But what a responsibility we bear as week after week we come together to hear the Word of God, to meditate on its meaning and application. To our lives, and then go from this place with the task of ordering our lives around what God has spoken. God has given us His word for our instruction. and when we need it for our reproof and correction. We come to this word not as the judge of it.
but as those who are judged by it.
So let's come this morning with ears that are eager to hear, hearts that are pliable. wills that are submitted to the one who has the very words of life. We'll be in the fifth chapter of 2 Corinthians today and verses 11 through 16. where we discover Paul's motives in ministry. Why does Paul do what he does as an apostle?
And why does that matter to us? That's what we're going to discover as we read 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Verses 11 through 16. Therefore. Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.
But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you cause to boast about us.
so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance. and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this.
That one has died for all, therefore. All have died. And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves. But for him, who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.
even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh. We regard him thus. No longer. Let's pray. Lord, thank you that you don't tire of us.
asking for help. We need your help now as we delve into these Wonderful words of life. May they deliver us from sin. May they give grace to our starving souls. May they do in us.
all that you intend them to do. Holy Spirit, open our eyes now that we may behold wonderful things from your word. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Well, there's something that we share with the Corinthian church to whom Paul is writing this letter, and that is that we, like them, have a tendency to evaluate things. the value of things, the authority of a person, the success of a movement. We have a tendency to evaluate things by all the wrong standards. We instinctively look for outward signs of success and impressiveness and appeal. and often overlook legitimate and real signs of something's true value.
One of my seminary professors back in school was one of the foremost scholars on the doctrine of the Trinity, but if you met him in person, you wouldn't think he knew much of anything. His accent was the beautiful but unsophisticated accent of the Carolina Low Country. He was not much for dressing up. In fact, on more than one occasion, he slipped off his shoes as he lectured and propped his feet up on the chair in front of him to reveal holes in the bottom of his sock for the whole class to see. He was as unpretentious as unpretentious could be, and yet he was a very distinguished scholar in his field.
Another guest lecturer came to campus once, addressed to the nines. He was eloquent, he was refined, he was confident. A lot of the students clamored to hear him speak. It wasn't long thereafter that this man washed out of the ministry after a shocking moral failure. It turned out his reputation and appearance had outpaced his character.
And great was his fall. We assess people. By outward appearance, oftentimes to our great disappointment. The Corinthian church had had a recent infestation of false teachers who looked apart. They were intelligent.
They were eloquent. They were up on the latest trends, the current headlines. They could draw a crowd. Paul, on the other hand, was a little bit homely, understated. with holes in his sock, so to speak, and the wrong accent.
And Corinth's infatuation with appearances had put Paul in the unenviable position of having to defend his own position and authority as an apostle.
Now, Paul could have gone about his defense pointing out all the errors and pretensions of these false teachers, and when necessary, he did point out those errors. He could have gone about his defense trying to come off more I guess apostly, more authoritative, more confident with a better stage presence. But Paul knew that if he made this defense about outward appear appearance, he would have only entrenched the Corinthians further in their erroneous tendency to be mesmerized by outward appearances while neglecting inward realities. And so Paul decided to go about his apostolic defense, not by trying to rise to some arbitrary level of polish and presentation, but by pointing to those qualities that will only be true of the real deal. the the genuine product.
The authentic apostle. He pointed to his personal preoccupation with the pleasure and approval. of God. If we have a tendency to evaluate life by all the wrong measuring sticks, Then the solution is to learn to reorient our life around that which pleases God. We need to make God and His approval, His favor, His will our measuring stick of success.
We need to make God our frame of reference in all of life. We need to conscientiously live our lives before the face of God, regardless of what man says or thinks about anything. What does God think? What does God want? What hath God?
Said. These are the driving motives. of a truly successful apostle. And of a truly successful Christian of any title or station. Paul didn't look the part, but was genuine nevertheless.
Jesus Christ didn't look the part. Scripture says he was despised and rejected, and we esteemed him not. Nevertheless, Jesus was God's genuine Messiah, the Savior of the world. Church, we might not look the part to a watching and overly critical world. or even to a watching and overly critical church.
