Ministry Motivation (2 Corinthians 5:1-15)

2 Corinthians chapter 5, starting in verse 1.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

For we know that if our earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal dwelling in the heavens, not made with hands.

Indeed, we groan in this tent, desiring to put on our heavenly dwelling.

Since when we have taken it off, we will not be found naked.

Indeed, we groan because we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life.

Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment.

So we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord.

For we walk by faith, not by sight.

In fact, we're confident and we would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

Therefore, whether we're at home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to him.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people.

What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your consciences, we are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to be proud of us, so that you may have a reply for those who take pride in outward appearance rather than in the heart.

For if we're out of our mind, it's for God, and if we're in our right mind, it's for you.

For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion, if one died for all, then all died, and he died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.

And Lord, I thank you so much for your word, and I thank you for the blessing that it is the compass by which we live and are guided and are led.

I ask, Lord, that you would fill me with your spirit to rightly teach your word, and that you would fill the hearers with your spirit to rightly divide and discern.

Let us grow in the knowledge and love of you as we study your word and be glorified in your name.

Amen.

Go ahead and have a seat.

Alright.

So we've made it to chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians.

And we have a couple of different options.

The further we go into this book, we can either have the intro recap be longer and longer and longer, or we're gonna have to kind of start to give you the main points and say, go ahead and refer back to the messages on the website for more information on that.

We're gonna do the second one because as we continue to go forward, there's gonna be more and more nuance in that.

But here is the big picture of this.

Paul is writing to the Church of Corinth, he's writing to a divided church where some of them are listening to his gospel, to the gospel of Jesus, and are following that and obeying that and are uh turning towards him, and some are not and are following after false teachers who are really impressive, great teachers, very marketable in appearance, and that is the difficulty.

And those people don't like Paul at all.

They think he's weak in his appearance and in his life and in his ministry.

And this is what Paul is having to address: a divided church, those of him, those who are listening to his words, and those who just don't like him at all and would prefer to have their so-called super apostles.

The problem with this book, which is the challenge, which is the opportunity, is that this is a very relational book.

It's a letter written to a bunch of people where they're hurt and Paul's hurt, and hurt people are weird.

That's the whole sermon.

You can go home now.

Hurt people are weird.

No.

The difficulty is that sometimes these passages, because it's relational, because it's narrative in its form with that, rather than him going through doctrine piece by piece by piece, it is this weird spaghetti of information that we have to navigate through.

Kind of there was a point where uh one of my kids had a skein of yarn.

I know what a skein is, that makes me cool.

And uh it had gotten crazy tangled up.

And I was sitting there on the couch, trying to be like, where is the start?

Okay, you know, going through here, going through here, going through here.

That's kind of like 2 Corinthians to a certain extent.

Trying to, it's not laid out like that.

So my hope in this passage is to go through a bunch of different pieces and then put it back together at the end so we can get a better picture of what he's explaining both in this passage and in this book.

Sound fair?

Okay.

Go forward.

So, our first piece is the first five verses of this chapter.

And we're starting with verse one.

For we know that if our earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal dwelling in the heavens, not made with hands.

Okay, first century concept of a tent.

Not necessarily the 21st century concept of a tent.

Paul is not talking about REI here, and a crazy multi-person thing made out of this nylon thing that has a rain fly and all these different things, and somehow they jam a stove in there and all this.

Okay.

He's also not talking about a leisure activity.

Camping in the 21st century is typically seen as a hobby or a leisure activity where you're getting away from your normal life outside of your permanent home, going out and experiencing that, and then going back to your home afterwards.

At this point in time, largely, a tent would be what you use when you are traveling from point A to point B, especially if you can either not afford to or do not want to stay in inns along the way, or there's no in in that way.

There's not a whole lot of information on tents in the first century, except for things about tents in the Roman army, which is really riveting.

If you ever want to read that Trajan's column, can't put it down.

But the tent is what you stay in temporarily on your way, especially in Corinth, to a destination.

It's not the destination like it is in our world today.

Okay, I think I've beaten that into the ground.

So Paul knows this.

Paul was a tent maker by trade.

So he's very well versed in this.

And what he is saying is our bodies are a tent.

They are a temporary dwelling.

