II Corithians

You're listening to a message preached at Front Range Baptist Church by Pastor Dean Miller.

It is our prayer that this message will be a help and an encouragement to you in your spiritual walk.

Now, here's Pastor Miller.

Found a blessing, isn't he?

Isn't the Lord so good?

I love that.

One of my favorite songs we just sang right there, and I love that, I love that verse.

Prone to wander.

Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.

Robert Robinson wrote that song.

He got saved and wrote that song, and it became a very popular hymn in the church.

He was on a stagecoach one night, had been away from God, had been serving the flesh, had fallen away from the Lord.

He was driving in a stagecoach, and a young lady riding in that stagecoach saw him and she said, Excuse me, can I ask you a question?

And he said, What is it?

And he said, she said, What are the streams of mercies?

And he said, What do you mean?

She said, You know, you wrote that song, Streams of Mercies, Never Failing.

And he began to weep.

And when he got to his destination that night, he wrote that verse.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.

Prone to leave the God I love.

Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it.

Seal it for thy courts above.

How many of us have been in that stagecoach before?

Father, thank you for being a fount of blessing.

Thank you for being such a wonderful, merciful Savior.

Lord, bless our time tonight.

In your word, I pray that it'll speak to us as it always does in a clear and still small voice directly to our heart and teach us, Lord.

Be the Holy Spirit, may the Holy Spirit guide us into all truth.

Be our teacher tonight in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

We have a special treat.

All right, come on, ladies.

The ladies here asked if they could, if they could.

They said, Pastor, it's been a while since we've given out in flight snacks.

So we're given some snacks.

So I, so what we we made them wear their volleyball jerseys.

And the reason for that is there's a volleyball game this Friday against Victory Prep.

So JV is at 4 o'clock, varsity's at 5 o'clock.

Listen, this is a league game, so we need all the fans out.

So be there 4 o'clock for the JV, 5 o'clock, and watch these young ladies take on and be the Falcons.

Alright, so get your snack, get your drink.

And it'll be a great, this is gonna be a great flight tonight through the book of 2 Corinthians.

I could teach whatever I wanted to right now, and nobody would ever hear a word that I said.

I love it.

I could say whatever.

This is Flight 66, and it's been a while since we had some in-flight snacks.

So hopefully you get what you want.

Hey, listen, don't be so picky.

Let them get through the aisles.

I mean, come on.

You're like that guy that was sitting in front of me last night.

He just kept saying, What do you have?

And the ladies are reading the whole list.

I'm like, man, just order something.

What are you talking about?

I was in Washington, D.C.

yesterday.

I flew out on Monday to speak at the American Association of Christian Schools Leadership Conference in D.C.

and then the congressional banquet.

And it was a tremendous, tremendous uh event.

And uh it was a it was a very well-attended event.

Talked to many pastors and and leaders and Christian school administrators from around the country, uh, plus college.

They have a college track as well, so a lot of college presidents and vice presidents and deans.

And then we got to meet with some of our congressmen and hear about legislation that's coming affecting Christian education and uh some really exciting things.

Uh there is a uh there is an ERCT bill that just got passed in the Big Beautiful bill, and what that what that is, is a tax credit that every single person in the country who files taxes, federal taxes, everybody can can apply to have their a tax credit go to a school of their choice.

So if you if you don't have a student in front range, you can apply for front range and you get$1,700 per taxpayer goes into an account for that school.

And then you can have grandparents and aunts and uncles and whoever else and neighbors and anybody can apply for that tax credit.

And it doesn't cost you anything, it's just you're telling the federal government where your tax dollars are gonna go.

So that's rolling out January 1.

So we're gonna have some more information about that so you can have so you can have some information about how to do that.

Okay, all right, 2 Corinthians.

We're in, we're we're in it tonight.

We're getting we're getting close.

Somebody told me the other day, they said, man, Pastor, as we get closer to the end of the New Testament, the books get shorter.

And I said, You don't remember the minor prophets, do you?

Size of the book has nothing to do with how fast we go through the book.

So, anyway, um, 2 Corinthians is one of my favorite books.

I know I say that about every book, but it has a very special place in my heart because the book of 2 Corinthians is probably Paul's most personal letter.

Paul was a theologian, um, he was a theologian in the book of Romans.

Paul was more of a uh a pastor in 1 Corinthians, but in 2 Corinthians, Paul was a man.

He was a man who had been hurt, he was misunderstood, he had been criticized, he had been pressured, and he was writing this book from a position of being attacked.

And uh I I have uh I've taken such um great comfort and solace from the book of 2 Corinthians many times in ministry, and uh we'll tell you a little bit more about it as we go along, obviously, but in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 9, I think is probably the key verse of in the whole book when the Lord said unto Paul, My grace is sufficient for thee.

2 Corinthians 12:9

My strength is made perfect in weakness.

And why that echoed so true is because Paul had founded the church at Corinth during his second missionary journey back in Acts chapter 18.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

Paul had come to Corinth, he stayed there for 18 months.

Remember, he says where he met Aquila and Priscilla, and they began to go into the tent-making business.

Paul went straight away into the synagogue and began to reason there with the Jews, began to win people to Christ, he began to spread the gospel and try to carve out a work for Christ in this very wicked, perverse city of Corinth.

Paul eventually moved in with a man who lived across the street from the synagogue, a man by the name of Justice.

Paul moved in there, began to his began to really serve and see a work form.

The pressure came, so Paul left.

