Faithful Ministry

Let me ask you if you join me in scripture, that's what we're here for. We're in 2 Corinthians, the book 2 Corinthians, and we're in chapter 4.

Chapter 4, and today I just want to take the first six verses. So I said we were going to speed up, and we did last week, took the whole chapter.

The whole chapter, chapter 3. Today we're back to a section because I think it's worth slowing down and watching what the Apostle Paul has to say.

We've been walking through this letter for about two months now, and today we come to this chapter where Paul is going to talk to us very specifically about his ministry.

So let's begin reading in verse 1, and I'll read for us down through verse 6.

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word,

but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

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

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with 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. Let's pray. Father, we think about our Savior today, the glory shining from His face, because Father, He is the image of you, the invisible God.

He is God the Son, and we believe that you sent Him here to this earth, Lord, that He walked this earth, He lived the life we couldn't live, and He went to a Roman cross to die a death He did not deserve, but that we did.

And so we thank you for Him. We celebrate His power today. Lord, teach us as we think about what ministry is, even for our own lives, as we listen and learn derivatively from the Apostle Paul.

And we pray this in the name of our Savior, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Today, I want you to think about Paul's ministry for a minute. I want you to ask yourselves a couple of questions.

Number one, was Paul's ministry something that he felt entitled to? Did he feel like it was his thing? He was entitled to do it? No. Did Paul think that ministry was something he was expecting to do?

This not just, I mean, he had a different kind of ministry, you could say, before he became a Christian. We'll get to that in a minute. But was this really like a ministry that Paul was preparing for from his youth?

No, not really. We'll remember that, yes, he was trained in the best rabbinic schools of the day as a Pharisee. As he testifies over in the book of Acts, chapter 22, verse 3, he says over there, I was educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law.

Acts 22:3

Paul was a Jews Jew. Most of us might not know who Gamaliel was, but trust me, every Jew in the first century knew who he was. He was considered the greatest rabbi.

Paul schooled under him. You could say Paul had some pretty impressive credentials. And yet, the ministry that he'd been given was not about credentials.

It wasn't about his fancy Pharisee clothing. It wasn't about big words or giving respectable lectures. No, the speaking gigs that Paul often ended up doing, ended up with people, well, screaming at him and trying to kill him and rioting.

For Paul, it was an esteemed career marked by what he's going to tell us later in chapter 11, marked by imprisonments, countless beatings, and often near death.

Listen, Paul did not plan for any of that. And yet, God called him to it. He called him first to himself on the Damascus Road, right? Acts chapter 9.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

And then, three days later, he called him to this specific ministry as an apostle. And it would be a ministry that, as prophesied, would be marked by suffering.

What was it that God said to Ananias about Saul of Tarsus, soon to be Paul? He said, I will show him how much he must suffer for my name. And talk about a 180-degree turn in terms of his career.

Again, if you could call it a career, to go from being a persecutor of the church, a guy who literally tracked down and hunted and arrested Christians, to now an apostle of Jesus Christ?

And a witness? And really a foundational architect of the church God was building? And an author of a good portion of his word in the New Testament that we now have?

Paul takes a minute here to reflect on his ministry in these verses. And I think what he does is he proceeds to show us all the ways that he has been faithful in it.

It's been a faithful ministry marked by integrity and truthfulness and, of course, God's power. And, of course, the reason Paul felt the need to do what he's doing right here in this letter, to defend his ministry, is because it's been under attack.

His very apostleship has been challenged by his opponents here in Corinth. So, if we might, I think here's how we could proceed today. Here's how we're going to proceed with this passage.

I want us to unpack what Paul says in these six verses. And as we do, we're going to hear him not just defend his ministry. He's also going to lay out several things that show us what faithful ministry is all about.

You got that? From what faithful ministry is and what it does, to what it does not do, to what faithful ministry entails, and to what we should always remember in faithful ministry.

So, I'd like to take all of this and turn it toward our individual lives. Because although, yes, Paul had a very unique ministry as an apostle, which none of us now have, the reality is that every Christian, every believer, if you're one sitting here today,

in some way, shape, or form, you have ministry to do. Whether it's ministering to someone as a close friend, or ministry to the spouse sitting next to you, or ministry to children, if God has blessed you with children, ministry to a sibling, to an aunt, to an uncle, a nephew,

a niece, a grandchild, you have ministry. And some of us have ministries right here in this church. Not to mention your places of work, our neighborhoods, where we live in, where we are a Christian presence.

