2 Corinthians 5:1-15 | God's Unseen Glory

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

In October 2017, a storm swept across the Great Plains.

And it produced a record-setting bolt of lightning.

The longest bolt of lightning ever observed, so we think.

Still being confirmed, but satellite technology has given scientists a new perspective, a new perspective on cloud-to-cloud lightning.

They can see them from above now.

From the heavens, we can see that this bolt of lightning produced in 2017 spanned a total of 515 miles.

515 miles, one bolt, one bolt of cloud-to-cloud lightning.

They call them mega flashes once they break 62 miles.

Once they break 62 miles, they call them mega flashes.

One bolt of lightning, one mega flash, 515 miles long, produced more than 116 cloud-to-ground strikes.

And it lasted for 17 seconds.

From Grand Forks to Omaha, faster than you can sing your ABCs.

It's incredible.

It's a breathtaking display.

Breathtaking display of God's glory that we could barely imagine before we put satellites into orbit.

And the world missed it.

We missed it.

Up until earlier this year, we thought the longest bolt of lightning, the longest mega flash was 477 miles long.

We saw that one in 2020.

We totally whiffed it.

It wasn't until a scientist reanalyzed data from this 2017 storm that we found this bolt of lightning.

And it's still being confirmed as the record holder, but I think that's amazing.

Solomon said it is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings to search things out.

God's glory is sometimes kind of like that hidden mega flash.

It's easy to miss it.

It's easy to miss it.

Last week in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, we saw that Christians display God's glory by their ministry as they anticipate God's glory.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

Even as our outer self wastes away in suffering and persecution or illness or poverty or oppression or just the exhausting perplexity of it all.

Because genuine Christian ministry can be exhausting, especially the kind that displays God's glory.

But Paul says, nevertheless, we don't lose heart.

Because we look to the things that are seen, not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.

For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Chapter 5 starts with the word for and picks up this theme of looking to God's unseen glory.

Just like that mega flash.

Glorious.

Let's pray together and we'll dive in.

Father, we ask that you would give us eyes of faith and humble hearts.

Lord, so that we could receive and deliver the word with meekness.

Continue, continue, we pray to shine in our hearts the glory in the face of Jesus Christ and help us to set our hope fully on the grace and the glory to be revealed at his revelation.

We ask for your help to read the scriptures and understand them in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Here is my main idea for this morning.

Christian ministry looks to God's unseen glory.

We look to the things that are unseen, right?

Looks to God's unseen glory with longing on the first eight verses.

Aspiration and fear.

So take your Bibles with me if you haven't already and turn to the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, and verse 1.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

To the Corinthians, to the normal Corinthian sensibilities, Paul was a madman.

Paul, of course, has written this letter, and Corinth was this self-promoting city in a self-promoting time.

It was wealthy and attractive.

Corinth was actually a favorite place of Emperor Nero.

He loved it there because he could draw attention to himself.

One modern scholar writes that Corinth rewarded Nero's self-aggrandizement with adulation and with honor.

You see, Corinth was the place to go to make a name for yourself.

When Paul wrote this letter, that's what Corinth was.

And even still, Paul insisted, insisted upon speaking in a plain way while wearing normal clothes and working with his hands, so that all the attention of his ministry would land on Christ and Him crucified instead of on Himself.

And that was very countercultural of Paul.

And it was on purpose.

He purposefully aggravated people's sensibilities rather than whining and dining and wooing them to the gospel in the eyes of the average Corinthian unbeliever, Paul's sufferings were the opposite of success.

It didn't make sense.

After describing his death-defying peril to the believers in chapter 1, Paul writes, and I think this is fascinating, he says, For our boast is this.

In all of that death-defying peril in Asia, he says, Our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity.

Simplicity and godly sincerity, plain speech, plain clothes, plain behavior.

Somehow, Paul says, those things befit a glorious gospel message.

Even if it's a little counterintuitive.

Paul is acutely aware, acutely aware that he is misunderstood and that his misunderstood ministry efforts could even lead to his death.

