Let's go to God's Word this morning. Please turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. We'll be considering the first six verses. of 2 Corinthians 4. A passage gives us reason to be encouraged and confident.
As we seek to be followers of The God who has redeemed us, and as we seek to faithfully proclaim the supremacy of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. to a dark and lost and dying world. 2 Corinthians 4, verses 1 through 6. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God. We do not lose heart.
But we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning. or to tamper with God's word. But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
In their case, The God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. To keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves. but Jesus Christ as Lord. with ourselves as servants for Jesus' sake.
For God who said, let light shine out of darkness. Has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. in the face of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. O God, Maker of heaven and earth, you're the one who has spoken all things into existence.
You're the one who breathed life into Adam and made him a living soul. You're the one who breathes life into souls that are dead in sins and trespasses. You give life. both physical and spiritual. And so to whom else can we go to find Life that never ends.
To whom can we go to find truth? and forgiveness and restoration. What other message can we proclaim? The message of your power. Power on display that leads to salvation, the gospel.
of your Son Jesus Christ.
So Lord, too, the degree that we believe that gospel... to the degree that we obey and proclaim that gospel May we know the encouragement of soul. and the boldness of purpose. that can only come from you. Lift up the heads of your people this morning as we follow and serve and wait upon you.
And if, Lord, in any way we are dismissive. Of the centrality of the gospel. or the lordship of Christ. Over us, would you humble us? Correct our unbelief.
Say to our darkened souls, let there be light. That we might be a great congregation of saints who Are filled with the joy and the delight and the effectiveness of a people wholly submitted to you. and to your word. Holy Spirit, illuminate our minds now to behold wonderful things in your word. I pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, our text this morning begins with the word therefore, which means we need to ground our understanding of what Paul says next in what he has just said. It's a bridge word. In this case, Paul has just established the fact that his ministry as an apostle is legitimate. He's authentically an apostle. Because God has been doing what only God can do through Paul's ministry.
Souls are being converted. Churches are being established. God is doing God-sized things through Paul. And so, despite Corinth's Doubts about the legitimacy of Paul's calling and authority, he has been entrusted by God with this apostolic ministry. Therefore.
Since God is doing through Paul what only God can do, Paul, verse one, does not lose heart. He does not. Lose heart.
Now, how easy it would have been for Paul to just throw in the towel and say to himself, Life was much better when I was a Pharisee. People respected me then.
Now they judge me and doubt me and dismiss me. I had it easy back then.
Now I get arrested and thrown in jail and stoned. It would have been so easy for Paul to just give up. But he didn't. Not because it wasn't a difficult life, it was. He didn't give up because God was the one who had entrusted this.
Ministry to Paul. God was the one using Paul to bring about these incredible, miraculous conversions. God had put this burden on Paul, and so it was not Paul's prerogative to cast off the burden until God said he could. It was not Paul's right to redefine his calling or the means by which he was to fulfill his calling. It was God who converted Paul.
It was God who had called Paul to be an apostle. Thus, it was God's right to do as he pleased with Paul. Paul understood this. His marching orders did not come from Corinth. No matter how snarky their treatment of him became.
His approval and commendation did not come from those to whom he preached, it came rather from the one for whom he preached. And that one was none other than the triune God. Therefore, Paul did not lose heart. Our text today is about not losing heart, but rather taking heart in the fact that when God is behind a ministry, a movement, a life, Nothing can stop it from fulfilling its intended purpose. Losing heart can refer to running out of stamina and quitting.
It can refer to running out of... Courage and cowering. It can refer to any number of emotional responses to hardship. Losing heart is a response of succumbing to discouragement. And on an emotional level, there are often many reasons in the Christian life to grow discouraged, to quit, to quit trying to push the ball of kingdom expansion forward, to lose hard.
We often feel justified in giving up. And surrendering to the pressure, or the criticism, or the opposition, or the discouragement. Yet Paul, who had every reason to grow weary, said, we do not lose hope. art. How could he say that?
How could he persevere and keep pressing on? He could press on because he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his ministry And the manner in which he conducted himself in that ministry was God-given, God-sustained, and God-blessed. His was an apostolic ministry of the most authentic sort. When we devote ourselves to the Apostles' Doctrine. That is to say, when we minister and are ministered to in such a way as to hold the word of God and the Christ it proclaims in highest esteem.
We, just like Paul, have every reason to not Lose heart. The message of these six verses is simply this. Those who are devoted to the apostolic doctrine have every reason not to lose heart. Those who are devoted to the apostolic doctrine have every reason. To not lose heart.