There are ministries all around us. So, as we look at these things Paul talks about, about what makes for a faithful ministry, I want you to think about how they might apply to your own personal situation.

Alright? Let's get started. Here's our first point this morning. Point number one is this. Number one, faithful ministry is a gift from a merciful God.

A gift from a merciful God. So we do not lose heart, or burn out.

That's how Paul starts out here in verse one. Therefore, he says, therefore, that kind of a word reminds us, we need to look previous to this, to what he said in the last chapter.

Therefore, because of what I've just said, for the reasons I've just given, and we ask ourselves, because of what, Paul? What were you talking about?

And for us, it was last week. And Paul would say, I was talking about the hope that we have in Christ. I was teaching you about the new covenant, about that new and living way, open for us through the curtain of Christ's body.

He's saying, because of this blessed truth, that when anyone turns to the Lord, chapter three, the veil over their hearts gets lifted, gets removed.

Because of this, and in light of the fact that God has mercifully, and graciously gifted us this ministry, to share the good news, we don't lose heart.

We do understand that Paul's ministry, was not some kind of an achievement by him. He didn't earn his ministry. I mean, Paul didn't even so much as aspire toward it.

It's not like being Christ's apostle, was something that he himself woke up one day and said, you know what? I took a personality inventory.

I took my first century Myers-Briggs, and I've discovered on that test, or a career aptitude test, I've discovered that I've got apostolic wiring.

No.

It didn't work that way at all. God called him to do this. It was God's decision. God's choice. And God providentially placed him in the specific context of his ministry.

And I want to talk about both those things. A specific call to do ministry, and a providential context, in which it's, you could say, kind of automatic.

It's built in. Let's talk about Paul. Yes, he had strong theological training. That probably meant, I mean, surely it meant he knew the Old Testament really, really well.

But God's mercy, he says, is what's put me here. And it was here where I was put to serve. And Paul knew that God could be trusted to suit him and prepare his man for the job.

Paul trusted in this. And that is why, come what may in his life, come literally hell or high water, and I would say he experienced a bit of both, Paul knew that God would save him.

Paul knew that his ministry would bear fruit. And because of that, he was not going to lose heart. That means he was not going to give up or become fatigued to the point of burnout or shrink back.

Paul was 100, maybe you could say 110%, committed to steward the ministry God had given him and steward it well. And I would argue this is how we should see our ministries today too.

Like I said, sometimes God gives us a specific call to ministry. You were not as Redeemer Church and I as your pastor, you were not built into my life at some point.

It wasn't like I walked down the aisle and married you as I did my wife and she became a part of my life. It wasn't like I went to the hospital and delivered you.

And as the case for my children, and they became a part of my life. So there are some ministry callings where we receive a specific call from the Lord.

I felt that coming here to be your pastor. You might feel that in different ways in your life. Like I think God has called me to minister in a specific way.

But I would also remind us that there are other contexts ! Where the calling is simply built in as part of our providential circumstances. As is the case with a marriage.

As is the case with being someone's aunt or uncle or father or mother or grandparent. Listen, if God has gifted you with a household over which you are providing oversight, then those children who, by the way, are on loan to you from God, they are your responsibility.

They are your ministry context. Providentially. Others of us find a providential context for ministry based on where we go to school. Where we walk into class every day.

Who our locker is beside. Where we go to work. Where we take our kids when it's warm enough to go to the park. Wherever it is. That is a providential ministry context.

And will there be challenges in these contexts? Yeah, there are, of course. Paul's going to share, again, a few of his challenges with us a little later on in this letter.

And we will hear of how his commitment to his ministry was literally at the risk of his life. But understand that the reason Paul never gave up, never quit, didn't quack out or freak out or walk away is because he knew God is the one who gives the ministry.

God gifts ministry and he supplies the resources for doing it and doing it well. Let's move on to the second verse. Verse number two gives us a second point.

Point number two about a faithful ministry is this. Number two. Faithful ministry renounces disgraceful, underhanded ways and openly states the truth.

Openly states the truth. Verse two. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways, Paul says. Disgraceful. What does that mean? Literally, the Greek has the sense of the hidden things of shame.

