behindthewillowtrees » Sermons

Men of God: As Fathers

John Smith — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 06:25:46 +0000

1 Corinthians 4:14-21

What does this passage teach us about how to be a father? What is this biblical model?

1. Affirm Your Love

Paul writes that the purpose of this passage was to admonish his readers as beloved children. Any correction or guidance that we give to our kids must be done from a position of, and rooted in, covenant love.

We must never correct out of anger or a selfish desire that our kids would act a certain way to make our lives easy. The purposes of biblical correction is not to change behaviour but to disciple our kids to become more like Jesus. A key part of this pursuit is your kids knowing that you love – not because of what they have or haven’t done, but because they are your kids.

You must be intentional and work at it to make certain that your kids know that you love them. Tell them you love them on a daily basis. Show them how you love them through both your words and your actions. If your kids do not know and accept that you love them unconditionally, then any effort on your part to correct them will be met with suspicion and ultimately failure.

Covenant love is not based on your kids performance or abilities. Covenant love manifests itself regardless of what your kids have or have not done. Covenant love must be consistently professed and demonstrated to your kids in both good times and bad. Covenant love should exist and be demonstrated regardless of how you feel. Biblical love is not a feeling, it is a choice! Any discipline or correction that you dole out as a parent must be rooted not in your own selfish desires but in a deep rooted and covenant love for your kids.

2. Avoid Shaming Your Kids

Paul begins this passage with an explanation that his purpose was not to “write these things to make you ashamed.” Paul did not wish to shame the Corinthians, but to help them see that they were living in a way contrary to God’s will.

Likewise, shame has no place in biblical correction as a parent. Your goal as a parent when it comes to correcting your children is to lead them into a life consistent with God’s will for them. Consequences, especially consequences which flow naturally from the action in question, are effective means of accomplishing this. Shame is based in fear.

The Bible tells us that “There is no fear in love.” (1 John 4:18). Although you might see short term behavioural changes when you shame your kids, there will be no long lasting internal transformation.

3. Give Warnings

Paul indicated that he was writing to the Corinthians “to admonish” them as his beloved children. To admonish means to “reprove gently but earnestly” or “to counsel against something to be avoided” or “to remind of something forgotten or disregarded, as an obligation or a responsibility.” Paul was not writing to bring down the hammer, but to warn the Corinthians of what would happen if they continued in the current course of action.

As fathers, we must do the same thing with our kids. By warning, or admonishing, I do not mean that we should give them the classic, “If you do that again you’ll lose such and such until kingdom come.” These threats tend to be hollow and effective. Warnings serve to help steer our kids in the right direction.

4. Establish Your Authority

Paul reminded the Corinthians that “though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers” and used this to establish his authority to correct the recipients of his letter. God has given us the stewardship over, and responsibility for, his children. With that responsibility, he has given parents authority over their children (Exodus 20:12).

When we step outside the authority and will of God in parenting, we ultimately teach our kids that they should defy authority as well. We establish our authority based on the Word of God, but we must also demonstrate our adherence to God’s Word in other aspects of our life. We can’t, for example, tell our kids that they must submit to our authority because it is given by God on the one hand, and on the other hand disregard God’s authority in our own lives.

5. Press the Gospel in Deep

Paul became a father “through the gospel,” and as earthly fathers, one of principle goals in life should be to also fill the role of spiritual father in our children’s lives “through the Gospel.” In order to do this, the gospel must be the centre point in our lives and out families. We must strive to make it central in the lives of our children as well.

The gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ, and that Good News is recorded in God’s Word – the Bible. In all that we do, we must instil a biblical worldview in our kids. We must teach them, and demonstrate for them, that the Bible holds the answers and guidance for all of lives questions. We must make our choices based on the Bible and show them how to do the same.

The cross itself must be central in our lives and our families. This means far more than just wearing it around our necks or hanging it on the family room wall. We must rejoice in the cross of Christ. We must take our sin to the cross of Christ, and we must praise God for the cross. Our children must know, at their very core, that Christ died not just for all sin, but for their individual sins. They must understand that God wants to change them from the inside out by the power of the cross. They must realize that their sins are washed white as snow by Christ’s blood shed on the cross. Yes, in order to confront and correct our children, we must remind them 1) that they are forgiven by God and 2) the price that he paid to wash those sins away.

6. Urge Your Kids to Imitate You

Paul was not shy about encouraging the Corinthians to be imitators of him. Later in this same book (1 Corinthians 11:1), Paul would expand on this thought as he encouraged the Corinthians to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” Paul was not exalting himself but merely stating that he purposefully led his life in such a way that others could imitate him in following Christ.

As fathers, this must be our goal as well. We must lead lives worth imitating and then encourage our kids to do just that. Kids will learn what they live. Setting an example includes two distinct aspects.

First, we must aspire to live a godly life worthy of following. We have to set the tone and example for our family. In order to do this, we must rely on the power and providence of God.

Secondly, we must accept that, this side of heaven, none of us are perfect. We all make mistakes, and it is important that we be willing to admit those mistakes to our kids. We should not be under any delusion that our kids think we are perfect in the first place. After about the age of 7 or 8, that phase of life is long gone. Our kids know that we are far from perfect. We must be honest with them and talk about our mistakes. This transparency teaches them that it is OK to make mistakes. The important thing is how we handle those mistakes. We model for them honesty, transparency, and taking our sins to the cross of Christ. We also give our kids a chance to learn from our mistakes and, hopefully, to avoid them.

7. Make it a Team Effort

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.” What can this possibly mean in terms of raising kids? Paul needed help. He could not be everything the Corinthians needed, and he sent Timothy to them to reinforce what he had already taught. Likewise, as parents we should get other adults involved in the lives of our children who will reinforce what we are already teaching them.

Most parents have experienced that moment when another adult says something to their child, and the child just seem to get it. Never mind that we have been saying the same thing for years. There’s just something about hearing it from another adult that makes it understandable and more palatable to our kids.

It is important to find other adults that you trust to speak into the lives of your children. Needless to say, since our principle goal as parents is to instil a biblical worldview into our children, we must take care to find adults that will speak that same worldview to our kids.

We must find people we trust that we can surround our kids with to reinforce what we have already been teaching them. This is one of the reason that it is important to live our lives amongst a strong Christian community. Things like Bible studies and small groups are a great way to expose your kids to other adults.

8. Stay Involved

Paul writes to the Corinthians that “…I will come to you soon.” As parents, we must intentionally stay involved in the lives of our children. Some parents, especially Dads, faced with daunting to do lists, lack of understanding and an increasing sense of failure in parenting simply decide to check out of their kids’ lives. I think this is particularly true as kids grow older and move into the teen years. This is the worst thing you could possibly do both to yourself and to your kids.

We must stay involved in our kids lives. What do they like? What don’t they like? How are they doing in school? Who are their friends? What are their dreams? How is their relationship with God? These are all critical questions, and in order to stay involved, we must stay on top of these and other aspects of our kids’ lives. In order to do this, we must invest the time it takes in building relationships with our kids.

Our society has fallen victim to what I believe is a lie directly from Satan that says quality time is better than quantity time. We convince ourselves that it is not the amount of time that we spend but the quality of that time. If we turn off our blackberry for a couple of hours, we reason, that should take care of spending time with our kids at least for a week or so!

In order to know our kids, and stay involved, we must have both quality and quantity time. Indeed, if you ask kids about their regrets as they get older, few will say they wish the time they had spent with their dads had been “better” time. Thousands upon thousands, though, will tell you they wish they had spent MORE time with their Dads. If you are a father, put in the time and the effort to know your kids. If God knows every hair on your head, the least you can do is know who your kids’ friends are!

9. Give Choices

Paul asked the Corinthians, “What do you wish?” He gave them a choice. As fathers, we should do the same with our children. In small things and big things we should present our children with choices and let them decide. More importantly though, we must equip them to live with the consequences of those choices. Most parents want their kids to grow up to be leaders and not followers. Part of being a leader is the ability to make a choice and deal with the consequences thereof. If we do not allow our children to practice that skill when they are young, they will be ill equipped to handle choices as an adult.

