Continue Until He Comes

Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,

a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.

This fall, we're studying the book of Second

Corinthians. Second Corinthians is a heartfelt

and practical book calling us back to the life

of the cross. We, like the Corinthians, so often

pursue glory, admire eloquence, shun suffering,

hide hurt, and hoard our goods. And yet the gospel

of Jesus tells us that resurrection comes after

a cross. that comfort comes after being crushed,

that the way up is the way down, that the way

to glory is through suffering, that his strength

is made perfect in our weakness. We'd love to

meet you and we hope you'll consider coming and

joining with us each Sunday morning at 10 a .m.

in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg. You can find

us online at secondcitychurch .org and on Facebook,

Instagram, and YouTube. We hope you enjoy this

sermon. God bless. Let me pray again for us.

Lord God, we're thankful for your word. God,

I pray that it would be alive for us again this

morning, that we would be alive to you, that

we would be attentive to you, that we would be

eager to learn from you and to give our lives

over more and more to following you, the true

God. We pray this in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

All right. Probably most all of you, though maybe

especially a couple of you, heard of the great

heist that happened last month in October in

Paris. It was the stuff of movies, just bringing

a truck lift up to one of the greatest museums

in the world. The Louvre, lifting it up as though

it's not a big deal to a window to smash it and

to grab $100 million worth of royal jewelry to

run off down the lift onto some motorbikes masked

and get away. Those readings, supposedly they've

all been caught, but the jewels have yet to be

recovered. It's a great story. It's just an introduction

actually to my other introduction. illustration.

Because I want to tell you about Mark Landis.

Maybe some of you have heard the name Mark Landis.

I imagine maybe there's a couple here. Maybe

some of you who are into art have heard of him.

The Louvre Heist displays maybe for the world

just how easy it is to be robbed. Mark Landis

shows us maybe how easy it is to be deceived,

to think you know what you're doing and to be

duped. So from the late 80s until 2010, Mark

Landis forged, immaculately forged famous pieces

of art and donated them to museums. Never taking

any money. Often going to the museum, calling

them up, using various different aliases. He

actually used a number of different priests as

aliases. Religious people are easy to do that

with, right? Hi, I'm Pastor Peter. I've got this

piece of art I want to give to you in my father's

name. Most of the art he gave away actually to

honor his parents, particularly his father who

actually did die when he was 17, which sent Mark

into a hospital for nearly 18 months. They thought

he was schizophrenic. They don't think that anymore.

They think he might be bipolar. He actually went

on to go study art at the University of Chicago.

So he has this sort of encyclopedic knowledge

of art history and an unbelievable skill. So

really, he would take these pieces of art and

he would take a magnifying glass of them and

study them so intently and copy them so perfectly

that he could bring them to these museums, suggest

that he donate it, actually allude to maybe giving

them more or maybe giving them some money from

the family endowment and get these guys to take

his art, his art that he had copied from somebody

else, and hang it up on their walls. Pretty remarkable.

In fact, one thing that I thought was so remarkable

as I was reading about him was that he did this

sort of spanning a bunch of different genres.

He forged modernist art. He forged the impressionist.

He forged religious art. You know icons and whatnot.

I mean just all across this and he got away with

it He supposed it supposedly I read a couple

different numbers but somewhere between 50 and

60 different museums throughout 20 different

states up until 2010 had Mark Landis paintings

that weren't his paintings remarkable One museum

director explained how Landis would imply that

he had even more to donate, and the director

admitted he knew right where to hit us, our soft

spot. What's the soft spot of museum directors?

Art and money. Who's an honest man, that director?

Deception. Deception that takes you off track.

It looks so appealing. It's exactly what you

want, but it's not the real thing. It's fake.

So, I've said, you know, today is the beginning

of Advent, the season where we remember the coming

of God, His first coming, look forward to His

second coming. And of course, we can think of

how many were taken off track as they waited

for the Lord. We could go walk through the long

history of the Old Testament as people longed

for the one who would crush the head of the serpent.

And yet they were taken off track again and again,

deceived in their waiting. The long waiting for

Messiah's coming, generation upon generation.

And the truth is actually, we could do this.

For those who have been waiting for the second

coming of Jesus, so many Christians have said,

I don't know, give me something else. Give me

something easier. Give me something more palatable.