Hidden things of shame. It almost reminds me of an ancient story. A true story. About a couple. A man and a woman who disobeyed the voice of God and ate some forbidden fruit.

And next thing you know, the Lord's out on his regular evening walk to come see them. And where is this couple? Hiding. Shame. Shame and hiding being the result of sin.

This is what sin creates. This is what the God of this world is in the business of inciting. Serpentine. Disgraceful. Underhanded. Those are his ways and that is his game.

Right about now, we wonder, is Paul maybe pushing back on those opponents, those critics, the hucksters there in Corinth who were challenging Paul's integrity, flaunting their own credentials.

Remember, they were vouching for each other, writing these letters of recommendation for one another. Boasting in their retraining, their Greek rhetoric, the sophistry that they had.

Yeah, probably. Paul says in the second half of verse 2, we refuse to do these things. We refuse to behave in a ministry like that. To be cryptic.

Literally, the Greek word used here is cryptos. Cryptic. Unseen. Cloaked in secrecy. He also uses the word cunning. Cunning as in using tricks of the trade.

Carefully crafting, in this case, your words to get what you want out of people, out of situations. It's like the father who tries to renegotiate a deal, but does so with tricks and dishonesty, telling someone, oh, that's all the money I have, while his children are watching

and they know that's not true. It's like the mom who fabricates a made-up reason to pass on getting together with another mom, while the kids know she's free that afternoon.

It's the church or the pastor that lightens up their message with maximum positivity. Come to such and such church. Come with us. We're fun.

We simply want to help you. You know, if it's not too much, take a little step closer to Jesus. And he's totally loving and accepting of everything.

Whatever you want to give him, he's there. He's really desperate for you. Listen, our gospel teaches, for God so loved the world. And he does, John 3.16.

But it also teaches us a couple verses later that our world was in bad shape because of sin. That actually we stood condemned. So no, Jesus wasn't sent into the world on a mission of condemnation, to come condemn us.

He was sent to save us. But here's why. John 3.18 says, Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned because he's not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

We're sinners. And what that means is that we are rightly under the wrath of God for our sin, his just judgment. We deserve judgment, and we deserve hell.

And people, honestly, they don't just take a casual step closer to Jesus. It either comes to the point where you bend the knee to your Lord as your Savior, where you genuinely repent, or you keep doing your own thing.

And for those of us who have a ministry that involves teaching in any way, really, this verse, we've got to follow Paul's lead here. And how does Paul lead us?

He says we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But instead, by open statement of the truth, we engage in our ministry. With God watching.

Doesn't he say that? In the sight of God. We don't tamper with God's word because God's watching. That means we don't get to reclassify things that the Bible says are sin and say that they're no longer sin.

It means we don't get to claim some new revelation and make misleading arguments. Someone sent me an article this week, a new article in a Mennonite journal, and it does just that.

It offers pretty well-written but misleading arguments about new revelation that now says being queer is okay as a Christian. But we don't get to move the goalposts on moral behavior.

It's true that some of the Bible's doctrines are really hard and challenging, and depending on maybe our temptations are more challenging than others.

But we don't get to tamper with God's word because it's challenging. We're truth tellers. And we tell the truth sincerely, and in love, and bathed in prayer, and with hope, but we stick with the untampered, unadulterated truth

that's been handed down to us. Tampering is what a false teacher does. Manipulating words and ideas is what opponents of the gospel do. We could go on in this point, but let's keep moving.

Number three, third thing. Number three, faithful ministry means sometimes the gospel remains veiled to people. Sometimes the gospel remains veiled to people.

Did we mention a moment ago that there are some harder doctrines? I think this might be one. Listen again to what Paul says in verse three. He says, and even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

And that should sober you. It sobers me to read that because it's true. Because in Paul's day, there really were people who were perishing. This was a real situation.

That's why it was urgency for him. That's why he had received his calling and his mission to go and make disciples. That's exactly what he was doing.

Because he and the other apostles understood that otherwise, without the gospel, people were on a road, a path to destruction.

Prisoners of sin. Remember the analogy a couple chapters ago? Prisoners of sin marching in a Roman triumph parade with a judgment of death waiting at the end.

And you know, this is true not just in Paul's day, but it's also true in ours as well. We do realize that there are people who are still perishing.

In fact, I would say you could agree, every person that we know, if they don't know Christ, if they haven't come to put their faith in Jesus Christ, the Bible says they're perishing.

