Working For and With God (Part 4)
Notes
Transcript
Christian recording artist, Bob Bennett, wrote a song several decades ago called, “Small Graces”. One of the lyrics is:
Small graces surely have a meaning
Beyond there merely passing by
They are a reminder to the heart
There’s more to life than meets the eye
The inevitable troubles and trials and afflictions and hardships and distresses that invade our existence on a persistent basis, tend to consume our thoughts, steal our peace, and at times, overwhelm us. During these times, our emotions run rampant, our attitude and demeanor turn sour, and we struggle to see the hope. We can’t seem to envision the positive, the affirmation, the purpose, or the meaning.
But then, after a season of our God building endurance into our lives through these afflictions, hardships, and distresses, the grace of our God floods our hearts and minds and souls – sometimes in a burst and sometimes in a trickle.
Here’s a little more from the lyrics of Small Graces:
Sometimes they slip by without notice
Sometimes they’re very hard to see
Other times it’s all so clear
When they’re happening to me
These are the small graces
The little moments when the miracles come
These are the small graces
Small graces leading me to the larger ones
Turn with me in your Bible to the Book of 2 Corinthians.
2 Corinthians 6:1-10
Let’s pray.
The title that I have given to this series of messages is “Working For and With God”. This obviously came from the opening line of the passage we just read, where Paul has been filling in what to expect when we are working together with Him (God) in the ministry of reconciliation and as ambassadors for Christ. Paul desires that we operate fully in the grace that has been given to us, even when or maybe especially when, everything around us is seemingly falling apart.
So, last time we unpacked and commiserated with the Apostle Paul as he briefly described how God builds godly endurance into our lives through afflictions, hardships, and distresses. We consulted with James to discover how these troubles and trials are necessary to build our endurance, to perfect our faith, and to grow us into completeness in our life in Christ.
But the grace of God is not only contained in difficulties as we work together with Him. Our circumstances and attitudes will often cast a mist or shadow or cloud over recognizing the sunlight beginning to peek through. For some of us at least, we can get so focused on the problems that we do not immediately see anything positive happening. We have spiritual cataracts if you will, that obscure our vision.
We have already discovered that even what we view as negative is in truth, positive. God uses and works all things together for our good, and the struggle builds this all-important godly endurance into our lives, but there’s more.
In 2 Corinthians 6:6, the Apostle Paul starts a new list of positive qualities, at least positive from our perspective in comparison to the afflictions and hardships and distresses, that also build godly endurance into our lives, starting with purity. But before we look at these qualities, please notice that in the middle of these “positive” graces, Paul writes, “in the Holy Spirit”.
The graces that we are given, whether we consider them small as the lyrics of Bob Bennett’s song suggest, or whether they are the larger ones from our perspective, they all come at the hands of the Holy Spirit. And since the context of this passage is in terms of the grace of God that we receive, we must accept and understand that even the afflictions and hardships and distresses are graces lavishly given to us by the Holy Spirit for beautifully divine purposes.
So, with the knowledge that all of these qualities that Paul lists, whether they are positive or negative in our minds, are graces given to us as incredible gifts from the Holy Spirit, we are compelled to also view these as ministry enablement. These qualities are graces supplied to every believer that enables you to be a minister of reconciliation and an ambassador for Christ.
While these qualities are given to us as graces of the Holy Spirit, they are also qualities that we must pursue and develop in our lives to enhance our working for and with God, or as Jesus states in John 9:4, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.”
Purity
Let’s first, look at purity. MacArthur writes: “Purity rightly heads the list. It is a comprehensive word (in Greek) encompassing purity of life, thought, and motive. Paul was above reproach, as all believers, especially church leaders, are to be.” Mark Seifrid suggests, “It bears overtones of devotion to God and of morality”. And there is also a sense of genuine sincerity behind this word.
So, this grace given to us by the Holy Spirit will be pursued with a sincere heart to not only be pure in our words and actions, but also pure in our affairs and dealings with people. The ministry of reconciliation and the responsibility of being an ambassador for Christ demands purity in our relationship to God and our relationships with others.
Knowledge
The sense and context of the quality listed as knowledge, is a knowledge of God. If there were any doubt about these qualities being graces given to us by the Holy Spirit, that doubt should vanish with this one. We have no capacity to know God apart from the Holy Spirit teaching and revealing such to us.
Knowledge and understanding of God comes only through the teaching of the Holy Spirit as we read and study Scripture with a heart and desire to know. We must approach our Bibles with the intent to know God. Far too often we approach the Bible as a self-help Book that can alleviate our pain and troubles. We look to holy Scripture with selfish intent to make our lives easier and more comfortable, instead of viewing the Word of God as our ultimate source of knowledge of almighty God Himself, with no other agendas or motives.
Beloved, a pure knowledge of God answers the rest of life’s questions. This is one of the ultimate graces that we could ever fathom. The grace given to us to truly know God is indescribable and beyond anything we could ever hope or ask for. As humans, we have limits in our capacity to completely and comprehensively know God this side of heaven, but there is no greater pursuit, no greater gift of grace after salvation, and no greater acquisition that we could possibly make. And it is ours for the taking because it is a gift of grace.
