Good morning. Noticed all of the new Mercedes Benz and Lexuses in the parking lot today. Way to go. You received those for Christmas no doubt. If you’re here for Christmas Eve, you’d know what I was talking about. So today, if you would turn in your Bible, 2 Corinthians chapter four. 2 Corinthians chapter four, we’re going to look at the first seven verses, and the title is simply “Authentic Ministry” (2 Corinthians 4:1-7), and I’ll explain that as we go. And here’s the reason why we got to talk about authentic ministry is because there is so much fake ministry, inauthentic, not the real deal. And today’s sermon really is going to touch upon some of the topics we’ve talked about in the book of Romans, from the inability of man to the peak of justification, total inability unbelief. And it fits as well as a sermon we did in the fall from 2 Corinthians 3. And these really fit together. And bottom line, it’s going to help us to understand what we are to do as a church, why we do it and your part in it.
So, let’s begin 2 Corinthians 4:1. “Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.” Difficult part is Paul from the end of chapter two through the end of chapter four. It’s really a continuous thought. We don’t have time to exposit all of it so we’re kind of picking up towards the end. And notice what he says here that that he has this ministry. It is a particular ministry, and so it’s distinguished from other ministries. He has this ministry by the mercy of God. It’s totally a gift solely of God. And he says this, “we do not lose heart”. And this verb “do not lose heart” really means don’t lose courage. Don’t be cowardly. Don’t shrink back. And why would he say that? Well, he says that because that’s the temptation, that is the pressure on us to shrink back, to not be bold, to not be courageous, and the relationship, even when he says, “Therefore”, we do have to go to the previous verse, and this is why we do not lose heart. 2 Corinthians 3:18, he says this, “And we all with unveiled faces, (and in the context that is the freedom of the Holy Spirit, that believers can actually do this), we behold the glory of the Lord…” We’re able to see Christ. In other words, we’re able to understand who He is, His nature and His work, from the Word of God. And this is the Lord Jesus Christ. And as a result, we’re “… Being transformed into the same image (whose image? Jesus Christ’s image) from one degree of glory to another. (And of course, God gets all the glory) And this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” And so, this is the result of the ministry. And because this has happened in Paul’s life, and now as he preaches, that’s the result in some of his hearers, that’s why he does not lose heart.
And hence, kind of the first point. And this really is my points are the outline of the text that we’re going through is the first point is that there needs to be,
Ongoing Courage of Authentic Ministry
And let me explain these. First of all, ministry. That word, “ministry”, really comes in the Greek, just means “service”. In other words, we serve someone, and who is that we serve? We serve God. In ministry what we’re doing is simply doing what God commands us to do. That’s ministry. I get it there’s this kind of mystical appeal to ministry. Ministry is simply serving God, doing exactly what He tells us to do. And here’s the reason why we have to put this word “authentic”. And it really is kind of what it is, what Paul is describing. He’s contrasting. And we’ll see in just a second, the inauthentic ministry from authentic the real ministry. Now why would we want to do that? Because in this world, there is all kinds of fake ministry, and what it requires for a person to have authentic ministry is ongoing courage. Now, where do we get that term or phrase, “ongoing courage”? Let’s go back to 2 Corinthians 4:1b-2. At the end of verse one, it says “…We do not lose heart.” This “lose heart” is actually, in Greek, a present, active indicative verb, present meaning it’s ongoing. It’s ongoing. Active meaning we’re the ones who are doing it. Indicative means it’s a description of reality in. So, for Paul to say that means that there is always a temptation to do what? To lose heart, to not be courageous. And why would that be? Because of the pressure of the world, because the opinion of others, because of our own sinfulness, because of affliction, there is always a tendency to lose heart. This is true of Paul. It’s true of the leaders of Sherman Bible Church. It’s true of us as a church. It’s true of you individually. So, Paul says “we do not lose heart (in light of what? being able to behold Jesus Christ in scripture verse two) But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways…” “Underhanded” simply means concealed or hidden. “…We refuse to practice cunning…” This word “cunning” simply means deceitful or it’s people who are, I call them hucksters. It’s those who will do anything. They will do anything for what they want to accomplish. And Paul says, “…We refuse to practice cunning…” We refuse to manipulate people or to tamper with God’s Word. That’s an incredible evil. The God of the universe, who has revealed Himself in His Word and people tamper with it. That word “tamper” could also be translated adulterate. In other words, you take something that is pure and genuine and you make it not so how? By you doing something to it. And this really describes the false apostles in the time of Paul. It describes the false teachers of today, why? They are underhanded, they’re cunning, and how do they do that? They adulterate God’s Word. But there is a contrast here. The contrast is that which I just described as inauthentic ministry. Here’s authentic, “…But by the open statement of the truth…” “Open statement of the