Simply hearing about the gospel, simply being around the gospel, or even being around gospel people, being around Christians, or even coming to church, is not enough.

And why not? Paul tells us why. There's a bad agent involved that we've got to deal with. Verse 4. Verse 4, he goes on to say, in their case, here's what's happened.

The God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

There's some cool Christology packed into one little verse there, but Paul's main point is really about Satan. Satan is involved in this, he says, the quote-unquote God of this world, and that's of course a lowercase g, because he's not really a God.

A so-called God. He thinks he's a God. He tries to act like a God. He's the prince of the power of the air. He is the great deceiver of the nations.

He's the devil, and he's real. And he's in the crafty business of blinding hearts and minds.

And worse yet, the enemy often involves people here too.

Paul's later going to take a shot across the bow at some of these people who were apparently right here in Corinth, some of his own opponents, and here's what he's going to say about them.

2 Corinthians 11, verses 13 through 15, he says this, For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, get this, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

2 Corinthians 11:13–15

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it's no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.

Their end will correspond to their deeds. You do realize that the devil schemes to blind people.

He doesn't usually advertise his schemes that way. Here they come, they're blinding schemes. No. Blinded people don't know they're blinded. They disguise themselves as good ideas, as modern progressive concepts maybe,

as true things, as they'll say even biblical things. But they're not. They're false. Some people will actually make cases using Scripture, please understand, they'll use Scripture for very unbiblical things.

And it's important to remember this because if it was true in Paul's day, and in no way due to some deficiency in Paul's ministry, I think he had a pretty good ministry, he was probably a little more effective than me, right?

A little. Yeah. But if it was true in his day that this could be happening, it's surely going to be true in our day and in our ministries.

You need to remember, you may indeed represent the truth in a very capable way, but the blinded mind of an unbeliever may still refuse to accept it.

You may shine the light of the gospel very faithfully, very brightly, and there are blinding supernatural forces that are availed against your efforts.

But did any of that stop Paul? Did it even so much as discourage him and lead him to maybe want to quit being an apostle? Did it lead him even to give up on this one stubborn church here in Corinth and just kind of lay down to his opponents?

No. It did not. And he did not quit. He remained faithful in his ministry and a big factor behind his faithfulness was the fact that he always remembered something and that's going to be our next point.

Number four. Faithful ministry. Number four. Faithful ministry entails humble service for others' benefit and not our own. Faithful ministry entails humble service for the benefit of others and not our own.

What I'm saying is that Paul remembered that ministry wasn't about himself. What's he say in verse four? Verse five. I'm sorry. What's he say?

He says, for we proclaim, verse five, what we proclaim is not ourselves. For what we proclaim is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

Not ourselves. Meaning, it's not really about us. We are not being what's rejected. Our gospel is. Apparently, Paul's opponents were making their ministry about themselves, putting themselves at the center, making, get this, in ministry, making themselves

the focus, kind of enjoying and soaking up all the attention, making things very personal and making ministry very personality driven. And that's a good reminder for us.

I guess a good caution for us. Even for a parent. I would say to you parents out there, yes, God has delegated you authority over your children, over those unruly teenagers you might have right now.

Yes, you have authority over them but don't make it all about you. It's first and foremost about them and their hearts before the Lord. You want respectful, well-behaved, high-achieving kids?

Good. I do too. It's not a bad thing. But let's not make it about that and let's certainly not make it about us because we're not seeing what we want to see because that makes us look bad.

God-honoring parenting will always value, it should always value and prioritize virtues over awards, character over accolades, humility over recognition.

we proclaim to them Jesus Christ as Lord and even as their parents we are servants for His sake to form them, inform and form in them what Jesus wants to be formed first and foremost.

And that applies beyond the family. If for all of us who minister to someone else, to others as an act of service, we don't do it for personal recognition, for self-aggrandizement, for our own ego.

And I would say this especially applies to those of us who minister in ways that get a lot of attention, who stand up on stages, or speak before others, or maybe produce ministry, who lead worship, who lead with a prayer, or give a lesson.

you know it's possible for us to use our God-given talents and abilities to preach ourselves. And sometimes it's possible to even do a little bit of a mixture of both, where I am preaching Christ, but I'm also wanting to look good doing it.