In fact, let's consider very briefly three reasons not to lose heart and grow discouraged or weary or cowardly in our pursuit of Christ and his fame. The first reason Paul presents us with Is really a condition, a prerequisite that must be met if we are to not lose heart. We need not lose heart if we renounce compromise and deception. We see this in verse 2, in which Paul says, We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning.
or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. If we would not lose heart, we must view God's means of grace with all respect and confidence. which means that we must renounce means and methods that contradict or undermine God's means. We know that Paul was countering certain opponents in Corinth. Opponents who were beginning to win over the affections and the trust and the admiration of the Corinthian Christians because of Corinth's love for human wisdom and displays of human strength.
Verse 2 likely gives us an inside peek into the methods of these false teachers. And what they were doing. In the name of God-sanctioned ministry, evidently, was characterized by compromise of God's truth and deceit of God's people. First, we see a willingness to compromise God's word by handling it disgracefully and by tampering with it. A disgracefulness there in verse 2.
refers to to not showing due respect to something. It pairs with the practice of tampering with God's word. Paul is condemning the disrespectful tampering with God's Word that so often characterizes ministers and ministries that lack God's approval. Have you ever gotten a bottle of medicine that's tamper-proof? It's packaged in such a way as to preserve its purity, its cleanliness.
First, you open the box, then you have to tear the cellophane off the lid, then you have to try to open the child-proof lid, then you pull this oversized cotton ball out that's watted up in the top of the bottle. Then you can get to your medicine. It's tamper-proof. There's no way to conveniently mess with the medicine or contaminate and ruin the contents of the bottle. Tampering with God's word refers to distorting it.
falsifying it, contaminating it by trying to make it say something that it's not saying. When people use scripture to accommodate their own purposes. They're tampering with the word of God. They're using the authority and the credibility of Scripture to advance their own opinions and agendas. It's a it's a form of manipulation of the worst sort.
far more consequential and damaging than tampering with someone's aspirin. They're tampering with people's souls when they tamper with God's word. It's a form of compromise that undermines the integrity of Scripture. And thus removes the basis from which Paul can say, we do not lose heart. If you're a compromiser of Scripture, By tampering with it so that it serves your own purposes rather than God's purposes, you have no basis from which to claim confidence in whatever ministry you think you have.
But if like Paul You've renounced such disgraceful tampering. And instead give yourself to the open statement of Christ. Proof. You have every reason to not lose hope. God will bless that ministry.
God has blessed that ministry. It will not return void. but will accomplish everything God intends it to accomplish. The other descriptors Paul uses in verse 2 seem to point not so much to compromise of God's word as they do to deception of God's people. Underhanded ways.
And cunning. Are words of deception and manipulation. People who resort to such tactics have something to hide, don't they? It's ministry through trickery. It's illegitimate and harmful.
and Paul would have nothing to do with it. Instead, Paul says we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience. He didn't need to manipulate people into believing him or following him. He had God's truth. Hence, God's power on his side.
Therefore, his task was to simply apply that truth to the consciences of his hearers and trust that God would do with it as God saw fit. An honest, open declaration of the truth. That is the unadulterated transparent preaching of the Word of God. Is the basis of a ministry that is legitimate? Which is to say it is the way to not lose heart.
If you serve God this way. his way. Whether in your home or in your church or as a witness out in the world, you have every reason to not be discouraged, to not lose your nerve, to not give up. and to press on toward the goal.
Well, Paul was doing it right. He was doing it well. And yet there were still naysayers. Paul, your preaching isn't that great. And look at all the unbelievers who aren't even persuaded by your apostolic declarations.
You see, the fact of the matter is that even a faithful ministry does not always result in the conversion of the lost. This was true of Jesus' earthly ministry. It was true of the apostles' ministry. It's true of ministries even today. It does not always result in outward visible fruit.
That's because there's a war raging. And there's an enemy. that opposes God and his people. Which brings us to the next point that Paul would have us understand. It's that we need not lose heart.
when failure and opposition arise. We need not lose heart when failure And opposition arise. Look with me at verse 3. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those. who are perishing.
The idea of a veiled gospel is a reference back to the previous chapter that we looked at last Sunday, in which Paul compared the new covenant in Christ to the old covenant in Moses. Moses wore a veil to conceal the fact that the glory of the old covenant was a temporary fading glory. That veil is a metaphor here in chapter 4 of spiritual blindness. There are people who encounter the gospel of Jesus Christ and yet do not see it for what it is. They do not accept it as true.
They don't believe it to the saving of their souls. They ignore it or mock it or argue against it. For whatever reason, the proclamation of the good news of salvation through the person and work of Jesus Christ sometimes falls on deaf ears. And so this reality. Casts a shadow of doubt and skepticism over Paul's apostolic ministry.
at least in the minds of his Corinthian readers who Measured the validity of everything in terms of visible effectiveness, in terms of pragmatic. Success. It gave the appearance of failure to Paul's ministry. And so he was compelled to give an explanation. What causes gospel preaching to sometimes not work.