truth” that characterizes authentic ministry, simply presenting clearly, openly, the truth, which is the Word of God. “…We would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” In other words, how do we know Paul is truly who he says he is? And by this he simply proclaims, he manifests openly the truth. Here at Sherman Bible. What do we believe in? We believe in the sufficiency of Scripture. Hence we openly proclaim it. Do you realize that that as we preach each and every week, that’s it. Granted you go to a D group, but the D group is studying the sermon that’s already an open statement of the truth. There is no deeper revelation that you encounter for the initiated. This is it. We present it open statement of the truth. We even categorize and catalog our sermons and put them online. Why? We want to be open. This service is being live streamed. Even the enemies of the cross, enemies of Sherman Bible Church, have access to what we are teaching. It is an open statement of the truth. John 17:17, Jesus says this, “Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth.” And so, what Jesus is saying, yes, the word of God contains truth. More importantly, and in actuality, the word is truth. The word equals truth. And so, an open statement of truth is an open statement about the Word of God.
Acts 20. We see this in the life of Paul. He says, “How I did not shrink…” “Did not shrink”. In other words, he did not lose heart. In other words, he was not cowardly “…From declaring to you anything that was profitable.” Now, why would he say not shrink? Because there is a temptation to shrink back. I feel this. I felt this this past week. I had to repent of it, interacting with someone who is not a believer, and I found myself kind of pulling back a bit on who I am and who Jesus is. Why? Because I knew as soon as I brought up Christ, there would be tension and there would be conflict even. Why? Because I’ve seen it in the past. That’s shrinking back. Paul says, No, “…I did not shrink back from declaring to you anything that was profitable teaching you in public from house to house.” That’s the open statement of truth. That is, in fact, what is authentic ministry. And now, why would we shrink back? I think you know, sometimes we know that in God’s Word there are things that are hard to hear. Right? Have you ever had to sit across from a person and say, “Yeah, you’re a sinner and you’re going to hell”? That is in God’s Word. And yet we take an gulp when we’re about to say that, why? Because we know it’s resisted. And in fact, we know some people are very aggressive when you actually just give them the Word of God, and if the law wasn’t in place, they’d be violent. They’d slice and dice you, not everyone, but some. But in the end, they would, why? Because they hate God. They hate the message. Therefore, there is always this pressure on us to pull back, to shrink back, to not be courageous. Why? Because the Word of God exposes all that is false. It exposes the idolatry in people’s lives. It convicts them of sin. Thus, it requires ongoing courage to actually carry out authentic ministry. Notice a bit later, verse 21, “Testifying both to Jews and Greeks (again, that’s an example of all without exclusion) an open statement of truth, of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ.” This is very simple. It’s a clear, straightforward presentation of the gospel. And yet there is a tendency to shrink back. Why is that? Well, because when you tell people there is a God and He is sovereign, people will say, “No, He’s not”. And when you say mankind is sinful and they will die an eternal death that they do not repent and believe in Jesus, people will say, “No, he’s not sinful”. And when you say Jesus is the unique Savior, no one can be saved except through Him. They say, “No, He’s not”. They resist this. Hence, there’s always a temptation to what to shrink back from telling people, yes, you do need to repent and you do need to believe in order to be saved. And in fact, that’s why preachers who just straight forward preach the Word of God are so maligned. People will constantly talk behind their back. Why? Because people do not want to hear the Word of God. Verse 26 as a few verses later, “Therefore I testify to you to this day I’m innocent of the blood of all (why?) for I did not shrink. (Again he did not pull back. He was bold. He was courageous to do what?) to declare to you the whole counsel of God.” Notice, that’s all he’s doing. All he’s doing is declaring. That’s not a conversation. This is not a dialog. He’s declaring the gospel. He’s declaring the whole counsel of God, which is centered on the gospel. This is what ministry is. It is simply obeying what God told us to do, and that is this, to declare the whole counsel of God. Now, some people think ministry should be something else. You’ll hear them. Oh no, no, no, no ministry in the church should be feed the poor. No, ministry should be to be out in the community and doing this. What are they doing? They’re taking the focus off declaring the whole counsel of God and turn it into whatever they want. Likewise, we cannot pick and choose what verses we highlight. I know you do. Any of you don’t raise your hand. Underlined anything in your written word of God? Do you know God wrote the parts you didn’t underline? Yeah, and they’re good too, right? I’m not picking on you. I underline things but we’ve got to be careful. We don’t get to pick and choose. Why? That actually adulterates the Word of God. Leaders of this church need to teach the whole counsel of God, the things that might make us seem uh yeah, that’s joyful. And the things which might make us sorrowful, godly sorrow, which would lead us to repent. And so, if authentic ministry is simply the open statement of truth.
