Working For and With God (Part 2)

Pastor Al

2 Corinthians • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

James 1:2–4

2 Corinthians 6:1–10

Endurance

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I opened last week’s sermon wit the statement that Satan is a liar. And if I went around the auditorium this morning, I am fairly certain that all of you would agree with that statement. But if also asked if you have been deceived by Satan this past week, I might not get the same consensus. And the reason being that Satan is very good at his evil craft, he is the dungeon master of liars. This means that we must always be on the alert and at the top of our game in God’s wisdom and discernment to not fall prey to his lies.

One of the many lies that we are prone to believe is that God’s blessings in our lives is always with the things that we perceive as good. When all is well, when there are no financial problems, no relationship problems, no health problems, no problems at work, etc., we perceive that as God blessing our lives. But when all is not well and we face trouble at every turn, we don’t feel like we are blessed.

And you can take all of this up a notch when we see these things in other people’s lives. When others seem to have nothing but positive things in their lives, we perceive that God is blessing them for some reason, and when they are having all manner of problems, we can easily perceive that God is punishing them for some unconfessed sin in their lives.

Obviously, Scripture is clear that certain blessings come from obedience to Scripture and certain discipline will come with violating Scripture, but do not fall for the lie that all struggle is due to sin, that all pain is because we messed up somewhere down the line, that all trials are the result of missing the mark. This particular lie of Satan trips up more believers than probably any other.

Even Christ’s disciples had the wrong idea about this issue. They saw a man born blind and assumed that either he or his parents had sinned to cause such a tragic condition. Job’s friends could not let go of or get past believing that Job had sinned greatly to have lost his wealth, lost all of his children, and lost his health. For the disciples and the friends of Job, there was no other explanation for the calamity and tragedy of these situations.

Let me remind you once again – Satan is a liar!

Turn with me in your Bible to the Book of 2 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 6:1-10

Let’s pray.

So that we keep the context of this passage in mind, this passage flows from Paul’s compelling plea that the Corinthians be reconciled to God. He had just explained how reconciliation with God, is the work of God alone (5:18–20). So, we must understand that people are never called to make their peace with God. It is all His work. Then, in what is one of the most crucial texts in the New Testament, the apostle explained how such reconciliation takes place: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (5:21). This is what happened in those three dark hours on the cross on Good Friday – our sins were imputed to Him and His righteousness to us. This is the stunning grace of God, which births Paul’s passionate plea, “And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain.… Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (6:1, 2). Paul is clear and adamant and urgent in his plea that you don’t put it off. Be reconciled to God. Receive His reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 6:3

The issue of offense is most obviously, a political tool in our time that is used to promote all manner of unbiblical and even immoral and flat-out disgusting agendas. So, we must get to the heart of what Paul is writing in this verse as it fit with his original audience before making any broad applications for our time and culture.

Although Paul writes that he was “giving no cause for offense in anything”, there is a defined context with this assertion. Paul was a protective shepherd. He knew it was inevitable that some would reject the grace of God, and he wanted to make sure that it was not because he put a stumbling block in their path. He wanted no indictment of his life and ministry, such as the one God pronounced on Israel in Romans 2:24: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” Unbelievers are blinded by Satan (4:4) and unable to understand the things of God (1 Corinthians 2:14). Therefore, Paul was careful to give no cause for offense in anything, so that the ministry will not be discredited. He determined never to allow any stain on his virtue that would undermine the integrity of his gospel. Paul would avoid anything that would bring disgrace on Christ or cause someone to find fault with the truth and purity of the gospel. His own integrity was protection for his people.

Jesus Himself was called an offense, skandalon in the Greek. But He was an offense to those who rejected who He was and who rejected the message of the Gospel. His words were offensive to the unbelieving Jews, especially the Pharisees and other pagan unbelieving leaders of Israel. But it was always because of His message and His assertion that He was the Messiah from Yahweh. There was never any sin in the offenses that Jesus caused, He never had any sinful intent, sinful attitudes, or sinful agenda behind His words that offended unbelievers. His motives were pure, and His agenda was to point out their need to believe.

Hold your place in 2 Corinthians and turn with me in your Bible to the Book of Titus. Titus is a small Epistle, probably just two pages in your Bible, that you will find after 1 & 2 Timothy and before the Book of Hebrews.

Titus 2:1-10

Paul’s concern is that the church’s evangelistic outreach not to be hindered by offenses that could be avoided. If people get offended at the Gospel message, so be it, but we must be cautious to not offend over personal preferences, over being judgmental, over man-centered legalistic expectations, etc. The purity of the church is essential in its witness. We should give no cause for people to speak ill of the church because of our attitudes, our words, or our behavior.

2 Corinthians 6:4a

We have already studied and understand that each of us, as believers, have been called to and given the ministry of reconciliation. In that sense, we are all ministers of the Gospel. We are not all ministers in the sense of it being our paid vocation, but we are all ministers of the Gospel.

MacArthur writes: “A minister is not commended by his seminary degree, theology, popularity, personality, or success. His (or her) life is the only letter of commendation that matters; the only one that people will read.”