They are a means to an end, and the end is a building from God, an eternal dwelling in the heavens, not made with hands.

The destination, the direction, the reward, if we can put it that way, is an eternal dwelling.

A building from God, not made with hands.

And what we are now is in a tent.

Temporary.

Like last week we talked about the earthen vessels, treasure in earthen vessels, and clay pots, common vessels.

That's not the end, it's a destination.

I would groan if I was in a tent, just saying.

City boy.

Okay, so we groan in this tent, desiring to put on our heavenly dwelling.

Since when we've taken it off, we will not be found naked.

Indeed, we groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we don't want to be unclothed, but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life.

So being in this tent is not ideal.

This is not where we want to be.

There's groaning involved in that.

Why is there groaning involved in this?

Well, number one, because we live in a fallen world.

It's hard.

There is sin, there is sorrow, there's pain, there's death, there's loss, there's difficulty.

Here he refers to it in verse 4 as being burdened as we are.

And so when Paul is demonstrating in his life a ministry full of hardship, full of difficulty, full of beatings and imprisonments and such, that is not a sign of weakness, as half of Corinth supposes.

That's to be expected as a result in a byproduct of doing ministry while living in this tent that we live in.

There's a groaning in that.

There's also a groaning because we know what's ahead and we want to be there already.

So there's a groaning being here and not being there.

So it's not only because things are difficult, but also because we have a better thing ahead.

And if we lose track of those things, we get really weird about, and that way, and then we want to go clamping.

We want to get a nice luxurious thing set up so that instead of our tent, we have like the best tent we can and hold on to it and hold on to all this and go, no, this is what I have.

Looking at what this looked like, because at the end of verse 4 he says, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life.

We have a couple verses, we can put up a slide.

In Romans 8.23, corresponding to these passages, he says, Not only that, we ourselves who have the Spirit as the first fruits, we groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

So there is a groaning involved in that because we are waiting for the redemption of our bodies, for that heavenly building, eternal, made without hands, made by God, that inheritance we see in 1 Peter, incorruptible, undefiled, reserved in heaven for us.

But this idea of mortality being swallowed up by life, we see in 1 Corinthians 15, 52 through 57.

We went over this fairly recently.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.

This corruptible body must be clothed with incorruptibility.

This mortal body must be clothed with immortality.

When the corruptible body is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then the saying, what is written, will take place.

Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Where death is your victory, where death is your sting.

The sting of death is sin.

The power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the beautiful thing in that what we have is this promise waiting for us, that everything fallen in this world will be undone, that everything horrible will be cast aside, will be removed, that death and sin will be swallowed up, and therefore what we see in verse 4, mortality will be swallowed up by life.

And that is why they groan.

That is why we are in this earthly tent, we are longing for what's ahead, we're mourning for what is current.

And by inference, Paul is saying to those who do not like him in the Church of Corinth, what you see in us is normal, is what you would expect to see for a follower of Jesus.

Not putting too much hope in the present, not putting too much hope in the current, looking ahead and knowing that our reward is not here, that our reward is in heaven.

You can gather a crowd very easily by promoting a reward on earth for following Jesus, promoting your best life now.

You can gather a crowd very easily that way.

But the Lord promises hardship, promises difficulty, and a reward waiting for us in heaven.

Here's a little bit of an image for you.

In 2018, we moved back to the Central Coast.

The Lord called us back here from the penhandle of Florida, where we were living.

And I was in a position where I had a crazy upward career trajectory, and everything on the surface looked great, and God said, This is not what I have for you.

And so we moved, the Lord called us back to California.

There was a five-day journey where I was in the U-Haul with Joshua and Nikki was driving the van with the girls.

Five days stopping all the way across on the way back.

At no point on that journey did we go, let's just stay here.

At no point when you hit we hit uh Louisiana, I think we were in our road, and we had to change hotel rooms because of all the bugs.

There's a nice hotel room, too.

That's what's crazy.

We weren't staying in the motel six.

At no point where we are in the crazy spaghetti gnarled thing of the Metroplex in Dallas, while it is a downpour, trying to figure out which exit is.

Oh, that was our exit that way.

At no point when I'm taking my 27-foot U-Haul, pulling my car behind it, and Google decides to send the girls in the van all the way around downtown Mobile, Alabama, and send me right through the middle, which is like San Francisco but flat, if I can give you that picture.