Patience
Next, we have the grace of patience. I know, most of struggle with patience but it is an unnecessary struggle – it is a self-inflicted struggle. Why can I say that the lack of patience in our lives is unnecessary and self-inflicted? I say that because patience is not only a grace given to us it is also a Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) that every born-again believer possesses. Any struggle that we have with patience is due to leaning on our sinful nature instead of leaning on the power of the Holy Spirit.
As a pastor, I am faced with situations almost daily that require this grace of patience. You are too. The remnants, of my carnal sinful nature wants to lash out at every issue that is placed in my path. I have knee-jerk responses and reactions that are on the tip of my tongue at the gates of my lips, but the Holy Spirit graciously holds those gates closed, activating His grace of patience until He has the opportunity to show me His way of dealing with the issue.
Many of you want me to respond to each present situation with an urgency and immediacy, and apart from the grace of patience, I would. But such responses almost invariably will exacerbate the trouble and possibly cause irreparable damage in the lives of people, which will also almost invariably damage the witness and testimony of the church.
Patience. It is a gift of grace that we must develop through the power of the Holy Spirit, every day.
Kindness
The next grace that Paul mentions is kindness. This speaks of doing good or right in relation to others and can include being helpful, beneficial, or generous. The sense of being able to display this gift of grace to others often means having a pleasing, tender, gentle, and compassionate demeanor. For some of you, that is a stretch, right? But again, this is a gift of grace and a quality that is also part of the Fruit of the Spirit – all born-again believers have this quality of kindness and can access it every time our old nature entices you to be unkind.
Genuine Love
The next grace that has been given to us is genuine love or sincere love. Again, one of the characteristics of the Fruit of the Spirit, yet also a grace of the Holy Spirit that equips and enables us to work the works of God. Genuine love serves as the driving force in the ministry that God gives to each of us. We are to do all things in the love of Christ.
Imagine the heartaches that would be avoided, the divisions that would never happen, the relationships that would be saved, the unhindered spread of the Gospel, the full measure of the unity of the Spirit, and the growth and influence of the church if the grace of genuine sincere love was in constant operation in our lives.
Gone would be selfish disputes. Gone would be agenda-driven division. Gone would be hurtful and harmful words unleashed on brothers and sisters in Christ. Gone would be spiteful attitudes. Gone would be gossip and inuendo. Gone would be hard feelings between believers. Gone would be the things that grieve the Holy Spirit. Gone would be the things that bring a smile to Satan’s face.
The Word of Truth
In the context of our passage, the word of truth is the Gospel message. The Gospel is not only a gift of grace in our own salvation, but it is a gift of grace in the Holy Spirit empowering, equipping, and enabling each of us to share it with others. As ministers of reconciliation and ambassadors for Christ, the Gospel is our focus, our primary proclamation, our bridge between the sinner bound for eternity in hell and the lake of fire and holy God.
The grace of the word of truth is our first experience with grace and it is the first grace that we can possibly extend to unbelievers. The reason that the Gospel is incessantly under the attack of Satan is because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16), which is the next grace mentioned by Paul in our passage.
The Power of God
In the first Letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he wrote: “so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:5). Anything that we determine to do in our own power is destined for failure. Decisions that we make, activities that we engage in, conversations that we have, agendas that we pursue, motives that are behind our treatment of others, vengeance that we seek, and essentially anything else that we do in our own power will never succeed and ultimately cause all manner of trouble and discord in the kingdom of God.
We must rely on the power of God in our witness and in every aspect of our lives. We must pursue the power of God operating in and through us in all things, especially when our flesh is rising up, when our anger is surfacing, when our self-righteousness is taking over, when our pride is asserting itself.
I’m certain that each one of us can bring to mind rather quickly, a relationship that we have damaged or destroyed by operating in our own power instead of the power of God. I’m certain that we have all said things and did things in our own power, maybe even in this church, that has caused others to walk away from their devotion to God or that has played a part in their faith wavering. And I am just as certain that all of us have rendered judgment on brothers and sisters in Christ because we choose to operate in our own power instead of operating in the power of God.
The Weapons of Righteousness
The last grace of the Holy Spirit that we will consider today is the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left. Sadly, the weapons that we have used on far too many occasions is our tongue and our words and our hateful attitudes and our judgmental looks. These weapons only inflict damage on other people but have no power in the spiritual realm. These weapons advance the agenda of Satan but do nothing to thwart or defeat Satan.
The grace of the weapons of righteousness that we have been given and always have access to, includes everything that we have already considered. Only when we are operating in the graces of purity, of the knowledge of God, of patience, of kindness, of genuine love, of the Gospel, and of the power of God, will we be ministers of reconciliation and ambassadors for Christ.
All else, no matter how self-justified we are and no matter how much we rationalize our words and actions, are weapons of destruction, not weapons of righteousness.
These are the graces of the Holy Spirit that we must access after we have repented of the misuses and abuses that we have engaged in. We are ministers of reconciliation, not division. We are ambassadors for Christ, not for Satan.
Let’s pray.