Let’s answer this question,
Why The Gospel Is Hidden To Some
Why the gospel is hidden to some? Because why do we need to look at this? Well, because it helps us make sense of the world. Think about it, if we simply say there is a God who loves and there is a Savior who died for you, you can spend eternity loving Him. And people reject that. How could they reject such good news? Well, it’s because it’s hidden. In other words, they don’t receive it, they don’t believe it. In fact, they resist it. It might even become violent. This will help us understand the world in which we live. It’ll help us understand some family members that you deal with, maybe even on Christmas, and it will help understand some things that happen within their church. 2 Corinthians 4:3, “And even if our gospel is veiled…” And this is not a hypothetical situation, he’s saying this. This is the reason, if there are a group of people who don’t see that the gospel is incredible good news. “…It is veiled to those who are perishing.” What he’s saying is this, it’s not a gospel issue. The problem is not with the gospel. I think we can all agree with that. Of course, there is a myth today in so-called Christian circles, and it’s in the fake church that if you’re persuasive enough, if you’re cool enough, if your jeans have holes in them, and you look like you fit in with culture, yes, again, really, if they’re skinny enough, you will, as a communicator, be able to overcome the obstacles that are in people’s lives. You can’t. I cannot. I cannot overcome the obstacles. All I can do is declare to you the authoritative declaration of the gospel. But for some, it is veiled. They’re not going to see it. Why? Because they are perishing. And what that means is they are headed to eternal doom. They are headed to eternal doom. It is veiled. 2 Corinthians 3:14, which is in the previous chapter. This idea of veiling had already been addressed. Notice what it says, “…But their minds…” So, this is a particular group of people, those who are perishing. “…Their minds were hardened…” In other words, they were thick skinned. They were calloused. And what’s the impact of that? For to this day, when they read the Old Covenant, whether we read it out loud or we preach it, there is a veil that remains unlifted because only through Christ as it had taken away. They cannot see. There are some who are here today, who cannot see the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a veil as glorious as Jesus is, the Creator and Savior and Consummator. There are those who cannot see. Why? Their minds are hardened and there is a veil. They cannot understand. And we talked about this a few weeks ago as total inability. We as humans. We have inability. I get it. A person can do certain things. They can seem loving. They can be a good husband and a good employee but there is an inability for them to comprehend and to see the glory of Christ in the Gospel.