Um, when in the girls' vehicle, the uh the girls get ill and are throwing up all the way along the road.

We were not sitting there going, this is it.

The whole way it was, I cannot wait to be home.

Cannot wait to be there.

We literally had this conversation where at one point it was so rough where we're like, I think it was at the Dallas point.

We're talking to each other on the phone, and we're like, we can't go back.

There is no back.

There's only forward.

But we have hope forward.

And I see this similar thing in our life, following Jesus.

I love that.

And that picture of why, why did Jesus, why did God send them through the Red Sea and then have the sea close behind them?

So they can't go back.

All these different situations like that.

And we see the promise of what's ahead.

Think of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness in tents.

The housing of God in a tabernacle rather than a temple.

And then they come to the promised land.

Think before that of Abraham, a sojourner, living in tents, going toward the land of promise.

That's what we are in this life.

But there is a good thing ahead, and we groan for that, or at least we should for that.

And the beauty of this is we're not left alone.

Because in verse 5 he says, now the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment.

The one who prepared us for this life, this temporary dwelling place, this ultimate victory over sin and death through the power and blood of Jesus, is God who gave us the Spirit as a down payment.

There's two members of the Trinity right there.

We get to see all three in this passage.

We talked at length in chapter one about the Holy Spirit being a down payment.

I'm not going to retread that ground, so I recommend you go back and listen to that.

But ultimately, this picture of a down payment is a promise of what is to come and it is also the catalyst for the work in the meantime.

So think of two different pictures: a down payment being a promise that the rest will be paid in full upon arrival.

But then also think about an advance that's given to an author at the beginning of the writing of the book, that he's allowed, he's able to live off of that until publication.

Both pictures work really well with that of how the Holy Spirit works with that.

Not only is it promise that what we are looking ahead to is there and is waiting for us, but it is also what works through us in the meantime to allow us to make it with that.

So, chunk number one, the tent versus the building.

Why do we live like this?

Why do we endure hardship?

Why do we uh struggle?

We live in a tent and we are waiting a heavenly house, and until then the Holy Spirit is living in us, living inside of us as a down payment.

You want more information on the Holy Spirit as a down payment?

You look at 2 Corinthians 1, 21 and 22 and Ephesians 1, 13 through 14.

For you note takers who write really, really fast, because I said that really, really fast.

So, section 2, verses 6 through 10, our confidence in the reward that is coming.

The first chunk we saw groaning repeated twice.

The second chunk here we see confidence repeated twice.

Verse 6, we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord.

In fact, we for we walk by faith, not by sight.

In fact, we're confident and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

Confidence, courage to have, to be resolute in our work, in our calling, in our life here.

Knowing that while we're at home in the body, we're away from the Lord.

Knowing we're in basically we're on the bad side of things right now, and only good is coming.

And that's beauty.

We have confidence in that it doesn't get worse than this ultimately.

And what is coming is better.

For we walk by faith, not by sight.

Looking ahead by faith.

Can I prove to you in this moment that there is an eternal dwelling waiting for us in heaven on the other side of death?

No, absolutely not.

But I am fully convinced that is true.

And I have staked my life on that, that that is true.

Because I believe the Word of God, believe His Holy Spirit within us that convicts us of this and convinces us of this, and we walk by faith.

A few verses on that, if we put up the next one.

2 Corinthians 4.18, the last verse in last week's passage.

We don't focus on what's seen, but on what is unseen.

For what is seen is temporary, what is unseen is eternal.

And then Romans 8 24 through 25, in this hope we are saved.

Hope that is seen is not hope.

Who hopes for what he sees?

If we hope for what we don't see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.

Hebrews 11:1, faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

And 1 Peter 1, 8 through 9, though you have not seen him, you love him.

Though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

In this tent, we are walking by faith, by that assurance, that confidence, that persuasion that what God said he's going to do, he's going to do, and that we do have an inheritance waiting for us for those of us who have confessed Christ and have accepted that payment through faith in him.

And that is a beautiful thing.

But once again, it's not seen.

So you have these false teachers in Corinth who are pumping them full of what is seen, what it's now, what is do this now, this is your best life, now, this is what you need to do now.

And that is very enticing.