Is it a problem with the gospel? Is Paul illegitimate and discredited simply because some don't believe what he's saying?
Well, no, the problem is not with Paul or his preaching or the gospel. The problem is in the hearts of the hearers. The problem is that those who reject the gospel reject the gospel because they are among those, Paul says, who are perishing. That word perishing is a theologically loaded term. It refers to reprobate people who have no interest in God.
Who deny their own sinfulness, who reject Christ, and who are and will forever remain dead in their sins and trespasses. This is the st the the default state of every descendant of Adam. Without God's intervening grace, we are all in the category of those who are perishing. Unless God does something in the sinner's heart, nothing will change. The gospel will always be veiled and perceived as foolishness unless God.
Who is rich in mercy, chooses to act upon a hardened, sinful heart and give it the capacity to respond in faith and repentance.
So not only does this appearance of failure not discredit Paul's message, it actually asserts that the prerogative of acceptance or rejection lies not in the free will choices of the hardened sinner, but in the sovereign will of an almighty God who does all that he pleases. Once again, the Corinthians, in their puffed up arrogance, are confronted with the fact that it is not they who sit in judgment of Paul and his gospel, it is God who sits in judgment of them. and their response to that gospel. And short of God extending the grace of regeneration and faith to them, they have no hope. of entering by the narrow gate that leads to life.
Friends. Short of God extending that same grace of regeneration and faith to us, we have no hope. of ever entering that narrow gate that leads to life. The provocative question that Paul implicitly raises here. Is whether the Corinthians or anyone hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ and not wholeheartedly embracing it.
or among the perishing. Judgment Day will demonstrate to all that What might appear to have been a failure of gospel preaching and faithful ministers and true churches was no failure at all. It was the heaping up of judgment and condemnation on all who do not receive and rest in the only Savior available to sinful man. Verse 3 ought to make the hair on the back of our neck stand up. In terror at the possibility that there will be those.
who mock the gospel and call it fraudulent. Not because it is fraudulent. but rather because they have hardened their hearts in unbelief. and sealed their fate. as being among those who are are among the perishing.
If you're a skeptic, If you're a doubter of God's promise, If you're a mocker. Of the witness of the apostles and the testimony of those who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. I beg you to wake up and hear God's voice today. Repent of your unbelief. It is an egregious sin to doubt the words of a truthful God.
You've convinced yourself that the gospel is Illegitimate. Because it doesn't meet your criteria of truth. That's like the blind man saying there is no sun because I can't see it. Brian, the gospel is true whether you believe it or not. How sad then.
It would be for you to spend your whole life denying and running from the only solution to your sin and misery that there is. Don't remain. among those who are perishing. Paul continues. The appearance of failure is Heightened by the fact that there is an enemy of God who is capitalizing on the already hardened state.
Of the unbelieving hearts of Adam's race. Verse 4. In their case, the God of this world 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. Notice these hardened skeptics are already unbelievers. The God of this world is simply given permission by the God of heaven to blind them further in their unbelief.
Now, understand that Satan is no God in the proper sense of the term. He's viewed as a God by some. He seeks to usurp the role of God, but he is not God. He does not outrank or overrule or nullify the God of heaven or the power of the gospel. He is merely acting upon a soul that has already rejected God in unbelief.
And he's given permission by God to further blind the minds of those who are perishing. The devil is God's devil. A tool in God's hands to do God's bidding. But oh, what terrifying bidding that is. He blinds the minds.
of those who are already stopping their ears from hearing the gospel. He entrenches them more deeply in their unbelief.
so that their state becomes far worse. than it previously was. Paul is defending the legitimacy of true gospel ministry. And so he points out in these verses that the presence of opposition and the perceived failure of the gospel does not indicate a problem with the gospel. It's a problem with the unbelieving heart.
To say otherwise is like blaming the parachute for not working when I haven't even pulled the rip cord. Paul's ministry in Corinth was a perfectly functioning parachute, and yet some doubted.
So, if even a faithful ministry does not always produce the desired or expected fruit, how do we know? with a ministry is being faithful.
Well, a faithful ministry is a ministry. that relies on God's power to make Christ known. A faithful ministry is a ministry that relies on God's power. to make Christ known. If an apostle or a pastor or a Christian is doing that, He is a faithful witness, regardless of the appearance of success or failure.
And this is Paul's final point in our text. We need not lose heart. because God will make his son known. God will make his son No. Herein lies our hope as ministers of the gospel, as heads of our covenant homes, as ambassadors for Christ.
