Proclaiming the Gospel of Light

Turn with me in your copy of God's Word to 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, verses 1 through 6. It would be our main text for today, 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, 1 through 6, in a message out titled, Proclaiming the Gospel of Light. Proclaiming the Gospel of Light. That's really a double positive for those of you who may be interested if there were ever a possibility to link this phrase to the Greek language. We will probably call it a double positive because you can't have the gospel of Jesus Christ to be darkness.

It has to be light. But nonetheless, we need to proclaim that and we're going to learn why that is important this morning. 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, 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 truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the gospel of light 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. The glory, the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

What a text. I do believe that we're living in an era where the proclamation of the gospel is probably more needed, more important, and more relevant today than perhaps any other time before. Never, I believe, never has there been a time where inequity and prejudice seems to be so obvious and blatant before us. Never has there been a time where dishonesty and the twisting of truth, corruption, immorality, and situational ethics are boldly, boldly paraded before us. What do we need?

How do we solve this? The gospel of Jesus Christ. Never has there been a time where more babies have been murdered in various stages of abortion. Apparently, we have so lost our fear for the Almighty, the Creator of the world. The one who has given us life that there are those who would now say, apparently it is never ever too late to murder, to take the life of a child. Even if during the process of aborting the child, the child is accidentally born and survives, then there are still those who would say, yes, we can still go ahead and murder that child. I just wonder, perhaps, if that child's life matters. Regardless of the color of that child's skin, is the life of that child, does it matter?

Apparently, it does not. But we also need to do this through the proclamation of the Word of God. I don't know in my few years on earth here a time that we've seemed to be more hopeless, broken, despondent, and fearful than the times in which we're living. And one of the sad realities I'm seeing more and more people, including God's people, Christians, believers, turn into politicians as if to say they are the ones who are going to solve our problems, as if they are the ones who are going to give us hope.

I have news for you. Regardless of who wins the upcoming election, I suspect the things that bother you in your life are going to remain the same, and they're not going to give you hope because they cannot do so. Our hope comes from Jesus Christ and Him alone.

Now this is not to say we don't go out and vote and that we prayerfully consider who we should vote for. We certainly do that, but we should remember that our hope is in Christ. And therefore we as God's people have been given this wonderful ministry of the Gospel.

What do we do with it? We are to proclaim the Gospel of light. What is the Gospel? Someone may ask.

Well I'm glad you did. The Gospel in a nutshell, I would say it is simply the good news that Jesus is the remedy for man's sin. It's a simple way of putting it. We all have a problem. We came into this world with a problem, a problem of sin. We were born with a disease which is far worse, yes, far worse even than the coronavirus. The coronavirus is here and I suspect very soon it will no longer be. I don't know when there would be a vaccine and I'm not advocating whether one should take it or should not take it. That's the reason my family and I will make when the time comes.

However the point is nearly 100 years ago we had the last pandemic and that time went as well. So we know this too shall pass. What will we be left with? Where will our hope stand?

Who do we fix our hope on? So the Gospel is simply the good news that the remedy, the solution, the vaccine if you may for man's sin problem is Jesus Christ. With that said then, what do we do with this Gospel that we've been entrusted with?

What do we do with it? People live in darkness around us, spiritual darkness. As it's difficult for us to walk around in our homes or anywhere else in darkness, can you think of how much more difficult it is for those who live in darkness?

You should just remember, those of us who are saved, the time when we also live in darkness and what that was like. It wasn't pretty. It was hopeless. We were miserable. We were trying to do things, trying to change things, trying to honor God to a limited extent, trying to be good as it were. But we failed at it.

Why? Because we just couldn't in and of ourselves. We needed someone and that person is Jesus Christ. So we who have been changed by the Gospel then, we have a responsibility to those who are living in spiritual darkness around us. And the responsibility is to proclaim the Gospel of light. Saint Francis of Assisi I think puts it very simple but very well said when he says that we ought to do all that we can to preach the Gospel and if necessary use words. Do all you can to preach the Gospel and if necessary use words. Preach the Gospel.

Live the Gospel. How will people be changed around us if you and I are not shining the light of the Gospel in the darkness of their world? And at Calvary here we recently launched a ministry that we are calling Be A Light.