But he doesn't lose heart in chapter 4, because he knows that even if the tent that is his earthly home is destroyed, he has a building from God.

He has a building from God.

And by the tent of his earthly home, Paul means his body, and its destruction, its tearing down means his death.

That's just a metaphor.

We know that if the tent that is our earthly home, our earthly body is destroyed.

And the image of a tent well parallels, I think, that image of a clay jar from chapter 4, verse 7.

Tents are temporary, they're cheap, they're easily torn down and destroyed, they're easily replaceable.

It might even be a subtle reminder of Paul's trade as a tent maker, and he's pointing with this image to the fragility of life.

You and I could die at any moment.

And there were many things threatening Paul's life.

The general wear and tear on his body from imprisonment and beatings and life on the road and the hard work he put in, and the the con, not to mention, the constant stream of death threats he received.

Many things threatened Paul's life.

I think we have an example in history of many of our great theologians and pastors.

They died very young from the direct consequences of their ministry burden.

I think of Robert Murray McShane.

He sticks out in my mind because he contracted typhus, a disease transmitted by lice.

He got it during an outbreak while visiting the poor people in the slums.

He knew what he was walking into when he went to the sick and dying to bring them the gospel.

And he got the same disease they had.

He died before his 30th birthday.

It's just crazy.

And that, my friends, is just a shadow.

It's just a shadow of Jesus' faithfulness and Jesus' suffering, right?

He also died, yeah.

And we shouldn't forget the glory of sunlight when we think about the reflective glory of church history's moon.

Amen.

But here, Paul says, even if I die, we know that if, even if I die, I know that I have a building from God, a house made not with hands, eternal in the heavens.

It's most likely that Paul means the particular resurrection body of an individual believer, a new body, a glorified body, his glorified body, our glorified bodies.

And we can see that, we can see that because Paul is talking about his body in verse 1 when he calls it a tent.

And so he keeps that metaphor consistent in verse 2.

So even if the tent of his body is destroyed, he knows he has a house, a more lasting body than a tent.

One from God.

You see that parallelism?

One from God and not from earth.

The ideas are parallel.

And so Paul is saying simply, even if my earthly body is destroyed, I know that God has a new one for me.

And if this body, like an earthenware jar and a tent, if this body is like that, then the eternal and heavenly body is made by God's power.

And it's like a house, not a tent.

And Paul says that we groan.

We groan.

For in this tent we groan, longing to put on that heavenly body, since by putting it on, we may not be found naked.

When you see an if indeed, especially in the ESV and especially in Paul's writings, it's been helpful to me to just translate that in my head to the word since.

Since by putting it on, we may not be found naked.

That's why they put the word indeed there.

I don't always think it works.

Since, by putting on that heavenly body, we may not be found naked.

In other words, we won't be disembodied spiritual beings floating about in the heavens.

But rather, God's eternal, heavenly purpose is not a humanity without a body, but a perfected humanity, a glorified humanity in body and soul.

It's a body.

The body we wait for is one that won't waste away.

Like back in chapter 4, verse 16.

A body that won't waste away like Paul's does as he suffers.

But the body we receive from the Lord lasts forever.

So I think it's fair.

I think it's fair to apply this truth, like Paul does, to our sufferings.

Even though his sufferings are far more severe than ours.

I think the image still holds up.

No more aches, no more pains, no more sickness, no more cancer, no more tumors, no more failures of the brain and memory or depression.

If you were here last week, no more wet socks.

Or if our socks do get wet in eternity, then maybe our patients won't wear thin quite so fast, right?

After all, guys, the scars in Jesus' hands and feet and the hole in his side, they don't seem to hurt him anymore.

Or at least they don't hurt him so much that he can't invite Thomas to touch them.

Right?

That's an unseen glory.

You don't see it yet.

It's not here.

It's an unseen glory worth longing for, like those 515-mile-long mega flashes.

You and I cannot see the glory to come unless we look for it from heaven's perspective.

Right?

And Paul doesn't lose heart.