If a faithful ministry is a ministry in which God is making His Son known, Then we ought to spend our time and energy making much of his Son, making much of Jesus Christ, not making much. of ourselves. Paul says as much in verse 5: For what we proclaim is not ourselves. But Jesus Christ as Lord. with ourselves as servants, slaves, For Jesus' sake.
I have a vivid memory of being in preaching class back in seminary. Each student was taking a turn preaching a sermon to the class, and then the professor and the students would take turns critiquing the sermon. It was great fun.
Well on this particular day. The student preached a riveting sermon. Full of emotion and humor and engaging stories. He was eloquent, he was funny, he was clever. But when he finished, the professor stood up and said in a very stern voice: Gentlemen, we are not here to preach ourselves, we are here to preach the word of God.
And then he sat down. And you could hear a pin drop. The point the professor was trying to make was crystal clear. The task of preaching. Or of leading your family in family worship, or of evangelizing the lost, or of engaging in politics.
In fact, the task of any and all Christian ministry is to make Christ known as He is presented in the Word of God. It wasn't hyperbole when Paul said, I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We are not called to draw people to our charisma. or impress them with our intelligence. Faithful ministry is not about putting our gifts and talents, our likability, our friendliness, our cultural awareness, or anything on display.
We're just mouthpieces. We're not the owner of the palace. We're just the servants, Paul says. And so we proclaim the greatness and the fame and the generosity and the goodness of the one who owns the palace. We proclaim Christ, not ourselves.
Furthermore, we rely on God and not ourselves. Verse six. For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness. Has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face. of Jesus Christ.
Verse 5 speaks to the content of our message. Verse 6 points to the power behind our message. It is God who creates light out of darkness. It is God who converts the soul. It is God who takes the faithful preaching and sharing of the gospel and bears much fruit with it.
We're just the mouthpiece, the conduit. The microphone, God is the miracle worker. God is the power behind the gospel. And so we ought to rely on God, not ourselves. I don't miss the sequence of that last sentence in our text.
It starts with God doing God-sized things, speaking light into existence, shining light into the human heart. And a result of this regenerating work of God in our hearts, we in turn shine light into the lives of others. But it's not just any kind of light, it's the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of God. of Jesus Christ. That's a lot of prepositional phrases.
But they tell us that our task is to impart knowledge It happens through words. The gospel is verbal. Of the glory of God. That means the content of our words points people away from us and towards the greatness, the glory of God. In the face of Jesus Christ, which means that God's glory is made visible and concrete in Christ.
When people encounter Jesus, they encounter God. and his glory. The faithful servant of the Lord. Whether it be an apostle like Paul or a pastor. Or a Christian businessman evangelizing his colleagues, or a faithful mother discipling her children, or a godly grandparent passing the faith along to the next generation, the faithful servant of the Lord is one who need not ever lose hope.
Because God will make himself known through his son, through the means that he has established. and the means God has established is the proclamation of Jesus Christ through the witness of his saints. When I sat down to write this sermon last week, I. typed the title incorrectly. I meant to type Do not lose heart.
But I instead accidentally typed do not lose. And I think that was a providential mistake as I reflected on that typo, because that's just it. We do not lose heart precisely because we will not lose. If we are Christ's And Christ is ours, we won't lose. Our victory, our eternal success, is inseparably tied to Christ's success, and He has already secured the victory.
It's just a matter of time before our faith is made sight. And if that's our future. An eternal hope in Christ, then we have no reason whatsoever to lose hope in the here and now. We don't need to lose hope. If we renounce all things that stand in opposition to Christ and his truth.
We do not lose hope when the opposition seems to have the upper hand. We need not lose hope because God will ultimately defeat all opposition and bring about the day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. to the glory of God the Father.
So saints don't lose heart. Stand your ground.
So long as the ground you're standing on is Christ's ground. Don't be enamored with pragmatic success. Don't be overburdened by the skeptics. Keep your eye on the prize. Keep your feet on the path.
Make Jesus Christ your boast, and you will have stamina and courage sufficient for the journey. Let's pray. Father, thank you. For the example of Poll. who persevered through the opposition and the trials he faced.
And delivered to the church, to us. The untampered with gospel, pure and undefiled. Lord, we know that Paul was faithful because you are faithful. And if we would be faithful, we too need your grace.
So, Lord, make us faithful. Keep us from the discouraging tactics of the world and the devil. Keep us from the distracting idols of our own flesh. Guard our hearts, Lord, that we might never lose heart. and bring us at last to that day when we will see you face to face.
Until you be all the glory forever. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Yeah.