We're offering training and we're offering opportunities and encouragement to people to go out and evangelize their space, I call it our community for Christ. How many of you are involved in that? How many have chosen not to be involved in that?

How many of you are too busy to be involved in that? I tell you it is not too late and my prayer is that we would understand perhaps like never before the urgency, the importance of being is light bearers to the darkness of our world. So from our text today we will see four reasons why we must, not that we may, but four reasons why we as God's people must proclaim the Gospel of light.

Four reasons. First of all we must proclaim the Gospel of light because we've been called to this ministry. We have been called to this ministry. Look at verse one, therefore having this ministry by the grace of God we do not lose heart. This is a ministry to which all of us as believers have been called. The proclamation of the Gospel is for us as believers.

And I'll explain a little bit more later on why this is the case. Notice that we've been called by the grace of God. We've been given this ministry by the grace of God.

I wonder why is that the case? I think my second point will make that even a little bit more clear. But this ministry is inseparably linked to a life changing message. This ministry, the Gospel ministry is inseparably linked to a life changing message. A message that when presented and the work of the Holy Spirit coming alongside that convinced the hearts of men of sin, righteousness and judgment and can change people radically. We know as we read in 2 Corinthians 5.17, if any man is in Christ we are a new creature.

The old has passed and the new has come. We must therefore proclaim the Gospel of light because we've been called to this ministry. This ministry also has a messenger that must be true to the message. We don't lose heart.

We shouldn't stop. We shouldn't become weary in the way we do because we know that what we do or what we are striving to do is for the Lord. And the Lord promises that he will come alongside that and he will bless that and he will call persons to himself. But look at the life changing message.

Look with me one chapter over or prior chapter, chapter 3. Let's look at this and compare two different ministries here. First of all in verse 7, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, now if the ministry of death carved in letters on stone came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of the glory which was being brought to an end. Moses went up and he met with God. He saw God. He received the commandments.

He came back after a time with God and his face was so radiant that the people could not even look at him. But you know as he received the commandments, we are told that this was a ministry to death. Why is this a ministry to death? It's a ministry to death because the law was not intended to save.

The law does not save. When you're driving down the highway or some street and you come around a curb and you see a police, what do you do? You check your speedometer or you take your foot off the gas pedal, right?

Or you begin to think, I wonder what's the speed limit in this area, right? That's what the law does. The law checks us in that regard but the police in and of themselves and all he represents does not reach into our cars and make us stop.

Now there's a point in which he might come on behind you and turn on the wonderful blue lights that some of us enjoy seeing or not. And then we pull over and if you don't pull over, you're involved in a police chase and there's a whole different set of problems you will have then, right? So the law doesn't fix anything. The law tells us we're sinners. The law reveals our sin.

The law really brings death to life to us but through the blood of Jesus Christ when he died, think of the Old Testament system. We're told in Hebrews that the priest stood daily offering sacrifices which could not take away sin but the sacrifices simply covered sin for a period of time. But Christ, having died once, his sacrifice removes sin forever. And so for those of us who come to Jesus Christ as far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our sins from us and he will remember them no more. That's the ministry to which we have been called.

We're given this message to take to a lost and dying world and we must go. Now in contrast to this message of the law that brings death, verse 8. So this message, it will, not the message of the Spirit, now compare in a different message, will not the ministry of the Spirit which has even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, that's the law, the ministry of righteousness much far exceeded in glory.

Now look at verse 12. Since we have such hope, this ministry of Jesus Christ, of righteousness that brings a life, eternal life to you and to me, it also gives us hope. Since we have such hope, we are very bold. We can be bold. We can be bold for Christ and yes we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

So what will we do? Are you living in a home with a spouse that might not be saved? A man or a woman, very difficult to live with, near impossible to live with. Perhaps children, perhaps neighbors that are tough to live with, coworkers, bosses at your places of employment.

What do you do? How do they change? Yes, you are impacted by them. Sometimes you don't even want to be around them. How do these people change so that you can enjoy their presence and relationship with them?