And uh Paul eventually went to Ephesus, where he would stay three years.

Paul wrote back to the church of Corinth because after his departure, some grievous things took place in the church.

There was sin in the church, there was division in the church, there were people fighting, and there was people following different leaders, and there was just confusion and and um and perversion in the church.

So Paul writes 1 Corinthians to correct that.

But in time, after his letter to the to Corinth in the first book, uh things still remain complicated there because some false teachers had moved to Corinth as they were, as they were very well known to do.

They had already done this in Galatia, in the churches in the province of Galatia, but these false teachers had moved into this church at Corinth, and they claimed to be sent from the church in Jerusalem.

They claimed to be apostles, they claimed to have some special gift from God, and they began to attack Paul.

They maligned him, they they were vicious attacks on his character, attacks on his apostolic authority.

Um they accused him of being weak.

They said, Oh, yeah, we know he writes some really tough stuff, and he writes these letters, and man, he's got all this vibrato, but when he shows up, he's just this little guy, and he's so kind and nice, and he doesn't have any courage and boldness.

He'll he'll write a big letter, but he doesn't really walk a big letter.

And they they attacked and they called him inconsistent.

They said he was unimpressive, um, that he was only in this for himself.

And these were these were all these accusations and attacks against the Apostle Paul.

And 2 Corinthians is Paul's very deeply personal response.

And uh I when I read the book of 2 Corinthians as a pastor, I have been in Paul's place before with people that I've led to Christ.

People that I've been in their home, I've sat at their table, I've been in their homes, led them to Christ, discipled them, watched them grow, counseled with them, helped them through things.

And then something happens in the church and somebody gets in the way and starts to create division, and pretty soon you see their heart turn, and they just walk out as though there was nothing owed.

And here's the truth you no one owes me anything.

And Paul, when you when you when you open this book and you begin to see what Paul is, how he's gonna attack this, Paul addresses this in such a godly way.

Really, they were saying, This guy is so weak.

And Paul, unlike how I would attack it, I would have written a thing like, Hey, let me tell you how strong I am.

Paul wrote and said, You know what, you're right, I am weak.

But it's in my weakness that I'm made strong.

Uh my weakness is the strength because Christ in me strengthens me.

2 Corinthians is a book about ministry from the inside out.

It's just a tremendous book, and we're gonna fly through it tonight.

I think it divides itself into three natural sections.

Um, and again, all of these are not in your flight plan.

I give you a flight plan so that you can take that home and just have a collection, have some of your facts and figures about the book.

But these these are some ways that I, in flying through the book, just want to see how it kind of unfolds in a teaching way into three basic sections.

Chapters 1 through 7, you see the minister and his ministry.

Paul really opens up his heart about ministry.

And and I really wanted to teach this Flight 66 lesson tonight from the perspective of the new covenant.

Because 2 Corinthians is actually the underlying theme of the book, is the new covenant.

And Paul is really making a strong defense that these false apostles coming in claiming to be something that they're not are not in alignment with the new covenant.

And Paul really gets into a deep theological discussion about that in chapter 3.

But in these first seven chapters, I'm just gonna call it the minister and his ministry.

Paul explains his heart.

He opens up about his suffering, he talks about his integrity, he defends that, he talks about the nature of the new covenant.

And he says in chapter 4, verse 5, for we preach not ourselves.

But we preach Jesus Christ the Lord.

Think about these guys, and what Paul's really doing here is he's making the Church of Corinth think.

Think about the guys who are talking to you.

Think about what they're doing.

They're attacking me.

If they can discredit me, then they want to change the message.

And what they're doing is they're trying to put themselves up over me, but we were never preaching about me anyway.

I didn't even baptize any of you people.

I'm glad I didn't baptize any of you people.

I didn't come there to baptize you.

I came there to preach Christ and Him crucified.

We did not preach ourselves, we preached the Lord Jesus.

Always be suspicious about people who put other people down.

Because what they're really doing is they're trying to convince you that they are something that they're not.

And Paul said, look, it's not ever been about me, it's always been about Christ.

So chapters 8 and 9 is the second section, the minister and his giving.

He really opens up about generosity.

Paul encourages the Corinth, the Corinthians to complete their offering.

Remember, and we'll talk about this in just a minute, but Paul was out collecting this collection for the saints that were at Jerusalem.

The first church at Jerusalem did so much to send the gospel out.

They were so generous.

They were such an integral part in the beginning of things.

That's where that was the epicenter of the New Testament church.

This is where everything went out from there.

Paul said, I went there.

I got I was saved through the ministry at the Church of Jerusalem.

I was sent by the Church of Jerusalem to Antioch, and they came and got me and put me in that ministry there.

And Paul said, I owe so much of a debt to that church in Jerusalem, and they're suffering.

They're under great persecution.

And so he was taking a collection from all the churches at Macedonia.

By the way, this is our missions month.

And in missions, we we take up collections and we send them to the missionaries.

Paul was going to all the mission churches and taking a collection for the church that sent out the missionaries.

It's kind of a reverse way of missions that he was going to all the church saying, listen, do you know the debt that you owe them?

They sacrificed, they sent people out, and we are bringing in this money back to back to the church.

And so the church of Corinth had agreed to give an offering, and they hadn't yet done it.

So Paul was going to talk about generosity and he's going to encourage them to complete that.

And he said in chapter 9, verse 7, for the Lord loveth a cheerful giver.