10. Customize Your Approach

Paul said to the Corinthians, “Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?” Some who read that letter needed Paul to come with a spirit of love and likely reacted to Paul’s written correction positively in order to ensure that he would come in gentleness. Others, no doubt, needed the stern rod of Paul before they were willing to submit to his authority. In a similar way, we must tailor our approach to correction and discipleship for each of our individual children.

I tell people all of the time that one of the things that has amazed me so much as a parent is how each of my kids can be so alike in some respects that they seem like twins and so different in other respects that it seem impossible that they share the same DNA. If you’re a parent, it will not surprise you to find out that each of your kids is different. They are unique creations of God, and it is naive of us to think that correction and discipleship will look the same for each child. What may be the best approach for one child may be the worse possible choice for another.

Furthermore, children change over time as they mature and get older. We must customize our approach not only for each child but also for the same child based on their age and maturity level. In order to accomplish this, we must become a student of our kids. Watch them, talk to them, study them, and then spend some time intentionally coming up with a plan for the best approach for each child when it comes to correcting and discipleship.

Marks of a Great Church: Posers and Fakers – Get real!

John Smith — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 09:30:00 +0000

Revelation 3:1-6

Great Church

Love God | Love Each Other | Make Disciples

That those who have not "soiled" their clothes will walk with Jesus "dressed in white" (3:4) is significant. In the temples of Asia and elsewhere, worshipers dared not approach deities with soiled clothes- the normal apparel for approaching the gods in temples was white or linen. Jesus promises here that his followers who have not polluted themselves with their culture will participate in the new Jerusalem,- it will be a temple city, the dwelling of God (21:3, 16).

That a minority in Sardis remained unsoiled will challenge the presuppositions of some faithful Christians. Jesus does not call the righteous believers in the church of Sardis to start an alternative church elsewhere in town. There are genuine Christians in many "sleeping" (and drowsy) churches today! God calls some Christians to call their church back to faithfulness. There does come a point when a church is no longer a church (2:5) and separation may be necessary.

The promise is that overcomers in Sardis will not be blotted out "from the book of life" (3:5). Jesus will confess the faithful remnant before his Father and echoes what he told his disciples (Matt. 10:32; Luke 12:8).

Matt 10.32 “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.

BUT!

Sardis, a "dead" church (3:1). Jesus’ word to Sardis summons a sleeping church to wake up.

Sardis was full of sophisticated paganism. That no mention of persecution against Christians is mentioned is significant; it was a tolerate place. Lacking the world’s opposition, they may have grown comfortable in their relationship with the world.

1. Posers and Fakers

a) Rely on a name

Sardian Christians are perhaps identifying with the widely known ancient tradition of their city. Sardis maintained an ancient "reputation" (lit., "name") as a great city from the time of its most famous ruler, Croesus, but at the time Revelation is written, Sardis had little more than its ancient name. Several decades before Revelation, Sardis had been devastated by an earthquake, and its architecture after the rebuilding suggests continuing fear of another one.

Jesus addresses the church and not the history of the church. Not it’s reputations! The spiritual state of the believers in this city is hindering them from appropriating Jesus’ own resurrection power!

b) Fail to keep watch
Conquerors had never overtaken Sardis by conventional war, but had twice conquered it unexpectedly because Sardians had failed to watch adequately

Jesus’ warning that he will come on them as a "thief" (3:3), presumably unexpectedly as in the night, recalls Jesus’ words about the end times (Matt 24.32-44; cf. Luke 12:39) often repeated by early Christians (1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10,- Rev. 16:15).

For you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 1 Thess. 5:2

We need to be ready!

2. The warning to a dead church.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer “the failure of German Christians to resist the Nazi rise to power stemmed from their lack of moral clarity"; the only people who can stand firm in such situations are those whose standard is not reason or conscience but God and his Word. Whether we are seeking to win converts or fighting for justice for the poor or unborn, it is always easy to grow weary in well-doing and follow the crowd—especially when the church around us has become part of it.

The Sardian Christians were different from the other churches we have looked at so far. Satan did not have to pressure them with persecution or temptation, their church was already dead.

They had become comfortable with the world, had no price to pay for their faith in Jesus Christ, and would therefore be taken by surprise (3:3). Such a warning should generate introspection for modern Western Christians.

As a church, the believers in Sardis undoubtedly dreamed that they were awake. Jesus may not be satisfied with the status quo in our lives or our churches. Staying awake is difficult when the world around us remains asleep (cf. 16:15).

It is too easy for us to depend on past achievements instead of looking to God’s call on us in the future (cf. Phil. 3:12-14).

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

It’s you and me and us and now!

3. About those who do not persevere

The implicit warning of 3:5 (that those who do not overcome will be blotted from the book of life) challenges some popular Christian ideas.

[Arminians] teach that apostasy can reverse the results of conversion,

[Calvinists] teach that those who fail to persevere were never converted to begin with.

They both agree on the end result! But we are wrong to assume that anyone who once professed salvation automatically gets to heaven, an idea refuted both here and regularly throughout the NT (Mark 4:16-19; John 8:30-32; 15:6, Rom 11:20-22; Gal 4.19; 5 4; 2 Peter 2:20-22, Rev. 2:26).

The promise that those who persevere will not be blotted out of the book of life is a serious warning to many nominal Christians in our culture who depend purely on a past profession of faith to ensure their salvation.

When Mickey Cohen, a famous Los Angeles gangster of the late 1940s, made a public profession of faith in Christ, his new Christian friends were delighted. But as time passed, they began to wonder why he did not leave his gangster lifestyle. When they confronted him concerning this question however, he protested,

"You never told me I had to give up my career, never told me that I had to give up my friends. There are Christian movie stars, Christian athletes, Christian businessmen. So what’s the matter ‘ being a Christian gangster? If I have to give up all that—if that’s Christianity—count me out."

Cohen gradually drifted away from Christian circles and ultimately died lonely and forgotten.

As Chuck Colson notes:

Cohen was echoing the millions of professing Christians who, though unwilling to admit it, through their very lives pose the same question. Not about being Christian gangsters, but about being Christianised versions of whatever they already are—and are determined to remain.

Marks of a Great Church Jesus: Her glorious coming King

John Smith — Sun, 01 May 2011 09:30:00 +0000

Revelation 1:9-20

Setting the Scene: The Cast

John

Some people in Asia Minor celebrated a monthly "emperor’s day" in honour of the divine emperor. By contrast Christians, who might suffer for their refusal to worship the emperor, celebrated a different day in honour of the true and ultimate king. It was on such a day that John had a vision

Jesus (v12-16)
The image of Jesus in this passage weaves together imagery from three sources in the book of Daniel. The first (the least important) is the angelic revelation in Daniel 10:5-6:

⁵ I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. ⁶ His body was like topaz, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude.

but the two most important stem from the same passage: the reigning son of man (7:13-14)

¹³ “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. ¹⁴ He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

and the Ancient of Days (God), before whom the son of man appears (7:9). Jesus’ face shines like the sun (1:16). Jesus’ fiery eyes, white hair, and bronze feet (1:14-15) radiates light or fire (Ezek 1-27, Dan 7:9-10).

Jesus is "the First and the Last" (1:17). This means more than simply "firstborn from the dead" (1:5) – its sense is exactly equivalent to "the Alpha and the Omega," a title appropriate only to God (1:8, 21:6)

Angels (v20)
What are the angels of the seven churches? Revelation, like other apocalypses, is full of angels. The book of Daniel (Dan. 10:13, 20-21) and most of early Judaism recognised that heavenly angels guided the activities of earthly rulers. Thus these angels most likely represent guardian angels of the congregations or the heavenly representatives of congregational leaders, again functioning like guardian angels (Matt. 18:10).

1. Revelation: A shared experience (v9)

Believers in many parts of the world as well as some ministry situations here can identify with the shame and persecution John endured for Christ. Most of us in the West, however, at the moment are tested more by materialism than by persecution, and John’s own suffering was persecution.

If John’s suffering is more serious than ours, we should reason: If God enabled John and his companions in persecution to stand, how much more should we stand firm in the face of less severe testing?