Deceive me a little bit. I've waited so long.

It's actually kind of interesting. There's two

messiahs that are mentioned for us in Acts chapter

Acts 5 · chapter mention

5. We know that there were lots of messiahs that

came claiming to be God at work. You know, Messiah

means anointed one, the anointed one of God who

would work. All kinds of different people coming

and saying, follow me. And in the long waiting

for Jesus, a lot of people followed false messiahs

and their holy and good desire for Eden to be

restored, for things to be made right and just

and good, when after other things were deceived.

It's a common story. So our passage this morning

is this long passage which Rebecca read very

well. I actually was reading it out loud to myself

a couple of times in preparation, which I often

do. To hear the word out loud oftentimes helps

me understand it. And to be honest, I found myself

trailing off. It was so long. Rebecca, thank

you for practicing that and doing so well. It's

a long passage, but I also want to suggest to

you that in some ways it's a rather simple passage.

It's not entirely too complex. Paul is continuing

on in this talk that he began in chapter 10 and

actually kind of talked about earlier in the

text. And I know we've been so confused the last

month or so jumping around here and there, but

he's talking against these false prophets, these

people that came in and they were acting and

they were talking. in a way that wasn't consistent

with the true Jesus, these false teachers. And

he comes in essentially here and he says, they're

deceiving you. They're deceiving you and don't

be led off. They're doing what Satan has always

been up to, harkening their minds back to the

garden story. They're taking you away from the

true place, which is your true peace. We have

real provision. protection in the Lord Himself.

So I want to suggest to you that there's two

main deceptions that are being talked about in

this passage, okay? Two main deceptions that

are being talked about in this chapter. And it

kind of breaks up, if you have your Bible open

actually to that passage, you kind of see...

If you have it open to the Pew Bible, you'll

see there's a break between verses 15 and 16,

and kind of the main points that I want to suggest

to you are actually right at that break. But

this chapter largely has to do with this deception.

And the first deception that I want to suggest

to you is what I'm going to call disguised delight.

If you get down to the last part, the last little

paragraph of that section, what you'll find is

that there's this disguise, right? It says even

Satan is disguised as an angel of light, that

they're disguised as something that is to be

desired, to be delighted in, but they're deceiving

you in that, okay? Listen with me again to verses

one and two. I love how Paul begins this chapter.

It feels very like straight, real talking kind

of. I wish you would bear with me in a little

foolishness. Do bear with me. For I feel divine

jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one

husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

Paul is stating from the beginning here, That

he's he's going to be a bit foolish in this chapter

and i hope you caught it in the reading of it

it feels a little. Defensive and and almost almost

like he's playing with them a little bit but

in a in a sad kind of way. He's going to play

the game that the false teachers are playing.

He's going to go along with them with these super

apostles who are talking themselves up. But what

he wants to say from the very beginning is that

this is a divine jealousy, that he's saying,

I am not going to get into this conversation

about this stuff along with these false apostles

for my own sake, but because you have given yourself

to the true husband, the true love. And they

are deceiving you. They're giving you this deception

that they are disguising themselves as something

delightful, some sort of an other love and don't

buy it. That's what he's saying, don't buy it.

What's happening is that they were finding other

sort of news, other things that tickled their

ears and hit their fancies a little bit more

than Jesus himself. And he is saying, Don't buy

into it. It's not the real thing. Don't be led

astray, as he says in verse 3, from a sincere

and a pure devotion to Christ. So how are they

doing this? How are they doing this? How are

they deceiving them with this sort of disguised,

delightful thing? First thing I want to suggest

to you is they're doing this in their proclamation,

okay? So verse 4, it says this, For if someone

comes and proclaims another Jesus, then the one

we proclaim, or if you receive a different spirit

from the one you received, or if you accept a

different gospel from the one you accepted, you

put up with it readily enough. He says, you're

buying into this, this other proclamation, and

it's deceiving you. You're being easily deceived.

Someone is proclaiming a different Jesus and

you're giving your attention to it. You're receiving

it as though it's something that ought to be

received. Now, keep in mind, it is not like these

other teachers are coming in and saying, let

me tell you about not Jesus Christ, but Jesus

Zubrod, Jesus Rowan. They're not doing that.

