2 Corinthians 4:1-6

So go ahead and have a seat.

We um have been going through the book of 2nd Corinthians together as a church, and this morning we will be in uh chapter four.

If you want to get out your Bibles and turn there.

Um I love this section of the Bible.

So I'll give you a second to turn there.

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Um, you can take notes on sermons, you can see past sermons.

Um, that's the best way to stay connected, even with uh Waypoints, which is our discipleship program.

And um, so Baltimorechurch.com.

Uh we're coming, we're in the last two weeks of Waypoints, which is our church's discipleship um system or program.

And uh so everybody that's participated, congratulations.

You're almost at the end of the summer session.

And uh some of you will move up, some of you are gonna kind of repeat the material and really conquer it and get it down.

That's fine.

Um, and then we will launch the next wave of classes at the end of September.

We'll go end of September up through Thanksgiving.

So that's the schedule.

We have about a five to six week break, um, and I'm gonna nail down that start date this week for the end of September.

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All right?

Let's look at um 2 Corinthians chapter 4.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

Everybody that is here and is a follower of Jesus, you can relate to the experience of having someone in your life.

Maybe it's a child, a son, or a daughter, maybe it's a parent, maybe it's a college roommate, a person at work at the next desk or in the next office.

And at some point, you worked up the nerve to tell that person about Jesus.

And you were excited, and yet, as you're sharing, you had this sense of like, oh man, I am just confusing this person rather than helping them.

I I'm getting this all mixed up, and maybe they've got questions that you don't have answers to.

Or maybe you just felt like, man, I shared that beautifully, like, man, the Spirit of God was just working through me.

I made it so clear.

But the look on their face was as if you were talking to them about your fantasy football team, and they were just like not getting it.

And it left you feeling defeated.

And you were excited, you took that step of faith, you shared, you shared what Jesus means to you, to that person, and nothing's registering.

And what you think is so awesome, they could care less.

Maybe you've had the experience where you've prayed for somebody who's far from God for years.

You've invited to them, you've explained the gospel to them, you've lived out your Christian faith before them, and there's nothing.

And at that point, there are two doors that you may be tempted to walk through out of your sense of defeat.

One, you may quietly give up.

You may be just like forget it.

Maybe you feel like giving up on that person.

Maybe you just feel like, I'm not gonna talk about Jesus anymore.

I give up.

The other door that you may walk through in your defeat is that you're gonna reach for gimmicks, pressure tactics.

Try to spice it up, make it more special than maybe maybe it is.

Try to put on the sauce.

Churches face those two doors as well.

As our church, as we we feel called here to Southeast Baltimore, as we look at the ten neighborhoods around us: Fells Point, Upper Fells Point, Butcher's Hill, Jonestown, Patterson Park, Perkins Homes, Harbor East, as we look at the neighborhoods where we're right close to, right?

And as we gather week after week, and we know that there's at least 40,000 people that live in those 10 neighborhoods, and yet we gather in this morning, there's 85 of us that are here.

And it's like, God, you know, what's going on?

And you know, there's 85 of us here.

We're one of like the bigger churches in this neighborhood.

If you took all the churches that are gathering in this neighborhood, we're not even going to hit a thousand people this morning.

And there's 40,000 people that live in this neighborhood.

And there's a sense in that of like, man, maybe we should just give up.

Or there's sometimes this sense of, like, well, maybe we need to start playing games.

Maybe we need to use some gimmicks to get people in the door.

Paul's going to address those two temptations, those two doors in the text this morning.

Let me read it to you.

These are the first six verses from 2 Corinthians 4.

Therefore, since we have this ministry because we were shown mercy, we do not give up.

Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful things, not acting deceitfully or distorting the word of God, but commending ourselves before God to everyone's conscience by an open display of the truth.

But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

In their case, the God of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

For we are not preaching ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Would you pray with me together?

Father, we we come before you and God, we're reading your word.

This isn't Tom Sawyer, it's not the Bhagavad Gita, it's not some new self-help book that's a bestseller on Amazon.

God, this is your word.

And we believe that you were guiding Paul as he wrote this letter to the Corinthian church, and you intended for that letter to be useful for the church as a whole.

And we believe that your spirit wants to take this and teach us from it.

In some way, we may need correction.

We may need a reproof from you and your word this morning.

We may need just instruction and righteousness.