We have plenty of reminders that the world does not embrace the church as an ally (John 15:18-25). Many of us have been denied jobs or otherwise maligned on account of our obedience to Christ – some of us have even suffered "friendly fire" within the church because we sought to do God’s will.

Yet as John stood boldly as a model for believers then, he stands also as an example for us.

2. The Lord’s Day, church, and the Sabbath (v10)

The meaning of "the Lord’s Day" is important. Own traditions can lead us to read illegitimate ideas into this text.

One area of potential misinterpretation concerning the "Lord’s Day" is that some believe that Sunday is a new Sabbath! Within the New Testament itself there is no evidence that the Sabbath was "moved” from Saturday to Sunday. The custom of Sunday as a Christian "Sabbath" became widespread only in a later period, probably after A.D. 321.

Some Christians argue that no weekly day of rest remains necessary,- we should celebrate every day alike (Rom. 14:5-6)

⁵ One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. ⁶ Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord.

and enjoy Jesus’ Sabbath-rest continually (Heb. 4:9).

Others argue that because God built a day of rest into the nature of creation (Gen. 2:2-3), we will function in much better physical and emotional health if we take a day away from our work each week, though the particular day is less important.

Those who insist on a particular day, however, cannot insist from the authority of Scripture that the day must be Sunday. Likewise, some of those who argue that the particular day In Scripture is Saturday and was never changed insist that one should attend church on Saturday,- but Scripture does not require one to hold church on One’s day of rest.

The connections between the "Lord’s Day" and the Sabbath on the one hand and between the Sabbath and church services on the other are postbiblical, and we should be charitable for differences of practice on this point.

3. Spirit filled worship (v10)

Different churches and cultures have different understandings of what "Spirit-filled" worship is. Some preferences in worship style reflect cultural or generational differences rather than the presence or absence of the Spirit and are best tailored to those we invite to worship!

The content of the worship songs may be significant:

Do they invite us to worship our awesome God, or simply to enjoy the music (not that bad music is necessarily more conducive to good worship)?

Do they provide simply nostalgic feelings of security for traditional believers, or do they provide us the opportunity to transcend our feelings in obediently glorifying God?

In any case, we need to depend on the power of God’s Spirit to lead us deeper in our intimacy with him; we cannot achieve that by merely "fleshly" or mechanical means.

Only by depending on God’s power can we offer worship truly worthy of his honour.

Like the biblical prophets, however, John was simply spiritually prepared when Jesus came to him (Is 6.1, 5; 2 Cor. 12:2-4)

He was not trying to induce a vision. Prophets can seek God for guidance (Dan 2.18-19), but the means is always prayer, not magical manipulation, and God can even speak to those who were not seeking a revelation (Jud 6:11-12; Acts 10:9-13).

We cannot promise how God will meet his people in worship or other experiences in the Spirit. But we can promise that when we turn our eyes to him, we will find his presence, and in his presence we will begin to learn the answers we need. The answers we need are not always the answers we want (John promises greater hardship), but they are also often better than we can guess.

4. Revelation in the context of worship (v11)

If John was worshiping "in the Spirit", the passage suggests we are likely to hear from God most clearly when it is his face and glory we are seeking. Devotion to prayer and worship often opens our hearts more fully to other aspects of the Spirit’s testimony.

Throughout Revelation we see the saints in heaven engaged in worship (4:10; 5:14; 7:11; 11:16, 19:4), while saints are being slaughtered on earth and followers of the beast worship the beast (13:4, 8, 12, 15,- 14:9-11).

The scenes of heaven are intended as scenes of worship, for heaven’s furniture is the furniture of the Old Testament temple: the ark (11:19), the tabernacle (15:5), the altars of incense and sacrifice (6:9,- 8:3-5,- 9:13), the sea (4:6,- 15:2, cf. 1 Kings 7:23-25, 39, 44)—and, of course, the lampstands (Rev. 1:12—13; 2:1, 5).

The church on earth is never closer to heaven than when we are offering God and the Lamb the glory they deserve,- it is then that we experience "in the Spirit" a foretaste of heaven (cf. 1 Cor. 2:9-10,- 2 Cor. 5:5).

The book of Revelation is a book of worship that summons us to recognise the awesome majesty of our Lord.

5. We find Jesus among the churches! (v12-20)

One of Revelation’s most important declarations is that Jesus appears among the lampstands which represent the seven churches (1:20).

We see here in Revelation, Christ’s faithfulness to the church, including the local church – great church!

When we see the flaws in churches, our tendency is sometimes to react with disdain, but we must never give up on the spiritual life that remains in the church, for the Lord of the churches, who offered his blood to redeem them, still loves them and walks among them (1:5; 3:4).

6. Jesus’ message to the churches (v17-18)

We must hear the promise that no matter what Christ’s church faces, the future belongs to us.

Revelation addressed churches in a much harsher situation. In the Roman empire Christians were a small and persecuted minority- no one but those who tasted Christ could have imagined that we would outlive that empire!

The future of the church is bigger than any of us singly, but the future belongs to the church and to all its members, who share its hope and destiny (21:2-7).

Like Jesus’ triumph over death (v18), the fact that Jesus holds the churches in his hands (1:20) reassures us that in the end the Lamb wins!!

Jars of Clay: Spiritual Warfare 2 – Deception

John Smith — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 09:30:00 +0000

2 Corinthians 11.1-21a

1. The danger the Corinthians and we are in (11:1-6).

There are those who risk falling prey to Satan’s temptation, even as Eve did in the garden (11:3; 1 Tim 2:14). Just as the devil deceived Eve by calling into question the sufficiency of God’s provisions (Gen 3:1-13), so too he is seeking to undermine the Corinthians’ and our devotion to Christ by enticing them and us with "another Jesus".

It is as if the Christ of Paul’s gospel is not enough. Satan tempts God’s people by presenting a substitute saviour: In the garden it was the false promise that they could provide for themselves without consequence, in Corinth it was the promise that the real "Christ" would provide for them health and wealth.

Therefore Paul portrays them and us:

1. as the counterpart to rebellious Israel under the law In verse 2 (i.e., replicating the "fall" of Israel (3:14))

2. as the counterpart to Eve at creation in verse 3 (i.e., reproducing the "fall" of humanity (4:4)).

The reference to the Fall reveals just how serious the danger facing the Corinthians really is. It is a warning that, in reality, his opponents are "servants of Satan" who are seeking to destroy the Corinthians’ marriage with Christ in the same way that Satan spoiled Eve’s relationship with God (cf. 11:14-15).

As in the garden, the goal of their deception is to create a new way of thinking among the Corinthians that no longer agrees with God’s will.

But those who are truly God’s people will resist this satanic temptation to idolatry and strife (2:11; 6:14-7:1; 16:17-20). In this way they show themselves to be "new creatures" in Christ, who are being transformed by God’s glory in their midst (2 Cor. 3:18; 5 17). Their lives will be characterised by sincerity and purity toward Christ (for sincerity is evidence of grace of God in one’s life (1:12, 2 17, 6:6)).

2. The ways of deception

1. Preaching another "Jesus," a "different Spirit”, and "a different gospel", and an emphasis on the miraculous (11:5).

2. The Deceiver maintains that the Spirit of God, if truly present, delivers one from suffering.

3. The cross is merely a matter of history, having been replaced by the resurrected Lord. That the deceivers preach "another Jesus" is clearly revealed in their refusal to take up their cross on behalf of the Corinthians (4:5).

4. Deceivers "masquerade as apostles of Christ" (11:13). This is no innocent misunderstanding on their part. The verb translated "masquerading" signifies the idea "to change the form of … to change or disguise oneself into or as something." These people disguise themselves as "apostles of Christ" even though they serve Satan. As prisoners of Satan’s deceit, these opponents preach a "different Jesus."

5. As a result, just as God made Paul competent to be a "servant" (diakonos) of the new covenant "ministry [diakonia] of righteousness" (3:6, 9), so too Satan’s "servants" are masquerading as "servants [diakonoi] of righteousness" (11:15).

6. Their deceptive, satanic claim is that Christ’s life and death are not sufficient to bring about the righteousness of God, but must be supplemented with the stipulations of the old covenant.

7. Satan’s "servants’ (11:15), in the end, sell the "Self’ or some trinket of this world as more reliable, sufficient, and satisfying than knowing and living for God.