The third section would be chapters 10 through 13, the minister and his authority.

And this is where the tone changes, and we'll get there in just a minute.

But in chapter 10, the whole tone changes, and in these last few chapters, Paul answers the critics and defends his apostleship, and he puts in place the false teachers.

And he is going to make a serious defense, and he's going to hang it all on that, on their argument.

Paul is weak, and he's going to say, Yep, I am, but he is strong.

And when I'm weak, then am I strong.

And so I really think a great way to summarize this in a personal way, just as a from Paul's perspective, in the first seven chapters, Paul opens his heart.

In eight and nine, Paul opens his hands.

And in 10 through 13, Paul defends his ministry.

And I think it's a great book for that.

So let's fly into this the first stop.

Chapter 1, verse 1.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother.

I like how he threw in that by the will of God.

I'm an apostle by the will of God.

And Timothy, our brother, unto the church of God, which is at Corinth with all the saints which are in all Achai.

Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

For the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.

What's Paul saying here?

Paul's gonna open this book up and he's gonna say, hey guys, I want you to know that God is the one who called me to be an apostle.

And when you serve the Lord, you're gonna go through tribulation, but God's gonna comfort you in that tribulation.

And God's gonna give you comfort in your tribulation so that you can comfort other people in their tribulation.

And what God gives to you and brings you through and does in your life becomes a ministry to other people.

So bear this in mind as Paul is building up to a defense, what he's really doing is he's laying a foundation by saying, true Christian ministry is all the things that happen unto me fall out to the furtherance of the gospel.

All things that happen to a true believer and a true servant of Jesus Christ are going to then in turn be given away in grace and mercy and comfort to other people.

So these people who are coming in and troubling you, Paul's saying, I want you to think about this.

Trouble abounds in us, but consolation abounds in us through Christ.

We've been through a lot of trouble, but we didn't let our trouble trouble you.

We let our trouble be comforted by God, and then we let that comfort be given to you.

So our sufferings became your consolations.

I was at the funeral home earlier tonight with a family who's going through a very difficult loss.

And watching somebody walk up to them who's been through the exact same thing, put their arm on their shoulder, and tell them, communicated something that I could never communicate to them.

We've been through this, but God comforted us, and we're taking that comfort to comfort you.

And so when Paul was making this comparison, he was saying, I want you to understand, we've been troubled, but our trouble has fallen out to comfort.

And we have been able to strengthen you.

And so this is a beautiful argument.

This is important because Paul's critics viewed suffering as an evidence of weakness.

This is the modern-day church.

You know, I mean, you don't you know that you were supposed to get saved and become wealthy and healthy, and you were supposed to have no problems and name it and claim it and all the things that are supposed to, you know, your life was supposed to just fall in order after you got saved.

But Paul takes their argument and turns it upside down and says, no, no, no, you suffer, you're gonna suffer.

But God's gonna comfort you in your suffering, and He's gonna turn your comfort, He's gonna turn that comfort into ministry.

Your tribulation is gonna work ministry.

This is a ministry principle that Paul is laying down.

Be careful of people who come to you and tell you that if you just trust Christ and you do all these things, that everything's gonna be all honey and no bees.

Be really careful about that.

You know, I always often think about that when the children of Israel were walking across that wilderness, go into that land that was flowing with milk and honey.

There's a lot of bees there, and someone's got to get up and milk cows.

So the principle that Paul was laying down in chapter one is that God comforts us so that he can comfort others through us.

Our pain does not disqualify us from ministry.

Our pain is the ministry.

Our pain is the preparation for ministry.

God takes us into things.

Here's the progression.

Tribulation brings God's comfort.

God's comfort brings experience, and experience opens an opportunity for you to have ministry.

I remember a number of years ago, our youth pastor and his wife in Mississippi woke up on a Sunday morning, and their nine month and their nine-week-old twins, one of them, Tate, had died in the night.

And I remember they called me, and I drove straight to their house, and I didn't realize they hadn't called anybody else.

And so I walked into that house with her holding that baby, and she put Tate in my arms and asked me to bring him back.

And I remember the pain and I remember the anguish uh in that family.

We walked through that with those with that couple for those days, and then had that funeral, which was excruciating to see a little tiny casket at the front of the church.

And we went to that funeral, and right after the funeral was over, I gave them our credit card and I said, I've booked you a room in Georgia, and I want you to go.

Uh you take take the kids, but go to Georgia.

And uh, when you're there, you're gonna go have dinner.

All you have to do is have dinner with this couple.

You don't have to do anything else.

I just want you to go.

You're gonna have some time away, but you're gonna have dinner with this couple.

They walked into that hotel, and the couple that I sent them with was a youth pastor from Georgia, who two years before that had twins, and one of their twins had died.

And when they walked in, the report he gave me later that there was not a word spoken between them, but there was so much communicated.

I know what you're going through.

That couple two years before that didn't realize that they were going to go through a trial.

God was gonna give them comfort, they were gonna have an experience that would become a ministry.

There's things that we reject.

That God brings us to.

And what God is saying is, yes, they meant that for evil.

But I've meant that for good because I have sent you, Joseph, before them to preserve life.

I think tonight it would do many of us good to just bow our hearts before the Lord and say, okay, Lord, I know that you don't waste suffering.

So teach me that some of the most useful things that you will ever put into my life are going to be the experiences that I would have never chosen for myself.

So Paul explains that in chapter 1.

Chapter 2, he turns from trouble from tribulation and troubles to triumph in chapter 2.