And Paul is telling them our reward is what is ahead and what is not seen.

Continuing forward, in fact, we're confident in verse 8, we'd prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

And this sounds like Philippians 1, 21 through 26, where he's saying, to live as Christ, to dine us, gain.

Better be, I would rather be at home with the Lord, but it's better to be here for the sake of this work for the ministry.

And we make it our aim to be pleasing to him.

It's easy to go, okay, well, we're in a tent.

The tent is not the ultimate goal, the tent is not what ultimately matters, looking towards the future, so don't worry about now at all.

Don't think about it, don't do whatever you want.

But we seek to be pleasing to him.

And it's interesting how before Passover, Jesus speaking with his apostles about things to come, about the end times, in Matthew 24 and 25, he gives over and over and over these parables of what a good servant looks like.

Doing the work of the Father, doing that ministry, doing what he's called to, not being lazy, not being lazy like the servant who didn't do the work of the master, not being fearful like the servant who buried the talents, but rather seeking to please the Lord in all things.

Why does that matter?

Let's look at verse 10.

We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

No controversy there, right?

We can just move forward.

This is interesting.

He's saying here that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

I have a few verses on that.

The next one.

Romans 14, 10 through 12.

But yeah why do you judge your brother or sister?

Why do you despise your brother or sister?

We will all stand before the judgment seat of God.

It's written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to me, every tongue will give praise to God, so then each of us will give account of himself to God.

Note he is specifically speaking to believers there, brothers and sisters.

Ephesians 6, 7 through 8.

Serve with a good attitude as to the Lord and not to people, knowing whatever good each one does, labor free, he will receive this back from the Lord.

1 Peter 1.17.

If you appeal to the Father who judges impartially according to each one's work, you are to conduct yourselves in reverence during your time living as strangers.

We'll pause there for a moment.

There's very clearly, especially in this passage we see, this concept that at some point in time there will be a judgment of how we have lived in this world as believers, whether faithfully or not faithfully.

Two ditches to this road that would make it weird that you don't want to go on either side.

Number one, this is not talking about salvation.

He is not saying this is a judgment of who is saved and who is not.

Talking to believers here.

I'm telling them that there is a judgment coming with that, but not for salvation.

This is not for salvation based on works, to where if you don't do the good things, then there's a loophole in the fine print of the gospel that you missed, and so therefore, sorry, you're out of luck.

There's nowhere in scripture do we see that.

On the other side, we don't want to say, therefore, because it's not an issue of salvation, do whatever you want, it doesn't matter.

There's a weird concept that is pervasive, especially these days, that Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

And that's crazy.

It's just not what we see in Scripture.

Now, we say that because we are so phobic of works nowadays and legalism, and I understand that, and that is important.

That is important to be aware of.

But ultimately, there is a point where there will be a sifting through of what how we have functioned as his servants, of an accounting for that.

And we see that in 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15.

No one can lay any other foundation than what has been laid down.

The foundation is Jesus Christ.

And if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one's work will become obvious, for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire.

The fire will test the quality of each one's work.

If anyone's work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward.

And if anyone's work is burned up, he will experience a loss, but he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

So I love this passage because it clearly excludes any kind of salvation topic from this, but it also says what we do in this life matters.

And there is a reckoning for what that looks like.

But what that reckoning looks like is not a losing of everything, of losing your faith, but rather a missing out on the benefits that could have been, of the blessings that could have been.

And so, in worst case scenario for the believer here, that looks like being saved but only asked through fire.

If what we build on it is wood, hay, and stubble.

But if we build on that with gold, silver, and costly stones, there is a reward to be had in that.

As a good and faithful servant.

What does that look like?

I don't know.

I have no idea.

It's not clear in here.

I'm not even going to speculate on that.

Why do I bring this up at this point in time?

Well, because number one, it's just straight up in the passage.

But number two, because what we do in this life matters.

What we do as believers matter, not out of begrudging obligation, not out of fear for losing our faith, for losing our salvation, but rather in joyful service of the king who called us as we look ahead.

Talk about that more in a minute.

So that is why there's a balancing there.

Because first he says, there's a tent.

We're living in a tent, it's temporary, the reward is ahead.

But then he couches that with what we do matters, and there will be an accounting for what we do on this earth as well, although it is not salvific, because that only comes through faith in Jesus.