Lord, whatever it is that you want to say to us, God, our ears are open.

We want to have open hearts before you.

We want to have hearts where we're ready to run in obedience to the things you speak to us.

Lord, as we walk through this text, would you be our teacher?

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

These six verses hold together one argument about a ministry that neither quits nor cheats.

Again, ministry where you're not quitting and you're not cheating.

Let's look first at mercy before ministry.

Mercy before ministry.

Some of you can relate to what Paul has said here.

He says, therefore, since we have this ministry, because we were shown mercy, we do not give up.

The therefore, you remember in a structural laws method, when we see a therefore, it's pointing to the previous material, the material we covered over the last two weeks, where Paul intricately explained the ministry of the new covenant.

If you were not here, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to those sermons on the church website so that you hear the difference between ministry according to the old covenant and ministry according to the new covenant.

You'll recall that Paul says the ministry by the new covenant is spirit-empowered, it gives life, and it is more glorious than that of the old covenant or the Mosaic law.

And Paul had said to this church, that's what we are entrusted with.

We are doing ministry according to the new covenant.

And he says, since we have this ministry, since we have this ministry, and it's because we were shown mercy that we do not give up.

Paul is calm, and it's not a temperament about Paul.

He is calm because of his biography.

He is the recipient of great mercy.

You and I are recipients of great mercy.

Even if you have not yet received the invitation of Jesus, you are actively living under the mercy of God.

Because the Bible says that everyone who lives is sinful.

All of us are rebels against the purposes and the plans of God.

Now you may want to justify yourself and say, no, no, no, I do these good things over here.

Yeah, you do.

But innately, you are living your life, and I am living my life if I'm independent from God with a deep self-interest, independent from the purposes of God.

And that is called sin.

And because of sin, you and I are under condemnation if we have not yet received Jesus Christ.

And yet, God is merciful on you.

When you woke up this morning, you had breath in your lungs.

And God is extending his mercy to you even as you reject Jesus Christ.

He's allowing you to continue to live because he wanted you to hear this morning that God Himself loves you and He demonstrated that love for you by sending Jesus 2,000 years ago to pay for your guilt and your rebellion on the cross so that you could be forgiven on God's account book, have your sin put away, be forgiven, and live a life rescued in near, nearness to God, as a friend of God, and being reconnected to the purpose that God has for you.

All of that is available to you.

In Paul's own story, let me read it to you.

It says in Acts 9 that he, being Saul at the time, he wasn't called Paul yet, he was Saul, he was still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.

This is Saul.

This is the guy who wrote our letter.

There is a time in his life where with the breath that he breathed, he is breathing out threats and murder against the disciples.

His agenda, if you lived at the time of Paul, you were on his list.

He wanted you dead because of your faith in Jesus.

And he requested a letter to him that would be sent with him to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any men or women who belonged to the way, this is the way of Jesus, he might bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

As he traveled and was nearing Damascus, a light from heaven suddenly flashed around him.

Falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Who are you, Lord?

Saul said.

I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting, he replied.

But get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.

The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the sound, but seeing no one.

Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing.

So they took him by the hand and led him into Damascus.

He was unable to see for three days, and he did not eat or drink.

Let me skip to the stor the further in the story.

There's a man named Ananias, who God sends to Saul.

Ananias went and entered the house where Saul was.

He placed his hand on him and he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road, you were traveling, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

At once something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight.

Then he got up and was baptized.

When Paul says to you and I that he received mercy, that's what he's talking about.

He's on the road to imprison, and his hopes are to murder these Jews now following Jesus.

And Jesus interrupts his plan, his agenda to reveal himself to Paul.

Notice Paul's not seeking God.

He's in absolute rebellion to the plans of God.

And yet Jesus interrupts him.

Man, what mercy.

What incredible mercy.

And so he writes to the Corinthians.

Go back to the letter.

He says, Therefore, since we have this ministry, because we were shown mercy, we do not give up.

What does your version say in 2 Corinthians 4, 1?

Does it say we don't give up?

What does it say?

We don't lose heart.

Yeah, that's another way of saying it.

We do not lose heart.

You have this core part of who you are.

That your heart is in.

Either your heart is in it or it's not.

And there's some things like taking out the trash, man.

My heart is not in it.

I do it, but my heart is not there with those trash cans.

Right?