3. How to avoid deception?

Danger 1: We long for immediate gratification and personal autonomy rather than finding our delight in learning to depend on God in the midst of suffering and affliction, weakness and woe.

Danger 2: Church leaders are drawn to models of power and prestige.

Danger 3: We gravitate to promises of health and wealth and to messages that puff us up rather than glorify God. In a word, to become "worldly."

David Wells:

This "world" …. is organised around the self in substitution for God. It is life characterised by self-righteousness, self-centeredness, self-satisfaction, self-aggrandisement, and self-promotion, with a corresponding distaste for the self-denial proper to union with Christ."

Is the focus on the growth of God’s glory? Our single-minded focus in worship must be on recognising, reflecting, declaring, and celebrating the glory of God! In the first century the cross was simply too repugnant to exploited for personal gain.

a. Avoid worldly methods

More and more, modern management strategies, personal and church growth techniques, and therapeutic messages are infiltrating into every area of life. These Self-saturated approaches make it increasingly difficult to boast in God alone as the one whose goal it is to glorify himself by working in and through “jars of clay”.

As it was for Paul, today too the pressure on churches to be successful according to the standards of contemporary culture is intense. And as it did for Paul, today too this pressure comes not from the world but from the worldliness within the church. The temptation is to respond by boasting in one’s strength.

Paul did not disagree because the deceivers were immoral; he rejected them because their technique was based on a purely human dynamic which produced human results. If Paul was so exercised about avoiding methods which engendered merely human results, so should we?

We cannot assume that as long as we avoid immoral, unfair, or fraudulent methods, we are free to use whatever other means will "work."

b. Avoid consumerism

Wells:

The reason churches today are so quick to adopt the strategies and worldview embodied in modern marketing, with little if any regard for truth as her primary message, is because they have been convinced that "the church must define its services in terms of contemporary needs just as any secular business must. Allowing the consumer to be sovereign in this way in fact sanctions a bad habit. It encourages us to indulge in constant internal inventory in the church no less than in the marketplace, to ask ourselves perpetually whether the "products" we are being offered meet our present "felt needs."

In this sort of environment, market research has found that there is scarcely any consumer loyalty to particular products and brands anymore. The consumer, like the marketeer, is now making fresh calculations all the time.

What is going to happen when churches meet all of the felt needs of their consumers and then realise that they have failed to meet the genuine need for meaning? Meaning is provided by the functioning of truth—specifically biblical truth—in the life of the congregation.

A business is in the market simply to sell its products - it doesn’t ask consumers to surrender themselves to the product. Businesses offer goods and services to make life easier or more pleasant – the Bible points the way to Life itself, and the way will not always be easy or pleasant.

c. Is there integrity in the teacher?

Our public manner inevitably reveals our private character (1:12-14). The heart of the issue is that the gospel we believe will invariably be expressed in the image we portray, and vice versa, so that the integrity of the gospel and its messenger must be our primary concern.

A right heart produces appropriate habits. Biblical view is that Spirit of God is experienced in and through the suffering of this age. For Paul, the cross is still central to the gospel. He carries in his body the death of Jesus (cf. 4:7-12).

Ultimately, however, Paul is not concerned with himself at all. Paul’s simple language, his willing self-support, and his daily suffering for his churches all indicate that his ministry in Corinth, unlike that of his opponents, was aimed at benefitting the Corinthians, not himself. (11:7; cf. 4:5; 8:9). The counterpart to Paul’s weakness is his strong anger over the danger of someone falling away from Christ (11:29).

Hence, to wrap up his boasting in his weakness as the consequence of his calling to be an apostle, Paul provides one final and especially poignant example of his suffering (11:30-33). Like his suffering in Asia recounted in 1:8, his opponents may well have used this incident against him as an example of his cowardice. But from Paul’s perspective, his narrow escape in Damascus, like his despairing even of life (1:8-11), serves to highlight God’s deliverance and sustenance.

d. Is the language simple?

Paul’s opponents criticised him for failing to reflect the sophisticated style and flashy rhetorical forms that were characteristic of professional entertainers and orators in first-century culture.

He intentionally remained an "amateur" when it came to public speaking because he viewed his calling to be proclamation, not persuasion. He did whatever it took not to be confused with an entertainer or professional speaker.

Paul’s concern was the possibility of obtaining false, human-centred results … (1 Cor. 2:5)". Our efforts are neither results-driven nor audience-driven,- they are obedience-driven.

e. Is the teaching from the right perspective?

By boasting, Paul’s opponents are the real fools. In turn, by accepting such boasting, the Corinthians are being led astray from their devotion to Christ as the ultimate and all-sufficient provision from God! (11:3).

Driven by his experience "in Christ" and by the content of the gospel itself, Paul’s boasting in his weakness is not simply a parody of his opponents. It is a positive expression of his calling. This priority of theology over practice is crucial for evaluating the content and validity of boasting today, whether in our personal lives and churches or in the quality of our ministries and ministers.

We can boast only in what God has done in and through us, giving credit to God for all that we are and do, since everything is a gift from him. The principle of Jeremiah 9:23-24 provides the key both to the positive practice and content of Paul’s boast and to the contours of our own.

²³ This is what the LORD says:

   “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom
   or the strong boast of their strength
   or the rich boast of their riches,
²⁴ but let the one who boasts boast about this:
   that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness,
   justice and righteousness on earth,
   for in these I delight,”
            declares the LORD.

Jars of Clay: Giving as Worship

John Smith — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 10:30:00 +0000

2 Corinthians 9

Week 1 – 2 Corinthians 8

Spiritual gift of giving to others is to be the reflex of our joy in God’s gift to us in Christ. The Macedonians’ joy led to giving, not the other way around. For this reason, the collection is termed a "grace" and a "ministry!"

The issue of giving away money evokes two diametrically opposed responses among Christians:

an awkward timidity amongst some and

an "in-your-face" boldness among the prosperity gospel movement.

In the first case, we fear that "too much" talk about money may offend. Truth is that it directly confronts our materialism and the individualistic nature of our lives. We say, ‘The preacher should talk about God," we mean that the preacher should not talk about money (since, for us, giving is a private affair and nothing to do with being blessed spiritually).

Week 2 – 2 Corinthians 9

Giving is a response to what God has already done for us in the past and a demonstration of our continuing confidence in what he has promised to do for us in the future. Just the same as other components of worship.

In Pauls day, like our own, participation in charitable giving and the administration of financial affairs were matters of public concern. It is not surprising, therefore, that each of Paul’s three major themes finds echo in our time:

1. a concern for integrity (the need to send the delegation (8:16-24)).

2. a concern that giving be uncoerced and generous (completing the collection in advance (9:1-5)). Giving is a matter of the heart as much as the mind.

3. a concern for maintaining the proper purpose (responding to the grace of God (9:6-15).

If we intend to live in ways that honour God we have to get this giving issue right!

1. God the Giver

Our resources originate from him as a blessing, not from us as an expression of what we deserve. This insight is as profoundly life-changing as it is simple. That God is the giver of everything is the foundation of our giving to others.

The key to generosity is not caring less about what we have in the world, but caring more about God’s purposes in granting to us his gifts.

Wealth is a gift of God, freely given as an expression of God’s commitment to his people. Hence, for those who trust in him, it can be freely given way.

"Cheerful givers" are not so by nature. Only those who realise that they received great benefits from God have both the material means and the inner disposition to become cheerful givers.

2. Giving as challenge to our culture

Ours is the first major civilization to be building itself deliberately and self-consciously without religious foundations. Beneath other civilizations there have always been religious foundations, whether these come from Islam, Hinduism, or Christianity itself. It creates marvellous ingenuity and intricacy but it is arising over a spiritual vacuum.

As a result we have also rewritten the religious question. That question was always how we might be consoled in our journey through this valley of tears.

Socrates found consolation in the good, the beautiful, and the true; the New Testament finds it in Christ’s redemption; Marx and liberation theology found it in the journey toward a more just world.

But we find it simply in ourselves. We have become both our own patients and therapists, deeply committed to the gospel of self-fulfilment. And at its heart is our obsession with money.