Paul doesn't lose heart because he looks at the scars on his body and he sees the unseen hope of a new one.

That's the idea.

Verse 4.

For while we're still in this tent, we groan, being burdened, he writes.

And this word describes the eyes of the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Their eyelids literally are burdened.

They get heavy and they can't stay awake when Jesus is praying.

Remember that?

Their eyes, they grow heavy.

And so what Paul's describing is this heavy sighing that's hard to hold abay.

This heavy groaning.

That's a pretty negative description of suffering, I think.

The weight of suffering we bear.

And in Paul's writings, that the heaviness of that only serves to magnify.

To magnify how much we groan, how much we long.

Longing for the glory to be revealed, for the relief from our sufferings.

Richard Sibbs writes this we must shed tears if we would hereafter have them wiped away.

That's an image to the end of the book of Revelation, right?

When God wipes away every tear from their eyes.

If there were no suffering in this life, there wouldn't be relief and glory.

And many people have said some version of a phrase like this one I found.

Tears are often the telescope by which men see far into heaven.

You see through tears, you see in a way, you see further, right?

And of course, in Romans 8, Paul outlines a similar picture to this passage, and the strength of the parallel I think summarizes the point well.

He says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed for us.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

And he says, We groan inwardly.

We groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our spirits, nope, the redemption of our bodies, for in this hope we were saved.

Now hope that is seen is not hope.

For who hopes for what he sees?

But if we hope for what is unseen, what we do not see, then we wait for it with patience.

You remember that that glorious and comforting chapter in Romans 8 continues to speak of God's sanctifying and glorifying work in the lives of those who loved him, because those whom he justified, he also glorified.

That's the glory we wait for.

At least part of it.

And it's a glory we can't yet see.

We can't yet see.

And Paul teaches us throughout his letters to look forward to that coming glory with longing.

And that means, guys, that the groaning and sighing aren't wrong.

It's not wrong.

If if if your heart is stayed on God's promises, and the sigh is the sigh of faith.

That's the difference between the kind of self-centered grumbling of the Israelites in the wilderness who just wanted to have leaks of all things, grumbling that God hadn't provided enough.

That's the difference between that and sighing as we long for glory.

It's faith.

It's faith.

Paul calls it good courage.

Paul calls it good courage.

Jesus used this word for good courage often, but he used it as a command instead.

He used it as a command meaning take heart or be of good courage.

You've heard the promise Jesus made before his death.

He said, In this world you will have tribulation.

A deteriorating body, the spiritual and physical wounds of persecution, the burden of bearing brothers and sisters and patience, all that stuff is trouble, right?

You will have tribulation.

That's a promise.

You will.

But he kept going.

And he said, But take heart.

But take heart, be of good courage, for I have overcome the world.

And so with this heart of good courage, Paul instructs us to walk by faith, not by sight.

Looking to God's unseen glory, of a resurrection body free from sin's wounds, and to look for it with longing and with sighing and with trust.

Because Jesus overcame all the trouble this world could throw at him.

He overcame it all.

And we belong to him.

So believe in him.

But there's more.

There's more to God's unseen glory in this text than just the restoration of our bodies, isn't there?

Paul says this.

Yes, yes, we are of good courage.

He's continuing.

We're in verse 8 now.

He says, we would rather be, rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

And that, right there, that, that little, that little move he makes, I think, is the God-designed progression of faith in a broken and suffering world.

Your sorrows, your tribulations, your difficulties, they provoke you to lift your eyes to heaven with longing for the day when there'll be no more.

That's why they're there in part.

And then when your mind gets set on things above, you start to, over time, a little bit at a time, forget about yourself and your size.

As you realize that Jesus is there.

He's the glory of heaven, isn't he?

Elsewhere, your Bible uses the image of a wedding to describe that day when we see him again.

And we're like the bride who has been made ready for her wedding.

That's the picture.

And this happens often at weddings.

While the bride waits in the hallway back there, back there, she fidgets with her veil or her bouquet or her necklace or her gown.