1 Corinthians 1:18, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.” There they are, that group of people, they are perishing. They are headed to eternal doom. “…But to us, who are being saved, is the power of God.” There are two groups of people. Two groups of people. And to the group that is perishing, notice how they assess the cross. It is folly. In other words, they say, “that’s foolish. They’ll say, That’s stupid, that’s idiotic, that’s worthless.” And I could go on and on and be very crass about it, what they actually say inside their minds when they hear about a loving Father who sent His Son who died in our place, and they look at God and they say, “Nope, nope. That’s stupid. That’s foolish. I’m good by myself. I am God.” And in the end, that’s what they say. 1 Corinthians 2:14, again, explaining those who are perishing notice, “The natural person (again, a mind hardened, has a sin, nature, dead in his trespasses) does not accept the things of the Spirit of God (why? they’re folly to him) and he is not able (again, total inability) to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” This is who people are, unless, of course, God does something. Total inability. 1 Thessalonians 2:10 explains, again, who we are as humans. Now this is speaking of future and the man of lawlessness comes. But it also applies to today. “And with all wicked deception for those who are perishing (that’s a type of people, why?) because they refuse to love the truth…” Open statement of truth. They say, “Nope, I hate it. I hate it. I hate the truth about who God is and what He has done through Jesus Christ.” This is why it requires on going courage to continue to proclaim the gospel. Why? Because we know there are some people who don’t love the truth. They hate it.
2 Corinthians 4:3 going back to our passage and notice we read this. It’s “…Veiled to those who are perishing…” So, this is issue number one. They’re by nature because they’re sinners. Their hearts are hardened. They cannot understand but notice the second thing they have going against them. “…In their case (in other words, this is those who are perishing) the god of this world (in other words, Satan) has blinded the minds of the unbelievers…” We’ve talked about unbelievers, right? Unbelievers are those who are perishing. There is no such thing as an unbelieving Christian. These are two groups of people. You’re either a believer or an unbeliever. You’re either a Christian or not a Christian. For those who are perishing, they are unbelievers. They have the issues of their own minds being callous because of their own sin, and Satan has blinded the minds of the unbelievers “…To keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
And I’m going to draw left-handed because that way it’ll look a little bit more messy. So, if I were to draw a picture of the sun, there you go. Take that home, put it on your refrigerator. If I were to draw a picture of the sun and a person who was physically blind, they would not be able to see the sun. And if we were to put them behind a six-foot-thick concrete wall, they still would not be able to see the sun. This is total inability. We’re sinful. We have a sinful nature. We have hardened hearts and Satan blinds so that they cannot see. They cannot see what? The sun. In other words, they cannot see the light emanating from the sun. People cannot see the light of the glory of Christ as glorious as He is. They cannot see “He who is the image of God”. In other words, He who is revealing God perfectly. Because in Christ, God shows us his entire self, whatever we need to know about God, He has revealed it in His Son.
And just to double down on those who are perishing. Let’s note the words of Jesus. Again these are the words of Jesus, John 8:44, He’s speaking to a bunch of leaders who do not believe in Him, and He says this, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning. He does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar. And the father of lies.” Like father, like son. This describes people who are perishing. Their minds are not only hardened. Their will is to obey Satan. So let me draw a diagram again. I’ll draw left-handed that way. You won’t criticize me for my very terrible drawings. But if I were to define the world, it looks something like this. The world is a downhill running event where people are running, they’re running to what? They’re running to their death. This is those who are perishing. They were headlong running to their death. Let me even put an exclamation point on that. They are running to their death not only physical death but the second death. What is that? That’s Judgment Day when they will be eternally condemned. They’re running headlong into death. They are perishing, and the Gospel comes to them. It comes to them the news that there is a God and He has sent His Son. And they say, “Yeah, He’s not going to be our God. No, we don’t want anything to do with Jesus. I will not bow my knee. That is stupid. That is foolish. That is idiotic.” This is man. This is what we call, “total inability”. And some of us were there, were we not? But for some who hear the gospel, God saves them out of His mercy. He in His mercy, saves some.
So, who do we glorify in that moment? Do we glorify the person, or do we glorify God? Rhetorical question, by the way, yeah, we glorify God. But you think about it, once we are saved, what do we do? So, the Gospels come to us, we see the glory of Christ, what do we do? We tell others. We tell others now they’re perishing, and some will, in fact, die physically and will die the second spiritual death. Nonetheless, this is authentic ministry right here, to proclaim the gospel. Why? Because some, God will save. God will save you. Don’t know if He’s going to save your family member so, what do you do? Proclaim the gospel. You don’t know if He’s going to save your coworker so, what do you do? Proclaim the gospel, you don’t know if He’s going to save that person in your D group so, what do you do? Proclaim the gospel. This is authentic ministry. This is true of the leadership of Sherman Bible Church. It’s true of you.