Only through the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed on the cross. You see one of the challenges with our secular world, we try to change people from the outside in and that is impossible because our focus then is simply on the behavior of the person and we want to see them stop doing this. You know one of the words children learn very early in life is know and stop.

No wonder why they repeat it back to us. Our first daughter, that was apparently one of her favorite words, know. Say something is your name Ruth? No. Am I your dad? No. Do you love chicken?

Yes. Somehow when it comes to the food they know the difference but nonetheless we didn't have that problem with our second daughter. We realized that we had taught the child the word know and stop because every time she's about to do something, know and stop and so we changed that with the second daughter so we didn't have that much of an issue. We focus on the external, we focus on the behavior but true change comes from within the person, change that is affected by the Spirit of God alone. So we've got a life changing message to bring to the world. My question is are you taking this message? Understand as believers that we have been called to this ministry so we must then take the message of the gospel otherwise we are in disobedience. We must go. We must tell the message of the gospel.

Who else is going to do it? God is calling you, he's calling me. So we must go and proclaim the gospel of light first because we've been called to this ministry but second because we've been changed by this gospel. We've been changed by this gospel. We who have experienced this change ourselves, we know the lives we once lived.

We remember the things we gravitated towards. We remember how we violated others, destroyed others through our lives and through our lives and know that we are in Christ, we are different people. Yes, we may fall periodically but we have a different passion, we have a different drive, we have a different purpose in life only because of the change in work of the Spirit of God and the gospel that came to us. We often sing a song, the gospel changes everything and that's certainly true, the gospel changes everything that our God is mighty to save.

No other one can accomplish what he accomplished for us, he changed us. Perhaps you got married as an unbeliever and later you came to faith in Christ but that man or that woman hadn't been converted yet and you had to live with him or live with her and it was just agony and you go through it day and night and you wonder why you're even still there. But as you continue to pray and live the gospel, share even the gospel, shortly thereafter this brother, this young woman comes to faith in Christ and you begin to see instantaneously the change that Jesus makes in that person. You now can celebrate that, that's the kind of change you and I have experienced. Again Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5 17, any man is in Christ or woman.

We become this new creature, the old has passed as the new comes. Think about the apostle Paul. What was his life like quite shortly prior to this as he's ministering here to the Corinthians? Remember he was a murderer himself. Remember how he had plans to wipe out the church, to kill anyone who belonged to the way. Notice how he took it upon himself to travel all over the era at that particular point to find those who belonged to the way, to kill them, to beat them, to drag them through the streets. He had a zeal for Judaism and anyone who's going to come and say about they believe in this Jesus who died and is now alive deserve to die as far as Paul or Saul was concerned.

It wasn't too long before Acts 9 and 7, we see how he officiated as it were the stoning of Stephen. This was the kind of man he was but he was no longer that person because he had now been changed. He met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and that radically changed his life.

Why wouldn't you want to see a similar change in someone else's life? And if we want to, if we desire that, certainly we should share the gospel. Such a change that took place we see in verse 2. That now that this, Paul and us, we are new in Christ, notice he says but we have renounced disgraceful and underhanded ways. There was a time when he would not renounce disgracefulness and lies and underhanded ways but now that he's in Christ he renounces those, setting those aside, not living according to the old way any longer.

Not only that he says but we refuse to practice cunning, telling those lies and trickery or to tamper with God's word. Again there was a time he wanted to destroy God's word and anyone who represented that or was found in any portion of the word of God deserve to die as far as he was concerned. If you belong to the way, if you're promoting this Jesus then you needed to die but now he's different. Now God is going to use him with a new passion, with a new heart to evangelize the world, to raise up churches and to disciple the same. No longer is he trying to destroy God's word but the open statement of truth is what he would now proclaim that we have commended ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. This was a new person, this was a new man, no longer living the former life but now seeking to honor Christ. No longer living a life of trickery and tampering with the word of God as we know in Revelation 22 we are told that those who add or take away a special judgment is reserved for them. Those changed by the Gospel then should live the Gospel and share the Gospel with others. If you found something you like, maybe a new gadget, maybe a new restaurant comes to town or you saw it and you pop in and you take a bite and you enjoy it or a new gadget, you want to tell others about it. You're excited.