And then when she turns the corner there at the top of the aisle, she sees her groom down here at the end of the aisle.

At the best, at the best weddings, she forgets all about herself in that moment.

She forgets all about herself and his smile because she can see that he's forgotten all about himself and her.

So, Christian, don't love your wedding gown more than your husband.

Right?

Long for the new body.

Long for the relief from your suffering.

But don't let that distract you from the glory of Christ.

Oh, lift your eyes to heaven.

See the Holy One eternal.

Behold, the Lord of majesty exalted in his temple.

And remember that such a glorious one is Jesus Christ the Lord.

He loves you.

He loves you.

And his full glory, all of his splendor, is still unseen, still hidden.

It's easy to miss it.

But we must wait for it with longing and the full assurance of faith.

And as we long, as we long for the glory, the unseen glory of God, we also look to it with aspiration.

Aspiration, like a musician practicing his craft, always better, always improving, admitting weakness, addressing mistakes, striving, reaching, even dreaming of someday playing a piece of some glorious music.

That's what I mean by aspiration.

And I pulled that word straight out of verse 9.

Because aspiring, aspiring is what Paul means by make it our aim.

Make it our aim.

One dictionary defines that word, make it our aim this way.

Have as one's ambition, consider it an honor, or to aspire.

Paul says we aspire to please him.

How about that?

Whether we're home or away.

If you follow Paul's metaphor from before, that's whether we live or die, right?

Whether we live or die, by living or by dying, we aspire to please him.

To please the Lord.

That's who the hymn is.

And Paul grounds that knowledge.

Paul grounds that in the knowledge that we would rather be with Jesus than away from Jesus.

It's just that simplest implication of love, right?

What bride doesn't want to see her groom smile?

That's what the word soul means at the beginning of verse 9.

That's how it points back to verse 8.

This ambition, this aspiration flows out of the desire to be with the Lord, and so we.

Strive, we prepare, we practice, we labor even if we have to.

To see him smile, to please him, to be accepted by him.

Let me ask you, what message does a bride send to her groom if she shows up on the wedding day in sweatpants with her hair a mess, having forgotten to invite her parents, and might as well go for it, a little bit hungover still.

What message does that send?

At the very least, it says that she wasn't really looking forward to the day, right?

She wasn't preparing.

She wasn't longing for it.

Or at least not enough.

So you bring the metaphor back to us.

Because we long for God's unseen glory, we get ready for it.

We aspire to it.

And we aspire to please him.

And if we're not aspiring to please him, it starts to call our love for him into question, doesn't it?

So we make it our aim to please him because we're longing to see him.

That's how verse 9 looks back at verse 8 through that little word, so.

But verse 9 also looks ahead to verse 10.

Right?

And here the metaphor shifts from one of longing to a metaphor of judgment.

That's a natural progression, right?

Even if it seems odd.

A bride who shows up drunk to her own wedding surely receives her groom's judgment.

Right?

But so too does a bride whose radiance is only outdone by the love shining from her face.

She receives judgment too.

But it's the judgment of praise, the judgment of commendation, that simple, well done, that we aspire to, right?

Verse 9 teaches something that many Christians don't know, frankly.

And those of us who are aware of verse 9's teaching surely forget it often enough, that Paul is saying that all of us, all of us, must appear before the judgment seat of Christ.

It's a little terrifying.

Because we like to remind ourselves often that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

There's no condemnation.

We're not going to be judged.

It's true, there's no condemnation, but Paul does teach that we will stand before his judgment.

But it is true that if we believe in Jesus Christ, our sins against God are atoned for.

They're atoned for.

In other words, and you must understand this, they're atoned for because the God who created everything is perfectly holy and perfectly just and perfectly angry against our sin.

And the punishment fits the crime.

If you break a lamp, you pay for a lamp.

If you break a Corvette, you pray for a Corvette.

But one sin broke God's perfect and very good creation.

You can't pay that back.

You can't.

That's how much punishment you deserve for your sins, and none of us has any excuse, right?