Or I am leading worship, or leading this prayer, or leading this children's ministry, and I'm featuring Jesus, but I like the attention too.

A preacher like me should not be concerned with how well I'm received, or how big my ministry is, or whether people are affirming my gifts. I'm not preaching me.

It's not about me. I'm preaching Christ as Lord. And as Paul says, I'm your servant for the Lord's sake. That's what he says. He says, he tells these rather immature Corinthian believers here, he says, I'm your slave.

I'm your servant for Jesus' sake. Listen, it's all too easy to promote ourselves with our gifts and our talents and our abilities. And you know what doesn't help any?

Is that we're in a culture, a culture today that makes us prone toward it, that rewards it, that is kind of conditioned for it, to want to be entertained, to want to be impressed and wild.

And we cannot indulge personality cults. And we even need to be careful with our ministry heroes. Because platforms have gotten very big now with the virtual world.

I mean, we built big churches and had, you know, conferences and, you know, lots of people before. But now, I mean, with cliques, you can have a very, very big platform.

I read an article just the other week about the rise of what they call gig Eva. You say, I don't even know what that is. Gig Eva, like evangelicalism or evangelical leaders.

It used to be they talked about big Eva, meaning the big evangelical celebrities and authors and study Bible people. The names you know, right?

That was big Eva. And now there's the rise of basically people that kind of have alternative pathways because they're basically like Christian influencers and they're gig Eva.

But let's remember whether it's in our home or here in the church, let's remember that faithful ministry entails humble service for others' benefit and not our own.

And finally, from the very last verse, we get our fifth and final point, and it's this one. Number five. Faithful ministry remembers that God must shine the light into hearts.

God must shine the light into hearts. Remember, the God of this world, He blinds. The gospel is veiled to those who are perishing. But when we are faithful in our ministries, we will see how God can and will work through them.

Verse six, Paul says, for God, the God who said back in Genesis, let light shine out of the darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

See, he hasn't left all that Exodus, Moses imagery behind, has he? It's not Moses' face anymore. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, cue in to last week and you'll hear us talk about the glowing, radiant face of Moses.

But it's not about that anymore, where glory reflected off of Moses' face. That's done, that's gone, that's over, it's past. Now, it's the surpassing, exceeding glory of Jesus' face.

And what Paul's saying is, hey, for all of us who are believers, the light shining God has shown His light into our hearts. Paul could tell them, hey, He did it for me on the Damascus Road years ago.

The light blinded me quite literally. But He shined that light in my heart. That's when it happened for me, Paul would say. And I would ask some of you, if you're a believer here, do you remember the time God first shined His light into your heart?

For some of us, it's been a while. I was eight years old. For others of us, it's been much more recently where the light of the knowledge of the glory of God and the face of Jesus shined for you.

It's true that some can pinpoint a specific date. I know people that can say, you know, it was at 3.54 p.m. and it was here in this spot. Very specific information, very specific memories, but I also know other believers for whom it's not.

And who would still nonetheless say, I know I trust Christ's work. I know I've been walking with Him. I know my sins are forgiven because I believe in Him.

However, wherever, whenever a person sees the light of Jesus, we know one thing is true in every case, and that's that God is the active agent who does the saving.

What I mean is, we didn't save ourselves. We don't save ourselves. God saves through Jesus Christ and His work, and our job, our ministry, is to minister with integrity and faithfulness.

It's to minister sowing and scattering the seeds, teaching and proclaiming the truth openly without tampering as we watch God who is the one to make all things grow.

I want you to remember this morning. Satan may be in the business, the dark business, of veiling, but God is in the light business of shining.

Amen?

As I mentioned a moment ago, we have the opportunity today to celebrate God's glory in the face of Jesus as we come to the Lord's table today.

So, I'm going to ask those who will be serving us if they would come forward along with our worship team as we prepare our hearts. And as they come, let me ask you if you would just bow your heads with me and let's pray.

Heavenly Father, it is true that You have shown Your glory in the face of Your Son. You glorified the suffering servant, Jesus. Jesus. The crucified Christ is now risen, now glorified, and we know He is seated on a throne with You in heaven right now, and we praise You

for that. And so now as we come, Lord, to this table, we celebrate, we honor with thanksgiving the sacrifice that was made for our sins. We pray, Father, that this morning this truth would embed itself deeply in these hearts that You have enlightened.

and we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.