Part three, the motivation for ministry.

We see in verses 11 through 15.

We have two motivations in here.

In the first chunk, we had two groanings.

Second chunk, we had two confidences.

In the third chunk, two motivations.

Verse 11 Since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people.

What we are is plain to God.

I hope it is also plain to your consciences.

Motivation number one, the fear of the Lord.

This is the same word, by the way, as it was in 1 Peter 1.17 on the last slide, which was conduct yourselves in this time in reverence.

Same word there.

We don't like to talk about this.

Couple reasons, because it's weird.

Number two reason, because the out-of-context daily verse on our Instagram said that perfect love casts out fear in 1 John, so therefore there can't be anything, right?

That doesn't count.

It's all just excluded.

Yet here, they're motivated by the fear of the Lord.

We see in Acts 9.31, the church lived in the fear of the Lord and increased as a result.

We see a couple chapters later in 2 Corinthians 7.1.

So then, dear friends, since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from every impurity of the flesh and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of the Lord.

That fear of God brings holiness to completion as we reject sin and are progressively sanctified.

So, fear, we know this, equals reverence, equals respect.

It is not a terror, it is not a dread.

It is a respect for who God is, what he has done, and what he has done for us, and how we respond as a result.

So that number one motivation, fear of the Lord.

And what did they do as a result here?

If we put up the next slide for that first motivation, fear of the Lord.

They persuade people, they do the work of the Lord as good servants, following that.

They seek to proclaim the gospel, to persuade people in that sense, and then also they are plain, they are without hypocrisy.

They are living and ministering in such a way that is plain to God and plain to their consciences.

There's a thread of sincerity going through 2 Corinthians, sincerity being the opposite of hypocrisy.

And we see a contrast there that they seek to be plain, sincere, without hypocrisy as they minister to the Corinthian church, in contrast to these false teachers.

If they did not fear the Lord, they would promote themselves and they would avoid suffering.

If they did not have that reverence for the Lord, there would be a building of our own kingdom, and there would also be an absolute avoidance of any side type of suffering in any way, shape, or form.

But rather, because they fear the Lord and they do the work of him, they walk in his footsteps.

Because remember, Jesus offered salvation to us by coming in the likeness of man, fully God, fully man, being sinless, yet being crucified on our behalf and rising again.

This is the path of the Christian.

And in the fear of the Lord, we walk in that same path, in this tent, looking to the reward.

So in verse 12, this blows open a little more.

We're not commending ourselves to you again.

We see this wordage often in this book to where he's not saying, look, we're not giving you our resume again.

This is not why I'm telling you this, so that you can go, okay, he is a holy person and a false and a proper teacher in that sense.

But rather, we want you to have an opportunity to be proud of us, so that you may have a reply for those who take pride in outward appearance rather than in the heart.

His appeal to their sincerity is to give them an opportunity to be proud of him, to be proud of their ministry, but also so that they have a reply to those false teachers.

Who give an outward appearance, proud of that, rather than in the heart.

This is a big thing.

We see in 1 Samuel 16, 7, the Lord is selecting a king.

Go through David's brothers, who are all very impressive, very marketable, very perfect for what somebody would say a leader is in that way.

And God says, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

And Samuel's pulling out his hair, going, God, you sent me here to anoint a king.

There is nobody, we're out of sons.

What do we do with that?

And then Dad calls him David from the fields.

He's like, I don't even consider him to be eligible for this.

And the Lord says, humans see what's on the outside, but the Lord sees the heart.

Same wording we see here.

This is important in the context of 2 Corinthians and in the context of today.

Do a little bit of do a little bit of digging here.

We see in the Church of Corinth people who are impressed by outward appearance, impressed by eloquence of these false teachers, impressed by the physique of these false teachers.

And looking at Paul, going, is that it?

That's that's Paul?

Can we get him a box to stand on, please, while he teaches?

Can somebody write his script for him, please?

This is terrible.

And that is the issue, is as Paul is being faithful to do the work of the Lord, there is a subset of Corinthians who want instead to see somebody marketable, to see somebody tall, charismatic, eloquent, to be able to give the message of the Lord and to promote themselves in the process with that.