Who hasn't lied and blasphemed the perfection of God's truth?

Who hasn't coveted what belonged to another and slandered God's provision for us?

One lie, one jealous thought's all it takes, and though you lived a hundred years of perfection thereafter, you would never pay it back.

Because by works of the law, no human being is justified in God's sight.

But God put forth his Son.

God put forth Jesus, the King of heaven, the glorious one who named the stars, the humble one who was born in a manger, the wisest one who outshone even Solomon's glory.

God put forth Jesus because Jesus alone had the resources, the capital to redeem you.

That's how this works.

Jesus' perfection had the means to buy you back from the debt of sin.

God spent Jesus to save you.

He put Jesus forward as a payment in blood, nailed him to a cross under the scorn of his kinsmen, crushed beneath the weight of God's wrath, so that you could be redeemed and justified by his grace as a gift.

You couldn't afford it, and so Jesus bought it.

And he offers you a new life free of charge.

In that way we're redeemed, and in Jesus we're restored, and God isn't angry at us anymore.

His wrath is completely propitiated, satisfied once and for all, and by faith we're reconciled, brought back together, reconciled to our Father and adopted.

So there remains no more condemnation.

Don't get this verse twisted.

There remains no more condemnation, no punishment, no hell, no wrath.

In Jesus Christ, you have been saved, delivered from the full wrath of God.

But Paul, who brought such amazing clarity to that gospel for us in the book of Romans, Paul still says, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ and face his judgment.

That includes Paul and Timothy, he wrote the letter.

That includes the Corinthians, he wrote the letter too.

That includes me and you.

We all must face his judgment.

And the unbelievers who will hear, Depart from me, I never knew you.

But others among us will hear, Well done, enter into the joy of your master.

On that day we will all receive what is due for what has been done.

For those who reject the Lord's salvation in this life, their sins are so severe that they will outweigh any good deed they've ever done, and they will receive what is due for their evil deeds.

God says, Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.

But for believers, like Paul and Timothy, the Corinthians, and I trust many, if not all, of you, all of that punishment for evil deeds was already paid for on the cross.

So all that remains in the balance of your good deeds and your evil deeds, of which your evil deeds are so heavy, they're gone.

All that remains are your good deeds.

And all that all that is left then is the reward for the good things you've done.

It's an incredibly, incredibly generous God we serve.

Have you thought about that?

Not only are you safe from wrath, but you get an attaboy.

That's insane that anyone could ever be so generous to people like us who've scorned him so severely.

And so, and so, because of that, for that reason, verse 10 says, for that reason, we make it our aim.

We make it our aim to please him.

The author of Hebrews says something similar in a memorable way.

It says, without faith, without faith, it is impossible to please him.

Forever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

What did the author of Hebrews say that faith was?

Do you remember?

Without faith, it is impossible to please him, and faith is, I don't have it.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.

The conviction of things unseen.

The conviction of things unseen.

And so God's glory is still yet unseen.

You and I can't see the reward coming at the judgment yet.

And Christian ministry looks to God's unseen glory with aspiration, with striving, with laboring, with practicing, with refining ourselves and refining our labors to please him as much as we can.

But I haven't told you how to please him yet, have I?

I haven't.

I'm just still trying to convince you that you should want to.

You should want to please him.

You should aspire to please him because there's a glory yet to come.

Because there's a glory bigger and brighter than a thousand thunderbolts.

And Paul gives you these two reasons to want to please him.

We've already seen them, but you should want to please him because you'll be with him forever and ever.

You'd rather be at home with the Lord and away from the body.

And we should strive to please him because we must all stand before his judgment seat, and he will judge our labors.

That's why you should want to.

That's why you should aspire to please him for those two reasons.

There's a lot.

There's a lot we could say about how.

The Bible's full of ways we can please the Lord.

There are several things I could show you about what's pleasing to him, like when brothers live together in unity, or when we discern his will, or when we share what we have with others.

And I'm sure Paul would say going there is a good thing to do.