But then there's other things that you do, right?

I'd add another project that I was working on on my little cottage at my house, right?

This aside little thing that was built, and I was putting some desks in there.

Man, my heart was in it.

Right?

I was excited about that project.

Either your heart is in it or it is not.

But there is this ability for us to lose heart or to give up.

To just not be in it.

And Paul says, listen, we don't.

We don't lose heart.

We don't quit.

And some of you are thinking about quitting.

I don't know what it is.

I don't know what it is, but but you could relate to what Paul is going through in his life because things are hard for Paul.

Remember, he's just been kicked out of Ephesus.

Remember, he is looking for Titus.

He can't find Titus because he had to leave Ephesus early.

Remember, he's gotten all these bad reports about the church he planted back in Corinth.

Remember, one of the reports that he heard was that there's super apostles, these fake and fraudulent apostles that are stealing away the people in that church, misleading them.

All of these things are going on for Paul, and Paul says, we do not give up.

We do not give up.

In um September 2020, I was facing just a very dark moment in my own life.

And I could see what was coming down the road was really not good.

And some of you know my own personal story.

I'm not gonna share it here, but let me just tell you, it was dark.

It really meant maybe I wouldn't pastor the church anymore.

It meant that I might no longer be in Baltimore anymore.

It was just there was I could not see a way out.

And I went out to Fort Howard Park and I just had a conversation with God.

And the Lord put 2 Corinthians 4 on my heart.

And I spent the time there, just at a picnic table, reading through 2 Corinthians 4.

And it opens up, therefore, since we have this ministry, because we were shown mercy, we do not give up.

And I wrote in my journal, I'm not gonna give up.

I'm gonna keep going.

I had no idea how it would work out.

I could not there was ever everything was outside of my control.

I could only let God do God's thing.

And yet I was committed at that point.

And I I had it was a two and a half year journey of walking through this whole thing, right?

And some people said, hey, listen, you know, you you you're you have permission.

You don't have to keep pastoring the church anymore.

And and I was appreciative of those leaders that were just they were they wanted to give me permission.

Like you, you know, you can you can step away.

You know, God will provide somebody else to pastor.

And I kept coming back to that moment at Fort Howard Park and 2 Corinthians 4, because not only does it say I'm not gonna give up once, but this chapter, what we'll see next week, is he says, We do not give up.

And my commitment was, God, I feel like you've given me grace to not give up.

It was actually not that hard to not give up because God had spoken to me that, and he was, when God says something to you, he also provides you the ability to do it, right?

In Philippians, it says that God works in us both to will and to do.

And so I knew and I appreciated the friendships of people saying, You can give up.

But I felt like, nope, God said, You need to keep going.

And I just want you to know, saints, that you can keep going.

You do not need to lose heart.

You do not need to lose heart.

He goes into verse 2, and he said, Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful things, not acting deceitfully or distorting the word of God, but commending ourselves before God to everyone's conscience by an open display of the truth.

Basically, we're not gonna give up in ministry and we're not gonna cheat.

We're not gonna default.

To playing games.

Let's go back to the ministry that God's entrusted to you.

You have the people around you that you care about, but they don't know Jesus yet.

And you're tempted to either give up or to play games, use gimmicks.

And what Paul is saying here is that we have renounced secret and shameful things.

Not acting in a deceitful way, and we're not manipulating or distorting scripture.

Guys, remember everything we studied over the last two weeks, right?

It's God who's at work in people.

The Spirit of God is writing on the tablets of people's hearts.

We can just openly and plainly convey the truth of the scripture, and that's what he says we do.

We commend ourselves before God.

God's a witness that we commend ourselves before God to everyone's conscience by an open display of the truth.

The radical freedom that comes with being a Jesus follower is that you don't have to be controlling, manipulative, play games, you get to leave that all behind.

Because the God of the Bible is with you.

Nothing is happening by accident.

God knows the wiles of the devil seated against you.

He knows the evil opposition that you face.

He knows the challenges and the questions that you face.

You can commend yourself to every man's conscience, everyone's conscience in the sight of God by just an open display of the truth.

You have the freedom to be honest.

And why do we not be honest?

Why do we sometimes act deceitfully?

Why are we sometimes acting in secret or tempted to change God's word?

Why do we do that?

Because we start to think it's on us.

That person's not going to know Jesus unless I play these games.