So Paul is constantly combating that, but not combating that by puffing himself up, not combating that by saying, no, I can bring it, I'm gonna bring it now.

He instead he gets to work and he continues to love them in that way in what appears to be weakness to them.

Why does this matter?

This is the chunk of the he who has ears to hear, let him hear kind of thing.

So this is immensely applicable to our world in our context today.

Immensely applicable.

If I can say this, and say this in gentleness, we have had the opportunity to visit enough churches on our journey across the US, living in multiple spots in Arkansas, in Florida, churches of that, Inbeck, all these different things, to see a trend in a theme that we tend to value platform over faithfulness.

Bit of a harsh blow, but don't worry, it'll get worse.

We tend to look at those who are on a platform as the ideal rather than valuing regular, uninteresting, faithful service to the Lord.

If I can put it this way, just to make it even a little bit sharper, our holy trinity of what could be in the big church sea today is the father, the pastor, and the worship leader.

And we conform ourselves to the image of the pastor and we worship the worship leader because of the platform.

And I'm not saying that here, I'm saying as a big picture with that.

And I'm not saying that as if we're going to fix that today on a Sunday that's really humid in here in a Tascadero.

That's not why I am saying that today.

Because that's not the case.

What I'm saying at, what I'm saying is, it is interesting that generally, human nature.

Did you know that there's somebody who comes in on Saturday to turn on the air conditioning so that we have a temperate room?

Somebody comes in early to set up children's ministry rooms that most of us don't even set foot in.

We have this crazy supply chain of coffee beads to the coffee house that is almost like ambulances delivering blood to hospitals.

And it's all exactly, amen.

It's almost as important as that.

People set up chairs, people vacuum afterwards, people come, they gather, they serve one another.

Nobody lines up right after service to talk to those people and to thank them and to tell them how amazing they are.

And so, and let me be very, very, very, very, very, very, very clear.

Encourage your leaders, please.

That's important.

I'm not saying that.

What I'm saying is let us, number one, have eyes to see faithful service every day, regularly, rather than idolizing the platform which a few people are on.

Also, let that encourage us, as believers, that what we do for the Lord matters.

To him, and that's all that matters.

Whether anybody says thank you or not, service to the Lord is priceless in his eyes when it's done with a genuine heart.

And let that be an encouragement.

It is a crazy thing how that works.

Um I've been in pastoral ministry in one way or another for about 15 years.

I've been in worship ministry for a quarter of a century.

And you're like, what?

Did you start when you were two?

I'm a little older than that, okay?

But uh it is like drinking from a well that's lined with lead.

It is life-giving, it is wonderful, and if you're not careful, it will kill you in ways you don't even see.

And so, if I can also throw one more encouragement out in this context of what is visible versus what is in the heart, I had just, I'm gonna testify a little bit.

I had the opportunity at one point in time where we were leading a church plant, and we got to a point where we said, we can continue forward and be successful in the eyes of the world, or we can stop and we can heal from what we have experienced, and we can let the Lord do that work.

And do you know what happened when we did that?

I lost every concept and idea of who I was.

It was horribly awesome.

Horrible.

I had no idea who I was anymore.

And that showed me how much, how much I put my identity in that place for all of those years without even knowing it.

We never even know that.

And so, if you have like me experienced that, amidst the sorrow, amidst the pain and the difficulty and the horrific nature that can happen, you have been given a strange gift to see that and have your identity separated from that, and it's a beautiful thing.

And we can experience these verses in deeper ways and see that the Lord sees the heart and walks through that.

So, having that said, he's talking to a church where some of them take pride in those who take pride in the outward appearance, those who worship the platform.

And he continues in verse 13, if we are out of our mind, it's for God.

If we're in our right mind, it's for you.

If we seem crazy that we're going to suffer and continue to suffer and not do what seems easy, that's okay.

Don't worry.

That's for the Lord.

If we make sense, that's for you.

That's good with that.

Either way, verse 14, motivation number two, the love of Christ compels us.

Not the power of Christ, even though that's clearly there.

The love of Christ compels us.

There's a third member of the Trinity right there.

Since we've reached this conclusion, if one died for all, then all died.

He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.

So, motivation one, fear of the Lord.

Motivation two, the love of Christ.

And that love involved his sacrifice and his death on our behalf, and as a result, all of us being made new creations.