But if we, like Paul, want to be the genuine product, the real deal, the authentic disciple of Christ, we must stop orienting our lives around outward appearances or the opinions of man and start orienting our lives around that which is pleasing to God, that which is approved by God.
So what does this godward orientation look like? How do you overcome the tendency to be misled and to mislead by appearances?
Well, first of all, you orient your life around the fear of God. around the fear of God. Paul says in verse 11, Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord. We persuade others. Paul's ministry as an apostle, his persuasion of others to become followers of Christ, sprung from his fear of the Lord.
And what exactly is the fear of the Lord?
Well, Paul explains that as well. The word, therefore, at the beginning of verse 11, points back to verse 10, where Paul has just made reference to a coming day of judgment on which everyone must appear before the tribunal of God to be assessed, to be evaluated, to be judged according to the choices and actions of each person's life. And the realization that that day is coming produces fear in Paul's heart, fear of God.
Now we mentioned last week that Paul's fear of God and of this impending day of judgment was not caused by some uncertainty on Paul's part over how he might fare on that day. He knew he was secure in Christ and that God's assessment of him on that day would be through the lens of Christ's atoning work on his behalf. And so the sense in which Paul feared the Lord Is the same sense in which we today are to fear Him. It's the fear of not wanting to mess up the good fellowship, the exquisite joy that we have with God through Christ. In other words, we were to live with a reverential and holy awe.
of the divine favor that we enjoy as a result of Christ's sacrifice for us. It's the fear that maybe a son has of his father when that relationship is so sweet that the son wants nothing to impede or reduce the intimacy he enjoys with his father. And so it is from this genuine fear of the Lord that Paul preaches and writes and pleads with the Corinthians to be done with those false pretenders, those super apostles who were neither super nor apostles. Your life, Christian, demonstrates the fear of the Lord. when like Paul, you make God rather than yourself the center of attention.
You demonstrate a sincere fear of the Lord. by grounding your influence of others in who God is. and not in your own strategies and manipulations to get people to believe and do what you want them to believe and do. We point people to God's greatness, not our greatness. We're appealing to them to care more about what God thinks of them.
than of what we think of them. We're living and ministering in the shadow. Of Judgment Day. This is what it looks like to orient our lives around the fear. of the Lord.
This Godward orientation also involves caring more about reality than perception. It matters more to us what God thinks of us than what people think of us. The second half of verse 11 says, but what we are. is known to God. And I hope it is known also to your conscience.
Because we know that God knows who we are and what we are morally, there's really no point in playing spiritual games with other people. People whose assessment of us won't amount to a hill of beans come judgment day. God is the one to whom we must give an account. Paul is saying, I'm the real deal, Corinth, precisely because I'm not trying to prove anything to you, I'm trying to please God. This is not Paul boasting about Paul.
This is Paul boasting about God's work. in poll. Verse 12 seems to allude to Paul's opponents in Corinth. Those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the hearts. That would be the opposite of fearing God.
That would be fearing man's opinion. But God measures the heart. And so should we. When our lives are oriented around the fear of the Lord, We will care more about what is actually true of our hearts. than about what people perceive to be true.
of our hearts. Then thirdly, you orient your life around the fear of the Lord by prioritizing God's glory and His church above your reputation. By prioritizing God's glory and His church. above your reputation. Verse 13 is a bit strange.
It says, for if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are in our right mind, it is for you. Perhaps Paul's critics were claiming that he was a crazy eccentric, a little bit insane. That phrase, beside ourselves, indicates someone who was out of his mind. It's interesting that Jesus was accused of the same thing.
In Mark 3.21, Jesus had just called his apostles and sent them out to preach and to cast out demons. And in response, his own family said, he's out of his mind. The religious leaders of the day said he's possessed by a demon and is casting out demons by demonic power.
So Paul was in good company then when his opponents began to accuse him of being nothing more than a crazy man. Paul's answer, however, Was not to deny insanity or give evidence for his sanity. He simply said, in essence, think what you will of me. If I'm crazy, I'm crazy for the glory and honor of God. And if I'm not crazy but of sound mind, I'm of sound mind for the good of God's people, the church.
Paul's concern here is God and the church and nothing more. He's ready to be thought highly of or lowly of, if only it will honor God and help the church. This verse is an amazing admission that Paul could not care less about his own reputation. Think me drunk or think me sober, I do what I do for the honor of God and the good. of the church, his driving passion.