Chapter 2, he said, In this passage of scripture, I love verse number 14.

Now thanks be unto God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ and makes manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place.

For we are unto God a sweet savor in Christ, of Christ, in them that are saved.

And in them that perish.

To the one we are the savor of death unto death, and to the other the savor of life unto life.

And who is sufficient for these things?

Now what is he talking about here?

Paul is talking about ministry always lends itself to triumph.

Paul's giving a beautiful picture here that there is an image of the Roman triumph.

And in the Roman triumph, when they would send out their men to war, when they won a war, they would take the captured king or the captured general of the nation that they beat, and they would tie him up and chain him up, and they're defeated soldiers, and they would not just execute them, they would bring them back, and they would tie them behind the great wagons, and they would have a ticker-tate parade, and they would walk, they would perp walk that defeated general and his army through the streets as a show of triumph.

That we triumphed.

By the way, the cross, Christ triumphed over them openly.

When they would do that, there was always this great celebration, often accompanied with all kinds of spices and things that would just be celebratory.

Christ is the victorious king, is what Paul's saying, and his servants participate in his triumph.

And he said, part of that triumph is we are fragrants.

We are the fragrance of that triumph.

We are to be a sweet savor unto God.

But he said, but understand this.

Those of us that are saved, and those of us that are that are that are triumphing in this walk with Christ in this new covenant, our life is a sweet smelling savor to God.

But to those who are saved, it is a wonderful fragrance.

Look at it in verse 15.

For we are unto God a sweet smelling savor in Christ.

In them that are saved and in them that perish.

There's two different ways that our life is smelled in this world.

To those that are saved, it is one that produces life.

It is a savor of life.

But to those that are unsaved, it's the stench of death.

This is why it is a foolish endeavor for Christian people to try to be popular in the world.

Because if you're carrying about in your body Christ, he is an offense to the world.

You smell like death.

You reek to the unsaved world.

You're offensive to the unsaved world.

But it's not you, it's him.

They're smelling Christ, and they smell, they smell his death in the believer.

We are carrying that.

Now, Paul said that in that it can bring some to life.

And he said, but who is our sufficiency for this in verse number 16?

He said, and who is sufficient for these things?

In other words, in what way can my life be a pleasing smell to God?

In what way can my life be a smell of life to other believers and a stench of death to unbelievers?

In what way can my life be lived out like this?

How can I be sufficient of this?

He's going to answer that in chapter 3.

Chapter 3, we see the glory of the new covenant.

This is probably the pinnacle of the theological portion of this book.

Paul is going to make a contrast between the Mosaic covenant and the new covenant and the glory that is in the new covenant in Christ.

And the ministry that we have of that.

The ministry of the new covenant is what Paul's referring to in chapter 2 about the triumph.

Paul says that the glory revealed through Christ is greater than the fading glory on Moses' face.

Remember when Moses went up in the mountain and he was with God and he came down and his face was shining and they had to put a veil over his face?

Well, that eventually went away.

There was a day that Moses could take the veil off because his face wasn't shining anymore.

And that was a picture that the old covenant was going to fade away.

But the new covenant was more glorious and sustaining in its glory.

The old covenant brought glory to God, but only temporarily until the new covenant came, and the new covenant is an eternal glory to God through Christ.

Because Christ is greater than Moses.

And grace is greater than the law.

So in this passage of scripture, he's explaining in chapter 3 how that this grace is going to come.

And he's talking about, he's talking about the new covenant primarily.

One of the greatest verses in this chapter is in verse number six.

He says, not of the letter, but of the spirit, for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

Now what's he talking about?

He's talking about the difference between the letter, which is the old law, and the spirit, which is the new covenant, which is in spirit, and truth, that new spirit, that new covenant is life.

This one is death.

Now, why is does that mean that the Old Testament is bad?

No.

No, the Old Testament is death.

It's death.

The Old Testament's purpose was to say to you, you have fallen short.

You have sinned.

You're a blasphemer.

You're an adulterer at heart.

You have sinned against God.

You have broken his laws.

In no way can you measure up to the goodness and the for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

That glory, that glory will never be attained by the law.

And because of that, it required death.

The Old Testament was filled with death.

Bulls, sheep, goats, turtle doves.

I mean, rivers of blood flowed in the Old Testament as they made sacrifices to God because of the Old Covenant.

The Old Covenant killeth.

But the new covenant brings to life.

Look at what he's going to say in chapter 3, very quickly, in verse number, boy, I wish I had time to go into all this, but I don't.

Verse number 13.

And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which was abolished.

You can't see the end.

There's a veil there, so you can't see the end of the thing that's going to be taken away.

That law is going to be taken away at Calvary.

But verse 14, but their minds were blind that until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ.

Listen, one of the reasons why the Jewish people have such a veil, they're blind to this, because they have that veil of Moses, of the old law, over their face.

In their minds, they cannot see Christ.

But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.

Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.

When what will be taken?

It shall turn to the Lord.

Israel.

So even Paul is saying, there is a covenant that remains to Israel, that one day Israel will turn and the veil will fall, and they will look upon him whom they pierced, and they will be saved.

In that day, all Israel will be saved.

So Paul said in verse 17, now the Lord is that spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

So the old law was a law that brought condemnation, but the spirit frees from the law and gives us life in Christ.

And this is why he's going to explain there that the old the old covenant was written on stony tables.

It was written on stone.