Giving away generously challenges everything we learn in our society.

3. Giving as an act of grace to the glory of God.

Since our giving is an expression of God’s having already given all things to us, we must focus on God’s grace as the basis for giving.

1, This means resisting the temptation to turn giving into a voluntary opportunity "to do something great for God." Giving to others is not yet another way of contributing back to God for what he has done for us.

2. God does not need our money to further his causes. He is not dependent on us. God gives out of his sovereign self-sufficiency and love, not in order to receive back, as if he needed anything (Acts 17:24—25).

3. Nor should we give "in order to show God how thankful we are." Our job is not to prove our sincerity to God. Those who recognise God to be the giver of all things are thankful, and God knows our hearts.

Instead, the motivation for giving is as radically God-cantered as its foundation.

Giving to others is a response to what God has already done for us in the past and a demonstration of our continuing confidence in what he has promised to do for us in the future.

Giving is an act of faith in response to God’s grace.

As such, our giving is not a decision to participate in the projects of the church, but an expression of the fact that we are the church; that is, that we belong to God and hence to one another.

For this reason, the affirmation of the Corinthians, who have already repented, climaxes with the collection. The collection reveals the manifestation (3:7-18) and praise (9:12-15) of God’s glory.

4. Giving as a sign of belonging

The New Testament does not teach a doctrine of tithing. Nor does Paul hint at what constitutes giving generously. He does not even provide a target or general guidelines. The only rule is to give freely and generously as an expression of our continuing trust in God’s grace (9:5-8).

Paul simply assumes that believers will give all they can to meet as many needs as they can in order to glorify God as much as they can. The point of 9:6 is that one should give as freely as possible, knowing that the "return" will be of like kind.

There is a principle of divine retribution here, since the manner of one’s giving reflects the character of one’s heart. God gives back blessings to those who give as a matter of blessing, but withholds his blessings from those who withhold from others.

We must be careful here, however. The “payback" is not material, but the prayers of God’s people and the enjoyment of God’s glory (cf. 9:12-15).

While giving must be done freely, it is not optional!

The Corinthians’ participation in the collection was not "for the church," but evidence that they were the church, to give to others is a manifestation of the righteousness of God, apart from which there is no salvation (9:9-11).

The fact that believers often ask how much they should give reveals that they have not yet grasped the point. Besides, our problem is usually not that we are in danger of harming ourselves by giving too much!

John Piper:
When people don’t find pleasure (Paul’s word is "cheer"!) in their acts of service, God doesn’t find pleasure in them. He loves cheerful givers, cheerful servants. What sort of cheer? The safest way to answer that question is to remember what sort of cheer moved the Macedonians to be generous. It was the overflow of joy in the grace of God. Therefore, the giver God loves is the one whose joy in him overflows "cheerfully" in generosity to others.

5. Giving as Proclamation

Faith is trusting in God to meet our needs in the present so that we might give to the needs of others. As such, faith encompasses the past and future as we live them out day by day before God.

We give, therefore, as an expression of our trust in God to meet our needs today. We should not give simply out of our surplus from the past, nor should we give in the hope of getting more in the future. Rather, not worrying about tomorrow and trusting God to sustain if through the trouble of today (Matt. 6:34), we are free to share our daily bread with others.

Indeed, Paul calls us to give freely and generously supremely because of our riches in God himself, past, present, and future, quite apart from our current economic status (remember the Macedonians), and without any thought of future financial recompense (Paul never promises financial reward for giving).

Jars of Clay: Generosity

John Smith — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 10:30:00 +0000

Generosity: Growing in the Grace of Giving
2 Corinthians 8:1-15

There is another post on this subject at: godmanchesterbaptist.org/web/index.php/gbc-news/why-a-widows-mite-turns-out-to-be-a-lot-more-than-i-thought

“In many respects western identity is established in material terms. We define ourselves by our relation to our material environment; perhaps more than our relation to other people (or even to God). That this has resulted in great material prosperity and great technological accomplishment we can readily acknowledge. But we note a dark side as well: Westerners invariably tend to endow material means with ultimate or final value. Owning a home, for example, is seen as one of the ends of life rather than as a means to other ends. Meaning is attached to accumulating an estate far beyond any conceivable use.

Communicating the gospel will then invariably reflect these emphases. On the one hand, it will tend to affirm the quest for achievement. It might emphasise that God loves us and seeks to help us realise our potential or our gifts (He "has a wonderful plan for our life"). On the other hand, it will encourage a practical no-nonsense kind of faith, a "faith that works"… it will in general affirm the goodness and value of the person and the created order. As a rule, Christians will feel the need of affirmation rather than of deliverance!”

Does this compromise the gospel itself? Is God the great "supporter of my goals," the assistant assigned to help me realise my potential? Is the call to give merely an affirmation of my duty within society? Is my giving just an expression of my goodness as a person?

Sloppy thinking about this crucial area of our Christians life will open the door for an invasion of self-serving materialism and self-congratulating moralism.

1. The smorgasbord of values.

We, of often, give a mixed message. Regular giving is a key Christian characteristic. It is an outward evidence of God’s grace in the Christ in our life (2 Cor. 8:7).

This smorgasbord approach to answering the question of how to give leaves the impression that there is an array of ways to give that we should pick the one that fits us best, whether "cash" on the one or "willingly" on the other, as long as we give.

But from the excellent Stewardship document on giving:

7. Know that people give to many things for a variety of reasons. Few have a well-planned or consistent giving strategy. Some give on impulse. Others are more cautious. Different kinds of appeals are effective with different types of givers.

9. Appreciate that faithful giving is a fruit of spiritual maturity. It takes time and much nurture to develop.

10. Do not engage in fundraising. People give to God, not to raise the preacher’s salary or pay the utilities. Don’t make church gifts “one more bill to pay” – a bill that can be skipped without late fees, penalties, or the need to catch-up. Emphasise giving as a joyful response to God’s generosity, not an obligation

Then

16. Do not make assumptions about what people give — most of the time you will be wrong.

17. Give your pastor access to members’ giving records as a matter of pastoral care, not power or privilege.

18. Keep alert for any changes in giving patterns – if giving stops without explanation, if an adult child starts writing cheques for their parents, if there is confusion about giving, if designated gifts replace general giving, etc. Notify the pastor of any potential pastoral care concerns.

19. Know your people and approach them where they are. Someone who has never given does not respond in the same manner as someone who gives faithfully, proportionately, and generously.

20. Understand the financial profiles in your community. If few people carry cash, a spur of the moment offering will not succeed.

The fact that Paul devotes so much of 2 Corinthians to the issue of the collection should be a reminder of the significance of this aspect of our Christian life. Nowhere is our materialism challenged more directly, and nowhere do we skirt the issues more often, than when it comes to expressing the genuine nature of our faith and the unity of the church through our giving.

Learning from the Macedonians.

The "generosity encouraged" in chapters 8 and 9 is not something that Paul adds to the repentance he has just outlined, as if the Corinthians have one more hurdle to jump in order to prove themselves "innocent" (7:11). Nor is it an aside from it, an optional "add-on" for those who are really serious about their faith.

Instead, their generosity in giving to the collection is to be an expression of the gospel itself in the lives of those who have already shown the kind of "godly sorrow [that] brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret" (7:10).

The Macedonian example outlines the contours of the "obedience" that the majority of the Corinthians demonstrate (1:24-2:6; 7:9-16). To fail to give generously is to expose the false nature of our professed faith!

The example of the Macedonians is instructive. In a radical role reversal of the world’s values, the abundance of their poverty, fuelled by the riches of their joy in God, led to a wealth of generosity.

We usually think of "fund raisers" as encouraging those who can afford to give to give more; in the Macedonian churches those who had nothing begged to give.

Why?

Paul’s answer is the grace of God. Indeed, the "also” (8:7) shows that giving is just as much a spiritual gift of grace as any of the other charismatic gifts the Corinthians had received.

Giving is not merely an expression of compassion for the needy. Rather, the spiritual gift of giving to others is the reflex of our joy in God’s gift to us in Christ. The Macedonians’ joy led to giving, not the other way around. For this reason, the collection is termed a "grace" and a "ministry!"