We'll talk about that next week, and I don't want to preach next week's sermon that I do, but I can't.

I shouldn't.

I don't want Chris to get mad at me.

So we'll save that for next week ultimately, but ultimat with this picture.

Jesus died for all, so that everybody in new creations should no longer live for themselves.

We see that in Galatians 2.20.

Most people know this first.

I have been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, the life which I now live, the body I live by, faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

And so if we pop up the second motivation, we have the fear of the Lord and the love of Christ.

The fear of the Lord means they do the work they were commissioned for, out of reverence for the Lord, and they are sincere, plain, open, not building their own kingdom, building the Lord's.

The love of Christ, as a result, they don't live for themselves, and they live for Christ.

Verse 15, he died for all, so that those who should live no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.

So he's telling this church, it is normal to live as a servant while we're in this tent.

It is concerning to live as kings in a tent.

Picture that image.

That's crazy.

And say, this is my kingdom.

Little one-person tent that leaks.

Put it on a higher rock.

Put some rocks under me.

I'm gonna get a little higher with that.

That's the picture we have in that when we try to build our own kingdom with that.

Having that said, however, our work on this earth matters when we do it for the Lord, and it matters to him, because he is the one who judges the quality of our work, not our neighbors.

And that is a beautiful thing.

We talked about a lot of different chunks in this passage.

We talked about the earthly tent and the groaning, the motivation because life is hard, and we have good things coming.

We have that confidence because the Holy Spirit is in us as a down payment.

We have that confidence because we will be soon home with the Lord, and we walk by faith, not by sight.

We serve the Lord in fear, in that reverence, because there is a sifting of our works to come that has nothing to do with our salvation, but everything to do with the quality of our work in his eyes.

And there's motivation, fear of the Lord that makes us do his work, and the love of the Lord that makes us live for him rather than us, because that's what he did suffering on the cross on our behalf.

So I'm going to take all of those pieces and I'm going to put them in order in a different way, just to give kind of a conclusion of what did we just go over in a logical way.

So if you can put that slide up.

Okay.

Motivated by the fear of the Lord and the love of Christ, together in tandem, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to seek and work for His kingdom rather than our own, all while enduring hardship and eagerly awaiting His return.

All of those things we talked about, if we put in less conversational order, our motivation, both the reverence of the Lord and the love of Christ, and as a result, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit, not by our own strength, by his work, to seek his kingdom, to work for his kingdom rather than our own, all while enduring hardship and eagerly awaiting his return.

We can do this only through faith in Jesus, through the salvation he offers us, through the blood by which he cleanses us and makes us right with God, through the empowering of the Holy Spirit.

Because otherwise it's not worth it.

We talked about that in 1 Corinthians.

Otherwise, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die if there isn't something coming, but we believe by faith that there is something better coming and it is worth everything.

And we can look at what this world offers and we can set it all aside as a result, and we cannot be perpetually outraged by this world as a result, and we cannot seek our own platform as a result.

We can look and eagerly await his return by the work of the Spirit, motivated by the fear of the Lord and the love of Christ, working for his kingdom rather than our own.

So reading it one more time, as we go through the book of 2 Corinthians, we'll see this theme over and over and over again.

Motivated by the fear of the Lord and the love of Christ, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to seek and work for his kingdom rather than our own, all while enduring hardship and eagerly awaiting his return.

Let's pray.

Lord, you are so good, so loving, so faithful, so huge and yet so near.

Thank you for offering and sending your Son to live a sinless life, to die on our behalf, taking our punishment upon himself and giving his innocence to us in the eyes of the Father, so that by faith in Jesus alone we can be saved and made right with you, Lord.

Thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit as a down payment that encourages us in this life, in this difficult, difficult life, and also empowers us to move forward, to keep pressing onward in this tent toward your kingdom.

Please help us keep our eyes on you.

Let us build your kingdom and not our own.

Let us not put people on pedestals, but rather put you high and lifted up as you rightfully deserve.

Let us see faithful, consistent, ordinary service as a hallmark of your kingdom.

Let us get our praise from you and also our comfort as a result.

And let us be quick to encourage one another in the meantime.

And come, Lord Jesus.

Please come back soon.

But be glorified in your name.

Amen.