So let’s go to the,
Heart of Authentic Ministry
Again, I’m simply taking outline of the text, but the heart of authentic ministry again, why do I have to say “authentic”? Because there’s plenty of fake stuff out there, the heart, in other words, the core, the thrust, the center. And what is that? 2 Corinthians 4:5, “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord with ourselves as your servant for Jesus’ sake.” Notice this statement, “for what we proclaim is not ourselves.” Now, I get it. Some of that may be laughable, right? Because how many of you would have come today if you knew I was going to spend 40 odd minutes talking about myself? How many really would have come? Oh, cool. I got two or three. Yes! No, because the last thing you want to do is hear about me. Oh, this is a picture of me when I was four. There’s when I was 18. Look at that perm and pink sweater when I thought I was really cool. That’s me in a onesie for Christmas. You know all of those silly pictures. Okay? You understand no one wants to hear that. But notice this, for what we proclaim is not ourselves. Do you understand that false ministry, inauthentic ministry, this is actually what’s happening? They’re proclaiming themselves. How are they proclaiming themselves? It’s not for some it’s subtle. Some it’s in your face. But what they’re proclaiming is, “I’m the hero. I’m the hero. Yes, God is God, and He couldn’t live without me.” I get it. They don’t say it like that. It’s subtle but they’re the hero. They’re always the hero. And why? Because they want you to follow them. They want to have a large ministry. They want you to acknowledge their skill. They want you to acknowledge their skill and that they’re smart, And in the end, what do they want? Money, money. And so, they preach themselves. This is how evil and demonic it is. And you know, as much as I’m hammering on them, I have to admit, there’s always temptation for me. I want you guys to like me. I do. I don’t want to be a jerk. I want you to like me but I gotta be real careful to not preach myself, to not preach in such a way that you’re enamored with my humor, which I know you never would be. To be enamored with my skill. No, we don’t preach ourselves. We preach Jesus Christ as Lord. Notice what Jesus says in John 7:18, “The one who speaks on his own authority…” Okay? This, by definition, is fake ministry. It’s fake serving. Why? Because you’re not serving the God of the universe. They speak on their own authority. What they’re actually doing, this is the words of Jesus, they’re seeking “Their own glory”. For the most part when you see these guys stand up, they look good, they sound good, what they really want is you want them. They want you to glorify them. And the bottom line, if you glorify them, you’ll send them money. But notice the contrast. Jesus says this, “…But the one who seeks the glory of him who is sent is true, and in him there is no falsehood.” Who is He talking about? He’s talking about Himself. Jesus is the only one who spoke fully on the authority of the Father. He’s the one who is true. “In Him, there is no falsehood.” He then is the example and the definition of authentic ministry we follow in His footsteps.
Let’s go back to our text, 2 Corinthians 4:5. We read it once. Let’s read it again, “For what we proclaim is not ourselves (what do we do? We)…proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord…” This is a simple, clear gospel. The gospel is simply an authoritative, authoritative declaration. Generation of who Jesus is and what He’s done and what it means. “Jesus Christ as Lord.” Jesus, meaning Yahweh Saves. Jesus is God. He saves. He is Christ. He is the Anointed One. All of the Old Testament is all about Christ, who He is, His nature, what He was to do, how He is to be glorified and He is Lord. In other words, He has all power and authority. Yes, He does. All power and authority. Does He share that with you? No, He does not. He has all power and authority. And so, the world looks at that and says, “Nope, God does not save, I save myself. Jesus is not the Christ. I’m the Christ. Lord? No, I am Lord. I am God.” I get it. You’ve never heard anyone say that, maybe verbally but that’s in the end, what they are thinking. Jesus Christ is Lord. That’s all we do is we proclaim that. We don’t teach our judgments, we don’t teach our conclusions, we don’t teach our opinions, we teach Jesus Christ as Lord, and we’ll let Him manifest Himself to the people. Simple, clear gospel presentation.