So maybe you should make that your Bible study this week.

Look at Psalm 51, see what pleases the Lord.

Or Psalm 69, see what you can find.

But this text and Paul have something specific in mind.

Paul's still talking about himself and his own ministry among the Corinthians.

So if you would look at verse 11 with me, Paul says, Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.

There's my third point.

Christian ministry looks to God's unseen glory with fear.

Looks to God's unseen glory with fear.

When it comes to ministry, when it comes to serving the Lord, there may not be a more important sentence.

It's only half a verse.

We should all commit this to heart.

Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.

Knowing the fear of the Lord, it's that coming judgment of the Lord back in verse 10 that Paul is fearing, knowing that fear of the Lord.

And so conscience, conscious of his responsibility, aware of his accountability to the Lord, Paul says, because of that he persuades people.

And that's a cool verb.

Persuading others means convincing them by giving them reasons to believe or to do something.

So you can persuade somebody to try malt vinegar on their fries.

You can try to persuade somebody that Elvis never died.

And I have a rhyme for you now.

Are you ready for it?

But Paul persuades men that for their sake Christ was crucified.

That was cute, Webb.

But we have to skip ahead a little bit to see what Paul persuades them of.

That's what I'm hinting at.

In verse 14 and 15.

We'll come back to 11 to 13 in a minute.

But this then is the content of Paul's persuasion, I think.

Or at least the major part of it.

It becomes really clear later in the chapter when Paul talks about being an ambassador for Christ.

He says, we implore you on behalf of Christ, or on Christ's behalf, we implore you to be reconciled to God.

That's so cool.

More on that next week.

But just here, for our purposes today, you have to see that the fear of the Lord and his coming judgment for all men, believers and unbelievers alike, prompts Paul to persuade all people.

And then by verse 14, Paul says, the love of Christ controls us or compels him.

In Mark's gospel, when the woman touched the hem of Jesus' robe to be healed, and Jesus asked, Who touched me?

Peter's baffled.

He uses our word for compels or controls here.

He says, Master, the crowds compel you from every direction.

They squish you in, they control you.

The crowds were surrounding Jesus.

What do you mean who touched you?

Everybody's touching you.

Right?

They're all pressing in on you.

So Paul's saying that the unseen glory of the love of Jesus Christ squishes in and around Paul all the time.

All the time.

Enough that he has to go a certain way.

Just the fact of Christ's love is what he means here.

Not necessarily Jesus' love for Paul in particular, and most likely very much not Paul's love for Jesus in return.

That's not the picture.

It's the glory and the majesty of the fact that Jesus loved the world enough to die for them all.

That's the picture.

Constantly.

Everywhere Paul looks, he sees this, he remembers it.

Everything reminds him of the love of Christ.

He's surrounded by it and he feels the pressure of it.

The love of Christ controls us because, he says, because, because he believes something.

Because we have concluded.

It is our judgment.

Because we have concluded that one has died for all, and therefore all have died, and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

That's the gospel, right?

Because Paul believes the gospel, because he has concluded this, because Paul believes the gospel, the love of Christ controls him.

And fearing the Lord, he persuades mankind, any and everybody, others.

Do you see that logic?

If you see that logic, let me press on that sore spot just a little bit.

If the love of Christ, the fact of it, isn't controlling you, Paul's logic in this text would indicate that it's at least in part because of a lack of understanding, a lack of judgment, or even a lack of faith in the basic tenets of the gospel.

That's what it says.

And so I'm convinced deeply that the best way, the best way to help you share the gospel and me share the gospel and be controlled by the love of Christ, the best way to help you persuade you, to persuade others, is to help you love the gospel.

To help you love and believe the gospel, understand the gospel, and hope in Paul's conclusion more and more and more.

Because that's what drives this thing.

Here's an implication of that glorious gospel that Paul hints at in this whole passage.

This is it.

What will you say when you face the Lord on judgment day and he asks you why you didn't persuade others of the gospel more?

What will you say?

How will you respond if we let those Jesus loves go unpersuaded?