Giving is not motivated by trying to convince people of how "smart" and "responsible" and "enjoyable" it is to give. Not about trying to pay dues or make a wise financial investment!

Instead, we are savouring and seeking the kingdom of God. Only the greater treasures of the kingdom of God can free us from clinging to the competing treasures of this world (Jesus’ call to do some "comparison shopping" in Matt. 6:19-21).

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Why do we lack models of that kind of joyful giving.

Macedonian" giving that comes from a profound experience of God’s grace. As a result, we struggle against nominalism that chokes out voluntary, sacrificial giving as an unsavoury example of religious fanaticism.

What could be more "fanatical" in our day to live below one’s level of income for the sake of giving away as much money as possible? In today’s world, the Macedonians’ giving out of their poverty serves as a wake-up call in the midst of our self-satisfying slumber.

William Law (1686-1761): A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life: Law recognized that central to this concern for godliness is the issue of money. Like Paul in 2 Corinthians 8:9, Law’s call was to apply the cross to our money.

The Christian’s great conquest over the world is all contained in the mystery of Christ upon the cross. And the state of Christianity implies nothing else but an entire, absolute conformity to that spirit which Christ showed in the mysterious sacrifice of Himself upon the Cross.

Just as God calls the Christian to forgive his brother "seventy times seven" (Matt. 18:21-22, RSV), Law saw this "rule of forgiving" to be "the rule giving" as well.

In his words, "it is as necessary to give to seventy times to live in the continual exercise of all good works to the utmost”.

To spend needlessly on ourselves at the expense of others is to question our salvation itself. For Law, as for Paul in 8:8, the test of genuine faith was a willingness to give and the adoption of a lifestyle that makes giving possible.

“Either, therefore, you must so far renounce your Christianity as to say, that you need never perform any of these good works,- or you must perform them all your life in as high a degree as you are able. There is no middle way to be taken, any more than there is a middle way betwixt pride and humility, or temperance and intemperance.

This is indeed a "serious call." Law realized that he was living in a dangerous day. He saw clearly that the values of the secular world, "with its pull of sensuality, self-love, pride, covetousness, ambition, and vain” are the enemy.

It is a more dangerous enemy by having lost its appearance of enmity.

Spiritual warfare – strongman of the secular "Christian world" is money.

We must be careful here. Law’s call is uncompromising:

But it is by no means a summons to a self-destructive "sacrifice", not to “martyrdom”. The opposite is true.

Law’s "serious call to a devout and holy life" is serious call to be happy!

Christian faith teaches believers how to use everything God has granted them,

Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor," it is because there is no other natural or reasonable use of our riches, no other way of making ourselves happier for them….

Understood in this way, the Christian faith teaches believers how to use everything God has granted them, so that they "may have always the pleasure of receiving a right benefit from them"

Paul’s argument in 8:1-15 is based on the reality of the all-satisfying grace of God.

The Macedonians are no fools for giving out of their poverty.

But neither are they great religious heroes.

It is not Macedonians who are praised in this passage, but the God who brought about their giving by first having given them joy in himself in the midst their poverty in this world.

Jars of Clay: Model Leadership

John Smith — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 10:30:00 +0000

2 Corinthians 5:16-6:13

The story so far! How we show God’s glory when we are jars of clay? OR “Call yourself a Christian!”

How do you know what great Christian leadership looks like? Is it the same as great secular leadership? Particularly, does suffering and weakness in a leader imply they are not living in the power of the Spirit? Paul is relentless in his response: The greatest display God’s power is not the absence of pain or the presence of a miracle, but in faithful endurance in the midst of adversity, through which God “makes many rich” (6:10).

This then is a "leaders identity card." It doesn’t tell us everything about leadership!

1. Jars of Clay leaders live for others (6.1-3)

• The call to leadership is a call to live for others

• Great leaders do not need recommendations from others or bragging (3:1; 5:12)

• The commendation that counts is the faithfulness of God in one’s life, as evidenced in faithful endurance (3:1-6, 10:16-18)

2. Jars of Clay leaders do not just suffer but endure (6:4-10)

• By itself, suffering is the consequence of sin

• Suffering is not a noble and purifying virtue

• Suffering and endurance on behalf of others is not masochism but mission.

• Self-denial for Christ’s sake is not a sacrifice, but the pathway to gaining life itself (Mark 8:34-48)

3. Jars of Clay leaders anticipate a response (6:11-13)

• Genuine leadership in the power of the Spirit anticipates a genuine response (5:10, 18, 20-21)

By appealing for the affections of the Corinthians, Paul is fighting for their lives. Far from engaging merely in private speculation or simply sharing his feelings, Paul speaks on the basis of God’s self-revelation in space and time (5:18, 20-21) and against the backdrop of the universal judgment of Christ (5:10). His confidence in the truth of his message and in the transparency of his testimony leads him to expect that those who know God will open their hearts to him too.

Today such declarations of the gospel as a "public truth” that makes a personal claim on others are met with scepticism. Throughout the West there is a general mistrust of the motives and message of anyone who claims to represent God and his Word.

Leslie Newbiggin:
[Mission in Birmingham] is much harder than anything I met in India. There is a cold contempt for the Gospel which is harder to face than opposition. England is a pagan society and the development of a truly missionary encounter with this very tough form of paganism is the greatest intellectual and practical task facing the Church. When the Church affirms the gospel as public truth it is challenging the whole of society to wake out of the nightmare of subjectivism and relativism, to escape from the captivity of the self turned in upon itself, and to accept the calling which is addressed to every human being to seek, acknowledge, and proclaim the truth.

Faced with competing truth claims, Paul gives evidence for the truth of his own position, confident that God has entrusted him with both the ministry and message of both repentance (6:11-13) and reconciliation (5:18-19, 6:3-10).

We too, like Paul, must be willing to state our message openly before the court of public evaluation, thereby taking the risk of being wronged. Moreover, we must be willing also to challenge publicly the ideas of others. The church cannot:

Newbiggin
”continue to accept the security which is offered in an agnostic pluralism where we are free to have our own opinions provided we agree that they are only personal opinions."

4. Jars of Clay leaders act from a position of weakness (6:4-10)

When Paul speaks, he does so from a position of weakness before the Corinthians, not from a platform of power over them.

Under the convicting work of Holy Spirit, Paul’s only power is the persuasion of the gospel as it is embodied in his life and in the lives of those who join him in the ministry (3:9; 6:7). The same remains true today.

Jars of Clay: The Key to Bold Living

John Smith — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 10:30:00 +0000

2 Cor 3: 7-18

A Bit of Background

Moses’ breaking the tablets of the law in response to Israel’s sin with the golden calf demonstrated that the Sinai covenant was broken from the beginning.

Although Israel had been rescued from slavery her idolatry revealed that her "neck" remained "stiff," enslaved to sin.

As a result, the Sinai covenant failed in its purpose: , Israel’s on-going experience of the glory of God had been intended to purify them to become a holy "kingdom of priests".

Instead, faced with the sin of the nation, God proclaimed a desire to destroy the people and to start over with Moses (cf. Ex 32:10).

How can God’s glory continue to dwell in the midst of Israel without destroying her?

Initially, God’s glory was forced to dwell outside the camp in the "tent of Hireling," lest God’s presence destroy the people (cf. Ex. 33:7-11). Only Moses (as part of the faithful "remnant," could approach the presence of God”’

In the end, therefore, Moses becomes the answer to his own prayers and the covenant is restored (Ex Moses receives the law a second time and, with the glory of God beaming on his face, mediates God’s presence to his people (34:1 1-35).

The presence of God’s glory means Israel’s death.

In response, after speaking God’s word to the people, Moses veils his face, not to hide the fact that the glory is but in order to protect Israel from being destroyed (34:32-33).

Moses’ veiled mediation of God’s glory permits his presence to remain in Israel’s midst without destroying her. In this regard, Moses’ veiling himself is an act of mercy.

The Old Covenant Ministry of Death (3:7)

Moses’ ministry came in glory but brings death (2 Cor 3:7). When Moses subsequently returned to the tent of meeting, he removed the veil, thereby "recharging" the glory on his face.