Or if I hide this thing over here.

No.

Paul says, listen, because we operate according to the new covenant and not Moses' law, we are the unveiled people.

Remember the veil we talked about last week?

We are unveiled.

We're not hiding anything.

Let's look at verses three and four.

The real problem is sight.

Think again for just a second about the people in your life who are far from God.

Paul says it's a vision problem.

Verse three, but if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

In their case, the God of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

The gospel's rejection is not evidence of its weakness.

It's not evidence of its weakness.

The issue is the fact that people are blind to the truth of the gospel.

So again, you have this friend, and you share with them, you share with them about what it means to become a follower of Jesus.

And they're not getting it.

They've got that look on their face like, who cares?

Why are you bringing this up?

The problem is not the gospel, the problem is what's going on in their heart.

There is a blinder that is at work.

And unbelief is a sight problem before it is an argument problem.

This lands in two ways for us.

The first is that it humbles us.

No cleverness can make a blind person see.

And second of all, because this is the case, it frees us.

Your friend not seeing the gospel is not your failure.

It's not your failure.

Now, listen, if you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you're not yet a follower of Jesus, or maybe you're not sure about your spiritual condition.

I just want to address you for just a second.

Because it may sound like I I'm saying, or like Paul's saying, that I just called you blind.

And you may feel like you're being insulted.

It might sound like as if well Christians see and you don't.

So so let me just nuance this a little bit and be really careful because Paul is actually saying something more interesting than just addressing your capacity to see.

Look at back at this verse, how the blinding works.

He says that it is the God of this age that has blinded the minds of unbelievers.

How does the God of this age blind people?

What does that look like for the God of this age to just put a blinder over people's eyes?

How does he do that?

How does Satan blind people?

Deceit?

Yeah, yeah.

He's not usually making anything look dark.

Okay?

The capacity to see the gospel is not because you have no vision.

Usually it's because he's making other things look so bright.

He has this counterfeit light.

Satan is has this ability to blind others with this blinding light of making other things look attractive.

Satan gives you glories that are real, but they are too small.

And he gets you to stare at those things.

Maybe it's your career or your reputation or a romantic partner.

Maybe it's your children's success or your political tribe that you're a part of.

Every one of those is a good thing that has become an ultimate thing.

And when a good thing becomes an ultimate thing, it functions like a floodlight aimed at your eyes.

Do you hear that?

This idea of blindness is this blindness that comes through Satan making other things attractive.

You're not blind because you see nothing.

You're blind because you're staring at something other than Jesus.

Which means blindness isn't a Christian insult aimed at secular people.

It is a universal human condition.

The Christians that are in this room who were blind are still somewhat blind, or can still somewhat be blind, it's a question of not whether you worship, it's what you are worshiping.

The question is what glory are you staring at?

Is it big enough to bear the weight of your soul?

And so as Paul is talking about blindness with this church, and he's explaining those who cannot see, the veil is over their eyes, they cannot see, and he's describing that Satan is there, their unbelief is mixed in.

He is describing to them a state of being totally and utterly distracted by the things of the world and not being able to take in and comprehend who the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, if you take this to its full extent, this is kind of like the release valve on your heart as you think of the burden of those around you who don't know Jesus.

If you feel exhausted in trying to share the gospel with your friends and family, you're praying and you don't see results, there is a sense, as you look at this, this should help unlock that sense of burden on your heart.

If unbelief is a sight problem before it is an argument problem, then two things follow.

Again, it humbles you because no cleverness of yours can make a blind person see.

You're not gonna argue someone into, you're not gonna argue with a blind person about the sunrise.

They cannot see it.

No argument is going to convince them.

Again, what Paul is saying, we just make this open display of the truth.

We share it, but we're not gonna convince you in.

God's gonna be the convincer of hearts.

So it doesn't just give you a humility, but again, it frees you from the burden.

It frees you from that burden.

So first it humbles us, second, it frees us.

Your friends not seeing is not your failure.

Some of you have been carrying your kids' salvation, your family's salvation on your shoulders.

You're like, why don't these people know Jesus and you're burdened by it?

But you just need to know that God's not calling you to carry that burden.

He is the one who it can work in them.

Your job is to just be a testimony and witness of Jesus.

You're just sharing, here's who Jesus is.

They can do with it what they want.

