Sermon Tone Analysis

Getting Hedged Out of the Kingdom

Get On The Bus

2 Corinthians 6:1-13

What would it look like to receive the grace of God in vain?

How would it appear to be a recipient of God’s grace, but to have none of its authority or power in your life?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer coined the phrases “cheap grace” and “costly grace” in his book, The Cost of Discipleship.

Bonhoeffer says that “Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for.

It is the door at which a person must knock.

“Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.

It is costly because it costs a person their life, and it is grace because it gives a person the only true life.”-

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

But there is another grace- cheap grace.

Bonhoeffer says that cheap grace amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs form sin and from whom sin departs.

Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin.

Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.-

Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

It is this cheap grace that I believe Paul is addressing in this chapter.

What good is grace if it is empty and ineffective?

What good is the favor of God if it makes absolutely no difference in the life of the recipient?

Paul is here quoting from Isaiah 49:7… when God speaks to his humble servant and tells him that the day is coming when the captivity is over, when the dispersion will be gone… and he will help his humble servant to rebuild the city of Jerusalem.

In this context, Paul is saying that the day of the new has arrived in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Today God has offered salvation through Christ and this is the favorable time, the day of salvation.

4 but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; 7 by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise.

We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,

Paul says now that his commendation to them is in what he has endured: afflictions, hardships, calamities.

These are the general trials that he has endured.

Things that he has gone through.

You and I have endured these types of sufferings, most people have.

But there are more:

5 beatings, imprisonments, riots… these are those things that are brought on by other people.

YOu know the bumpersticker, “The more I know about people the more I like my dog?”

That is likelywhat Paul would say here.

you see, these are things that don’t typically happen… beatings and imprisonment and riots unless some other person has been involved and has initiated them.

YOu may have had these in your life as well.

But wait there’s more:

labors, sleepless nights, hunger… These things Paul has brought on himself.

Labors- working too much too long and too hard.

Sleepless nights- not from problems, but from working toomuch and too hard and too long.

Finally, hunger- neglecting himself.

Paul is identifying those places in his life where he has been wrong about taking care of himself.

YOu’ve probably done that too.

Paul is now going to turn the page and talk about some positive things that commend him to the Corinthians.

Look at the list in 2 Corinthians 6:6-10

purity, knowledge, patience, kindness.... some pretty noble and honorable things.

But then Paul begins to divide it up.

I’ve been honored and dishonored.

I’ve been slandered and praised.

I’ve been treated as an impostor and yet true.

I’ve been unknown and known.

dying and yet living.

punished to the point o death.

In the place of sorrow, but able to rejoice.

Poor, but rich.

having nothing, but in Christ having everything.

You see, Paul has known every circumstance.

And God’s grace has been effective in his life, and so he wants the Corinthians to know that it can be effective in theirs as well.

It’s one of the reasons he could pen the encouraging words in philippians 4:11-13

And now, Paul gets to the point of all of these verses.

In 2 Cor 6:11-13 look at what he says:

Paul says, “I’ve opened my life and heart to give you the gospel.

To show you how I, a murderer of Christians, could experience the grace of Christ in my life.

I’ve held nothing back.

I’d even say Paul is saying, because God loves you free.y.... I’ve loved you freely and given all I could to see you experience the same grace that I’ve experienced.

But you’re not.

You’re not experiencing it because of anyone restricting or closing it up to you.

You’re not experiencing it because you’ve restricted it in your own love and affection for anything other than that very grace that Christ is extending to you.

You love your money, perhaps.

your power, perhaps.

your control, perhaps.

And that love for those things is actually turning off the spigot of grace from God in your life.

Commentators believe that there were people in the Corinthian church who simply didn’t want to accept Paul.

They didn’t want to hear his word, his gospel, or anything else.

And there were folks there who listened to those people, and ultimately wouldn’t give Paul a fair hearing.

And the effect of that was not to hurt him- he knew God’s grace in its fullest measure.

No, they were restricting their own experience of God’s grace.

Their failure to set aside what held them back limited their ability to understand the fullness of God’s grace in their lives.

They had God’s grace, it was empty, unpowerful, ineffective- because they couldn’t let go of what they loved more than Christ.

What You Hold Onto Limit’s God’s Hold On You

Look back at 2 Cor 6.1

This entire section is predicated on Paul’s diagnosis of the Corinthian church.

They had received the grace of God in vain, in an ineffective way- because of their affection for other things.

Paul was an expert on letting go in order to fully experience the grace of God in his life.

He had been a murderer of Christians before Jesus… and he let it all go to know the grace of Christ.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. in 1 Cor 15.2-10

And because God took Paul from a persecutor of Christians to being an actual apostle of Christ, he would do nothing that would keep him from experiencing that grace of Christ fully.

He would not set his affections on anything that would stand in the wayof his experiencing Christ fully.

I do not nullify the grace of God, in Galatians 2:20-21

Paul understood that he was saved by God’s grace through faith.

He understood that nothing in and of himself could save him but the favor of God given to him in Christ.

And so, anything he might love to do or try to do would have the effect of nullifying the grace of God.

He wouldn’t do it.

2 cor 12.7-10.....

Paul was a self made man.

He know how to get by, and he had the skill set to do so.

Essentially, nothing could stop him.

But a thorn.

A thorn in the flesh.