I also want to just note this. This word “proclaim” simply means to tell forth. What I’m doing now is a proclamation. We’re not in dialog. Why are we not in dialog? We’re not in dialog about God’s Word. God’s Word is sufficient. We proclaim it. Your part is to receive it. My part, when I hear it, is to receive it. Why? We’re not in dialog with God now we pray to God, yes, but we’re not in dialog about the truth. We hear it and receive it. 1 Corinthians 1:23, he says this simply. “But we preach Christ crucified…” That’s the same thing as Jesus Christ as Lord. Oh, “…That’s a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles.” Yep. They say, “Nope. That’s foolish. That’s stupid. Not going to happen for me.” 1 Corinthians 2:2, “For I decided to know nothing…” In other words, this is the heart of authentic ministry, “…To know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” This is what it means to be gospel-centered. And for us as a church, we have a very unique and narrow purpose. We have to stay in this line. And what is it? It’s to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Here’s the problem. We have people who and the world and our own sinfulness will try to take us out of this lane. “You need to do this. You need to do that. Yeah, if you’re really a good church, you wouldn’t speak against this. You wouldn’t speak against that.” Those are temptations to move away from the narrow focus of simply preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Let me take a pot shot at something. You know, we’ve done this a few times, but “The Jesus gets us” commercials. I know they’re laughable, right? But think about that for a moment. What are they preaching? Are they preaching that there is a sovereign God to whom we are accountable? Nope. Are they preaching that man is sinful and under the wrath of God and facing eternal damnation? Nope. Are they teaching Jesus, the unique God-man who is Lord of overall the universe? Nope. They’re teaching a weak idol that they call “Jesus”, who gets us. Sorry, Charlie, that is false, through and through. We as a church, we have a very narrow focus. We preach Jesus, that God saves, that He is the Anointed One. He is Lord, and He is the one who’s been crucified. John 14:6 Jesus said, “(I am) I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” There is a singular focus for the church, and that is to preach Jesus Christ. That is the heart of ministry that He is the Way, the Truth and Life. Why is that? Because there’s no other way by which we can be saved. Romans 10:17, “So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.” So, people need to hear in order to have faith. And where does that hearing come from? The preaching of the Word of Christ. Therefore, that’s our narrow focus. We just keep preaching Christ. God will be responsible. He will grant faith to those He will grant faith to. So, this is the heart of authentic ministry. 2 Corinthians 4:5 for a third time, if you’re counting, “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and with ourselves as your servants, for Jesus’ sake.” And so, what we see here is that there are ministers, and the ministers are to serve the congregation. But we also know this, that the world tries to tell ministers who they are, and they try to tell the ministers, this is what you should do. Now I know none of you would ever do that. I got it. But that’s the world, right? “Oh, the minister needs to do this. Minister needs to do that. The minister needs to whatever fill in the blank.” No, that’s what the world does. But here’s the thing, the world is not the Lord, is it? It is not. Who is the Lord? It’s Jesus. And how does He tell the ministers what to do? Through the Word. But it also means this, that the congregation is not the Lord, and it also means this, the ministers are not the Lord. Who’s the Lord? Jesus Christ. He has all power and authority. He gets to tell us what to do, and so He tells ministers to do this: “proclaim Me. Proclaim Me. This is how you will serve the congregation.” I get it in our society today are all kinds of fake pictures of what a minister is to look like and what he is to do. Jesus tells us what we are to do. We are to preach Him and Him crucified.
