SPEAKER_01: Don't give up, friends.
SPEAKER_01: It gets hard.
SPEAKER_01: But don't quit.
SPEAKER_01: Don't throw in the towel and live like an unbeliever, not for a week, not even for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: It's never worth it.
SPEAKER_01: It's always better to persevere.
SPEAKER_01: If you've been struck down, get back up and keep going.
SPEAKER_01: Because Christian ministry displays God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: And the last way we do that is by anticipating God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: So we don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_01: Even though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day, for this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
SPEAKER_01: As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.
SPEAKER_01: For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
SPEAKER_01: It's insane, isn't it, to think that Paul can call his sufferings light and momentary?
SPEAKER_01: He lists them in chapter 6.
SPEAKER_01: They go like this: beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been beaten for the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Paul calls that light work.
SPEAKER_01: I got stung by a bee last week and I whined about it.
SPEAKER_01: You ever been thrown in jail for the word of God?
SPEAKER_01: Paul was in prison for a lot longer than the pain of my bee sting lasted.
SPEAKER_01: Yet he calls it momentary.
SPEAKER_01: But I didn't really get stung by a bee for ministry's sake.
SPEAKER_01: I was just standing by a tree.
SPEAKER_01: So how can we relate to this stuff?
SPEAKER_01: How do we relate to this stuff?
SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
SPEAKER_01: But keep in mind, what Paul's talking about is suffering for others and the cause of Christ's glory.
SPEAKER_01: So let me let me ask you, have you, in doing ministry and doing life here together, has it ever been hard?
SPEAKER_01: Do people ever underappreciate you?
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever felt left out?
SPEAKER_01: Has anybody ever said something mean to you?
SPEAKER_01: It's worse when it comes from Christians, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't happen, really, but it does.
SPEAKER_01: I think we all know that.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you, some of you I know have been yelled at in a church for doing the right thing.
SPEAKER_01: Can you call that light?
SPEAKER_01: Can you see that as momentary?
SPEAKER_01: I realized this week that my temper with my kids gets a lot shorter when my socks are wet.
SPEAKER_01: Pathetic man that I am, but unlike me, some of you labor under constant physical pain.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you, to God's glory, persist in kindness under a crippling weight of grief that just won't go away.
SPEAKER_01: How?
SPEAKER_01: I'm asking a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: How do you do it?
SPEAKER_01: Or better, what's Paul's secret, right?
SPEAKER_01: What's Paul's secret?
SPEAKER_01: How can Paul imitate Jesus' suffering with such courage and righteousness?
SPEAKER_01: And the answer is right there, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because he sees the glory of God on the way.
SPEAKER_01: And he knows, he knows that any suffering in this life can, in the blink of an eye, turn to eternal gladness and joy forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: An eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
SPEAKER_01: It's a fantastic translation.
SPEAKER_01: An eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
SPEAKER_01: This is the greatest of the greatest glory, the highest of the highest glory, the most glorious glory of all glorious things.
SPEAKER_01: Greater glory than a sunset, greater glory than a snow-capped mountain, greater glory than the hosts of heaven stars, greater glory than the love between a man and wife, greater glory than all the kings of all the empires of all the ages.
SPEAKER_01: That's the glory we wait for.
SPEAKER_01: It's that great.
SPEAKER_01: We wait for the coming glory of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Just like Jesus did.
SPEAKER_01: He waited on the cross, he waited in the grave, and he waits even now for his glory to be revealed.
SPEAKER_01: So look to that hidden glory, anticipate it, wait for it.
SPEAKER_01: It makes the passing suffering of this age a light and momentary thing because the twist at the end of the story, at the end of our ministry, will validate all that we do.
SPEAKER_01: Even if they kill you.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's decision to suffer will be proven right when the twist comes at the end for the glory of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you wait upon him, anticipating his glory, then your ministry, your very life, your whole life will display the glory of God as you await the things unseen.
SPEAKER_01: And it'll all be proven right in the light of the greatest glory of all.
SPEAKER_01: The victorious return of Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul turns it all on his head, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_01: We love those stories with a twist.
SPEAKER_01: Paul suffers in seemingly inglorious poverty with a seemingly inglorious preaching style.
SPEAKER_01: Even as to the Corinthians, he seems as crazy as Noah did building a boat.
SPEAKER_01: And he does it all because Christian ministry displays the glory of God when it proclaims the glory of God simply, imitates the glory of God humbly, and anticipates his glorious return with patience.
SPEAKER_01: So keep going.
SPEAKER_01: Don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_01: Keep pressing on toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: Would you please give us strength to endure the trials of this life with our eyes firmly fixed on you?
SPEAKER_01: Help us to proclaim you simply, though hard-pressed on every side, as we await your return to make all things new.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I want to pray everything Jeff prayed, but I trust you've heard us once.
SPEAKER_01: And so we ask, Father, that the words of my mouth, the meditation of all of our hearts together would be acceptable in your sight, and that it would bring glory to your name this day and every day.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.