When Paul writes of commending ourselves as servants of God, he isn’t talking about slapping themselves on the back with an unholy pride in themselves for a job well-done but is instead meaning they are presenting themselves worthy of the Gospel in the sense of being genuine, avoiding any aspects of hypocrisy or self-service. They strive to live as they preach, to always be pure in their intentions and attitudes, to have their eyes fixed on Jesus, and to have their focus on the Gospel being presented with nothing in their personal lives that would hinder anyone from hearing or considering or accepting the Gospel.

We have here yet again the constant tension in Scripture between the sovereignty of God in salvation and mandate to be witnesses for Jesus Christ and to present the Gospel in all purity without any potential of our testimony hindering that presentation.

This cannot be accomplished in our own strength or by our own will. Our own sinfulness, selfishness, ambitions, and agendas will always leak out when we attempt to be servants of God in our own power. We must always rely on the Holy Spirit working through us in His power and the grace of our God. We are servants of God, not servants of self, or servants of agendas, or servants of this church, or servants of anything else – servants of God and God alone.

2 Corinthians 6:4b-10

If you pressed to list the characteristics of a servant of God, before reading this passage, I doubt that all of what Paul wrote would have made your list – a few of these might have made your list, like kindness and love, but likely not the others. Yet, from his experience and from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul makes this list of qualities and characteristics that define a servant of God.

The first thing that Paul writes is much endurance. How do I break this to you gently? Much endurance is only possible through the experience of much trouble, much struggle, much tribulation, much persecution, much personal trials, much heartache, many attacks against you, and much opposition when you are doing right.

We will look at the many aspects in Paul’s life that developed and built endurance in his life, in a moment, but we need to settle in our hearts that our hardships and struggles are blessings from God. And there are no caveats and no buts about this truth. Whether our struggles are due to sin in our life in which God is disciplining us and correcting our behavior, or whether our struggles are so that we can at some future time comfort others who are dealing with the same, or whether God is refining our character and strengthening our resolve and building us up and preparing us for greater usefulness in ministry, our struggles are a blessing from God.

Take a moment right now and answer these questions in your mind – what are you struggling with right now? What is keeping you awake at night? What is causing you to fear? What is stealing your peace? What is messing with your mind and making you discontented?

I’m sure there are many things that come to mind immediately and even more if you had additional time to ponder these questions, but you need to surrender all of those things to God, you need to thank and praise Him for them, and you need to see the bigger picture of God increasing and perfecting your endurance for service to Him through these struggles.

James 1:2-4 says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

I hope you can grasp the incredible truth in this passage. I know that for most of us, we kind of check out when we read it or obsess over that opening phrase – “Consider it all joy when I encounter various trials? Are you off your rocker, James?” That phrase does not compute in our finite and fallible minds. We fall for Satan’s lie that if we are indeed serving God, our lives should be nothing but blessing upon blessing without interruption. Struggles and trials and temptations should not be part of my life if God is a good God and is who He says He is.

It’s a lie! Satan wants you to believe that any problem in your life is because God either doesn’t care about you or He is incapable of eliminating these problems. Lies, lies, and more lies! Satan even perpetuates these lies through the health, wealth, and prosperity hooligans on TV, attempting to disguise themselves as preachers of the Gospel. Satan, through these false teachers, wants you to believe that something is terribly wrong with you if you have problems, which can and does lead to then thinking that something is wrong with God when your problems persist. Lies!

James, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes that we should consider it all joy when problems arise. Not because we are to become sadistic and enjoy pain and suffering, but to understand what God is accomplishing in our lives through the struggle, through the pain, through the emotional wrestling match, and through the trial.

James says that the various trials, plural, test our faith and as we pass these tests and grow through these tests that godly endurance is produced in our lives. But endurance is no picnic, for James then adds that we must participate and let endurance have its perfect result. And when I say that endurance is no picnic, here is the sense of the Greek word, hypomone. It means to bear up under heavy labor, to survive the shock of battle, and even to remain steadfast in the face of death. It is the divine power to not only withstand hardship but to be given the inner fortitude to thrive as endurance has its perfect work in you.

And that perfect work in you, according to James, is so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. This is why you can consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, because the results can be tremendous if you will allow the trials to produce godly endurance and then allow them to accomplish their perfect work in your life. Or you can continue to experience the trials without learning the lessons and experiencing the blessings – your choice.

Because here is the flipside of what James teaches us in this passage. Apart from having the proper understanding and attitude of the refining purpose of God in our trials and struggles, we will fail this testing of our faith, refuse, and reject the opportunity to have endurance produced in us, completely miss the chance to let endurance have its perfect result in us, and thus never enjoy the blessing of growing into completeness in Christ.

Part of our calling to be ministers of reconciliation and ambassadors for Christ is to not only grow in this endurance and completeness ourselves, but to also help other grow in these aspects of following Christ, which is part of making disciples.

Paul writes in Colossians 1:28-29, “We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose, also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works in me.” Paul not only has learned the tremendous and incredible blessing of accepting those things that build endurance in his life, but he also is committed to helping his brothers and sisters in Christ to do the same.

Beloved, you simply will not, and even cannot, grow in Christ without godly endurance. And developing godly endurance is simply not possible without various, meaning many, trials.

Stop believing Satan’s lies. Stop crying out to God, “Why me?” over your struggles, but instead start viewing your trials as opportunities to grow into completeness in Christ. And there is much more to learn in our passage when we continue next week.