But the new covenant is written where?

In the heart.

In the heart.

The old one was we looked at it.

And in the old one, we walked by sight.

But in the new one we walk by faith.

That law is written into our heart.

And that whole chapter culminates in verse 18.

But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

What's he talking about?

We're looking into a mirror.

When we open the word of God, we look into the mirror.

And the mirror, what do we see reflected in the mirror?

We see Christ.

And the more you look into that mirror of Christ, the more you're changed into that glory by glory.

So there's justification, sanctification in the new covenant.

He has sanctified us by bringing his spirit into us, but he's or justified us by bringing his spirit into us, and then he's going to sanctify us by making us more like Christ day by day as we grow to know him through his word.

This is exactly what the false teachers were teaching against.

They were still trying to tie them to the old covenant.

They were trying to take these Gentile believers and bring them into circumcision, taking these old believers, these new believers and these Gentile believers and bring them back in under the law and say, look, look, look, look.

Okay, you can believe in Jesus, but Paul doesn't understand the whole thing.

You've got to be honorary Jews.

And here's the tremendous principle that Paul is teaching that listen, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

Whom the Son has set free is free indeed.

And here's the principle of that.

Here's the application of that teaching.

We become what we behold.

One of the greatest truths I ever read was in an old book by I think Murray McShane.

I think it's how they say his name.

It was in an old book.

I remember marking this, and I had that on a three by five card for a long time.

But he said, he said there's a progression.

Man makes man shapes an idol, and then the idol shapes the man.

You become like what you worship.

So whatever a person puts into his life as the center focus of his worship, he will eventually become like that.

Well, look at our c our culture today.

The culture is being shaped into the gods that this culture has worshipped, the gods of sex, the gods of prosperity.

And we become, listen, and you as a believer, you are going to become like what you behold.

What do you spend time looking into?

If you look into the perfect law of liberty, you will be shaped into the image of Christ.

In chapter 4, Paul talks about all of this great covenant is held in earthen vessels.

He talks about the treasure that is in earthen vessels.

He says in chapter 4, verse 1, therefore we see we have received this ministry.

What ministry?

The ministry of the new covenant.

As we have received mercy, we faint not, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty and not walking in craftiness, nor hand on the word of God deceitfully.

Remember, Paul's saying all this, and they're having to make, they're having to examine.

Well, how are these guys teaching us?

Are they teaching the word of God deceitfully?

Are they teaching the word of God?

He said here, he said, but we are making it by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

For if our gospel be hid, it is hid from them that are lost.

Paul said in verse 5, I read this a moment ago, but we preach not ourselves, but we preach Christ Jesus the Lord.

So this is probably one of the greatest ministry chapters in the Bible.

Paul saying, We are not here to preach ourselves.

We're not here to uplift our church and promote ourselves.

We are here to preach Christ.

And if Christ be lifted up, he will draw all men into himself.

But he said you have to understand that you have this treasure in earthen vessels.

The treasure is the glorious gospel of Christ.

Hey, where is this glorious gospel of Jesus tonight?

It's in you.

It was written on the fleshly tables of your heart.

Look at your life tonight.

You are the carrier of the gospel.

The vessel is fragile human beings.

Why would God put such a magnificent treasure in such an ordinary container?

Well, the answer is, verse number seven, we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.

He has given us this new covenant in our flesh, in these bodies.

And the philosophy of that ministry that runs through this entire book is there's a weak vessel.

But in the weak vessel is the great treasure.

What is Paul being attacked about?

He's being attacked by his weak vessel.

Look how little he is, look how mild he is.

Look at, I mean, Paul writes these big letters, and you expect this Hulk of a man to walk in the church and set everything straight, and this little itty-bitty squatty, bug-eyed Jew comes walking in.

And he doesn't really, he's kind of crude in his speech.

He's not as, he doesn't have the vibrato in his body that he had in his letter.

But Paul is saying, that's the gospel.

Weak vessels, great treasure, divine power, God gets the glory.

And then Paul gives his great testimony in verse 8.

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed.

We are perplexed, but not in despair.

We are persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down, but not destroyed.

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

Man, I'm telling you, he said, Look, I have this vessel, and in this vessel is a great treasure.

This vessel's gonna go through a lot of stuff.

I've been knocked down but not knocked out.

You knocked me down, I got back up.

You put me on a shipwreck and I had to swim it out.

You bite me with a snake, I'm gonna shake it off.

You put me in a jail, I'm gonna sing my way out.

Whatever you do, I've got something in me that is not.

He said it's kind of like it's kind of like Samson.

What is the secret of his strength?

Like everybody thinks that Samson was a big, you know, that people think that Samson looked like me.

Big muscles, bulging biceps.

Listen, Samson was a squatty little guy.

People thought, well, how did this guy get the strength to do what he did?

The excellency of the power is in God, not in us.

In chapters four and five, Paul is, he's gonna tie it in with chapter five, living for the unseen.

He's gonna close chapter four by contrasting the two worlds.

We went through this a couple of years ago in our church.

He said in chapter four at the very end, while we look at the things that are seen, we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen.

For the things which are seen are temporal.

But the things which are not seen are eternal.

Paul said, most of us make this big mistake is that we see all this stuff around here and we say, This is reality.

No, no, no.

This is not reality, this is all temporal.

This is all dying.

This is all for just a moment.

We're the things that are not seen are eternal.

And these false teachers are coming into your church and they're telling you to just judge by your eye.