Afterwards, Moses would then quickly veil himself to hide the fact that the glory was fading away. Paul’s point is that the glory on Moses’ face was continuously being brought to an end or cut off in regard to its impact.

The Contrast Between the Two Ministries (3:8-11)

It possible for God to dwell in the midst of his people without destroying them, thereby bringing about their righteousness. This real manifestation of God’s glory, is the ministry of the Spirit (3:8)

Paul is not saying that the glory of the old covenant pales in comparison to the new, but that the "surpassing glory" of the new covenant now brings "that which had been glorified," that is, the old covenant, to an end. When one compares the purposes and results of the two covenants, the former has no glory at all.

“Once the new covenant arrives, with its primary purpose of granting new life in the Spirit, the old covenant, with its primary purpose of condemnation, is no longer the locus of God’s glory in the world.”

The Boldness of the New Covenant Ministry (3:12-18)

Paul’s confident expectation is that through his own life and message as a minister of the new covenant (3:6) the glory of God is being mediated to God’s people in the Spirit (3:11). Because he has this "hope," Paul is therefore "very bold".

The word "bold" is a technical term from the political realm that was associated with freedom and truth. It refers to shamelessness in one’s behaviour that leads to a free, courageous, and open manner of speech.

The power of the Spirit in Paul’s ministry (3:8) has made him fearless and forthright in his proclamation of the gospel (3:12, Rom. 1:16-17).

Ultimately, this boldness arises from our assurance that our lives and labours:

derive from God’s grace in his life,

that they are being carried out in God’s presence,

and that they will be vindicated before God’s judgment (2 Cor. 1:12,- Phil. 1:20).

Israel’s persistent hardening to the demands of the old covenant is evidence of her continuing separation from God.

Christians’ "freedom" confirms their being in the presence of their Lord. The transformation of God’s people "comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit," since the Spirit is the down payment of God’s presence and power in our lives (1:20-22,- 3:3-6, 8).

We too derive our sufficiency for the tasks to which God has called us from the power of his Spirit in and through us.

The confidence that undergirds the ministry and the life of the believer does not come from techniques or training, but from God’s call and the reality of God’s Spirit.

This is the great news. It is the gospel and the foundation of our "hope." It is our absolute confidence for the future. Our confidence and boldness is a result of the life-changing reality of the Spirit.

We all, like Moses, can enter into the presence if God with unveiled faces Those who know Christ are being transformed by God’s glory into the glory of God’s likeness.

BUT
We, like the Corinthians of Paul’s day, are often tempted by the lure of an "over-realised eschatology" that promises an escape from the consequences of living in the midst of a sinful world.

Like Paul’s opponents, we too are often convinced that Paul suffered too much to be a Spirit-filled apostle of Christ.

Nevertheless, God is creating a people who, by their on-going transformation, testify to the presence and power of God’s Spirit in their lives. For those who have benefited from the "ministry of the Spirit" and "righteousness," conformity to Christ in the midst of adversity is the primary evidence that the kingdom of God is here (1:7,- 2:12-14, 3:18).

Their "obedience that comes from faith" (Rom. 1:5) makes it evident that only "in Christ" can such a salvation take place, since only Christ’s death can make it possible for the Holy Spirit of God to invade our lives with mercy rather than judgment (3:15-16).

As the "letter from Christ" written "with the Spirit of the living God" (3:3), the church is therefore a local outpost of the kingdom of God and his righteousness in the midst of this evil age.

As such, she lives in confident anticipation of her final redemption, having received the Spirit as God’s own "deposit" or down payment (1:22).

Having received the Spirit, the believer has also received a revelation of God’s righteousness (cf. 3:8 with 3:9). This righteousness consists in his unswerving commitment to glorify himself by maintaining his moral standards in judgment, by revealing his sovereignty in election, and by showing his mercy through meeting the needs of his sinful people.

Because of Christ’s life and death, these displays of God’s righteousness are not in conflict with one another.

In Christ, God’s righteousness towards his sinful people can begin with their election, work itself out in the forgiveness of their sins, and culminate in their deliverance from sin.

The display of God’s righteous activity toward his sinful people thus includes:
their redemption because of Christ
their transformation in Christ,
their final restoration into the image of Christ in the age to come (3:18,- 4:4-6,- 5:21,- 8:9).

Hence, the flip side and expression of God’s righteousness displayed on our behalf is our transformation into the likeness of God himself. The evidence that we have been sealed in the Spirit is the growing life of the obedience of faith that flows from the presence and power of the Spirit in one’s life.

All of this is from God.

God ever call for and anticipate that anybody can or should try and merit grace.

He never says, "Get your act together for six weeks and then I »ill bless you."

The indicatives always precede the imperatives. God’s work of transforming jars of clay into his image is seen in the perseverance of the saints, even in the face of their broken lives of suffering and death.

Jars of Clay: The Pastoral Heart

John Smith — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 10:30:00 +0000

There were lots of things which caused Paul to consider he was a jar of clay. The violence he experienced, the weight of apostolic responsibility, and “people”. People give us our greatest joys and some of our deepest despairs.

The Corinthians people problem.

Paul nowhere mentions the specifics of the offence. Could have been the same as in 1 Cor 5

“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? …. 4 So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, 5 hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,[a][b] so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

…. 9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister[c] but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.

1. If the offence been against Paul alone, he would have been compelled to heed his own advice in 1 Corinthians 6:7 and "rather be wronged" than pursue personal vindication.

The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. 9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a] 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

2. But, the integrity of the congregation was at stake (1 Cor. 4:14-21).

If not the 1 Cor 5 man, then this is someone who is undermining the church and Paul’s ministry to it. This is the heart of much church discord.

Most of the Corinthians seem to have initially sided with this offender. Later, after the majority had repented as a result of Paul’s "tearful letter"; (2:4,-7:8-13), they grieved with Paul because of the offenders influence over them. They consequently punished him (2:6), by excluding him from the fellowship of the Christian community in accordance with the precedent set in 1 Corinthians 5:2, 5, 13.

The punishment had its intended, salutary impact. The offender had repented. He was ready to re-join the congregation. In response, Paul calls the Corinthians to follow in his footsteps not only in pouring out punishment on those who deserve it, but also in showing mercy to the repentant. Paul’s purpose is redemptive, not the reestablishment of reputations.

Baptists’ churches, until they started behaving like Victorian clubs, and now charitable businesses also did this. Baptist year books would contain the names of the covenanted members and then described any disciplinary action taken (usually excluding the offender from communion).

3. There is a spiritual battle that is raging as they fight the temptation to bear a grudge and to transform their punishment into an act of revenge by extending it beyond what is needed.

The majority of the Corinthians had shown righteous anger against the one who caused Paul grief and harmed the church. Now it is time to pass the ultimate test of whether their repentance is indeed legitimate. Nothing less than the validity of their own salvation is on the line in the call to forgive others. Those who have repented and experienced mercy from God have no choice but to extend the same mercy to those who have done likewise (Matt. 6:12, 14-15).

4. Pastoral care is based on theology and ecclesiology (1:12-2:4).

Our behaviour is not just WWJD! In our finite, sinful state we cannot do everything that Jesus did as the messianic Son of Man and the incarnate, divine Word. Most attempts to discover "WWJD" degenerate into an attempt to “get behind the texts of the Gospels” into the "mind of Christ." At best a guess. We find this so difficult to understand because we believe that there is some hidden will of God seen in “doing the loving thing”. Paul’s concern was not there is some hidden "will of God" that he must set out to discover. To God’s plan for our lives, we must discover the Bible itself as the focal point for finding God’s purposes.

Paul was practicing what he preached when he admonished others to be "imitators of God" (Eph. 5:1). In 2 Corinthians 2:5-11, he applies the same principles to the Corinthians. He expected them to "follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1)..

A. Theology: There is a direct link between theology and ethics, between the dynamic nature of God’s presence in one’s life and how we actually live. God’s work in our lives will mean that we do not need to hide our actions or motives behind a wall of secrecy, even when we are wrong (1:13). For “Jars of Clay”, this combination of humility before others and confidence before God becomes the strength we need(1:14).