That would be too easy. It'd be like, well, we

heard about Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Now you're

telling me it's about Jesus. Red, that's what

Rowan means in case you're wondering. No, no,

no, no, no, no. They're talking about Jesus Christ,

but here's what these deceivers are doing. They're

talking about him in such a way, they're proclaiming

him in such a way that is just so easy and so

palatable and so nice to hear with those Corinthian

ears. I want us to sit in this for a little bit,

okay? So people come to a Messiah, which again,

keep in mind, what does Messiah means? It means

anointed one, right? Anointed one. People come

to the Messiah, this one who would come and save

them, anointed one from God that would save with

what they believe is their fundamental problem,

right? What do I need saving from? What's my

problem? Let's go to the Messiah with the problem.

So some in Jesus' day, some messiahs in Jesus'

day, we know this, this is actually part of what's

mentioned in Acts chapter five, led a whole crowd

of Jewish folk who were waiting for the Messiah,

desiring His coming. They led them out into the

wilderness. Why? Because the world had become

so corrupt. We need to get away from all this

corruption. The real, the main problem that we

have is all these people around us. And they

are just corrupting our good morals. And if we

could just be by ourselves, we would have it

fine. We just need us together who all agree

on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? I mean,

that's part of what the Messiahs were doing.

Truly, that's somewhat what the Messiahs were

doing. Some Messiahs thought that the primary

problem was a political problem. The primary

problem with the world was a political problem.

If we could just get rid of those others, I know

you all are probably thinking in our world, you're

probably thinking either, oh, is he talking about

Democrats or Republicans? I'm not. Talking about

the Romans, right? But our minds are probably

running there. But truly, that was what was happening,

right? So you had messiahs that thought our primary

problem is that we are occupied. We're occupied

by the Romans. And so the messiah would come

and the primary thing that he would do is get

rid of those. Romans, get rid of the occupiers.

That's the problem. The primary problem with

the world is a political problem. Okay. Now,

there were other messiahs. That thought that

the primary problem is a religious purity problem

That what we primarily need is a Messiah who's

not going to hang around with the riff -raff

Don't hang out with sinners. Don't especially

don't hang out with tax collectors Don't hang

out with people that drink too much, you know

Drink smoke and chew and go with the girls that

do that kind of stuff. Don't hang out with those

people And so some of the messiahs said, what

we need primarily is religious purity. That's

the fundamental problem, because there's not

religious purity. And so you have those kinds

of messiahs. I'm telling you, we know there are

messiahs that fit these descriptions. So of course,

what's Jesus' problem? Well, part of his problem

is that he hung out with people. that he wasn't

supposed to. The religious people didn't like

that. He wasn't exclusive enough. He wasn't pure

enough for them. Some of the problem was that

he wasn't out to get the Romans like they wanted

him to. Why was Jesus killed? For those kinds

of reasons. Anyway, the Corinthians, which was

a wealthy Roman port city, remember? This is

a great trading industrial place. It had all

these temples to other gods. Part of their biggest

problem that they would want is that they wanted

to be respected. This is a well -to -do place

with well -to -do people, educated folk. How

do I religiously live in this kind of setting

that I can still be respected and loved by those

who are about me? give me more of a prosperous

Jesus, please." That's what they desire. Let's

think about this a little bit, okay? I mean,

it is not hard to think that in our own day,

we have nationalist Jesus, right? But because

the primary problem is that we have all those

other people coming in here and telling us, like,

messing with our nation. So let's get Jesus to

stamp that. Or we can think of The great love

of modernist classically liberal idea is the

primacy of the individual. You do you. You think,

therefore you are. I think, therefore I am. So

it's the primacy of the individual. So our main

objective in our world is to individually express

who we believe we are. It's the primary thing.

So let's get Jesus to stamp that. You can think

about this all day. Let's get capitalist Jesus.

Let's get socialist Jesus. Well, whatever, you

know, we just want Jesus to stamp it. We have

the idea of what's our major problem and let's

get the Messiah, bam, on that. Different Jesuses.

And that is exactly what these teachers are doing.

That's exactly what these teachers are doing.