Judge by what you see.

No, no, no, listen.

What you see is temporal.

What you see in Paul, this body is temporal.

What you can't see in me is eternal.

The thought carries into chapter 5 that our earthly body is temporary.

He says in chapter 5, verse 1, for we know that our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved.

We have a building of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

For in this body we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.

If so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked.

Paul said, Listen, don't you understand that this body is an old tabernacle, this old house, and it's falling apart, the windows are getting dim, the grinders are falling out, the keepers of the house are trembling, the pillars are bowing.

Um I can't hear anymore.

The daughters of the street sound so far away.

I mean, this body is decaying.

But he said, But listen, if this body was dissolved, I have a new one in heaven that's eternal, that wasn't made by flesh and blood, but made by God.

That's why he says one of the great passages of scriptures here, he says in verse number six, therefore we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we're absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight.

We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

Listen, I'm glad one of these days I'm gonna drop this body and I'm gonna get a new body.

And listen, when I check out of this body, absent from this body, present with the Lord.

As long as I'm in this body, I'm not with him.

And now he dwells in me through his spirit, but I'm not with him like I'm going to be in heaven.

When I check out of the body, I'm with the Lord.

And Paul is tying all this together that there's that this is why we labor.

We labor because we are not living for the temporary, we're living for the eternal.

And in verse number 10, he says, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one of us may receive the things done in his body according to as he done, whether it be good or bad.

Now, what Paul's saying here is that look, you're living in a temporary body, but you're gonna give an eternal account for that.

What you're doing in this temporary life is going to count for eternity.

And God's gonna take a look at what you did in your body, whether it be good or bad.

Now, that's not talking about our sin.

Those of us who've been saved, our sin was judged at Calvary.

But our work can be good or bad.

You say, What do you mean?

He's gonna talk about wood, hay, and stubble.

Works that have been for this world, gold, silver, precious stones, works that have been done for that world.

Uh I've been to the barbershop before and had a bad haircut.

It wasn't sinful, but it was bad.

I have in my book, in my office, I have a commentary set years ago that I ordered, and when I was, I was doing a study through a book, and I was really enjoying that.

When I got, I turned the page, I had a bad printing of that commentary.

There were about 17 pages in it that were all blank.

And I was missing a big portion of commentary on the book of Romans.

So I just decided to write the Epistle of Dean in there.

Now that wasn't a sinful commentary, but it was a bad commentary.

There are things that we do that may not be sinful.

Now there are, we do commit sin, but there are some works that we do that are not necessarily sinful works, but they're bad works.

They're bad in the sense that they do not lend itself to eternal weight of glory.

And we're gonna go before the judgment seat, Paul's talking about.

Listen, he said, Paul said, I'm not worried about the judgment seat of those false accusers, I'm worried about the judgment seat of Christ.

And he said, What you need to really understand is that God has given us a ministry in this new covenant of reconciliation.

Our eternal, our eternal work is in souls.

Notice what he says.

He comes to chapter 4 or chapter 5, verse 14, for the love of Christ constraineth us, because we judge that if one died for all, then all were dead.

And that he died for all, that they should live, not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.

Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh.

He said, Listen, after you get saved, I don't know you after the flesh.

I know you now in the Lord.

Why?

Because if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.

All things are passed away, all things are become new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled them to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

Now then we are ambassadors.

He said, Don't you understand?

Listen, he said, This is this is the whole point of the new covenant, that God sent Christ, who knew no sin, to be made sin for us, and that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

God came in Christ to bring the world to himself, to re-establish the fellowship and the friendship and the relationship with God and man through Christ Jesus.

And then he is turned around, and those of us who are saved, he's made us all new creatures, but he's given us a ministry of reconciliation.

And what is that ministry?

We are to go out to introduce people to God through Jesus Christ.

And he gave us the word of reconciliation to do that.

It's called the gospel.

Now the We are ambassadors.

We are people here temporarily to represent the nation that we're from.

That's what an ambassador does.

An ambassador leaves America, goes to another nation, and he lives in that nation temporarily to represent the interest of this nation in that nation.

We are ambassadors for Christ.

So we are to go into this world and represent the country that we are from because this is a temporary stay.

That's our eternal home.

And God has given us that ministry.

We represent another king.

We carry that king's message.

We live in a foreign land and we seek the interest of our king.

That's what an ambassador does.

Paul explains that whole foundation of all of that rests in one thing, for he hath made him to be made sin for us who knew no sin, that we may be made the righteousness of God in him.

There was an exchange.

God put our sin on Christ so he could put Christ's righteousness in us.

And now that he has made us righteous in these earthen vessels, he has sent us into this world to be ambassadors for Jesus Christ.

Everybody got that?

Chapter 6 and 7, we got to land the plane.

Chapter 6 and 7, he starts talking about separation and holiness.

This really gets into a great talk on this section of separation and holiness.

What do we mean?

Verse number 1 of chapter 6.

We then, as workers together with him.

If I'm an ambassador representing him, if God made Christ to be sinned for me so that he can make me righteous, and in righteousness he made me a new creature, and as a new creature, he has given me a new ministry, and in that ministry he's made me an ambassador.

Because of that, we then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain.

Don't get saved and waste it.

In other words, don't be a disgrace to grace.

If God has gone to this length to give you his grace and to do this work in you, do not falter with that.

How do we do that?

In chapter 6, he's going to talk about being unequally yoked together with unbelievers.