2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, has shown in our hearts to get the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Now, how many of you are able to, if there’s darkness, to just declare, and I’m not talking about turning on the light bulb, to declare, “Let light shine”. Oh, we can’t do that. This is God. This is God being God. He is all powerful. He can bring light when there is no light, and He can shine in our hearts to give the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This is why we preach Jesus as Lord. Why? Because the Gospel comes to people, and God, out of His mercy, allows that light to shine inside of a heart. We call it “regeneration”. Not everyone is given this privilege. If you can see Jesus Christ in scripture, you have been saved. You have the privilege of seeing Jesus Christ. Why in the world would we take credit for that? That is God in His mercy saving us. This is God in His mercy, in His power, turning us from that which we once were to that which we now are. We read it in our call to worship. Titus 3:5, “He saved us (He saved us. Is there anything less clear? He saved us) not because of works done by us, by righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”
And so, the question is, who saves whom? Okay, there’s a couple answers here. One of them could be, we save ourselves, right? I think most of us know that’s not a correct answer. One answer is, God saves us. Yep, there’s the right answer. Why do we know? It just tells us. But here’s the danger that we’ve learned the past couple weeks. There is also the answer that God plus us saves. In other words, we bring something to the equation. We bring our works and contribute to the work of Jesus. No, no, no. This is wrong. This is wrong. God saves us. There are no ishmaels. We lift Him up, we give Him the credit that He deserves. 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation…” This is something only God can do. Only God can do this. He can bring light into this universe. He can bring light into the heart of a person. How? By creating a new heart, “…The old has passed away; behold the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 4:6 again, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Believers in Jesus Christ, guess what? We get to see Jesus Christ. We get to worship Him. What an incredible, incredible privilege. We delight in Jesus Christ. He is the focus of our study. He is the focus of our preaching. He and He alone. God, give this to us. The Psalmist said, “God, you are our exceeding joy.” Is this not joyful to be able to see Jesus Christ? We are showered with gifts in the Gospel, right? We’re justified, we’re adopted, we’re preserved, we’re glorified. We will be glorified. Those are gifts that Jesus earned. But you notice, those gifts do not terminate on themselves. They actually all point to the end. This is the end that we have knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That is how you were saved. The day you were saved, you were able to see Him, and you said, “Oh, I’m in trouble. I repent of my sin. I believe in You. You’re the Savior.” This is how we are transformed, how by reading about Him in His Word, hearing Him from His Word, and we see Him spiritually, and we repent and believe on a daily basis. This will be our preoccupation in heaven. Is what? Beholding the glory of Jesus Christ. And I hope by now that you would understand it’s Him and not us, right? It’s all about Him. It’s not us, it’s His glory, not ours. It’s His power, not ours. It’s His universe, not ours. He justifies us. We don’t justify ourselves. He adopts us. We don’t adopt ourselves into God’s family. He keeps us. We don’t keep ourselves. He will glorify us. We don’t glorify ourselves. What’s our part? We humble ourselves. We hear the Word, we repent and believe, and we stop trying to earn God’s favor.
Notice 2 Corinthians 4:7, our last text for today. “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” “Jars of Clay”. Those are fragile, everyday vessels. But we have the treasure, the treasure of what? The treasure of understanding and viewing, loving and adoring Jesus Christ. And this discrepancy, this difference, illustrates that the power belongs to God, not to us. Power doesn’t belong to Sherman Bible Church, but we do have the privilege of seeing Jesus Christ. Why? Because the Gospel is preached and the Holy Spirit has raised us from the dead, and so as we go to our purpose statement,
Sherman Bible exists to glorify God by making disciples of Jesus Christ (That’s the heart of authentic ministry. This is why we do what we do) through gospel-centered teaching, gospel-centered worship, gospel-centered community and gospel-centered mission.
And so, what’s your part? Repent and believe in the Word of God every day. Every day, hear the Word and say, “Yes, I believe. Yes, Jesus, thank You for dying for me.” And pray for your elders, pray for your leaders who pray for their ongoing courage to simply preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified and serve. I don’t know if you look back on this year and say, “Yeah, I didn’t serve much.” Okay, God’s given you plenty and the Word of God commands you and binds you to that which God has given you. Serve the church. Also return the tithe. Why? It belongs to Him. That’s how He funds the church. And finally, if you’re not part of this local church, and you have repented and believed in the Gospel, if you’re with us, join us. If not, why not? We’d love to have the conversation. There are some next for you.
SPEAKER
Jeff Wideman
KEYWORDS
Corinthians, Authentic Ministry, Ongoing Courage, Inauthentic Ministry, Service, Open Statement, Truth, Total Inability, Unbelievers, Believers, Proclamation, Declaration, Gospel, Gospel-Centered, Sin Nature, Jesus Christ, Lord, Savior, Consummator, Sufficiency of Scripture, Regeneration, Treasure In Clay, Repent, Believe, Minister, Online Sermon, Grayson County