They're not proclaiming a Jesus with another

last name. They're saying, this is the Jesus

Christ, but they're not being faithful to who

Jesus really was as revealed in scripture. who

came primarily because the big problem is sin.

That's the big problem that has to be dealt with.

Why is Jesus called Jesus? Why is Joseph told

to name him that? Because he will save his people

from their... I don't know what Jesus would have

been called if he was to save them from the Romans

or save them from a lack of purity. But what

we have in the Gospels right from the beginning,

even His name, is because the main problem is

that Jesus is coming to deal with sin. They're

presenting a different Jesus. They're deceiving

and they're trying to make it more palatable,

more delightful. They're disguising Jesus. Now,

I'm not saying that some of the things that we

want to address are not real problems because

they are and they are an effect of sin, economic

systems and all these kinds of things. They're

an effect of being estranged from God. They're

an effect of rebellious hearts. But if you don't

get the root problem wrong, you don't see the

Messiah for who He is, and you get deceived.

What I'm suggesting is that the first deception

of a disguised delight is that they're simply

proclaiming a message that tickled the ears of

the Corinthian people. Another part of this Disguised

Delight was their style. I'm going to say style,

but that word's not in our passage. But verse

five, I love this. We're not going to take this

long in every section. I'm not going to walk

this slowly through all these 33 verses, but

verse five. Indeed, I consider that I am not

in the least inferior to these super apostles.

I always kind of love that because it's almost

like these guys are big deal. They got their

stuff going for them, right? And then verse six,

actually, he says this, even if I am unskilled

in speaking, I'm not so in knowledge indeed in

every way we have made this plain to you in all

things. So he's sort of admitting that these

guys have a style that's attractive. I mean,

you know, when he calls them super apostles,

it may be in jest, but it actually could be that

these people themselves thought these guys got

it going. They are very, very articulate. They

can speak in such a way that every single word

that they speak, everyone is just hanging on

it. What's he going to say next? The whole next

paragraph, 7 to 11. He speaks primarily of this

idea that he didn't receive any money from the

Corinthian Church. Actually, if you notice, what

he says is the Macedonian Church, who were what?

Poor and afflicted, right? Were the ones supporting

him in his ministry. He didn't receive anything

from the Corinthian Church. But why would he

go into this for a little while in the context

of this chapter? Well, it's because The money

that you were given when you were speaking corresponded

to your ability, to your eloquence, to how many

people you could gather. This isn't a hard idea

for you to get. I looked this up. An ex -president

If he is going to give a speech, receives anywhere

from $100 ,000 to $500 ,000 for one speech. By

contrast, I used to lead Reformed University

Fellowship at Virginia Commonwealth University,

where I would often go preach to various churches

around the Commonwealth. I would preach on average

about 22 Sundays a week for various churches

and make anywhere from $100 to $300 a speech.

These super apostles, they were getting paid.

And Paul wasn't. They had style. People liked

them. They liked what they had to say. They had

sort of social cachet that invited the big bucks.

I mean, you can imagine in a world where professional

philosophers were accorded status by how much

they got paid. And Paul wasn't getting anything.

They kind of looked at Paul and thought, maybe

this thing that he's talking about isn't worth

anything. Maybe we should go a different direction.

Maybe because he refused to get paid, his teaching

was of low quality, or the message wasn't worth

much. Or if the gospel is free, then of what

value is it? Maybe he isn't an apostle. What

I'm suggesting is all this money talk in this

has to do with the question of style that these

false prophets had. And in that world, in that

time, and in that place, people were deceived.

They could easily give into the deception that

the person that makes the money is the one that

you ought to listen to. They're speaking the

truth. They wanted a palatable Jesus their neighbors

could respect. They wanted a Jesus who would

get a lot of money for being proclaimed. And

yet again, as we get to the end of that little

section, All it says is this is a disguised deception.

Don't buy into it. It's not the real thing. It's

false. Don't buy into the idea that you need

a G's that primarily comes to deal with your

nationalist problems or your expressive individualism

or your economic plight. Don't buy into that.

Don't buy into a style of presenting Jesus that

doesn't invite humility, the way of Jesus. Jesus

comes low and so must his people. Don't buy into

all the flash, Paul is saying, all the pomp and

circumstance. It's true, these are the kinds

of messiahs, I'm telling you, these are the kinds

of messiahs that were present in Jesus' own day.