Faced with unbelief, even among those who claim to follow Christ, our response must therefore always be to warn of the judgment of God rather than to offer a false comfort in the midst of sin (cf. 13:1-10). At the same time, the offer of forgiveness and reconciliation to those who return to Christ must be equally strong. Such a serious and gracious call will be the very means God uses to bring his people to repentance (cf. 7:8-13). We must also examine ourselves, to make sure that we too are not presuming on God’s grace in the face of flagrant sin.

B. Ecclesiology. In 2:5-11, the overarching principle that guided Paul was his understanding of the church.

i. We are connected

In 1 Corinthians 12:26: "If one part suffers, every part if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it". The grief, punishment, and forgiveness taking place in the church are not individual matters of private experience. Being part of the Christian community is not a slogan. Our local gathering of God’s people is part of own identity. Like a family we are inextricably intertwined. Such a collective understanding is not easy to maintain in the West, with its transient individualism.

John Piper: So what is love? Love abounds between us when your joy is mine and my joy is yours. I am not loving just because I seek your joy, but because I seek it as mine. … love is what exists between people when they find their joy in each other’s joy.

Our joy is all wrapped up in each other’s joy!.(Phil. 2:1-4). This is the point of 2 Corinthians 2:3b. Our mutual joy is at stake. When one member of the body of Christ suffers, all suffer,- when one is honoured, all rejoice (1 Cor. 12:26).

ii. Genuine faith needs both the courage to confront and the willingness to forgive

Church is not a "club" we have "joined. As Jesus’ qualifications to prayer demonstrate (cf. Matt 6:12, 14-15),

14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

this twofold test of faith is intimately intertwined. Not to forgive the sinner is evidence that we have not repented and experienced forgiveness ourselves (Matt 18:21-35)

3. The Lordship of Christ leads to forgiving others for their sake, not to seeking vengeance for one’s own.

He who has had mercy on us will be the one to judge us, with Christ’s own righteous and merciful character being the essential criterion for evaluation. Those who have received mercy in Christ will be merciful to others, receiving mercy from Christ on the Day of Judgment.

Jars of Clay: God’s Yes for You

John Smith — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 10:30:00 +0000

2 Corinthians 1

1. We are Jars of Clay!

Life is a bitch – lie to say otherwise. And we are jars of clay

A biblical life avoids two extremes: content-less expressions of praise on the one hand, and human-centred "testimonies" on the other. Genuine praise is not a mindless act designed to escape thinking about our daily lives, nor is it a means of sugar coating our circumstances. Our praise of God should never be transformed into some sort of Christian "mantra," nor should it be used to make things look better than they really are.

We praise God in the midst of our life, not because things are not as bad as they seem, but because of who God is and of what he does in and through the reality in which we live. Our praise (1:3) is grounded in the praiseworthy character of God himself (1:4-11).

Those who genuinely testify to God’s mercies will present a God-centred display of his character and attributes as seen in his works (1:11; Is. 64:4).

Suffering and comfort actually produce endurance. It was the experience of Christ.

Against the backdrop of his opponents’ accusation that Paul’s suffering disqualifies his ministry, he answers this question by revealing just how drastic the situation really was. He knew that, humanly speaking, he was in over his head, both physically and emotionally (v8).

Indeed, Paul’s suffering was so severe that he saw no way out but death (v9). In other words, the apostle felt as if he had received a "sentence of death".

But God’s purpose was that the apostle was brought to what he thought was the end of his life in order that he would in no way rely on himself, but only "on God, who raises the dead"

Like Christ, Paul too was called in his "death" to trust the God who raises the dead. And just as God raised Christ from the dead, so too God delivered Paul (1:1).

Just as Christ’s resurrection points forward to and secures our hope in God (1 Cor. 15:20-28), so too God’s past deliverance of Paul establishes his confidence in the deliverance to come (2 Cor. I:10).

This replay of Christ’s death and resurrection in Paul’s own life makes him confident that God can be trusted to deliver him in the future. This confidence is the biblical notion of "hope."

Far from calling our discipleship into question, it thus becomes clear that Paul’s past deliverance and present endurance in the midst of suffering are the means by which God continues to display that he is both willing and able to deliver and sustain his people.

Paul’s experience in Asia was an object lesson of the same divine faithfulness and power portrayed in the cross and resurrection of Christ. As such, it should draw others to join Paul in trusting in praising God in the present as they look to the future.

Hence, since Paul’s suffering is the platform for the display of God’s resurrection power, the Corinthians should not reject Paul for his weakness. Rather, they ought to pray for Paul that, having learned to hope in God, he may continue to trust God in the midst of his adversities.

And as a result of the many prayers being offered up on Paul’s behalf, others will join in praising God for displaying his great; mercy and comfort to his apostle (v11).

The character of God: His Uniqueness

As a prayer of thanksgiving, though concerned with suffering, it is ultimately about God. This is so countercultural this is in our day and age. The comfort of God so desperately needed in our day derives not from within, but from knowing the God as the one who has delivered and will deliver his people. God himself must become the central subject of our worship, of our conversation, and of our theology.

David Wells: “we have bought cultural acceptability by emptying ourselves of serious thought, serious theology, serious worship, and serious practice… The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests too inconsequential upon the church. His truth is too distant, his grace is too ordinary, his judgment is too benign, his gospel is too easy, and his Christ is too common."

Westminster Confession of Faith:

I There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory, most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and withal most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.

II. God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself, and is alone in and unto himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them: he is the lone foundation of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things,- and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever himself pleaseth. In his sight all things are open and manifest,- his knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature,- so as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain. He is most holy in all his counsels, in all his works, and in all his commands. To him is due from angels and men, and every other creature, whatsoever worship, service, or obedience, he is pleased to require of them.

John Piper: God is utterly unique. He is the only being in the universe worthy of worship. Therefore when he exalts himself he thus directs people to true and lasting joy. "In your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures for evermore" . (Ps 16:11).

3. The provision of God: Comfort.

Paul praises God because of his confidence that the Corinthians too will be recipients of God’s comfort in the midst of their suffering (1:6-7, 11). To curtail the extent of God’s power or purposes in the world is to cut off the possibility of comfort in the midst of adversity.

The comfort of God is not his empathy with us as someone who feels the tragedy of evil but is helpless in it. The comfort of God doesn’t lie in his actions as a "substitute", who is brought in after things have fallen apart to save the day just before the whistle blows.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose he needs men who make the best use of everything. I believe that God will give us all the strength we need to help us to resist in all time of distress. But he never gives it in advance, lest we should rely on ourselves and not on him alone. A faith such as this should allay all our fears for the future.

Our response to the comfort of God’s presence is to endure the suffering that comes our way.

"Endurance" is not some kind Stoic self-discipline. It is not the "power of positive thinking," Nothing can be farther than the "new age" conviction that all we have to do is to get in touch with "the god within us."

"Endurance" means that trust in God’s power and purposes in the midst of adversity expresses a steady not giving up. 1 Cor 10.13: We endure in faith because of our confidence that "God is faithful," so that "he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." God provides a "way out" in order that we might persevere, not escape!

When suffering strikes, God will either deliver us from it to show himself powerful and teach us faith, or, as our faith grows, will give us the strength to endure In order in show himself even more powerful, as he did for Paul in regard to his "thorn in the flesh" (2 Cor. 12:7-10). In either case, God will not allow us to suffer beyond what we can handle.

The priority Paul places on endurance as our response to God’s sovereign power points to two important implications:

1. On the one hand, we must resist "accepting" affliction and "welcoming" death as merely a normal part of life. Death is still "the last enemy" (1 C or 15:26) and the result of sin in the world (Rom. 5.12).

2. On the other hand, we must also resist the "health and wealth gospel" The message of the cross is the power of God.

Hanging in there with God in the midst of intense suffering, as Christ hung on the cross, magnifies the worth of God as the one who sustains us. God’s goal in suffering, therefore, is to teach us that in life and in death, as in all eternity, he himself is all we ultimately need.

God never intends to destroy his people, nor will he allow anyone or anything else to do so. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ (Rom. 8:31-39). In placing us in a situation in which we despaired even of life itself (2 Cor. 1:8), the only thing God destroys is our self-confidence. In return, we receive God himself.