And the very thing that proved his authenticity was his preoccupation with the glory of God and the edification of his church. This is what a life oriented around the fear of the Lord looks like.
So, this God-oriented life is one that knows judgment day is coming. Therefore, everything that is done is done in light of that coming day of reckoning. The God fearer is not Distracted by man's opinions. He's not driven by concern for his own reputation. He's consumed with an overwhelming sense of pleasing his Lord.
That's a life that is oriented around the fear of the Lord. But this Godward orientation doesn't stop at reverential fear of God. It is also a life that is oriented around the love of God. The love of God. And this is Paul's focus in verses 14 through 16: the love of God.
The logic of these verses is this. First, Christ. Through his death for sinners. has demonstrated such unimaginably magnificent love that this great love compels Paul and all followers of Christ to spend their lives doing only that which honors and pleases their Redeemer. The love of Christ for sinners is so great.
that it leaves no room for personal exaltation or boasting or living life for one's own pleasures. Christ has given His all, therefore I must give my all. Learning to die to selfish ambition. And to live wholly for Christ begins with the death of Christ. We orient our lives around the love of God first by being transformed by the death.
of Christ. Verse 14. For the love of Christ controls us or constrains us or compels us. Because we have concluded this, that one has died. For all.
The driving force behind my life is the love of Christ. as revealed in his death for sinners.
Now, if you'll bear with me for a moment, let's get a little bit technical with the language of verse 14. That phrase, love of Christ, has two possible meanings grammatically. It can mean the love that I have for Christ. Or it can mean the love that Christ has for me. Both are grammatically possible interpretations.
Both are theologically accurate. One's love for Christ shapes and controls the choices and actions of a Christian, and at the same time, Christ's love for Christians shapes and controls their lives. The question is, which of these two options does Paul have in mind? Both are legitimate. Both are theologically true.
And I would encourage you to go home this afternoon. or sometime this week, and deeply contemplate both options. The latter half of verse 14 seems to emphasize Christ's love for us as it points to His substitutionary death on the cross. Verse 15, on the other hand, seems to emphasize our love for Christ as it points to the subjective concept. Consequence of Christ's atoning death.
His was a death that drives us to live not for ourselves, but to Christ and his pleasure. It's true that any love we have for Christ has its origin in Christ's love. for us, right? John said, we love him because He first loved us. But Christ's love does not leave us unchanged.
It acts upon us. It makes us new creations. It resurrects our souls and gives us new capacities to repent and believe and obey, new desires to worship God and please God and lay down our lives for God, new thought processes and values and priorities and affections. Christ's love for us creates in us a love for Christ that changes everything. Paul says this love controls us.
That word controls has a connotation of limiting something, constraining something, keeping something from doing whatever it wants to do. It implies holding something back. In this context, Paul is referring to Christ's love holding the apostles back from doing whatever they would naturally or maybe instinctively do in their ministry to the church. The super apostles, those false teachers infiltrating Corinth, were doing just the opposite, weren't they? They were not constrained by the love of Christ.
They were compelled by maybe fame or recognition or their own personal drive to have influence or the appearance of success. Paul, on the other hand, was driven to do whatever he did in ministry for the church and out of love for Christ. If Christ died for Paul, Then, what business did Paul have of making his own aspirations and goals the driving motivation behind his ministry? You see, in Christ's death, Paul died. In Christ's death, All who are united to Christ by faith die in some way.
That's exactly what Paul says in the latter half of verse 14. One has died for all, therefore, all have died. Dead people are not driven by ambition. Dead people. are not slaves to their own desires and impulses.
Dead people don't care about popularity and success and self-promotion. If we, like Paul, have died with Christ. We aren't driven by a compulsion to bolster our reputation, our brand, our image. We're driven by a compulsion. to love Christ and be loved by Christ.
We are not our own. We've been bought with a price. And that price was the death of... Christ. A death that has resulted in the death of self for all who belong to him.
But this death Not only means that we no longer live for ourselves, it also means positively that we live for Christ. Paul makes the point in verse 15. Christ died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Paul is addressing what one theologian called deadly narcissism. this sense of conceit and self-importance and self-confidence that had come to characterize the Corinthian church and caused them to deem themselves adequate judges of the legitimacy of an apostle.