And people saw them. and they missed Him. And

I'm inviting you, I'm telling you, continue on

in the faith. Don't be deceived. Grab on the

true Christ. Okay, the second deception here,

and this is sort of the second half of this chapter,

is that there's this other deception that was

at play. And I'm just going to call this one

the deception to spurn suffering. to spurn suffering.

And it's sort of related to the first one, making

Jesus a little palatable, but it's a little bit

different, okay? Spurning suffering. So this

second part of chapter 11 is one of the most

complete, I mean, there's a couple of these,

but it's one of the most complete lists of Paul's

suffering as he went about proclaiming Jesus

and planting churches and supporting the churches.

But I do want to read it to you again, because

it really is fairly remarkable. This is verse

24 to 28. So he says this, five times I received

the hands of the Jews, the 40 lashes less one.

By the way, 40 was thought to kill somebody.

So they said, we can't do 40, we'll do 39. So

five times he received that. Three times I was

beaten with rods once I was stoned. Three times

I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I was adrift

at sea. on frequent journeys and danger from

rivers danger from robbers danger from my own

people danger from gentiles danger in the city

danger in the wilderness danger at sea danger

from false brothers toil and hardship through

many a sleepless night and hunger and thirst

often without food and cold and exposure and

apart from other things there is the daily pressure

on me of my anxiety for all the churches i mean

that's a lot That's a lot. But the point of him

sharing all of his suffering is not so that they

can go, wow, y 'all, look at Paul. Because I

kind of read it through and I'm like, dang, that's

amazing that he went through all that. But I

want to suggest to you that that's not why he's

saying that, okay? If you go back, go back to

the beginning of these verses. I'll read to you

actually verses 16 to 21 again also, okay? So

this is what this says, and I love again how

sort of human this feels. I repeat, let no one

think me foolish, but even if you do accept me

as a fool so that I too may boast a little. What

I'm saying with this boastful confidence, what

I'm saying with this boastful... full confidence,

I say not as the Lord would, but as a fool. Since

many boast according to the flesh, so too I will

boast. For you gladly bear with fools being wise

yourselves. For you bear it if someone makes

slaves of you or devours you or takes advantage

of you or puts on airs or strikes you in the

face. To my shame, I must say we were too weak

for that." He keeps saying this is a foolish

thing that he's about to do. He's sort of playing

into their game as it were, right? But here's

the thing. Their main game was their credentials.

The main game, if you'll remember back a little

ways about the whole letter, that these people

came, these false prophets came with a letter

of recommendation from others. Their main thing

was, look at my CV. Look at the jobs I've had.

Look at me. Right? That was what their main thing

was doing. And so he begins to play along with

this a little bit. And he does so first by saying

this, right? Verse 22, are they Hebrews? Because

that's on their CV. I'm a Hebrew, you ought to

listen to me about this guy. He says, check,

so am I. Are they Israelites? Yes, check, so

am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? Okay, so

am I. Are they servants of Christ? Then he says,

I'm a better one. Now he says, I'm speaking like

a madman because he knows he's going easy. He's

kind of going a little bit far. But what I want

to suggest to you is that he's entertaining this

foolish idea that you ought to listen to him

because of his credentials. And he says, this

is a deceptive thing to kind of just go, hey,

look at me. Look at what I've done. And he says,

The real test is actually, are you willing to

follow Christ? And what does it mean to follow

Christ, but to follow Him to the place of suffering?

Because most of us are deceived, an awful lot

of us are deceived, and the great test of faith

is, are you willing to continue on in the faith

when it means your life or some aspect of your

life that you cherish, that you hold tight to?

goes into the boasting because he wants to show

how foolish it is, but he also wants to lead

them into this question of, do you actually receive

Jesus? Because to receive Jesus means to receive

the one who goes to the cross, who invites you

to take up your cross and to follow him. I hope

you see what Paul is doing here. There's a deception

that's at play in these false teachers. And the

community is intrigued by this deception. They're

considering going along with it. They're considering

going along with a Jesus that's a little bit

more palatable to their ears and to their neighbors.