Hey, be very careful about partnership with in marriage with somebody who's not a believer.

You say, yeah, but she's beautiful.

Yeah, but she's not a believer.

Beauty is skin deep.

Unbelief goes all the way to the bone.

Be careful about spiritual partnerships that comprise disloyalty to Jesus Christ.

Be careful about going into business partnerships with people who are going to do things that are going to cause you to compromise your position with Christ.

Why?

Because God's people are his temple.

Therefore, he says in verse 17, come out from among them and be you separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.

Listen, look, look, look, look, look.

Too many people are sitting down at Nebuchadnezzar's table and calling it grace.

Too many people are going out and fellowshipping with Jezebel and calling it grace.

Look, Nebuchadnezzar was giving them his meat.

He was giving these three, these Hebrew children his meat and his wine.

What was he doing?

He was giving them things to set their affection.

He didn't want them just to be captives in Babylon.

He wanted Babylon to capture them.

He wanted them to not just live there, but to love there.

Set not your affection on things below, but on things above.

And I've seen too many Christians get saved, and then the grace of God becomes something vain and empty in their life because you can't tell them apart from everybody else.

And then the Christian walks around and calls that grace.

That's not grace.

This is what Paul's saying.

Paul's distinguishing that there is, that there is something about separation, a biblical separation, and he's going to talk about biblical repentance.

I didn't have time to go into this in chapter one, but Paul was telling them in chapter one and two, like, hey, remember that guy that you kicked out of the church for his sin?

Well, he wants to come back.

And now you guys were too soft on him when he was in sin.

You were actually celebrated it.

Then you got serious about it, you kicked him out, and now you've become really legalistic and you've said you can't come back.

And Paul said, you better forgive that guy, lest Satan get an advantage in this church.

He has brought forth fruit, meat for repentance.

He needs to be restored.

That's the point of church discipline, is for restoration.

And in chapter 7, Paul's going to talk about that.

Holiness is going to be produced by biblical repentance.

Biblical repentance in chapter 7, verse 10, godly sorrow works repentance to salvation, not to be repented of.

So Paul distinguishes between worldly sorrow, I'm really sorry I got caught.

I really hate the consequences.

Godly sorrow is I hate the sin.

And this is an important distinction.

When God is dealing with us about sin, we better not just run because we're afraid of the consequences.

We better hate the sin.

So Paul deals with repentance in chapter 7 and gives a great, a great, a great expose on that.

Chapters 8 and 9, very quickly, and we'll land.

Chapters 8 and 9, Paul turns his attention to the collection of the saints in Jerusalem.

He says, Hey, I want you to know something about these Macedonia churches.

They gave, and they're very, very poor.

They're in great affliction, in deep poverty.

They have deep, deep personal difficulty, and these people gave out of their poverty.

And how do they do that?

Chapter 8, verse 5.

They first gave of their own selves to the Lord.

Listen, I think here's the problem with most church giving programs.

We're trying to get people's money who've never given their heart.

And giving campaigns in a church and stewardship in a church and tithes and offerings in a church is not God's way of raising money.

Stewardship is God's way of raising children.

God's raising us.

God doesn't need our money.

You think God needs my 10%?

He paves heaven's streets with this stuff.

I mean, have you thought about the gates of Pearl?

Have you thought about the oyster that they came out of?

I mean, God has abundant riches.

He doesn't need my measly two cents.

What God's doing in stewardship is not raising capital funds.

God's raising Christians.

He's raising us.

He loves cheerful givers.

And he uses Christ as the as the as the supreme example in chapter 8, verse 9.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he, though he was rich, yet for your sakes became poor.

Jesus is the ultimate giver.

I love how a lot of Christian people are like, you know, I just don't believe, I don't believe that a Christian should have to give.

It's not a New Testament thing.

The New Testament was literally given to you by Jesus giving you his body and blood.

And how that wouldn't be emulated in the life of a believer is beyond me.

Because uh, and we need to understand that we're not under the Old Testament cursing principle.

We're under the New Testament principle of sowing and reaping.

You reap what you sow, and you reap more than you sow, and you reap what you sow, and how you sow.

He that sows sparingly will reap sparingly.

He that sows bountifully shall reap bountifully.

And God loves a cheerful giver.

How should giving be done in the church?

It should be done voluntarily, it should be done generously, it should be done joyfully, and it should be motivated by grace.

I have so many Christians that say, you know, I just don't think tithing is in the New Testament.

Okay, well, that's fine.

Then is that a law?

Yeah.

So the law said, thou shalt not commit adultery, right?

Yes.

And then the new covenant says, if you look upon a woman to lust, you've already committed adultery, right?

So there's a higher calling in the New Testament than the Old Testament.

So if tithing, 10%, was the starting point for the Jew under the law, then let's give abundantly above that.

Well, I don't think I interpret it that way.

Well, no, of course you don't.

To let a Jew do more under the law than we would do under grace is a disgrace to grace.

2 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul turns around to the warfare of the Christian, and we'll fly through these couple of chapters.

2 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

Paul's tone changes dramatically in chapter 10.

Now I, Paul, myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.

I'm gonna tell you something now, but I'm gonna do it through the meekness of Christ.

Through the gentleness of Christ, because I'm ticked.

Paul directly confronts those who are attacking in his ministry.

And notice how he describes the battle in verse 4.

The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.

Paul realized that he was not in a battle with flesh and blood.

And I wish we would all remember that.