It's deadly narcissism. Remember, we have a tendency to make judgments based on all the wrong values. And so left to ourselves, we're not good at evaluating apostles. In fact, we're not good at making any moral judgment. Picking the right husband, being attracted to the most suitable wife, identifying the most biblical church, being drawn to the most orthodox pastor and church and friends.
If left to ourselves, we love self, and self loves ambition. Self is eager for distinction in the praise of men. But if self has died, And we are living only for Christ and His glory. Then and only then are we in a place to be constrained by those affections. and loves that will be truly beneficial.
We will be controlled by the love of Christ. John Calvin said, We are dead in Christ in order that it may be felt by us as no hardship to be made as nothing. We're dead in Christ in order that it may be felt by us. No hardship. to be made.
as nothing. To be controlled by the love of Christ is to do everything for the honor of Christ and nothing for the honor of self. It's a life-oriented around the love. of God. Verse 16 is Paul's conclusion.
He says From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. according to mere outward appearance. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. The rationale of verse 16 is this: Corinth erred in judging Paul by appearances. Just like the whole world erred in judging Christ by appearances.
The Messiah was supposed to be some great military leader, some political mover and shaker, some princely warrior king who would defeat Rome and free Israel, or so they thought. Instead, he was A baby born to an obscure peasant family. He was an uneducated Galilean. He was a lamb led to the slaughter. By all outward appearances, Jesus was a failed revolutionary who died an ignominious death by execution.
We once regarded Christ according to the flesh. But we regard him thus. No longer. Jesus Christ was a lamb led to the slaughter. whose life did end by execution on a Roman cross.
But church behind the scenes That is, in heaven's court, before the face of God. Christ was defeating death. And reversing Adam's curse and rescuing souls from eternal destruction. What appeared to be a colossal failure was history's greatest success, eternity's greatest triumph. If we are slaves to outward appearance, we will despise and reject Christ.
We will mock his apostles. We will belittle and neglect the church. And we will think more highly of ourselves. Then it's warranted. and also the destruction of our souls.
Our text reminds us that we shouldn't judge by appearances. Instead, we should be compelled in all of life by the fear of God. and the love of Christ. Live your life, Christian, as if God is watching. Because you know what?
He is watching. Live your life as if God is smiling. Because in Christ, Christian, God is smiling at you. Live your life before his watching and smiling face. You see, God, not man, is our audience.
And God looks not at outward appearance, but at the heart. Is your heart? controlled by a reverential fear of a holy God. Is your heart controlled by an incredible love? of Jesus Christ.
The fear of God. and the love of God. Ought to be the guiding Principle, the governing guide in our private lives, in our family life. It ought to direct every pursuit, every priority we have as a church. It ought to guide every decision and goal in the workplace, every relationship we have, every goal we set.
Fear and love of God ought to control our everything. And if I can learn to live this way. It will set me free from enslavement to the opinions of others. It will set me free from the enslavement to my own selfishness. Having a God-oriented life enables me to be firm when I need to be firm and still gentle when I need to be gentle, just like Paul had to be with Corinth.
I can be both a warrior and a martyr. And I can have the wisdom to know which one I need to be in any given situation. What we are before God is what truly matters. And yet how often we fear man when we should be fearing God? How often we love our own glory when we should be loving Christ.
Church, God is a holy judge who is worthy of fear. God is a loving Savior who is worthy of love. Orient your life, then, beloved. around a conscious awareness that you live. And move.
and have your being before the face of God. Let's pray. Father, please overcome in us the tendency to care more about what man thinks. Than what you think. Overcome in us the tendency to pursue our own glory rather than the glory of our Creator and Redeemer.
Teach us to fear you and love you and so be free. from the snare of the fear of man. Thank you for Paul's example. and faithful ministry to your church. Thank you for Christ's ultimate example of Running the race with endurance, despising the shame and reproach.
So may we keep our eyes fixed on him. and so run the race that you have set before us. Lord, bring us at last to that great day. when we will know The uninterrupted joy. of your eternal favor.
We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Mm-hmm.