And they're intrigued by going along with a Jesus

that says, all you need is the stuff that puffs

you up. Don't go to the cross. Don't go to the

place of suffering. Just give your CV that makes

you look good. They were tempted to follow Jesus

until it meant something would cost them. Something

that cost them. And again, I just want to suggest

to you, this is another one of the great deceptions

that we live in still. We're deceived. I'm following

Jesus until He comes again, until He comes again,

His second Advent, because sometimes following

Jesus means it costs us something. Sometimes

it costs us job opportunities. Sometimes it costs

us relationships that we desire, friendships,

romantic life that we would like to pursue. Truthfully,

very few of you Probably none of you are likely

to be shipwrecked or receive the 40 lashes minus

one. But it's not a crazy thought to think that

quite a few of you may miss out on a job opportunity

because your Lord calls you to honesty. And often

honesty doesn't get you terribly far in business,

not as far as you may want to go. It's not likely

that you will have sleepless night upon sleepless

night as Paul did. But it's not unlikely that

your relationships will be affected, that you

might be invited into a life of celibacy to follow

Jesus faithfully in your life. That might be

part of the Lord's invitation to you. It might

be part of the cross that you bear. And those

are just some of the reasons, those are just

some of the things that we might be invited into

that we will say, you know what, this is too

heavy to bear. I think I will give up on this

Jesus thing. We want to spurn the suffering,

the cross bearing that we have to bear in order

to follow Jesus. Paul says he can boast of these

things though, if you caught at the end, because

they reveal his weakness. but God's strength.

I thought when I was studying this passage, how

strange it is that he ends the way he does. Look

at verses 30 in the end. If I must boast, I will

boast of the things that show my weakness. Erratus

was guarding the city of Damascus in order to

seize me, but I was let down in a basket through

a window in the wall and escaped his hands."

That's how the chapter ends. You're like, what's

this little story that you're sharing with us

here at the end, Paul? Well, he's sharing with

us this whole town is being guarded and I escaped.

And he says, here's the truth. And here's a test.

Maybe here's a test actually, just like giving

is a barometer for your faith that we talked

about last week a little bit, right? which is

a true barometer. But another barometer is, have

you seen that God's power is made perfect in

your weakness? Paul says, I knew that God was

with me because I was so utterly unable. There's

no way I was going to escape. This guy had the

whole place guarded. And I got out. Because God

can provide. His power is made perfect in our

weakness. So deception. Let me go back to Mark

Landis as a way of closing. So Mark Landis lives

in Mississippi. He's a free man. He was never

arrested. He deceived all of these museums. all

over the country 20 different states had had

his pieces hanging in there on their walls but

here's an interesting thing he he always gave

away his work he never received any money from

it and the people that he was dealing with this

is interesting the people he was giving these

pieces to were the experts They were the specialists

in these works of art and they would receive

them and they would examine them and they would

say, sure enough, this is a true piece. I can't

believe we're receiving this free gift. We'll

hang it up on our walls. Here's why I share this.

He was able to deceive and which is why he's

not in jail. He's living free right now down

in Mississippi. He was able to deceive the people

that thought they knew, right? The real experts

in their field. Brothers and sisters, I want

to encourage you, be on your guard. Hold fast

to the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Cling to Jesus because if you rest on your laurels

with the faith, It will be so easy to hear the

tickling proclamations of another Jesus, to look

and see the style of somebody else and be led

astray. To consider, you know what, I'm not going

to have to suffer if I go with that Jesus instead

of that Jesus. I want the good, the health and

wealth and all that sort of stuff, life. Maybe

I should go there. If these museum curators,

if these experts in art can be deceived, believe

me, we can too. And Paul's word to us is hold

fast to Jesus. Continue in the faith until his

coming. May we do so, and may we do so together.

Let me pray. Lord, we're thankful for this text,

Gal, we're thankful for its warning, its Advent

warning, because Lord, the waiting is long. And

I pray that You'd give us Your Holy Spirit to

abide within us and to give us faith that we

might cling to Jesus, our rock and our salvation.

We pray this in His name. Amen. Thank you for

listening to Second City Sermons podcast. We

hope this sermon has encouraged you to worship

God and to celebrate the gospel of Jesus. Please

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us in person each Sunday at 10 a .m. You can

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for listening. God bless.