God can do with your testimony what he wants.

Paul, who was the greatest evangelist in church history, watched people walk away unmoved, and his explanation was not, I need a better presentation.

Right?

Paul was not sitting there thinking, how do I make this more cunning?

What kind of games can I play with the gospel to make this work out better?

And so we see verse five.

Get out of the way.

For we are not proclaiming ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

Do you notice that?

In sight of God's miracle, self-promotion, it's not just vain, it's useless.

And servanthood is not just humble, it's strategic.

It's strategic because in the lives of your friends, as you take this position as a servant of your friends, as a servant to others, you're giving place for Jesus to do his work, to go to work in their lives.

We're proclaiming Jesus as Christ, and we're taking up a towel and are washing the feet of our friends and our neighbors and our family members.

If you're preaching yourself, then you're going for self-admiration.

But preaching Christ is gonna lead to Jesus being seen and you being less seen.

Do you remember what John said?

John the Baptist said, He must increase and I must decrease.

I'm not even worthy to untie his shoes.

But he is the Lamb of God.

He is the one who takes away the sins of the world.

And so our disposition in relationships is as Paul is saying here, we are a servant.

Look at verse six.

The God who says, Let there be light.

Four, God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

The voice that needed no pre-existing material in Genesis chapter one, that God now co-opting the darkness of the human heart shines out in hearts.

Paul says, first, and in first it happened to him.

Do you remember?

Like this theme, this theme must have been significant for Paul because in his own conversion, what happened to him?

A light shone from heaven, and he says, that light shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of glory of God.

Now, Paul's conversion was spectacular.

This light shone from heaven, a voice came from.

I mean, that that's a rare conversion story.

That's not how I was saved.

Probably most of you were not either.

But what we can say is that God was at work saying, Let there be light.

And God works in our hearts to just turn the light on so that we know the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

You notice back in verse 4, he said that the God of this world blinds the minds to block the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, who is the image of God.

And here in verse 6, we have God shines in hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.

It's nearly identical, but it's inverted.

Satan is the one blinding hearts.

God is the one saying, let light shine out of darkness.

We'll close it here.

Listen.

You have, what we're going to see next week is that this light shines, and then this light doesn't stop shining in you.

There is, if you're a follower of Jesus, this image of having this light shine is what he's going to say is the excellency of the power of God at work in you.

And you're carrying that through your week, all through all the relationships that you have.

And you're going to get knocked around this week.

We all do.

There are going to be things that are upsetting, things that are stressful, things that are going to be sad that are going to happen, right?

Hate to break it to you, but most of you know that already.

There are things that are tough, there are disappointing relationships.

There are things that are confusing.

But you, if you have that light shining in you that God has shown out of your heart what you have, what's going on in your life is that you have the power of God at work in you.

And as you're in those relationships, be a person of great hope, of great boldness, because listen, listen carefully.

God's at work in the people around you.

And what's going on is that he is drawing those people to himself.

And you don't need to quit.

And you don't need to cheat.

You just need to keep proclaiming, hey, I'm a servant.

I'm a servant.

I'm here with my imaginary towel.

I'm here to wash your feet.

I'm here to love you.

I'm here to take care of you and love you on behalf of God.

It's amazing.

Yeah, Harrison, do you have a question?

Yeah.

The work of God in you flows through your marriage.

That's a key relationship.

Key relationship.

Let me pray for you all.

Pray for myself.

We'll close, you know, well, we'll take communion in a minute.

But before we do, I just want to pray over us according to these things that we've looked at.

Lord, as we are meditating throughout this week on this idea of new covenant ministry and just this ability to proclaim ourselves as servants, to make an open display of the truth and to trust that you're the one causing light to shine out of darkness.

Lord, we pray, help us to participate with you according to the new covenant, not according to the old covenant.

Lord, we we long for our friends and our neighbors to know you.

Help us not to give up.

Help us not to give up in our witness.

Help us to just be cooperating with you, God.

We ask that you would work and that you'd bless, that you continue to just use us for the advancement of your kingdom.

We want to see more people with us here on Sunday, just because more people are coming to know you.

We want to see the churches all around our whole neighborhood just overflowing, where they they're all overflowing because so many people are coming to know you, Jesus.

Lord, would you just work across Baltimore with the gospel, the light of the gospel, that it would shine in hearts?

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.