People do us harm, and we want to get back at those people.

It wasn't the people.

The issue is really the enemy, is Satan.

The Christian battle is fundamentally spiritual.

Now, unfortunately, Satan has the ability to use people like God uses people.

But where is much of the battle fought?

It's in the mind.

Chapter 10, verse 5, casting down imaginations.

Let me tell you something.

When people start talking bad about you, you start imagining things way worse than they are.

And your imagination makes things bigger, worse.

But he said, no, no, bring those thoughts into the obedience of Christ.

Bring every thought into captivity.

You're a new creation now.

Think differently.

The battle for the Christian living is often won or lost by what controls our thinking.

This piano is kind of like what the brain is.

The brain is just gray matter, it's just an instrument.

Now, some of you don't have a baby grand.

You got a little spinner piano or whatever.

But that piano could either bring beautiful music or it can be a cacophony of all kinds of horrendous noise, depending on who's sitting at the bench.

The mind is the pianist, the brain is the piano.

Your life will flow from the thoughts and the intents of your heart or your mind.

So that's why you've got to let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus.

So Paul was trying to battle this thing in the right Christian mind and the mind of Christ.

And in chapter 11, he boasts about his credentials.

They had boasted about their credentials, so Paul almost responds sarcastically, Oh, credentials?

You want credentials?

Let me tell you mine.

And they're like, okay, well, what are your accomplishments?

And he said, Okay, let me tell you about my accomplishments.

I got beat half to death a number of times with stripes.

I was imprisoned.

I was shipwrecked.

I was in danger.

I was hungry.

I was in weariness.

I was in persecution.

He adds everything of all the suffering that he went through.

You think I'm weak?

I was three nights and a day in the deep.

You think I'm weak?

I was beaten to an inch of my death a number of times, 39 stripes.

And he said, on top of all that, he mentioned something that every pastor understands in verse 28.

Besides all those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.

He said, Not only all the physical things that I endured, but the spiritual battle of carrying the weight of the church and all that comes in with that.

His greatest burden wasn't the shipwreck, it was people.

Paul carried these people in his heart.

And he said, Now listen, these are all the things that happened to me without, but God delivered me from all of those.

Chapter 12, he goes into describing about being caught up into third heaven.

He goes, Let me tell you my credentials.

I almost drowned in the sea and I was beaten to an inch of my death.

But then I was taken to heaven.

And Paul kind of talks about it like I knew this guy that was me that went to heaven.

And I love this because he said, I got up there and I saw all these things that are not lawful for me to write.

Isn't it interesting that Paul went to heaven and actually saw heaven and didn't come back and write a book about it?

All these bestsellers, like, I went to heaven.

Let me tell you what I saw.

Right?

Paul said, I got up there, and there's no way I would have to break every law of language and mathematics and science and everything.

I would have to break every law known to man to try to tell you what I saw in heaven.

But because of that extraordinary revelation, God had given Paul a thorn, literally a nail in the flesh.

And Paul prayed three times for its removal, and God didn't remove it.

And God said, Listen, Paul, you're gonna be you're gonna be puffed up in your own mind if you if I don't give this to you, but my grace will be sufficient for you because my strength is made perfect in weakness.

This reveals one of the great central truths of the book of 2 Corinthians.

Sometimes God demonstrates his power by removing a problem, and sometimes God demonstrates his power by sustaining us through the problem.

One of the things that I've always had to wrestle with in a church is you'll hear somebody stand up and just praise God.

I'm cancer free.

And the whole church, and we should.

And we should.

Meanwhile, I know in my heart there's somebody across the church that's suffering with cancer.

And it's terminal.

And we're gonna have a funeral service for them before too long.

And they never got to say, I'm cancer free.

But they stepped out of that body and went to heaven and said, God kept me through his grace, and I'm cancer free.

See, the Christian strength comes through weakness.

When I'm weak, then I'm strong.

Christian strength is not independence from God, Christian strength is dependence on God.

And then the final approach and the landing gear, we're gonna hear the tire squeak and the smoke, is gonna come up in chapter 13.

Paul concludes by calling Christians in Corinth to do this.

Examine yourselves.

He says in verse number five, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith.

You've examined me.

I've been on trial, but examine yourself whether you be in the faith.

And he closes with one of great Scripture's greatest Trinitarian benedictions in verse 14.

He says, The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all.

Amen.

People that believe that the Bible doesn't teach the Trinity, you just need to read that one verse.

That grace by Jesus Christ, love from God the Father, and communion through the Holy Spirit.

Which means that the Christian life is lived in fellowship and relationship with the triune God.

So let me wrap it all up with this: God uses our suffering.

2 Corinthians teaches us that God displays his power through weakness.

You do not have to have it all together.

You don't have to have all of the physical attributes, mental acuity to be used of God.

You just have to have a surrendered vessel.

2 Corinthians teaches us that we live for eternity, not for the temporal.

Verse 4 says we represent Christ to the world.

So let's live like that.

Let's be ambassadors and represent him well.

He also teaches that it's only God's grace that is sufficient for every trial that we go through.

Listen, the lesson of 2 Corinthians is, hey, get stronger.

No, it is depend more.

Learn where your strength comes from.

2 Corinthians teaches us that the authentic Christian ministry is not the display of human strength, but the demonstration of Christ's power through surrender, through faithfulness, and oftentimes through weak servants.

Thank God that He can use us.

Amen.

Father, thank you for this book.