That's what's going on in Paul's mind.

Paul feared the love of Christ.

I'll say that again.

Paul feared the love of Christ.

Do you see that?

He persuaded others because he feared the Lord's judgment on the basis of God's love for the world.

And so Christian, and in that way, Paul was controlled by the love of Christ.

If you think about it, the love of God is a scary thing, too.

So Christian ministry, all genuine Christian ministry, at its best, looks to God's unseen glory with fear.

But we have to remember that in this passage from chapter 2 all the way to chapter 7, Paul is defending his entire ministry, his whole ministry to a Corinthian church that for some reason could not see the full glory of Paul's humble methods.

So that's why he brings up commending himself again in verse 12.

Let's look at that.

And I think if we look close, if we can see just a little that Paul sees this tight connection between his persuasion of people and not just their acceptance of his doctrine, but also their acceptance of his way of life.

He says, We persuade others, but what we are is known to God.

Paul's whole ministry is wrapped up in this proclamation of Jesus Christ and not himself.

He carries that treasure in a clay jar so that's clear the power belongs to God and not to men.

And Paul accepts weakness and suffering and persecution and poverty so that the Corinthian faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God and Christ and Him crucified, and people just don't get it.

And Paul knew he was misunderstood.

There's a connection between these things.

And so people, you know, guys, people often say things like, I don't believe in God because Christians are hypocrites.

Or I don't go to church because Christians are all, they're just they're just hateful bigots.

In Corinth, they may have said, ah, I can't be a Christian.

They're all just so weird or poor or unsuccessful.

They're just not the kind of people I want to be associated with.

You know, it's not good for my brand to be a Christian.

And Paul tries to persuade them anyway, not only of Christ, but also of the rightness of his way of life, of his ministry, which he lives because of Christ and Him crucified.

And so then when it comes to preaching and teaching and evangelism and discipleship and counseling and ministry of all kinds, parenting, whatever, you name it, all ministry, the goal is to convince, but in a way that is still consistent with the example of Jesus Christ.

You can't strong arm anybody into believing the gospel.

You have to convince them.

You can't manipulate.

Don't pressure, don't leverage earthly stuff too much.

There's a world of difference, you know, between saying to a friend, I'll buy you lunch if you hear me out.

Come on.

There's a world of difference between that attitude and a parent who says to a wayward kid, if you deny Christ, I'll disown you.

Right?

Those are two totally different things.

Every situation's different, but that last one seems to go beyond just persuading, doesn't it?

Doesn't it?

Their faith has to come from a convinced heart.

You can't win a convert at the edge of a sword.

You can't.

The gospel's bad news of coming judgment upon sin and the wrath of God has enough threat all by itself.

There's enough threat in there.

You don't need to add more.

Just say that much.

And on the flip side, the gospel has enough incentives of its own too.

Enough carrots to meet the stick in a way of speaking.

So don't gild the lily.

Don't add promises to the gospel.

The gospel doesn't entail.

Don't so it goes too far.

It goes beyond persuading to promise people a life free from suffering or a life of constant fulfillment and joy.

Will following Jesus result in a wiser and ultimately more satisfying life?

Yeah, ultimately it will.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that if you become a Christian, you'll find your soulmates, you'll get married, have a bunch of babies, finally have a group of friends, so you don't feel alone anymore.

That's not what it means.

Sometimes I think we're tempted to promise people a wonderful plan for a wonderful life.

When the gospel doesn't go that far.

Some of that stuff happens when people come to faith.

Yeah, that's great.

Praise God.

But none of those things of a righteous and wise life, none of those things are why people should repent of their sins, right?

That's not the promise our faith hopes in.

That's not the glory we look to.

Those happy life things that come with being a Christian, those things are transient and earthly, they're passing away.

We look to the things that are unseen, Paul says.

The eternal things of judgment and of everlasting life instead.

Remember.

Never forget that God's wonderful plan for Paul's life was poverty, constant persecution, and ultimately our martyrdom.

And Jesus died alone.

Never forget that.

Paul didn't.

And so we just we have to just keep going.

Just keep going when they don't understand you.

They didn't understand Paul either, and they certainly misunderstood Jesus.

And so that's a personal picture of Christian ministry success.

But on a bigger scale, a big church or a handful or two fistfuls or a boatload of converts or whatever, whatever earthly stuff we might be tempted to call a successful ministry success.

None of that's the point, right?

Those are the things Paul says you can judge by outward appearances.

Some people boast in that stuff.

Some ministers of the gospel boast in how great their preaching is.

Some churches boast of how warm their fellowship is.

Some Christians boast about how bold their evangelism is, but none of that is the point.

Paul was content in verse 13 to be considered crazy.

Crazy.

As I've been saying all along, if we squint a little bit, I think we can see that Paul's ministry seemed a little self-defeating to the Corinthian church.

So imagine with me a disgruntled Corinthian church member saying to Paul, no wonder nobody in this town wants to be a Christian.

You're not that impressive, Paul.

And Paul's answer to that is, I'm doing it on purpose.

I'm doing it on purpose, and I'll trust God to judge my heart in the matter.

And so if we seem to be crazy, if we seem to be crazy and beside ourselves, God knows our hearts.

The word Paul uses there is the same word that Jesus' family did when he came back to Nazareth.

Mark says they went out to seize him, for they were saying he is out of his mind.

Paul, like Jesus, is willing to be called crazy because God is his judge and not man.

And that's the key.

That's the key.

All proper Christian ministry ultimately only really cares about what Jesus thinks.

At the end of the day, at the end of your life, at the end of the age, that's all that matters is what Jesus thinks.

We have to fear him, not man.

Because Christian ministry looks to God's unseen glory.

God's unseen glory, not the glory that comes from men.

And we look to it with fear.

So let me summarize.

We're not going to have the slide, though, it looks like, right, guys?

Okay.

Christian, it's only my last one.

We made it.

Christian ministry, all genuine Christian ministry, looks to God's unseen glory with fear, persuading others in fear of the judgment of Christ's love upon our apathy, fearing God and not man.

And Christian ministry, and if you're a Christian, you're a minister, right?

It supplies to all of us, whether you're a minister to your own children, to your co-workers, you facilitate a potluck direct in a wana club or mentor younger people, whatever it is, Christian ministry, all of it, looks to God's unseen glory with aspiration, striving to please the one who loves us and to receive his commendation on judgment day.

And Christian ministry, though our outer self wastes away day by day, even though the tent of this mortal flesh is being torn down by age or cancer or persecution or just plum hard work, we look to God's unseen glory with longing.

For the glory yet to be revealed will put an end to all of those sufferings, all of that grief.

As the God of heaven makes all things new.

And Paul says, in that hope we preach, in that hope we pray, and that hope we press on, with eyes fixed on Jesus as the author and perfecter of such a life that walks by faith, assured of things unseen and not by sight.

Let's pray.

Oh Father, we ask that you would help us to see more clearly.

Give us the eyes of faith that can see through the clouds, even giving us telescope tears if we need them, so that we can see our lives, our ministry, our world all from your perspective.

It's hard.

And we often forget, Lord, to think like you think.

And much of what we believe, much of what you've promised us, Lord, is still unseen.

It's still to come.

So please remind us always of the hope of the resurrection, of the reality of your coming judgment.

Teach us to respect your love for mankind.

And God, fill our hearts.

Fill our hearts with those things, fill our hearts with that hope.

So that out of that abundance in our hearts, from all that we've seen in the scriptures, out of that abundance we could speak more freely of your glory.

We could speak more freely of your glory, to your glory.

That as we speak, you would be glorified as grace extends to more and more people and greater and greater abundance, all of it abounding in thanksgiving as you receive all the glory you deserve for all that you've done in Jesus Christ.

Oh Lord, glorify your name and all of the earth.

May your splendor be revealed for everyone to see.

We long for it.

And we wait for you.

In Jesus' name.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.